What Focus on the Family Took Out of David Barton's Talk

In today’s Politico article on David Barton, reporter Stephanie Simon revealed that Focus on the Family edited their radio broadcasts of a Barton speech entitled, the Founding of America. Surprising to me, not only did they edit the material without issuing a correction but, according to Simon, said they didn’t do it when asked about it. Here is the relevant portion of Simon’s article:

Focus on the Family, meanwhile, edited two videos on its website featuring a lengthy interview Barton gave to Focus radio. The editing deleted a segment in which Barton declares that Congress printed the first English-language Bible in America — and intended it to be used in schools. That’s one of Barton’s signature stories — it’s a highlight in his Capitol tour — but historians who have reviewed the documentation say it’s simply not true. Focus also cut an inaccurate anecdote about a contemporary legal case, which Barton cited to make the point that society today punishes people of faith.
Asked why the videos were edited, Carrie Gordon Earll, a senior director of public policy at Focus on the Family, at first said they had not been, though before-and-after footage can be publicly viewed on websites archiving Focus broadcasts. Earll then said she could not comment beyond a statement noting that Focus “has enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with David Barton” and respects his “broad base of knowledge” about early American history.

Focus did indeed edit two broadcasts after two dozen evangelical historians approached them about the problems in the programs. Even with the edits there are still problems, but FOTF focused on two particular false stories. The first one was a fractured account of the Commonwealth of PA v. Chambers, and the second was Barton’s embellished version of the Aitken Bible story.
The current broadcast on the FOTF website for June 30, 2011 (begin listening at 13:46) omits the Commonwealth v. Chambers story but the archived version at OnePlace.com has the original version (begin listening at 13:46).  The Aiken Bible story is omitted now from the Focus website on the July 1, 2011 broadcast (begin listening at 9:00) but is in the original version at One Place (begin listening at 8:59).
The transcript of the original broadcasts is available online and contains the sections removed. I wrote about the Commonwealth v. Chambers story here (Barton says the Supreme Court tossed out a murder conviction because a prosecutor used the Bible briefly in court – not true). Barton’s rendition is below:

FOTFUneditedPt1

The material about this case has been deleted from the Focus broadcast now on their website.
The second story removed from the program was about the Aitken Bible being printed by Congress for the use of schools. I have addressed this several times, again not true.

FOTFUneditedPt2

These stories are so far off the facts that apparently someone at Focus believed they should be edited. However, there are other problems with the speech that were not touched.

David Barton Embellishes George Washington Story in New LDS Movie Project

Funds permitting, David Barton will provide some stories for a new project called Miracles: The Movie (not to be confused with Miracle: The Movie). The movie is a project of LDS film producer Ken Cromar. Via Indiegogo, the Cromar is seeking funds for a December release.
Cromar posted four clips yesterday, one of which has Barton telling a story about George Washington and British sharp shooter Patrick Ferguson. According to Barton, Washington escaped death in a miraculous manner in 1777. Roll the tape:

Barton says:

Major Ferguson, he and three of his sharp shooters were at one location, they’re up high in the trees, and they’re just picking off American officers at will, they’re just popping and dropping these guys, and they’d been doing it all morning. And suddenly a guy comes riding in the picture and they’re actually two American officers. And for whatever reason, Major Ferguson, he said, he just had this impulse came over him and he said, ‘I’ve shot enough guys this morning, I don’t think I need to shoot any more,’ and so he had his rifle lined up on this officer and he’s lined up and he’s about to pull the trigger, and he said this impulse suddenly came over him not to shoot, and so he didn’t shoot and he said the officer looked up full in his eyes and they stared at each other, the officer looked him right down the barrel, he looked at him in the tree where he’s sitting there with the barrel, sitting with his rifle. He didn’t pull the trigger and the officer looked at him and then slowly turned his back to him and walked off on his horse, the two officers going off. The officer turned out to be George Washington. Later, his men that were with him said, ‘don’t you know who that was? You could have ended the American revolution right there. So those are the kind of miracles you see that are inexplicable unless you understand that there is divine hand directing the counterplan, and that’s the way American history is written.

Well, not exactly.
There was a British officer named Patrick Ferguson who did consider shooting at an unidentified pair of Americans, one an officer and the other an aide, but the facts are at odds with Barton’s account and the outcome can be explained without appeal to direct divine intervention.
Ferguson was a Scottish soldier who was the leader of a rifle corp with the British army. Ferguson was wounded during a battle at Brandywine, PA and while in recuperation, he wrote a letter which is apparently the only account of the story Barton embellished. From Ferguson’s memoir:

He [Ferguson] lay with a part of his riflemen on the skirts of a wood, in the front of General Knyphausen’s division of the army, the following circumstances happened, which he relates in a
letter to a friend :
We had not lain long,’ he says, “when a rebel officer, remarkable by a hussar dress, passed towards our army, within a hundred yards of my right flank, not perceiving us. He was followed by another dressed in dark green, or blue, mounted on a bay horse, with a remarkably large cocked hat. I ordered three good shots to steal near to them, and fire at them ; but the idea disgusted me. I recalled the order. The hussar, in returning, made a circuit, but the other passed again within a hundred yards of us, upon which I advanced from the wood towards him. On my calling, he stopped ; but, after looking at me, proceeded. I again drew his attention, and made signs to him to stop, leveling my piece at him, but he slowly continued his way. As I was within that distance at which, in the quickest firing, I could have lodged half a dozen of balls in or about him before he was out of my reach, I had only to determine; but it was not pleasant to fire at the back of an inoffending individual, who was acquitting himself very coolly of his duty; so I let him alone. The day after I had been telling this story to some wounded officers who lay in the same room with me, when one of our surgeons, who had been dressing the wounded rebel officers, came in and told us they had been informing him, that General Washington was all the morning with the light troops, and only attended by a French officer in a hussar dress, he himself dressed and mounted in every point as above described. I am not sorry that I did not know at the time who it was.

While the evidence indicates it is possible the officer was Washington and apparently Ferguson believed it was Washington who he did not shoot, the attribution of a miracle does not fit the facts. First of all, the identity of the American officer cannot be confirmed; it may not have been Washington. Also, Ferguson does not say that the sharpshooters had been “popping and dropping” American troops all morning long. Furthermore, Barton’s claim that Ferguson said he was tired of killing American is at odds with Ferguson’s description of his actions. Ferguson’s behavior, while seemingly odd by today’s standards, was more common then and reflected the belief that shooting a man in the back was not honorable.
When it comes to arranging history to suit a preferred narrative, few are as convincing as Barton. This project looks like a Latter Day Saint version of Kirk Cameron’s Monumental. The facts didn’t matter in that one either.
 

Politico: David Barton's Political Usefulness Trumps Scholarship For Evangelical Groups

Politico’s Stephanie Simon has an eye-opening article out today regarding David Barton and his evangelical supporters. Although I don’t agree that Barton’s reputation has fully bounced back, the article correctly reveals the disappointing pragmatism that plagues some Christian organizations. I will have more on this article in a separate post.
This section is especially disturbing:

Focus on the Family, meanwhile, edited two videos on its website featuring a lengthy interview Barton gave to Focus radio. The editing deleted a segment in which Barton declares that Congress printed the first English-language Bible in America — and intended it to be used in schools. That’s one of Barton’s signature stories — it’s a highlight in his Capitol tour — but historians who have reviewed the documentation say it’s simply not true. Focus also cut an inaccurate anecdote about a contemporary legal case, which Barton cited to make the point that society today punishes people of faith.
Asked why the videos were edited, Carrie Gordon Earll, a senior director of public policy at Focus on the Family, at first said they had not been, though before-and-after footage can be publicly viewed on websites archiving Focus broadcasts. Earll then said she could not comment beyond a statement noting that Focus “has enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with David Barton” and respects his “broad base of knowledge” about early American history.
In an interview with POLITICO, Barton said his remarks were sometimes taken out of context but defended his scholarship as impeccable.

A subset of the evangelical historians who raised issues with Family Research Council brought these problems to Focus on the Family’s attention this summer. In a post later today, I will point out which sections were removed without notice. It is shocking that Focus initially denied they had edited the material. Why is David Barton’s reputation so important that a Christian group would resort to subterfuge to cover it up?
 

Institute on the Constitution Uses Fake George Washington Quote on Second Amendment

Yesterday, I noted concerns about the teaching of the Institute on the Constitution on the National Religious Broadcasters network. Last night, the problems continued during Michael Peroutka’s teaching on amendments two through ten. To bolster his interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, Peroutka cited four founders on guns. One of them is a citation either fabricated or falsely attributed to George Washington, two of them were not cited in proper context, and one was cited properly.
Exhibit A in Peroutka’s speech was this quote he attributed to George Washington:

FakeWashingtonIOTC

First, I looked for this quote in the digital Papers of George Washington and couldn’t find anything. Then, I found a reference to the quote on the Second Amendment Foundation website. Listed under the heading: “BOGUS, FAKE & QUESTIONABLE QUOTES FALSELY ATTRIBUTED TO THE FOUNDING FATHERS,” the quote has been researched by the SAF with no success in linking it to Washington. According to the SAF, this is “perhaps the most ‘infamous’ bogus saying attributed to a Founding Father.”

The second quote comes from Samuel Adams:

The Constitution shall never be construed…to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.

Several sources attribute this proposal to Samuel Adams in the context of the Massachusetts convention to ratify the Constitution. Adams included this proposal along with others.

A motion was made and seconded, that the report of the Committee made on Monday last, be amended, so far as to add the following to the first article therein mentioned, viz.: And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience, or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms, or to raise standing armies, unless when necessary for the defence of the United States, or of some one or more of them, or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature for a redress of grievances, or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers, or possessions.

And the question being put was determined in the negative. 

For a complete picture of the sentiment of the day, it would have been helpful for Peroutka to include the context and the fact that the Massachusetts convention failed to approve this language. Furthermore, Adams’ reference to “peaceable citizens” could be taken as a qualification on the right to bear arms. In his NRB broadcast, Peroutka argues that the founders believed possession of arms was a deterrent to government tyranny. However, it could be argued that Adams was not referring to citizens who were seditious or who did not keep the peace.

Next, he cites Thomas Jefferson with a brief quote:

No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.

The Jefferson quote is taken from Jefferson’s first draft of the Virginia Constitution. However, Jefferson revised this draft in a way that works against Peroutka’s contention. Jefferson’s 2nd and 3rd draft added a qualification to the first draft. Here are all three drafts:

First Draft: “No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.” (Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1950, 344)

Second Draft: “No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands or tenements].”(PTJ, 1950, 353)

Third Draft: “No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands or tenements]”(PTJ, 1950, 363)

As the Monticello website notes, the draft language was not included by the Virginia legislature into the final Constitution. Jefferson, writing these drafts in 1776, was not referring to the 2nd Amendment. Furthermore, Jefferson qualified his earlier statement by locating the freedom for freemen to their own property. Although the later drafts undermine Peroutka’s argument, he should have made his audience aware of Jefferson’s final draft.
Peroutka then cites Noah Webster accurately.
The 2nd Amendment is important to the IOTC in that they back local sheriffs and police chiefs like PA’s Mark Kessler who claims the 2nd Amendment is a conceal carry permit and who promote the nullification of gun control laws. While some quotes from founders can be advanced in support of a broad reading, other quotes must be invented or adapted.
In any case, NRB viewers now have some history to unlearn. How will this happen?
 

GA House Candidate Barry Loudermilk Says No Greater Expert On The U.S. Constitution Than David Barton

Georgia State Senator Barry Loudermilk is running for Congress from Georgia’s 11th congressional district. Today on Twitter he announced that David Barton has endorsed his candidacy.

On Loudermilk’s website, he has this to say about Barton:

There is no greater expert on the U.S. Constitution and the underpinnings of American government, than David Barton

Wow, no greater expert?
In addition to academia in general, scores of Christian professors would disagree with that assessment. As regular readers know, the Family Research Council removed from view a video of Barton on the “underpinnings of American government” due to historical errors.
Loudermilk has a record of supporting the Christian nation thesis and has spoken at least one Christian reconstructionist event in the past and has cited Barton previously.