Yesterday, I learned that Kenyn Cureton, VP at Family Research Council, removed from view David Barton’s Capitol Tour video. The YouTube video was made private on Dr. Cureton’s You Tube account which means that it will not show up in search results or via link. The video advertised the Watchman Pastors aspect of FRC’s work and had over 4 million views. The video had been a source of contention here and among 33 Christian historians who recently made FRC aware of their concerns.
I commend Dr. Cureton and FRC for removing the video which contained several clear errors in a short span of time. On that video, Barton said that Congress printed the first English Bible in America for the use of public schools and that 29 out the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence had Bible school or seminary degrees. Among other stories, Barton also repeated his contention that Jefferson sent missionaries to evangelize the Kaskaskia Indians. None of these claims are true.
Category: david barton
David Barton's appearance at the Army Prayer Breakfast contested
Chris Rodda and company sent a letter to the Army, Secretary of Defense, and Commander-in-Chief protesting the appearance of David Barton at the Army Prayer Breakfast on Thursday.
After his recent prayer breakfast performances, I certainly support the protest.
UPDATE: The St Louis paper picked up on the story.
David Barton Promotes Debunked Jefferson Claims
One might think David Barton would reconsider some of his claims in light of his problems with his book on Jefferson, The Jefferson Lies. The book was voted “least credible history book in print” by readers of the History News Network, the subject of multiple negative reviews in major publications (e.g., Wall Street Journal), and then pulled from publication by Christian publisher Thomas Nelson. Some authors might allow such negative reactions to generate some reflection and moves to correct obvious errors.
Not so with Mr. Barton. On his Wallbuilders website, Barton features links to claims about Jefferson that have been thoroughly debunked. First, Barton is promoting the claim that Jefferson used the phrase “in the year of our Lord Christ” to close his presidential documents. Barton has a partial image of a sea letter and says the reference to Christ “is the explicitly Christian language that President Thomas Jefferson chose to use in official public presidential documents.”
The problem is that Jefferson did not choose to construct the form of the sea letters he signed. As Jefferson once said, “sea-letters are the creatures of treaties.” The treaties with Holland and other European countries specified the exact language to be used in the sea letter. If Barton knows this, he ignores it to make his claim about Jefferson and his signatures. To date, Barton has produced no other Jefferson document with a closing using the word Christ. For more on this claim, see this post.
The second claim demonstrates where Barton derived some of the material for The Jefferson Lies. In a 2009 article co-authored with Mark Beliles, Barton claims that Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia to be a “trans-denominational” college. Barton constructs a narrative which does violence to the chronology of events leading up to the opening of Virginia’s public university. Barton makes much of the fact that the UVA Board of Visitors offered to allow denominations to form theological schools in the vicinity of UVA but he fails to mention that UVA and theological schools created would be independent of each other.
In a letter dated November 2, 1822, Jefferson described the plan to Thomas Cooper.
In our university you know there is no Professorship of Divinity. A handle has been made of this, to disseminate an idea that this is an institution, not merely of no religion, but against all religion. Occasion was taken at the last meeting of the Visitors, to bring forward an idea that might silence this calumny, which weighed on the minds of some honest friends to the institution. In our annual report to the legislature, after stating the constitutional reasons against a public establishment of any religious instruction, we suggest the expediency of encouraging the different religious sects to establish, each for itself, a professorship of their own tenets, on the confines of the university, so near as that their students may attend the lectures there, and have the free use of our library, and every other accommodation we can give them; preserving, however, their independence of us and of each other. This fills the chasm objected to ours, as a defect in an institution professing to give instruction in all useful sciences. I think the invitation will be accepted, by some sects from candid intentions, and by others from jealousy and rivalship. And by bringing the sects together, and mixing them with the mass of other students, we shall soften their asperities, liberalize and neutralize their prejudices, and make the general religion a religion of peace, reason, and morality.[i]
Note the order of events. The decision was made to have no professor of divinity, then observers criticized the decision, and then the idea for allowing denominations to establish schools, independent of UVA, was hatched. Barton’s article makes it seem as though the decision to have no divinity professors was a result of the plan to make UVA “trans-denominational.” In fact, Jefferson was prodded into accepting the idea of religious schools in order to preserve support and funding. Even with this accommodation, no denominations took advantage of the offer and no theological schools were established there.
Barton also says the reason chaplains were not appointed in the beginning few years of the university was to solidify the reputation of UVA as a trans-denominational school. This is Barton’s invented reason. Although Jefferson did not want to prevent religious worship, he had nothing to do with the eventual policies regarding chaplains. There is nothing in his correspondence or reports which cite any of the reasons Barton gives. Madison, also on the board of visitors, said he hoped that students and parents would take care of religious worship. Note also, that the school did not have a chapel until the late 1800s. Building a college with no chapel seems like an odd way to begin a trans-denominational school.
We cover this and other claims about UVA in Getting Jefferson Right.
More Mormon Teaching on Certain Americans as Sons of Joseph
In this video by Ryan Fisher, you get a pretty clear description of what Mormons believe about America being a promised land. Member of the First Quorum of Seventy Bruce Porter tells how Ephraim (the British and other Europeans) came to America and reunited with Manasseh (Native Americans). What I don’t understand is why Ephraim wiped out his brother Manasseh (both sons of Joseph), which is what you would have to believe if you agree with this teaching.
This is the same teaching one can find in Timothy Ballard’s book The Covenant and endorsed by David Barton.
Related posts:
Author endorsed by David Barton claims founding of America was prophesied in Genesis
The Covenant: A Mormon Mission Tool?
Book endorsed by David Barton claims American colonists were Ephraimites
Indian Country Media Writer Calls Out David Barton on Faulty History of King Philip's War
I wrote about this on Wednesday and today a columnist at Indian Country Media takes on David Barton’s faulty history regarding the events surrounding King Philip’s War.
Larry Spotted Crown Mann’s article titled, David Barton’s Lies about King Philip’s War details the problems with Barton’s arguments during the infamous Wallbuilders broadcast where Barton said
What happened was the Indian leaders said “they’re trying to change our culture” and so they declared war on all the white guys and went after the white guys and that was King Philip’s War. It was really trying to be civilized on one side and end torture and the Indians were threatened by the ending of torture and so we had to go in and we had to destroy Indian tribes all over until they said “oh, got the point, you’re doing to us what we’re doing to them, okay, we’ll sign a treaty.”
Barton backtracked in late March and said he wasn’t condoning the treatment of the Indians but it was not convincing, especially when one listens to the entire broadcast.
Regarding the events leading up to King Philip’s War, Barton clearly has a retraction to make. He said the Moravian missionaries were in New England in the 1670s and they begged the native tribes to stop torturing their captives from other Indian tribes. Barton says they told the tribes to just kill them, instead of torturing them. First, it is hard for me to imagine Moravians urging the Indians to kill anyone, and second, the Moravians were not in New England until the 1740s. Barton got his history wrong and it led him to construct a false narrative. This is a big one. He needs to correct himself.
As Mann’s article points out, the English settlers desired to convert the Indians and some religious persons (John Eliot, the Mayhews?) may have complained to the Indians about torture. However, as Mann also points out, the English had some sinister methods at their disposal. Furthermore, the reasons for King Philip’s War were much more complex than Barton describes and involves, among other things, a failure on the part of the British to respect the land rights of the Indians. Creating a false dichotomy (torture vs. no torture) as Barton does, misrepresents the facts and seems to represent a biased view of the situation. Perhaps Barton’s belief in the Mormon inspired American Covenant, such as described in Timothy Ballard’s book extolling British Israelism, is behind this bias.
Related posts:
Baptist Minister Reacts to David Barton’s Justification of Indian Destruction
Book endorsed by David Barton claims American colonists were Ephraimites