david Barton – Page 46 – Warren Throckmorton

Experts Dispute David Barton’s Claims About Translating for the Russian National Gymnastics Team

Earlier this week, David Barton told his Wallbuilders Live co-host Rick Green that he once was fluent in Russian, was asked to translate for the Russian National Gymnastics Team in 1976 and smuggled Bibles into the Soviet Union “back in the day.” Here is the audio followed by the transcript (blog note – Barton removed the audio):

Transcript:

Barton: That’s right, and South Korea. South Korea, Nigeria, they’re sending missionaries to America like crazy. And of course, if I looked at the stats on America, yeah we’re number one in the world on violent crimes, yeah and promiscuity, sexuality yeah and out of wedlock births yeah and and lack of marriage yeah we need some missionaries here. We need somebody who can point us to the Bible and you’re right I mean that was started going years ago just based on the stats that South Korea and Nigeria were sending Christian missionaries to America to help get people in America back to the gospel. Which ya know it looks like we’re moved further away from that then where we were even a few years ago when we talked about it so maybe some of these kids’ll- and by the way it was kind of a déjà vu thing but ya know Dirk was saying that it started as a smuggling operation, that’s really where I got started with the Soviet bloc back when the Iron Curtain was up was…I spoke Russian, I was fluent in Russian and when the Russian uh gymnastics team came to America in 1976, I got to be translator for ‘em and do translating just so…the accounts of when we went to stores was a blast.

Green: Wait, wait stop wait. You speak Russian?

Barton: I don’t now, but I was at one time fluent in Russian and again translated for the Russian gymnastics team when they came to America, but at the same time we were working our tails off to smuggle Bibles into the Soviet Union and and had several trips that went there smuggling Bibles in, so

Green: I wish our show was on television so people could see my shocked face right now. You interpreted- you were- I had- I didn’t know any of this.

Barton: Yeah that’s back in the day, bro.

Green: Wow, that’s amazing! So this show was pretty cool for you then

Barton: Oh yeah, it it was because it was a reminiscent of all the smuggling time and how dangerous it was and you know the Soviet bloc and the guards at the borders and all the stuff that went on there, pretty amazing.

Rick Green was flabbergasted by the claims. I was skeptical when I first heard the claims, and now after several lengthy interviews with people involved in gymnastics and trampolining in the 1970s, I am even more skeptical. I also talked to the wife of the late Bill Basansky, Barton’s Russian teacher at Oral Roberts University. Yes, Barton took a Russian class, but that may be about as close as that story gets to being plausible.

Fluent in Russian and a Bible Smuggler?

Let me first take up Barton’s claims that he was fluent in Russian and that he smuggled Bibles. Yesterday, I spoke with Beatrice Basansky, the widow of beloved Oral Roberts University professor of modern languages, Bill Basansky. Mrs. Basansky, who is a Barton admirer, said Barton took a course in Russian from her husband. She did not know how well he did in the language. She said with firm conviction that Barton did not help her husband with Bible smuggling. She told me that there were only two men who helped her husband smuggle Bibles into Russia and Barton was not one of them.

It is very hard to imagine that one course (or even two if it was Russian 101 and 102) could lead to fluency in any language, let alone Russian. Perhaps Barton doesn’t understand the meaning of the word fluency (just like he apparently doesn’t understand what verbatim means). On the smuggling claim, this information from Mrs. Basansky doesn’t prove Barton never smuggled Bibles into Russia, but he apparently didn’t do it with his Russian professor. There were other professors at ORU who had interest in evangelizing the Soviet bloc countries (e.g., Steve Durasoff, Keith Nordberg) and Barton might have gone with one of these teachers. In my view, the smuggling claim is relatively unremarkable compared to the claims that he was fluent in Russian and translated for the Russian Gymnastics Team.

Did Barton Translate for the Russian Gymnastics Team?

On the fantastic claim that Barton translated for the Russian Gymnastics Team, I spoke to two people who had knowledge of U.S. gymnastics and trampoline and tumbling events where Russians participated in 1976. I spoke at length with Ron Munn who worked for the Nissen Corporation. Nissen provided personnel and equipment for the Russian Gymnastics Team tours of the United States. I also corresponded with Leigh Hennessy Robson, who won an event in the World Trampoline and Tumbling Championships held at the Mabee Center at Oral Roberts University in July 1976. The importance of that event and Mrs. Robson’s participation will be clear shortly.

I found Munn through this blog post about the Nissen Corporation’s activities in the mid-1970s. He told me about several tours of the U.S. by the Russian Gymnastics Team through the 1970s but said there was only one in 1976. The Russian team was in Montreal from mid-July through early August for the Olympics. These Olympics featured Romania’s Nadia Comaneci, and Russia’s Olga Korbut and Nellie Kim. Later in 1976, the Russian team toured the U.S. for about 2 weeks in December. Munn supplied images from the program which I will provide at the end of the post. Munn spent time with the team, and even went dancing with Olga Korbut on one of the tour stops. He does not recall any outsiders working in translation with the team. The Russians brought their own interpreters which was customary for international sports teams (see this image, which is also below, for a picture of an interpreter in a program for the 1974 Russian Trampoline Gymnastics Team). Barton’s claim here seems extremely far fetched.

Perhaps Barton was thinking of the Russian Trampoline Team which competed in the World Trampoline Championship at Oral Roberts University in July 1976. In addition to his work on the Russian gymnastics tours, Munn was also at ORU as an announcer for the event as a part of his work with the Nissen Corporation. This company was founded by George Nissen who invented the modern trampoline and developed the sport internationally. Munn married one of Nissen’s daughters.

I also corresponded with Leigh Hennessy Robson, a competitor for the United States who won two gold medals and a silver at the meet. Robson’s father, Jeff Hennessy, was the meet director. Leigh and her father are the only father-daughter pair to be inducted into the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame.

Leigh Robson said that the Russian team brought their own interpreters. She told me, “Rest assured, David Barton did not translate Russian at the 1976 World Trampoline and Tumbling Championships at ORU.” She said the Russians also brought their own security to monitor the team. Munn added that the Soviets were concerned about Russian athletes defecting so they kept them under constant watch. The idea of using American translators did not make sense to Munn or Robson.

After all is said and done, David Barton took Russian from a professor who smuggled Bibles.

I asked Barton for evidence yesterday via Twitter with no reply. If he has any evidence for this claim or for the claim that he played Division One basketball for Oral Roberts University, I would be interested in seeing it.

Thanks to Ron Munn, Leigh Robson and Beatrice Basansky for their time and interest.

Thanks to Ron Munn for these images from the 1976 Russian Gymnastics Team tour program.

Note the cities where the tour took place:

The Russian team out dancing in New Orleans. Olga Korbut and Ron Munn are on the right:

Munn also had a program from 1974 when the USSR Trampoline team did an exhibition at the Mabee Center at ORU. Note the picture of interpreter Maya Ermolaeva who accompanied the team. Maybe, instead of Bibles, Barton smuggled himself into the Russian quarters. After all, he said it was a “blast.”

Tovarishch Brian Williams poteryal rabotu iz-za etogo. Comrade Barton , chto vy dolzhny skazat’ sebe?

For the Sake of James Naismith, David Barton Should Come Clean About His Basketball Claims

During the NCAA tournament, David Barton’s son Tim did a tribute to James Naismith, the inventor of basketball. Watch:
[youtube]https://youtu.be/NLsz__v2of4[/youtube]
The information is largely accurate. Naismith was a ministerial candidate (along with other occupations) who believed he could reach more people via sports than the pulpit. He invented basketball to give young men something to do indoors when the weather was cold outside. It caught on.
I couldn’t escape the irony that Barton’s organization made a link to the NCAA basketball tournament not long after Barton claimed to play for Oral Roberts University’s record setting Division One team. According to ORU, Barton did not play for the team, nor did he accurately describe how the team practiced. I doubt James Naismith would approve.
James_Naismith_with_a_basketball Yesterday, Barton claimed to be a translator for the Russian National Gymnastics Team in 1976. I will have more information on that claim in a separate post. At this post, I can say that there are several good reasons to be skeptical.

David Barton Says He Translated for the Russian National Gymnastics Team in 1976

I say prove it.

Today. Barton told co-host Rick Green that he was once fluent in Russian and translated for the Russian National Gymnastics Team in 1976. His fluency has left him now he says, but at one time he was called on to translate for Russian gymnasts.

Color me skeptical.

David Barton told Charis Bible College students that he played Division One basketball for Oral Roberts University. Oral Roberts University said he didn’t. He has said many outrageous things and this adds to the list.

I hope some of his supporters will start to get a little nervous and call for some evidence. His claim to be a Division One basketball player was not contested by any of his allies or by anyone in the mainstream Christian press. However, ORU said it wasn’t true.

Barton graduated from Oral Roberts University in 1976. The Russian team was in Montreal from mid-July to early August for the Olympics.
Maybe this will be the one that will turn out to be accurate; we’ll see if Barton offers any evidence.

George Barna, Please Meet the Barna Group

Reading the book U-Turn: Restoring America to the Strength of its Roots is a frustrating experience. For the most part, authors George Barna and David Barton labor to make the case that America needs to turn back to God in order to avoid judgment. I have been hearing these appeals since I was in high school (“If my people who are called by my name…”). In all of them, the speakers or authors have warned that America had become so bad that judgment was just around the corner.
As a part of their efforts to make a doomsday scenario believable, the authors recruit lots of statistics and surveys. This is understandable since George Barna is a pollster. However, what is puzzling is Barna’s and Barton’s failure to use the most recent work of the Barna Group. To illustrate, here is what Barna and Barton say about students, their faith and college attendance.

Clearly many parents of these younger adults failed to transmit to them a vibrant and useful faith, which was largely because the parents themselves lacked a vibrant and useful faith. As proof of this, although eight out of ten Americans claim to be Christians, only 9 percent of these Christians agree with six of the most elementary nonnegotiables of the Christian faith.* So poorly equipped are Christian young people by their minimally believing Christian parents that 61 percent of Christian youth who now attend college abandon their faith as a result.79 (Barna, George; Barton, David (2014-10-21). U-Turn: Restoring America to the Strength of its Roots (pp. 100-101). Charisma House. Kindle Edition.)

Barna and Barton take a dim view of Christian parents and higher education and blame them for what they say is a generation falling away from Christianity. The footnote for this paragraph leads to a book by co-authored by Ken Ham. In that book, Already Gone, Ham and his co-authors cite a 2006 article on the Barna Group website:

To me, it seems odd that Barna would cite someone who cites him. Why not just cite your own work directly? More puzzling, perhaps, is the fact that Barna did not cite the recent research group bearing his name.* Furthermore, in U-Turn, he makes the situation sounds worse than it is.
The 2006 Barna said that 61% were “spiritually disengaged.” The 2014 Barna says 61% of youth “abandon their faith.” As the 2011 Barna Group article will teach us, being spiritually disengaged isn’t quite the same thing as abandonment of one’s faith.
In a 2011 article on the Barna Group website, five myths are identified about youth leaving church. While it isn’t the last word on the subject, it is a reasonable article which breaks down the religious development of several groups of young people. Barna and Barton should have used it. People considering this book should be aware that Barna didn’t use the research he helped start in 2007.
The Barna Group in 2011 rebuts George Barna of 2014 (which is really an amplification of Barna of 2006). The 2014 Barna says “61 percent of Christian youth who attend college abandon their faith as a result.” The 2011 Barna Group said that statement contains two myths. They are:

Myth 1: Most people lose their faith when they leave high school.
Reality: There has been considerable attention paid to the so-called loss of faith that happens between high school and early adulthood. Some have estimated this dropout in alarming terms, estimating that a large majority of young Christians will lose their faith. The reality is more nuanced. In general, there are three distinct patterns of loss: prodigals, nomads, and exiles.

Compare what Barna says in his new book with what an article on the Barna Group website said in 2011. It seems ironic that he has become one of the people who say a large majority of young Christians will “lose their faith.” As the 2011 article correctly notes, the reality is more nuanced. If you want nuance, skip U-Turn and read the Barna Group’s website.
The second myth contained in Barna of 2014 relates to the impact of college. Barna and Barton say 61% abandon their faith “as a result” of college. On the contrary, the Barna Group in 2011, said:

Myth 3: College experiences are the key factor that cause people to drop out.
Reality: College certainly plays a role in young Christians’ spiritual journeys, but it is not necessarily the ‘faith killer’ many assume. College experiences, particularly in public universities, can be neutral or even adversarial to faith. However, it is too simplistic to blame college for today’s young church dropouts. As evidence, many young Christians dissociate from their church upbringing well before they reach a college environment; in fact, many are emotionally disconnected from church before their 16th birthday.

Mr. Barna, I didn’t say it; the group you founded did. It is too simplistic to blame changes in faith on higher education. And yet, that is exactly what you and David Barton do in your book. I recognize you also blame parents, but let me go out of a limb to say I think that is too simplistic too.
There are more instances where data are used incorrectly to yield a misleading conclusion. There are too many problems with this book to address them all but I intend to get to some of them as I am able. For more, see also here and here.

*The original post indicated that Barna was affiliated with the Barna Group. He sold it in 2009 to David Kinnaman.

Historian Thomas Kidd on Deism During the Founding Era

This brief primer by Thomas Kidd in how deism was understood during the founding era is well worth reading.
Kidd cuts through the fog often generated by Christian nationalists (e.g., David Barton) and the new atheists regarding the religious beliefs of the founders. A brief sample:

So what was deism? In spite of all its diversity, deism was a strain of rationalist religion – many of its advocates, like Jefferson, would have called themselves Christians – which focused on the ethical, rational requirements of true faith and criticized the authority of ministers and institutional churches. Many of them, especially in England and America, believed that there was a true core of Christianity that one could recover through attention to Jesus’s teachings alone. One important aspect of deism that we often miss is that its adherents could hardly imagine a world not organized on theistic moral categories, such as the inherent goodness of charity. Most deists really did consider themselves serious theists, and many considered themselves devotees of Jesus and his teachings. Their deism was not just a convenient cloak for atheism.

I have read more by Jefferson than the other founders and believe Kidd to be on target.