Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary historian and professor John Wilsey was on Michael Brown’s radio show Line of Fire yesterday talking about American Exceptionalism and David Barton.
You can listen to it here. He was on from 25:00 to 49:00.
Specifically he mentioned my book with Michael Coulter, Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President as a factual response to Barton’s The Jefferson Lies.
Wilsey pointed out how Barton is often correct on certain points of history but has a pattern of omitting key elements, thereby making his claims false and misleading. Wilsey’s illustration was Barton’s citaton of Virginia’s 1782 law on manumission. That law allowed slaves to be freed but Barton failed to disclose in his first book that those slaves could be freed by their living owners. In other words, emancipation was legally allowed after 1782. Barton claims Virginia law didn’t allow private emancipation of slaves which he says hindered Jefferson from freeing his slaves. This is contradicted by Virginia law and the example of other slave owners in Virginia at the time.
I would have preferred for Brown to disclose to his audience that Barton’s initial appearance on the Line of Fire was riddled with errors.
However, I am glad Brown had Wilsey on to address even if briefly Barton’s historical misadventures.
Wilsey’s newest book is American Exceptionalism and Civil Religion. I believe readers of this blog will find it interesting and helpful.
Category: Uncategorized
Mark Driscoll's The Trinity Church Will Host First Meeting on Easter Sunday
When Mark Driscoll ran Mars Hill Church, Easter Sunday was a big deal on the church calendar. It is no surprise then that the first gathering of The Trinity Church will be on Easter Sunday in their new/old location.
Here is the announcement just sent a little while ago.
Our New Church Family Has an Old Church Home!
A church building with a rich past will serve as the new home of our future church. Pastor Mark Driscoll is excited to announce that The Trinity Church will host its first ever gathering at 5pm on Easter Sunday March 27, 2016, at the Glass and Garden Drive-In Church in Scottsdale, Arizona!
In time, we look forward to launching The Trinity Church. In the meantime, we did not want to pass up this historic opportunity to gather for the first time on the 50-year anniversary of the landmark building, which opened on Easter 1966. Even though it’s last minute, as the ink on our rental contract is still wet, we look forward to meeting you at our modest open house and prayer meeting. Pastor Mark will be sharing our church vision as we begin gathering our launch team.
About the Drive-In Church:
Pastor Goulooze and architect E. Logan Campbell designed the Glass and Garden Drive-In Church in the mid-century modern style of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The goal to build the 1,400 seat church and adjacent drive-in movie theater began on 7 acres. This drive-in church is likely the only one of its kind in Arizona. Today, the drive-in is gone, although the church remains on 4.55 acres and was named one of the “10 Coolest Churches” by local media.
You see more pics and read more about the facility here. Last Sunday was the last service in the facility for Living Word Bible Church Scottsdale. This coming Sunday (3/13) Living Word will hold their first service in a local Marriott Hotel while they build elsewhere.
More Indian NGOs Get Gospel for Asia Donations and Other GFA Developments
There have been a few new developments in the Gospel for Asia story:
2014 Audit
According to good sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because they may face retribution, the 2014 GFA audit is complete. However, GFA is not releasing it to anyone at this time on the advice of counsel. This seems like a flimsy reason. GFA representatives regularly claim they want to regain membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability and a clean audit available for review is one condition.
Gospel for Asia Out at National Religious Broadcasters
The Christian Post followed my story on GFA’s absence from membership in the NRB with a story citing a private letter to GFA ending membership near the end of 2015. Due to the fact that GFA lost membership in ECFA due to violations of standards, GFA also violated NRB’s membership requirement of financial integrity.
We also learned in that article that Johnnie Moore, editorial advisor to the Christian Post, also represents GFA in public relations concerning financial integrity issues. Seems like CP should have interviewed someone else for some balance. Thanks to CP and GFA’s editorial advisor, GFA got a nice free advertisement with no perspective from former employees.
More NGOs get GFA Donor Money
The website India Happenings has a nice run down of new financial information gleaned from the Indian Home Ministry about GFA. This analysis finds about $8-million given to unheard of NGOs in India from the shell LLCs here in the United States. Eventually all the money comes from GFA and ends up with Believers’ Church or GFA-India. This is a long way from accounting for the estimated $128-million unaccounted for over the past 8 years.
According to a source with knowledge of the arrangements, GFA first asked a trusted staff person to donate money to a LLC in order to get the entities started. GFA then gave money to a staffer in order to get the first donation on the books (e.g., Javier Mendoza for “Growth in Fraternity Trust” — see the India Happenings article). Then GFA used the LLCs as a channel to get cash to India. Staff were told that difficulty getting money to India necessitated these false front entities for the purpose of sending money to India and without the appearance that GFA sent it. Reportedly, GFA does not want the Indian government to know how much cash GFA is sending to India.
Money Might Be Flowing
I have gotten many communications from people in India since the lawsuit was filed. I am slowly following up on them (if you haven’t heard from me, be patient, I will do so). Many of them are reporting lots of cash flowing through Believers’ Church and GFA related organizations. Land and for profit schools are being purchased. It appears that GFA is trying get rid of lots of donor cash.
Donald Trump: Unintended Consequence of Fear Mongering
Like a extra piece of chocolate cake, politics is a tempting distraction for me. I vote and I have worked as a local volunteer in a few campaigns over the years but I mainly watch. Like many, I have lots of opinions and I think I am right. I also indulge in a fair amount of Monday morning quarterbacking but know full well that I am frequently wrong.
I felt that way reading this New York Times article on the GOP’s desperate attempt to stop Donald Trump. The article read a little like the beginning of the end of the GOP I’ve known it. Donald Trump’s nomination would fracture the party, or at least accentuate all the existing fractures. Trump certainly has the angry vote but I don’t think that is enough to win in November, at least I hope it isn’t.
As I have watched this primary season, I have been developing the feeling that Trump is the unintended consequence of seven years of fear mongering fueled by the religious right and social conservatives. Perhaps I think that because I pay more attention to those groups than I do to other groups. However, I think there might be something to what I am thinking since Donald Trump is leading among evangelicals. Ted Cruz’s efforts to get evangelicals by holding all the right Christian positions isn’t resonating with enough evangelicals to win that group. Trump’s angry promises to fix everything that is broken is winning with social conservatives who are fed up politicians who constantly tell us what is wrong with the democrats but never seem to do anything about it.
Evangelical leaders have been angrily attacking everything Obama does for seven years. For instance, David Barton tells his faithful that Obama hasn’t prosecuted any pornography cases when clearly that claim is false. Far right pundits like Glenn Beck have spent many hours telling religious audiences that we are on the precipice, and that the Constitution is “hanging by a thread.” Ministers tell their flocks that the end times are coming because the nation is on the brink of bringing God’s wrath. Here are a very few examples of the thousands I could give:
- Trump recently told an audience that Christianity is under siege and he’s going to fix it. Pastor Robert Jeffress agrees and has endorsed Trump.
- Ted Cruz’s father Rafael told an audience that a new liberal justice will take away all our religious freedom.
- Pastor Jim Garlow recently said America is dead and the 2016 election is the last hope to resurrect the nation.
- Matt Barber’s Barbwire publishes lots of doom and gloom including this one predicting civil war, martial law and FEMA camps.
- David Barton worries that revolution is coming.
In all of the fervor to oppose Barack Obama and the left, I believe evangelical leaders have whipped their audiences into a frenzy of fear and anger. Since many of these evangelical leaders seem enamored with political power, they view the government as the source of the problems. Consistently, they also view a political change as the source of our salvation. The political sphere replaces religion and the simple Gospel as the way and mission of the church. However, since the religious right often blames politicians for the evil, the people aren’t looking for a politician, no matter how well that politician checks off the right stances on social issues. They are mad as hell at politicians and want some other messiah.
Enter Donald Trump.
Trump also plays to the fears of people, religious and non-religious, who have been scared to death by the presence of illegal immigrants. Evangelicals are divided over this with many wanting a path to legal status while others want a mass deportation, as do Trump and Cruz. Those evangelicals who are afraid of immigration are flocking to Trump since he brings the total package of fear mongering to the table.
There is, of course, no way Donald Trump can do most of what he promises. He isn’t going to build a wall, or deport 11 million illegal immigrants, or fix healthcare by simply “removing the lines” around state borders, or bring back companies from overseas or force employees to say Merry Christmas. He isn’t going to make Christianity stronger or save us.
If Trump get the GOP nomination, I suspect millions of Republicans will stay home or vote third party. The Democrat president with continue similar policies as we have now and if the Congress stays about the same, a familiar gridlock will continue. I hope that evangelicals will somehow find some religious leaders who can learn to be in the world but not of it. To me, that means pursuing the mission that only the church can do and on temporal matters seek to work cordially with those leaders we say we pray for on Sunday but demonize the rest of the week.
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7
To say that it is, is a contradiction to the Christian Religion itself, for every page of it disavows a dependence on the powers of this world: it is a contradiction to fact; for it is known that this Religion both existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them, and not only during the period of miraculous aid, but long after it had been left to its own evidence and the ordinary care of Providence. Nay, it is a contradiction in terms; for a Religion not invented by human policy, must have pre-existed and been supported, before it was established by human policy. It is moreover to weaken in those who profess this Religion a pious confidence in its innate excellence and the patronage of its Author; and to foster in those who still reject it, a suspicion that its friends are too conscious of its fallacies to trust it to its own merits. James Madison, 1785
Can't Get Enough Hillsong? Get Ready for the Hillsong Channel
Go watch the video pitching the enterprise. You can even donate.
If you watch, you will see some familiar faces.
To help market all things Hillsong, the megachurch signed a deal with the William Morris Agency. According to Billboard, the deal is the first with a major Hollywood agency and a church.