Category: dominionism

News from the Alternative Universe: David Barton Builds Support for Ted Cruz in the Midwest

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Public domain from Archive.gov

I confess I didn’t see this coming.
In August 2012, when Thomas Nelson pulled David Barton’s flawed book on Thomas Jefferson, I hoped that the event would cause some reflection among culture warriors about the Christian nation narrative that threatens our First Amendment freedoms. I thought debunking the extreme claims would cause reflection about the real heritage of our nation’s founders and the actual role of religion in that time period.
I now realize I was wrong.
If anything Barton now has more power to spread his alternative view of reality. An article in CNN yesterday drove that awareness home. In it, CNN cites a statement from Barton, who now manages Ted Cruz’s Super PAC.

“As Sen. Ted Cruz is rising in polls nationwide, we are excited to establish and build support for him,” said David Barton, the head of the super PACs, in a statement. “Americans know one of the strengths of our great nation is in the ideals held by Midwesterners.”

It is surreal that Barton is in the position to spend great sums of money to promote a presidential candidate who shares his alternative view of America. Let that sink in. As strange as it seems for me to write this, Cruz could win the nomination. If so, we could have a Christian reconstruction/seven mountains theological hybrid in the White House.
Christian historian friends, are you paying attention?
 

Rod Dreher on Doug Wilson’s Scandal in Moscow

UPDATE: Doug Wilson has responded to Dreher’s article at American Conservative. Dreher then provides a helpful analysis.

In response to several requests, I have been researching Christ Church in Moscow, ID. As time permits, I have read blogs, court docs, and emails from concerned brothers and sisters about the church pastored by Doug Wilson. Most of what I have reviewed has been extremely disturbing.

With the publication of an article by Rod Dreher today, I may not need to do much more. On the American Conservative website yesterday, Dreher brought together many of the facts of the situation which involves child abuse and what appears to be a dysfunctional church in Moscow, ID.

In essence, it seems that the leadership at Christ Church in Moscow, ID have exercised extremely poor judgment in encouraging a serial abuser to pursue a kind of therapy via marriage. In the face of evidence that Christ Church’s pastor, Doug Wilson, provided remarkably unwise advice to the abuser and a young woman who married the abuser, Wilson has gone on the defensive. Cited by Dreher, Wilson said in defense of conducting this ill-fated therapy by marriage:

 Moreover, if everything is on the table, we do not believe the church has the authority to prohibit or “not allow” a lawful marriage.

To which Dreher countered:

Really? The church has no authority to prohibit a lawful marriage? I suppose same-sex couples in Idaho can show up at Christ Church and expect Pastor Wilson to marry them, then. This, and the claim that the church can’t withhold marriage from anybody, as long as both parties know what they’re getting into, is a pretty shameless example of passing the buck for a disaster. Wilson subsequently praised himself for the way he’s conducted himself in this matter, saying that persecution is a sign of his righteousness, and sneering that his wife celebrated the criticism coming their way by buying him a bottle of single-malt Scotch.

Wilson’s brazen self-defense is in contrast to a former pastor of Christ’s Church daughter church, Peter Leithart, who has apologized for his part in another case involving abuse.

Wilson has helped pioneer the classical schooling movement and has some disturbing views of American slavery. Wilson believes slavery, while not a moral good, was more benign than American abolitionists depicted. Lost causers and Confederate sympathizers love it.

According to some near the situation (speaking to me anonymously), things are getting more and more unsettled in Moscow with some of the empire unraveling. There might be more Scotch in Wilson’s future.

On a related note, Wenatchee the Hatchet has a post on connection between Mark Driscoll and Doug Wilson.

Missouri Baptists Help Sponsor Conference Featuring David Barton and George Barna

TurningAmericaLogoJune 26 and 27, David Barton and George Barna will take their tour to Springfield MO for the Turning America Conference. To the chagrin of most Southern Baptist academic historians, the conference is sponsored by the Missouri Baptist Convention which is the state affiliate of the Southern Baptist Convention.
The meetings will be held at the Second Baptist Church in Springfield, MO.
Contact information for anyone in that neck of woods who might want it is 417-239-4216 and [email protected].

Thomas Kidd on Why the Southern Baptists Canceled Ben Carson's Speech

Recently, the Southern Baptist Convention canceled Ben Carson’s appearance at a SBC pastor’s conference. A group within the convention, Baptist21, had objected and won the day. Baylor history professor Thomas Kidd had this to say in Monday’s edition (4/27/15) of the Washington Post:

This was a welcome outcome to what had the potential to be a serious snafu for the SBC. Whatever the organizers’ intentions, Baptist21 has this exactly right – hosting any political candidate carries a tacit implication of endorsement. Baptists and other evangelical denominations would do better to stop platforming political candidates at all. This includes handing out political pamphlets and “voter guides” at church.

Kidd has this exactly right. Perhaps churches have a right to speak politically but, in my opinion, they shouldn’t be arms of political parties whether on the right or left. Of course, this view of the church’s mission flies in the face of the Christian nationalist position. Fueled by a belief that their brand of Christianity should dominate the culture (dominionism), Christian nationalists view politics as a kind of evangelism where God is proclaimed as a political answer to political problems. Most conflate the Christian church with Old Testament Israel and mistake the promises made to Israel as promises to the church.
 

David Barton's War on Christian Colleges: Claims Disputed by Focus on the Family Researcher and His Own Book

Last weekend, David Barton continued his war on Christian colleges when he told an audience at Faith Baptist Church in Knightdale, NC that 50% of students at Christian universities deny their faith while in college.  Watch:
[youtube]https://youtu.be/PBnk92GoKSQ[/youtube]
At 1:03 into the clip above, Barton said:

I mentioned before that between 60 and 80% of our kids deny their faith at university, you can at least send your kids to a Christian university, cause only 50% of them deny their faith at a Christian university. How does that happen? Because so many of the Christian profs we have get trained by pagan guys who think pagan in the way they go at it.

This isn’t the first time he has said this. As he did this time, he often couples his claim with criticism of Christian college professors. As with many of his other claims, he offers no evidence. Ultimately, in my opinion, this war on Christian colleges has more to do with self-defense than objective truth. Barton’s strongest critiques have come from Christian academics. He cannot claim we are on the left so he has to make up a cover story — in the case of this claim, he apparently thinks it helps him look better if he can convince audiences that Christian college professors only teach what their pagan graduate school professors taught them.
When I researched this claim before, I found nothing to support it. If anything, Christian schools are showing less erosion of faith commitments among their students.
A new wrinkle in Barton’s war on Christian colleges is the fact that the footnotes in his most recent book with George Barna (U-Turn) actually contradict his claim. In that book, Barna and Barton write about loss of faith for people under 30:

Most studies now show that roughly one-third of them [people under 30] have no connection to organized religion—and that their distaste for organized religion is growing steadily.4 Barna, George; Barton, David (2014-10-21). U-Turn: Restoring America to the Strength of its Roots (p. 26). Charisma House. Kindle Edition.

I can find nothing in the book which references Christian colleges.
The footnote about colleges in general goes to several surveys, none of which support Barton’s claims. One study in particular comes from Focus on the Family and suggests that doom and gloom predictions are wrong. Instead, they found that “only 18% of young adults raised with any religion are now unaffliated with a particular faith.” One of the authors of that study, Glenn Stanton, told me that Barton’s claims are actually discounted by current research. About Barton’s claim that 50% of Christian college students lose their faith, Stanton told me in an email:

That number is far too high even for kids at secular schools. No sound research data show anything near that.

Stanton then pointed me to a research brief he prepared for FotF which included some recent research on young people, college attendance, and religiosity. If anything, it is lack of college attendance which is associated with declines in religious participation. From the report:

Is College Corrosive to Faith?

In the last few years, social scientists have “found that the religiously undermining effect of higher education…has disappeared” and that a recent study “using some of the best longitudinal data available has shown that is not those who attend college, but in fact those who do not attend college who are most likely to experience declines” in religious participation and importance. An additional survey of college students found that 2.7 times more students said their faith was strengthened, rather than weakened, through their college experience.

Stanton added in an email:

In fact, the best research shows that all things being equal, young adults are more likely to abandon their faith if they don’t go to college, be it a Christian or secular school.

Sometimes Barton defends himself by telling audiences how many footnotes he has in his books. In this case, he should have read at least this one. David Barton’s war on Christian colleges has nothing to do with Christian colleges and everything to do with David Barton.