Category: history

World's David Barton Coverage: What Will Evangelicals Do?

World Magazine has been shining extraordinary light on the David Barton controversy.  Friday, the evangelical publication printed a brief article by Gregg Frazer which contradicted Barton’s contention that Jefferson was orthodox for most of his life and only questioned orthodoxy after 1813.
Frazer’s article is clear and convincing but that does not surprise me for two reasons. One, Gregg was right on this in his earlier writings and two, we covered similar ground and so much more in Getting Jefferson Right. What is stunning is Barton’s response already up on the World website.

Gregg Frazer disagrees with my interpretation of one document in one of The Jefferson Lies’ nine chapters. I appreciate his position but remain convinced that, as I wrote in my response to Warren Throckmorton:
“Early in life Jefferson apparently was a typical Anglican gentleman, but later in life he embraced unorthodox beliefs. [In fact, I devoted 16 pages in my book to documenting Jefferson’s heterodox beliefs.] But throughout all phases of his life he maintained an open respect and admiration for Jesus Christ and Christian values and morality, and he regularly promoted Christianity in ways that make today’s secularists and separationists uncomfortable.”
Throckmorton’s original assault on my book managed to avoid its major points and instead criticize minor and even obscure facts, and this new attack by Frazer seems to suggest that this “debate” may become a never-ending discussion over less and less. With so many important cultural battles that desperately need our focused attention, it seems a misuse of time and energy to continue arguing over relatively inconsequential points with those who profess to hold the same common Christian values, so I will now resume my efforts attempting to beat back the secularist progressive movement that wrongly invokes Jefferson in their efforts to expunge any presence of faith from the public square.
I am grateful to WORLD for allowing this “debate” to occur, and consistent with my regular practice, if errors in my work are called to my attention I will continue to address them in subsequent editions.

Those hoping for recognition of those errors will be disappointed. In his article, Frazer demonstrates that Barton overlooks Jefferson’s relationship to Joseph Priestley as well as Jefferson’s views prior to 1813. These are not minor matters of interpretation but Barton dismisses them as trivial.
Furthermore, his response to me and to Frazer changes the subject. In his book, he claimed that Jefferson did not question the Trinity until 1813. That is clearly false and yet Barton does not admit it. Instead, he changes his position, calling Jefferson “an Anglican gentleman” and saying he went heterodox “later in life.” However, this is still a misleading narrative. In his book, Barton claims Jefferson was orthodox until he was turned away from traditional Christianity by Restoration preachers in central Virginia. As Frazer notes in his World piece  and we document thoroughly in our book, Barton claimed but never documented that connection. In his book, Barton presents but does not establish a fundamentally flawed historical picture of Jefferson’s religious views. Historically speaking, these are not trivial matters.
In recent weeks, Barton has claimed that Ronald Reagan opposed the Brady Bill (Reagan favored it), the National Rifle Association was founded to oppose the KKK (it wasn’t), that school children in the 1850s saved a teacher from an assailant by brandishing their weapons (no documentation has been offered, the story may have come from a Louis L’Amour novel), and that there were only two gun accidents during the founding era of history (of course there were many more).
Besides these errant claims, Barton also claims that the Constitution quotes the Bible “verbatim” (it doesn’t), that the first English Bible in America was printed by Congress (it wasn’t), that the state of Texas uses reading levels in the third grade to predict the need for prison beds in the future (it doesn’t), and that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed a murder conviction because a prosecutor recited the Bible in court (it didn’t).
As regular readers know, I am only scratching the surface. Our book is full of illustrations of how Barton uses partial quotations, incorrect sourcing, and legends presented as a fact. In private, some have argued to me that these matters are significant but that the left distorts the truth too so this is not important. A few evangelical leaders have written to take me to task for our book, saying it helps the secular left. They argue that the end justifies the means (accuracy is not important if your cause is right).  On the plus side, others have taken the position that Christians need to reject such relativism (e.g., Tom Gilson – we need more of this).
I am on record as believing these objections are false defenses.
World Magazine has now put these matters on the front burner. My question is what will evangelicals do about it?

David Barton Controversy: Gregg Frazer Weighs In on Jefferson and Christianity; Barton Responds

Gregg Frazer is a professor of history at the conservative Master’s College in CA. His book Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders provides a fine historical treatment of the founders and their religious views. Frazer coined the term “theistic rationalism” to describe the religious perspective of many of the founders. On Friday, World Magazine published a short response to David Barton on the subject of Thomas Jefferson’s religious beliefs. It is an important contribution to the ongoing coverage World has provided on the David Barton controversy.
As we did in Getting Jefferson Right, Jefferson does not leave us in the dark about his religious influences. He points to Joseph Priestley and Conyers Middleton as foundations of his beliefs. Both of these men denied the orthodox Christian position. In The Jefferson Lies, Barton does not tell readers about Jefferson’s statement to this effect.
Rather quickly, Barton replied on the World website. His reply seemed to signal that he was going to bow out of the discussion.

Throckmorton’s original assault on my book managed to avoid its major points and instead criticize minor and even obscure facts, and this new attack by Frazer seems to suggest that this “debate” may become a never-ending discussion over less and less. With so many important cultural battles that desperately need our focused attention, it seems a misuse of time and energy to continue arguing over relatively inconsequential points with those who profess to hold the same common Christian values, so I will now resume my efforts attempting to beat back the secularist progressive movement that wrongly invokes Jefferson in their efforts to expunge any presence of faith from the public square.

Shorter Barton: These critics are straining at minutiae so I am going back to more important matters. If evangelical leaders let him get away with this, it will be an effective strategy.  If he can spin all of this as picky detail with no real relevance then he will be able to continue misrepresenting the facts in order to “beat back the secularist agenda.” Inasmuch as evangelicals allow this, we have no claim to provide a moral stance (something many outside the community say has already happened).
With that in mind, I want to thank Marvin Olasky and the folks at World Magazine for keeping this issue before the community.

David Barton, Guns, and the Second Amendment

I recently purchased David Barton’s book on the Second Amendment and had planned a mini-series on it. However, Chris Rodda beat me to it with several detailed posts on his book and other statements Barton has made recently.  This post just gives some examples and points you to her articles.
First, regarding Barton’s book on the Second Amendment, Rodda takes several citations from Barton’s book and demonstrates how he edits them to suit his purposes. For instance in his book, Barton quotes the legal scholar Blackstone on the right to bear arms (location 73).

“Concerning the right of citizens to own and use arms, Blackstone’s declared:
“‘The … right of the [citizens] that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defense. … [This is] the natural right of resistance and self-preservation when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression…. [T]o vindicate these rights when actually violated or attacked, the [citizens] are entitled, in the first place, to the regular administration and free course of justice in the courts of law; next, to the right of petitioning the [government] for redress of grievances; and lastly, to the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defense.'”

Rodda points out that Barton chopped up Blackstone’s citation to remove the qualifications on the right to keep and bear arms. Note what Barton removed in bold below.

“The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law.Which is also declared by the same statute 1 W. & M. st. 2. c. 2. and is indeed a public allowance,under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.”
“And, lastly, to vindicate these rights, when actually violated or attacked, the subjects of England are entitled, in the first place, to the regular administration and free course of justice in the courts of law; next to the right of petitioning the king and parliament for redress of grievances; and lastly to the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defense. And all these rights and liberties it is our birthright to enjoy entire;unless where the laws of our country have laid them under necessary restraints.” (Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, vol. 1, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1775)

Blackstone was very nearly quoting the 1689 Bill of English Rights which stated:

7. That the subjects which are protestants, may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions, and as allowed by law. (emphasis added)

As you can see, Barton removed the references to the qualifications mentioned by the English Bill of Rights and cited by Blackstone.  Clearly, the English Bill of Rights influenced the framers and delineated a set of rights for a free people. While Blackstone considered the right to possess arms to be a natural right restricted only under “very grave consideration,” he also allowed that the right could be subject to “necessary restraints.”
Barton fans who read here: help me understand why Barton omitted these sections.  How can one get a complete picture of the history of the Second Amendment if relevant portions of historical writing are omitted? By not including these phrases, what meaning is conveyed?  Does his presentation of Blackstone provide the truth about Blackstone’s position?
Finally, let me point you to a recent post from Rodda on gun accidents. Barton told Glenn Beck that he could only find two gun accidents in two hundred years of history.

“I have searched and in the founding era I think I’ve only ever found two gun accidents, and everybody was hauling guns back then. You took your guns to church — you were required by state law in some states to take your guns to church. We didn’t have accidents because everyone was familiar with how to use them. It’s not being familiar that makes it dangerous.”

On the face of it, this seems preposterous. Rodda did a little digging and found many more. Go read her long, sad list.
Barton’s other recent problems relating to gun issues include possibly pulling stories from Western novels, incorrectly stating Ronald Reagan’s position on the Brady Bill or claiming the NRA was founded in part to fight back against the KKK.
 

The Gnadenhutten Massacre Revisited: A Response to David Barton

In his recent World article regarding our challenge to The Jefferson Lies, David Barton rejects our criticism of his treatment of Indian policy under Thomas Jefferson. In The Jefferson Lies, Barton claims Jefferson demonstrated a persistent interest in getting the Gospel to the Indians. In our book, Getting Jefferson Right (lengthy excerpt at World – still the most read article on the site), we examine various historical events relating to that claim and find that Barton does not get the facts right.
One such event is the Gnadenhutten Massacre (click the link for more on this atrocity). The reason this event is critical is because it formed the rationale for legislation Jefferson reauthorized while president. This legislation protected land ownership claims for a group of Delaware Indians converted under the mission of the United Brethren Church. Barton claims that Jefferson’s approval of the legislation authorized Christian mission work to the Delaware. Since the legislation has nothing to do with mission work but everything to do with recognizing the appointment of the United Brethren as trustees of the Indian land, we counter that the legislation was a kind of reparation triggered by the Gnadenhutten massacre and subsequent fallout from that tragedy. Barton, in his World article, talks about the massacre but fails to portray it accurately which sets the stage for an incorrect rendering of the federal government’s response.
In his World article, Barton claims that the Gnadenhutten massacre of 96 Delaware Indian converts was conducted by a group of “fanatics” who believed the Indians should be killed to follow the example of the Jews who killed the inhabitants of the land given to them by God. His source is a British writer, John Holmes, who took his account from a variety of sources. It is important to recognize that there were many conflicting accounts of the massacre at the time and the truth did not come out immediately. However, there are accounts of the massacre given by participants that make it clear that it was a group of men marching under the name of the Washington County (Pennsylvania) militia that carried out the atrocity. Apparently, this fact is important to Barton because he needs the government’s actions toward the Delaware to be a missionary effort and not a protection of their land claims based on the atrocity committed by the white man’s militia. In fact, the best sources, including the missionaries who represented the Christian Indians, attest to the involvement of members of the militia.
Barton summarizes our position as follows:

So, in these (and other) quotes, Throckmorton makes clear his view that:

  1. Congress helped the Christian Delaware only because of a specific atrocity; and

  2. Congress in general and Jefferson in particular had no interest in and were not involved with missionary or evangelistic work among native peoples, including the Delaware.

Barton changes our argument by saying that we include Congress in our scope of fact checking. This is not true. Barton’s claims in The Jefferson Lies were about Jefferson, not Congress in general. We actually do acknowledge that U.S. policy toward the Indians used religion as a misguided means of civilizing the Indians. We also argue, based on his correspondence, that Jefferson disagreed with this policy. Barton spends three pages of his World article describing evidence that the federal government supported mission work to the Indians, as if these policies are directly relevant to what Jefferson thought and did. As we document in our book, Jefferson called this mission work ineffective and did not support missionaries as a first line approach.
Barton then claims that the 1785 ordinance which set aside land for the Christian Indians was just part of government policy toward the Delaware. However, what Barton fails to tell readers is that the correspondence between the United Brethren missionaries who represented the Christian Indians and the government did mention the massacre and that the missionaries specifically asked for protection of their claims for land.
In October, 1783, Bishop John Ettwein and two other Brethren leaders wrote Congress and specifically mentioned the massacre conducted by militia men. They asked for the Congress to protect their land claims and to allow a trustee appointed by the Indians to act in their stead. This memorial to Congress set off a series of letters and actions which culminated in the 1785 Land Ordinance we describe in our book. While we did not have the memorial at the time we wrote our book, I am reproducing it below so it can be clear what ultimately triggered the legislation Jefferson signed. The original can be viewed at Fold3.com and I have copied it here, doing my best to read the original script.

To the Honourable the United States of America in Congress
The Memorial of John Ettwein, Andrew Hubner, and Hans Christian DeSchweining of Bethlehem in the County of Northampton in the State of Pennsylvania, agents for the Mission of the United Brethren Church to the Indians of America. Continue reading “The Gnadenhutten Massacre Revisited: A Response to David Barton”

What is the Source for David Barton's Kids with Guns Story? (UPDATED)

UPDATE (2/26/13) – David Barton responded to this post on his website, admitting that the kids with guns story came from a Louis L’Amour novel.  He claims that sharing this story as historical fact is alright since L’Amour claimed the story was true. I examine that claim and compare it to the story of George Washington and the cherry tree in this post: David Barton, Kids, Guns and Historical Fiction.
…………….
(Original post begins here)
On January 16, on the Glenn Beck Show, David Barton claimed that the National Rifle Association was started in part to arm newly freed slaves against the KKK and that Ronald Reagan opposed the Brady Bill. However, these claims are false.
In that broadcast, Barton also related a story about a school in the 1850s where school children stopped the murder of their teacher by pulling their guns on a would-be assailant. The story sounded fishy at the time but he did not give any details which would allow the facts to be checked out.
Now Chris Rodda is wondering if the story may have been lifted from a Louis L’Amour novel. After reading her post on the matter, I wonder the same thing.  Go read it and see what you think. Here is what Barton said on Beck’s show:

The great example, in the 1850s you have a school teacher who’s teaching. A guy — he’s out in the West — this guy from New England wants to kill him and find him. So he comes into the school with his gun to shoot the teacher, he decides not to shoot the teacher because all the kids pull their guns out and point it at him and say, ‘You kill the teacher, you die.’ He says, ‘Okay.’ The teacher lives. Real simple stuff. Saved the life of — there was no shooting because all the kids — we’re talking in elementary school — all the kids pull their guns out and says, ‘We like our teacher. You shoot our teacher, we’ll kill you.

One of Rodda’s readers thought the story might have come from a Louis L’Amour Western novel (as did this Crooks and Liars commenter). Go read the account from the novel in Rodda’s post but the punch line is that it sounds remarkably like the L’Amour fiction. In response, Rodda issued a challenge for Barton to produce the historical source for his claim.  With this post, I join in asking for the source.
While the story is somewhat far fetched and perhaps even a little humorous, the challenge raised by Rodda is a serious matter. Mr. Barton’s and his defenders now have a perfect opportunity to verify this claim and to address his wounded credibility. Will he do it?
UPDATE: Here is the entire chapter in the L’Amour book where the school teacher is saved by his gun-totin’ students. Here is another chapter which describes the kids bringing guns to school.