A college psychology professor's observations about public policy, mental health, sexual identity, and religious issues
Back in August, Glenn Sunshine, one of the evangelical scholars Jay Richards asked to read Getting Jefferson Right and The Jefferson Lies, provided a summary of his reactions to both books on his blog. Better late than never getting it on the blog here.
Prof. Sunshine cannot be accused of being a leftist (check out his blog) and has used Wallbuilders’ materials in the past.
According to the project Facebook page, the Founders’ Bible is slated to be released this Friday. The Founders’ Bible is David Barton’s newest project and is being published by Shiloh Road Publishing, a subsidiary of Windblown Media, publisher of The Shack. Here is the product description:
David Barton, Signature Historian, sets the record straight, unveiling the true and forgotten history of America’s founding, the source of what made this nation so great, inviting us to return to those foundations, and fan back to full flame the torch of liberty that is meant to shine as a light unto the nations.
America stands at the crossroads of human history, once revered and respected through out the world for its exceptionalism, a gleaming “city set on a hill” as a beacon of enduring freedom, now reviled, its influence reduced, teetering on the brink of disaster. . . . If ever there was a desperate need for us to look back and rediscover the vision, the passion, and the wisdom of those who laid the glorious foundations, it is now!
Such a mode of instructing children in the [C]hristian religion, would convey knowledge into their understandings, and would therefore be preferable to teaching them creeds, and catechisms, which too often convey, not knowledge, but words only, into their memories. I think I am not too sanguine in believing, that education, conducted in this manner, would, in the course of two generations, eradicate infidelity from among us, and render civil government scarcely necessary in our country.
In contemplating the political institutions of the United States, I lament, that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes, and take so little pains to prevent them. We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government, that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of [C]hristianity, by means of the [B]ible; for this divine book, above all others, favours that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and all those sober and frugal virtues, which constitute the soul of republicanism.
Make everybody a Christian and then all will be well. Does this link and endorsement tell us anything about the intentions of the Founders’ Bible? One cannot be sure since there is no commentary, but I think it is fair to assume that the promoters believe teaching Christianity in schools would be desirable.
The organization which posted Rush’s letter takes inspiration from Alexander Hamilton’s short lived idea to rally the Federalist party after the defeat of John Adams in the 1800 election. Jefferson and the Republicans had won the election and Hamilton wanted to regroup and plot a new course. To do so, he suggested the formation of the “Christian Constitutional Society” (you can read a summary of the idea in Thomas Jefferson’s biography by Randall here, see pages 10-12).
Hamilton’s proposal to friend James Bayard is fascinating and reminds me of how advocacy groups operate today. Consider this section:
Yet unless we can contrive to take hold of and carry along with us strong feelings of the mind, we shall in vain calculate upon any substantial or durable results. Whatever plan we may adopt to be successful must be founded the truth of this proposition. And perhaps it is not very easy for us to give it effect especially not without some deviations from what on other occasions we have maintained to be right. But in determining upon the propriety of the deviations, we must consider whether it be possible for us to succeed without in some degree employing the weapons which have been employed against us and whether the actual state and future prospect of things be not such as to justify the reciprocal use of them.
Hamilton advised playing on the feelings of the people and compromising principles because the other side had done so. Hamilton advocated fighting fire with fire. Christianity is mentioned only twice in Hamilton’s plan. It is obvious from the letter that Hamilton wants to use religion for the purpose of organizing his political party. Delaware federalist Bayard had no interest in the idea and told Hamilton that his plan would arouse jealousies within the party.
In the present case, the authors of the Founders’ Bible do not seem to be interested in nuance. Is requiring the teaching of the Christian religion in schools their way to “rediscover the vision” and return to the “glorious foundations?” If so, then this Christian wants no part of it, and I suspect most others won’t either.
In early August, I started a series on David Barton’s Capitol Tour. That was August 6 (Jefferson and the Kaskaskia Indians). On August 7, WORLD broke the David Barton controversy story with NPR’s coverage coming the next day. Today, I want to get back to the Capitol Tour with a post on a topic which has been frequently examined — Congress and the Aitken Bible. On the Capitol Tour YouTube video at 42 seconds in, Barton begins his claims about the Aitken Bible. Watch:
First, I will give Barton’s claim followed by the facts. During the tour, Barton said:
This is a copy of what the first Bible printed in English in America looked like. This Bible was printed by the U.S. Congress in 1782.
Not true. Robert Aiken printed that Bible. Here is his petition to Congress about the Bible.*
To the Honourable The Congress of the United States of America
The Memorial of Robert Aitken of the City of Philadelphia Printer Humbly Sheweth
That in every well regulated Government in Christendom The Sacred Books of the Old and New Testament, commonly called the Holy Bible, are printed and published under the Authority of the Sovereign Powers, in order to prevent the fatal confusion that would arise, and the alarming Injuries the Christian Faith might suffer from the spurious and erroneous Editions of Divine Revelation. That your Memorialist has no doubt but this work is an Object worthy the attention of the Congress of the United States of America, who will not neglect spiritual security, while they are virtuously contending for temporal blessings.
Under this persuasion your Memorialist begs leave to inform your Honours That he both begun and made considerable progress in a neat Edition of the Holy Scriptures for the use of schools, But being cautious of suffering his copy of the Bible to Issue forth without the sanction of Congress, Humbly prays that your Honors would take this important matter into serious consideration & would be pleased to appoint one Member or Members of your Honourable Body to inspect his work so that the same may be published under the Authority of Congress. And further, your Memorialist prays, that he may be commissioned or otherwise appointed & Authorized to print and vend Editions of the Sacred Scriptures, in such manner and form as may best suit the wants and demands of the good people of these States, provided the same be in all things perfectly consonant to the Scriptures as heretofore Established and received amongst us, And as in Duty bound your Memorialist shall every pray
Robt. Aitken Philadelphia. 21, Jany. 1781.
Aitken was already well along with his printing project when he approached Congress with an assumption and three requests. First, he assumed that the government ought to print and publish Bibles to make sure there were no errors. Aitken seemed to believe that the civil authority had the responsibility to protect Christianity and the citizenry from “spurious and erroneous Editions of Divine Revelation.” Based on that assumption, Aitken wanted Congress to inspect and recommend the Bible he had nearly completed. He also wanted the Bible published under the authority of Congress and then asked Congress to make him the official Bible printer for the new nation.
Aitken certainly seemed to think the United States should regulate Christianity in some manner, at the least to establish an approved version of the Scriptures. However, Congress did not respond favorably to all of his requests. Aitken was not appointed to be the official Bible printer. Instead, a committee turned the Bible over to the chaplains to check the accuracy of the work. The chaplains reported back that the Bible was indeed accurate and recommended it. As the first English Bible the America, it was quite a milestone but it was not printed or paid for by Congress. To get the story as it is printed in the records of Congress, I have thumbnails of all three pages pertaining to the Aitken Bible (click to read them).
After misleading his crowd about who printed the Bible, Barton claimed:
In the records, it says that it was quote ‘a neat edition of the Holy Scriptures for the use in schools.’
If by “records,” Barton means the letter from Aitken to Congress, then I suppose he is technically correct. As you can see in Robert Aitken’s petition to Congress, he described his Bible as a “neat Edition of the Scriptures for the use in schools.” However, his petition was the only place in the “records” where this phrase was written. Congress did not express this purpose. Barton then posed a question to his audience:
So the first Bible printed in America in English was printed by Congress for the use of our schools?
The answer to that question is no. Barton took Aitken’s words to Congress and made them come from Congress. Barton then asserted that Congress printed the Bible and did so for the use of schools. In fact, the Congressional resolution properly credited Aitken as printer but did not affirm the Bible for the use in schools:
Resolved: That the United States in Congress assembled, highly approve the pious and laudable undertaking of Mr. Aitken, as subservient to the interest of religion as well as an instance of the progress of the arts in this country, and being satisfied from the above report, of his care and accuracy in the execution of the work they recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States and hereby authorize him to publish this recommendation in the manner he shall think proper (p. 574, Journals of Congress, September 12, 1782).
While this story is interesting in that Congress commemorated this artistic and religious first with a recommendation, it is also important to note what Congress did not do. Congress did not pay Aitken’s expenses, did not purchase or distribute the Bible and did not make Aitken the official government Bible printer. As it turned out, Aitken lost money on the project.
This story and other versions of it have been examined before (e.g., Chris Rodda’s video), but Barton continues to tell it. He told Kirk Cameron a similar story on Monumental and told Mike Huckabee the same story on his FOX News program (even allowing Huckabee to go uncorrected when Huckabee said “the taxpayers paid for” the printing of the Bible – at 6:38 into the clip).
More in this series:
*In addition to the Library of Congress website, a good concise source for material relating to the debate (e.g., Aitken’s petition above) about the founding era is a book edited by Matthew L. Harris and Thomas S. Kidd: The Founding Fathers and the Debate over Religion in Revolutionary America: A History in Documents. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
I don’t know how large American Vision’s audience is but I suspect there is at least some overlap between David Barton’s Christian nation audience and American Vision’s Christian reconstruction constituency.
If so, this article today by Joel McDurmon could cause Mr. Barton some heartburn. Mr. McDurmon offers a devastating analysis of Barton’s chapter on Jefferson’s faith. He begins his critique by grounding it in his worldview:
In short, when we create a false reality of what a Christian and biblical society is or may be, we blind ourselves to the real changes and sacrifices we need to make. And in stretching the facts to create that false reality, we discredit ourselves and hand power and opportunity over to liberals to have free reign. But in the end, we have no one to blame but ourselves, because we have deceived ourselves, lied, and become complacent in the first place.
This is why I wish to offer an overview and partial critique of the important factual errors in Barton’s book. It is important that Christians see and understand the depth of these so they can have a true foundation from which to plan and to move forward.
While I have strong differences with Christian reconstructionism, I understand this starting point. We started in a similar place in our book. We did not write it to attack Christianity (as if fact checking Barton is an attack on Christianity), we wrote the book to uphold our faith. A little later in the article, McDurmon calls me a liberal (compared to McDurmon, most people are liberals). It is all the more striking that McDurmon and I come to similar conclusions about the factual problems with The Jefferson Lies. As with other evangelical figures and groups (Chuck Dunn, Colson’s Breakpoint, World magazine), no one can accuse McDurmon and American Vision of being liberal.
I encourage readers to review the entire article, but here is a taste of McDurmon’s analysis of the claim that Thomas Jefferson was theologically orthodox throughout most of his adult years:
Yet Barton selectively quotes [Benjamin] Rush to give just the opposite appearance of Jefferson’s views. Indeed, he uses this sole piece of butchered evidence to prove his claim that “for nearly every Christian doctrine that Jefferson called into question in his last fifteen years, there were times in his earlier sixty-eight years when he had embraced that very same doctrine as orthodox.”[10] As we have seen, this is utter nonsense, and is unsupported by anything Barton has presented. It is not clear by any means that Jefferson at any time in his life held orthodox Christian views. That anyone would claim otherwise, especially upon such terrible evidence, is a disservice to both historical scholarship and the Christian faith.
With all of these exaggerated and outright dishonest claims about Jefferson, there is indeed one thing about Barton’s book that is apt: its title, The Jefferson Lies. They abound not only from the “academic collectivists” and “deconstructionists,” but in this book as well.
As such, it is no surprise that when alerted, Thomas Nelson reacted as quickly as it did.
Bam! By which I mean, he nailed it.
McDurmon closes by telling his readers that he cannot recommend the book because they would need to fact check everything.
While a book like this needs to be written vindicating Jefferson from much liberal nonsense, the reader nonetheless will need to fact-check nearly every claim Barton makes for accuracy. And this is way too much to ask of the average reader. If that is to be the task, it would be better to skip Barton’s book altogether and go read all of Jefferson’s papers directly, because that what the reader will have to do eventually anyway.
Or you can get Getting Jefferson Right where we do the heavy lifting and point you in the right way.
This article is a significant shift for American Vision. Currently, they are hosting, with Kirk Cameron, a cruise featuring the movie Monumental which prominently features David Barton’s stories. If McDurmon submits Barton’s work in Monumental to the same scrutiny as he did to The Jefferson Lies in this article, then there will be a need for a disclaimer at the beginning and end of that movie.
This post is an additional note to our earlier post on Jefferson and the 1798 Thompson Bible. To briefly recap, David Barton says his description of the situation is accurate; we say it is not. Here is what Barton said in The Jefferson Lies about the Bible, followed by what he told Kirk Cameron in the movie, Monumental. First in his book:
Furthermore, in 1798 Jefferson personally helped finance the printing of one of America’s groundbreaking editions of the Bible. That Bible was a massive, two-volume folio set that was not only the largest Bible ever published in America to that time, but it was also America’s first hot-pressed Bible. President John Adams, several signers of the Constitution and Declaration, and other major Founders joined with Jefferson to help fund that Bible.
Then, in Monumental, Barton said:
This Bible was funded by about a dozen signers of the Constitution and signers of the Declaration as well as by President John Adams and Vice President Thomas Jefferson. They’re the guys that put up the financial backing to do this Bible.
When you see this stuff, you go wait a minute. These guys…why would any atheist, agnostic, or deist promote the Word of God, fund it and want it distributed to every family and everyone in America?
In our previous post, we noted that Jefferson did not finish paying for his copy of the Bible until January, 1799. In that post, we did not list all three payments. However, after getting some additional documentation, we can put together a little better picture of what probably took place. First, note this broadside dated January, 1798 advertising the Thompson Bible.
Figure 1
Because figure 1 is probably a little hard to see, you can click this link to see the PDF, generously provided by the American Antiquarian Society. We thank them for permission to use this image.
Remember that the first ad for this Bible was placed in the Gazette of the United States in April, 1796, also provided by the American Antiquarian Society. See figure 2 below:
Figure 2
Given the dates of Jefferson’s payments, he either didn’t see this ad or he saw it and did not decide to do anything about it until about two years later.
The date on figure 1 above titled, “Superb Hot-Pressed Family Bible” is January, 1798. Jefferson’s first payment of $5.00 was made the following month on February 26, 1798. He must have seen the ad and it either jogged his memory that he wanted a copy of this Bible or he decided at that point that he would buy one. By that time, the Bible was mostly completed. Consider the text of the ad:
Figure 3
The section in red in figure 3 is especially important: “Happily, what was at that time only contemplated, is now matured, and in a great measure fulfilled; most part of the Work being completed: and the Proprietors only echo the unanimous voice of all who have seen it, when they say, it is the most grand and superb Book ever Printed on this side of the Atlantic.” The Bible was almost complete for the first wave of buyers.
To Jefferson who once said, “I cannot live without books,” this ad must have been irresistible. The Bible was almost complete and the proprietors, rightfully proud of their accomplishment, wanted to offer their “grand and superb book” to a wider audience. Those who had not subscribed at the beginning could still get in on the action. The terms of the purchase were spelled out by Thompson and Small at the end of the broadside (click the image to enlarge it).
Figure 4
Note that a list of subscribers (hundreds by this time – see the full lists in Getting Jefferson Right) was already available for a potential buyer to examine. Then also see the “conditions of publication” in figure 4. Jefferson apparently agreed to the third approach because his first payment of $5 was recorded on February 26, 1798 (“Pd. 5.D. in part of 20.D. subscription for a hot press bible“*) with his second payment of $5 was made on May 26, 1798 (“Gave order on do. in favr. Thompson & Small in part subscription for bible 5.D.“), presumably when “three parts” of the work was done. His final payment of $10 was made on January 5, 1799 (“Gave Thompson & Small ord. on J. Barnes for 10.D. the balance due for a hot press bible.“).
It should be now abundantly clear that Thomas Jefferson did not specially finance or go together with other founders/signers to “put up the financial backing” for this Bible in the manner implied by David Barton in his book and in the movie, Monumental. He purchased one Thompson Bible using a payment plan.
*Citations from Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767-1826, Vol. II, Eds. J.A. Bear & L.C. Stanton, (Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1997), pp. 979, 984, 996.
Earlier posts in this series:
Jefferson and Slavery: A Response to David Barton on the Glenn Beck Show, Part One
Jefferson and Slavery: A Response to David Barton on the Glenn Beck Show, Part Two
Jefferson and Slavery: A Response to David Barton on the Glenn Beck Show, Part Three
Jefferson and the Bible: A Response to David Barton on the Glenn Beck Show, Part Four (This post also discusses the Thompson Hot-Pressed Bible)
Jefferson and the Bible: A Response to David Barton on the Glenn Beck Show, Part Five