Tag: david Barton

William Penn founded the Quakers and other tall tales from David Barton

As the Gipper used to say, “there you go again…”
David Barton spoke at Liberty University on September 9 and said that William Penn founded the Quakers, the early Unitarians were an evangelical denomination and Thomas Jefferson signed presidential documents “In the Year of Our Lord Christ.” That was just for starters.
At about two minutes into his speech (click the link and look for Barton on Sept. 9; you can also hear it at iTunes here), Barton said

We have the same thing when you look at Quakers. You see Quakers were founded by William Penn in Pennsylvania. I’ll lay you odds there’s no chance that William Penn would be a Quaker today, even in the denomination he founded, he would not be a part of. We look at it the way it is today and say it must have been the way they were back then.
And the example of that is what happens when you look at Universalist Unitarians; certainly not a denomination that conforms to biblical truth in any way but as it turns out, we have a number of Founding Fathers  who were Unitarians. So we say, oh wait, there’s no way the Founding Fathers could have been Christians; they were Unitarians. Well, unless you know what a Unitarian was in 1784 and what happened to Unitarians in 1819 and 1838 and unless you recognize they used to be a very evangelical Christian denomination, we look at what they are today and say the Founding Fathers were Unitarians, and say, there’s no way they were Christians. That’s modernism; that’s not accurate; that’s not true.

First of all, George Fox founded the Quakers and Penn later joined the movement. Penn was born in 1644 and Fox founded the Religious Society of Friends around 1647. Penn founded Pennsylvania but not the Quakers. Given the teachings of the Quakers, I suspect Penn might indeed be a Quaker today.
I wrote about the Unitarians in a post about John Adams and the Trinity. According the Unitarian historian Holley Ulbrichs, author of The Fellowship Movement, and member of the Universalist Unitarian church, Unitarians never believed in the Trinity and thus could not be considered evangelical. Ulbrichs told me in an email:

In 1819 William Ellery Channing preached a famous sermon in Baltimore at the ordination of Rev. Jared Sparks. The title of his sermon was “Unitarian Christianity.”  That brought to a head an ongoing battle between the religious liberals and the religious conservatives in the Congregational Church, of which John Adams was a member, but on the liberal side.  The American Unitarian Conference, later Association, came into being in 1825, a year before his death (and Thomas Jefferson’s), but both of them were very sympathetic to the anti-Trinitarian views that were at the heart of the controversy.
Unitarians were never okay with the trinity. Hence the name. Most of them like Jesus, but as a prophet, a role model, a nonviolent revolutionary. Not God.

Congregationalists were traditional in their beliefs but the Unitarians split from them. Adams and Jefferson were members of other denominations but it is clear from their correspondence that they favored the Anti-Trinitarian view.
Then finally for this post, Barton again asserts that Thomas Jefferson signed presidential documents – “In the Year of Our Lord Christ” during his speech to the Liberty students. He showed on the overhead a small portion of a document which is apparently referred to on his website as “his presidential act of October 18, 1804.”
It is unfortunate that Barton does not show the entire document so we can see what kind of “presidential act” it was. If you look closely at the picture, you can see that the words “In the year of our Lord Christ” are pre-printed on the page and not in Jefferson’s handwriting.

Barton has a similar document dated 1807 on his website. As I noted in this post, the words “In the year of our Lord Christ” were required by treaty with Holland and pre-printed on a form which was used for sea letters (a kind of passport allowing safe passage) and not written by Jefferson. I can’t find any other reference to Jefferson actually signing documents in this manner. Please see this post for an extensive refutation of the claim about the 1807 document.
This is just within the first 5 minutes.
 

Radio Station in Texas cancels David Barton's Wallbuilders Live During Show

An affiliate radio station of the Moody Network in East Texas, KBJS-FM canceled David Barton’s Wallbuilders Live radio program during the show yesterday while Barton was discussing Glenn Beck’s religious beliefs. Randy Featherston, KBJS manager, said the show was dropped due to Barton’s failure to distinguish between Mormon theology and Christianity.
“When David Barton said it doesn’t matter whether you are a Mormon or a Baptist or a Methodist, we felt we had to do something,” Featherston explained.
On the Tuesday program, Barton played audio of Glenn Beck saying that “the Lord Jesus Christ is my Savior and my Redeemer.” Then Barton said he believed that Beck was a Christian based on his statement of belief and “his fruits,” meaning his good deeds. Based on Beck’s statements, Barton then asked co-host Rick Green, “Glenn says he’s Mormon. Ok, that’s fine. Based on what you heard, if you heard a Baptist say that or if you heard a Methodist say that…what would you say?” After Green answered that Beck’s testimony indicated a real conversion, Barton responded, “Why is it not a real conversion because of the label he wears?”
Throughout the program, Barton dismissed Beck’s Mormonism, saying at one point, “I don’t care what label Beck wears. I don’t care what Glenn thinks Mormon means.” Barton also asserted that Beck uses the same Bible, but added, “Now he may use the Book of Mormon, we never talked about the Book of Mormon.”  
Featherston added that the station received many calls during the broadcast with callers who objected to Barton’s views. All but two callers supported the decision of the station to drop the show.
Some callers also complained that Barton misuses history and “takes facts out of context” to create a false impression about the Constitution and founding of the nation, according to Featherston.
Featherston said the station did not take the action lightly, saying “I like a lot of what Barton has to say, but we don’t want to confuse listeners into thinking that Mormon doctrine and Christianity are the same.”
—
Scott Krus wrote to say that KBJS-FM is an affiliate of the Moody Network but not one of the 36 stations owned by Moody. Mr. Krus added that Wallbuilders Live is not carried by the Moody Network.

David Barton again defends Glenn Beck as a Christian

David Barton is feeling the criticism from Worldview Weekend founder Brannon Howse. Today, Barton responded to some of those criticisms as he framed them.
Howse is particularly concerned that David Barton’s partnership with Glenn Beck leads Christians to believe that Beck is a Christian or that Mormonism is just a form of Christianity.
Barton’s approach was to call Beck a Christian because Beck says that Jesus is his savior and redeemer  and point to Beck’s deeds to validate his faith. You can read essentially what Barton claimed on the air here on his Facebook page.
This post is mostly news with little analysis but I will say that Mormon and Christian theology about Christ is different and Mormons speak very similar words as do Christians when it comes to Christ. It appears that Barton is not aware of this or does not want to explore this in any depth. He seems to have no problem with Mormonism’s use of the Book of Mormon as Scripture and assumes that because Mormons also use the Bible, they are speaking the same confession.
A bit more of an aside: Given the way Barton treats history, I am not surprised that he treats theology in a similar manner.
Barton doesn’t “care what the label is” he is trying to influence policy which makes it fine. In the SevenMountain teaching of taking dominion over the mountains of culture, personal redemption is less important than societal salvation. Even if Beck is a Mormon, it is appropriate for Christians to recommend him and promote him because he is helping the Christians take over the cultural mountains.
Near the end of the program, Barton addresses the charges of dominionism. He dismisses dominionism, the New Apostolic Reformation, and reconstructionism as terms he doesn’t know.
Barton and Green revealed that Howse’s criticisms are having an impact in that Barton’s supporters are calling and writing about them.
Generally, I don’t like to make a big deal out of religious differences when it comes to how you treat people and how we all need to get along despite our differences. Here, however, Barton is again calling on people to obscure obvious distinctions as if they are not real. He does it in history and he is also doing it over these theological differences.

David Barton: Evil spirits make Congress "think really goofy"

I knew it was someone’s fault.
Read the whole thing at Right Wing Watch, but for now listen to historical document collector David Barton tell Kenneth Copeland about why Congressional Democrats “think really goofy.”

Partial transcript:

And I can tell this in the U.S. Capitol. When I walk from the House side to the Senate side, I cross the middle line of the Capitol, I can feel a different principality because they have jurisdictions over different things. And there are principalities that sit over different government entities that cause them to think really goofy and you can’t get prayers through, they get delayed twenty-one days because the principalities are up there fighting in the Heavenlies.
Because we’re not fighting flesh and blood. And if you don’t understand this is a spiritual battle, and if you don’t understand there are really big principalities and powers sitting over places of power, whether it be banking, or education. There’s principalities that sit over schools to keep those kids from getting knowledge, there’s principalities that sit over financial institutions. They sit over households. That’s why you have principalities in powers, that gradation, you have the corporals, and you have the sergeants, and you have the lieutenants, the captains and the generals, and the generals have a bigger principality and those little corporals may have control over the house but it’s a spiritual battle.
It’s a spiritual battle and we’ll never win until we understand that.

I’ll bet those Generals that used to sit over the House were ticked when the Republicans won back control from the Democrats. Probably some of those Generals lost rank or got reassigned to sit over some low performing school or somebody’s residence.
The 21 day disabled prayer list is a new one on me.
Seems pretty clear, if it was in doubt, that Barton is not a Christian Reconstructionist but right in the thick of the New Apostolic Reformation.

Wallbuilder's Rick Green defends comments about pediatrics associations

Early last week, I pointed out that David Barton and Rick Green identified the American College of Pediatricians as “the leading pediatric association in America.” In fact, ACP is a group of around 200 members which, in 2003, split off from the real leading group, the American Academy of Pediatrics. The AAP commented briefly later in the week.
I also mentioned that a reader, Bernie, wrote to Wallbuilders to ask why Barton and Green identified the ACP as the leading group. Rick Green responded and defended their characterization of ACP as the leading pediatric association. Reader and commenter Bernie, included this part of the conversation and asked why they described ACP in the way they did.

David: “The American College of Pediatricians is cautioning educators about what they do with same-sex attraction or symptoms of gender identity or gender confusion in schools.”
Rick: “You’re kidding, this is the Pediatric Association?”
Later, David: “Well that’s a remarkable letter coming from the leading pediatric association in America.”

Bernie pointed out that the ACP is a tiny group compared the AAP. Mr. Green replied with this explanation.

I am not aware of anything from our broadcast that was inaccurate. Nothing in the transcript you sent is wrong or false. We may disagree on what constitutes “leading,” but neither David or I said the ACP was the largest. As often happens, the larger associations become either stagnant or politically correct and lose the leadership qualities that make an organization “leading” in their profession. Meanwhile, a perhaps smaller, but more professional and cutting edge organization begins to lead by stating facts and putting forth truthful research the older organization is afraid to release due to political correctness.

Green said they may revisit the issue in a future broadcast.
None of what Green has to say about the ACP and the AAP is relevant to what it means to lead a profession. The ACP is hardly more cutting edge than the AAP but that even misses the point. A leading group in a profession speaks for the profession to the public and government. The leading group in a profession sets standards for training new members of the profession. The leading group in a profession provides continuing medical education for practicing members of the profession. The ACP does none of that.
While I have not checked this out, I would be willing to bet that no medical school uses any of the standards or materials from the ACP. I strongly suspect that no training programs seek approval or recognition from the ACP. The ACP is not a player in the profession. 
Green’s narrative makes no sense when one considers the way David Barton led into the segment. Here is the lead:

Barton: What’s interesting is, you know medical groups do not tend to be very conservative. Any professional medical group, the American Psychiatric Association, the association of psychologists, even the American Medical Association is a particularly friendly conservative group, they’re not a pro-life group and what’s really interesting is the American College of Pediatricians; now think about that, is that a conservative group?
Green: You’d think they would be, looking out for the kids, right?
Barton: But yeah, don’t spank your kid, don’t touch your kid, you know, and think of the way pediatric stuff has gone, and you don’t want to help shape these kids, let ‘em be what they want to be. And so, all that anti-parental influence, and it’s remarkable that you have the American College of Pediatricians, who has just, they sent a letter to all 14,800 school superintendents in the United States and it’s a letter warning about what’s happening in the schools and the American College of Pediatricians is cautioning educators about what they do with same-sex attraction or symptoms of gender identity confusion in schools.

Barton leads his listeners to think that he is about to tell them some news about physicians who are not conservative, not pro-life, say “don’t spank your kid,” and are “anti-parental influence.” He names the ACP as that group, asking:

…what’s really interesting is the American College of Pediatricians; now think about that, is that a conservative group?

Yes, actually, it is a very conservative group.
The ACP is pro-life, advocates spanking as an option and is pro-parents’ rights. Go check out their policy pages (parenting issues, abortion, and sexuality) and it is clear that the ACP is a conservative, but not leading, group.