Tag: history

BeliefNet Promotes The Jefferson Lies

I was surprised to see this Jefferson and the Bible gallery at BeliefNet. The first page cites David Barton’s The Jefferson Lies, which is never a good beginning.

This morning I wrote BeliefNet and asked them to correct what was wrong which would in effect mean removing most of it. I have no reason to think that they will not be responsive. Many well-meaning people read Mr. Barton’s materials and think they have discovered hidden truth. I suspect the BeliefNet folks have simply not checked the sources.  Here, with a little editing, is what I sent to them. Feel free to contact them as well or leave a comment at the bottom of the pages.

I am writing to offer comment and suggest that you modify or remove the gallery about Thomas Jefferson and the Bible. The web address is here: http://www.beliefnet.com/News/ElectionCenter/Gallery/Urban-Myths-About-Thomas-Jefferson.aspx.

Along with a colleague I have written a book (Getting Jefferson Right) which responds to The Jefferson Lies. I am an evangelical but believe that the facts are more important than ideology. I hope you will take these concerns seriously and makes changes to make your materials conform to the facts.

The gallery is significantly factually flawed. I will only comment on a few things but hope you will contact me so I can offer a fuller explanation.

The first page of the gallery says that Thomas Jefferson was an active member of the VA Bible Society. In fact, he donated $50 once to the society on request of his insurance agent, Samuel Greenhow. Being an active member would indicate attendance at meetings, being an officer, donating regularly or even joining. There is no indication in Jefferson’s writings that he did anything more than give a donation. Also, regarding the financial struggles of Jefferson and the donation. Jefferson was almost always in financial trouble and died in dept. Below is the letter Jefferson sent to Greenhow in full. Note that Jefferson does not want the society to give Bibles out in other countries.

Your letter on the subject of the Bible Society arrived here while I was on a journey to Bedford, which occasioned a long absence from home. Since my return, it has lain, with a mass of others accumulated during my absence, till I could answer them. I presume the views of the society are confined to our own country, for with the religion of other countries my own forbids intermeddling. I had not supposed there was a family in this State not possessing a Bible, and wishing without having the means to procure one. When, in earlier life, I was intimate with every class, I think I never was in a house where that was the case. However, circumstances may have changed, and the society, I presume, have evidence of the fact. I therefore enclose you cheerfully, an order on Messrs. Gibson & Jefferson for fifty dollars, for the purposes of the society, sincerely agreeing with you that there never was a more pure and sublime system of morality delivered to man than is to be found in the four evangelists. Accept the assurance of my esteem and respect.

On page two, you say that Jefferson personally helped fund a ground breaking Bible. In fact, he paid a subscription fee to get a copy of the Thompson hot-pressed Bible, just like the other 1271 subscribers did. Jefferson was even late in paying his final subscription fee.

Page three is accurate.

Page four is similar to page two: Jefferson purchased Thomson’s work when he saw it advertised. Here is what he told Thomson:

 —I see by the newspapers your translation of the Septuagint is now to be printed, and I write this to pray to be admitted as a subscriber. I wish it may not be too late for you to reconsider the size in which it is to be published. Folios and quartos are now laid aside because of their inconvenience. Everything is now printed in 8vo, 12mo or petit format. The English booksellers print their first editions indeed in 4to, because they can assess a larger price on account of the novelty; but the bulk of readers generally wait for the 2d edition, which is for the most part in 8vo. This is what I have long practised myself. Johnson, of Philadelphia, set the example of printing handsome edition of the Bible in 4v., 8vo. I wish yours were in the same form.

Jefferson learned of the project from the papers and wanted to buy one. Buying something is not the same thing as funding the project. Continue reading “BeliefNet Promotes The Jefferson Lies”

I will be on the Jerry Newcombe Show tonight to discuss Getting Jefferson Right

Tonight, from 9:00-9:30pm, I will be on the Jerry Newcombe Show. The program can be heard live on the station’s website (look for the listen live icon in the upper right hand corner or try this link).

Newcombe is author of The Book That Made America: How the Bible Formed Our Nation and co-author with Peter Lillback of George Washington’s Sacred Fire.

The plan is to discuss Getting Jefferson Right.

David Barton’s 700 Club Interview: The Things We Didn’t Say

Guest post by Michael Coulter

David Barton was interviewed for the July 4, 2012 edition of the 700 Club.  It is 9 minutes of remarkably misleading television.   There are many false claims about Jefferson, but I want to focus on Barton’s reference to our book Getting Jefferson Right in this post.

Without being asked about the book, Barton says:

 A lot of that goes back to a whole academic viewpoint of  Deconstructionism. . . there’s a couple of professors who hate this book and they’ve got a book written to rebut it and they start up right up front saying “hey you think American exceptionalism is a good thing.  It’s not.  American exceptionalism is terrible.”  That tells you the philosophy.  They don’t like America as that position.   And Jefferson six of the ideas he put in the Declaration are the basis of every idea in the Constitution. That produces American exceptionalism . . so if you’re going to tear apart American exceptionalism, you’ve got to tear  the guy who founded it.  And so you go after Jefferson and other founders . . .  If you don’t like American exceptionalism, you’ve got to take him out.  That’s really the target of academics. (2:49-3:50)

Here’s what we wrote in the introduction of GJR about American exceptionalism:

Barton then argues that the “joint influence of Deconstructionism and Postructuralism” has undermined “American exceptionalism.”  The problem with this brief reference to the phrase, “American exceptionalism,” is that Barton uses the phrase as if it has a single and agreed upon meaning, and that meaning is that “America is blessed and enjoys unprecedented stability, prosperity and liberty.” The problem with this characterization is that the phrase, “American exceptionalism,” lacks a single, canonical definition. There is no one author that can be said to have indisputably originated the idea.  Raymond Smith says that it is a “school of thought that views U.S. politics and society as a distinctive product of unique circumstances.”  The components of American exceptionalism, according to Smith, include social mobility, a distinctive national creed, and unique institutional development.  Smith also asserts that “American exceptionalism” also sometimes “carries a connotation of superiority” with respect to democratic practices.  Smith further argues that the xceptionalist perspective has been used to justify expansionist or aggressive military policies undertaken by the US government.   Some, like Smith, see the term used in a variety of ways; others, such as Michael Ignatieff, a public intellectual and scholar of human rights (and currently the leader of the Liberal Party in Canada), sees the term as mostly negative asserting that it refers to “human rights narcissism,” which refers to the embrace of negative rights at exclusion of positive rights; “judicial exceptionalism,” which refers to the position that foreign court practices and rulings are irrelevant in the United States; and to “American exemptionalism,” which is the view that the United States can and should be exempt from some multilateral treaties and institutions (such as the International Criminal Court).  Harold Koh, a Yale professor of international law, argues that American exceptionalism includes a favorable element such as “a distinctive rights culture” but also a “problematic face  . . . when the United States actually uses its exceptional power and wealth to create a double standard.”

For deconstruction, post-structuralism, and American exceptionalism, Barton takes complex terms and uses them in a way that nearly all scholars would not recognize.  (Note: footnotes that accompany this portion of text in book are here removed.)

Our point is rather straight forward: Barton uses a term whose meaning is contested, but he uses it as if it has a single, uncontested meaning.  We do not say that “American exceptionalism is terrible,” but we acknowledge that some writers use the term in a negative way.

In social life, there are many terms whose meaning is contested.  Take a commonly used term, such as conservative.  There is no single agreed upon definition for that term.  Rush Limbaugh, David Brooks, Russell Kirk, William Buckley – all significant American conservatives – would all have different definitions of what is a conservative.  No one can reasonably claim that there is a single definition of a conservative.  In the same way, there is no single definition of American exceptionalism.

Moreover, Barton says, “They don’t like America as that position,” even though we say nothing remotely like that.  And further our aim is not to “tear apart American exceptionalism.”

As a biographical note,  I presented a paper at a 2011 conference hosted by Grove City College’s Center for Vision and Values on Alexis de Tocqueville and American Exceptionalism (the presentation can be viewed or heard by clicking the link, wherein I argue that Tocqueville could be understood as promoting a modest version of American exceptionalism – by which I meant that Tocqueville saw the United States as having a distinct political culture and circumstances which enabled the growth and operation democratic political institutions (but not the immodest version of American exceptionalism which sees the US as some kind of chosen nation).  You can’t listen to that talk and call me someone who hates the concept of American exceptionalism.  Moreover, if one looked at my course syllabi with their plentiful selections of Federalist Papers and other documents from the founding era as well as lengthy passages from Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, one could not conclude that I am trying to “tear apart American exceptionalism.”

It seems that Barton cannot confront our criticism of his claims with discussions of texts and facts, but must go to a classic type of bad argument – the ad hominem criticism.  Warren and I are certainly not bothered by ad hominem criticisms, but we do wish the Barton would respond to what we actually wrote, rather than what he imagines we wrote.

And one more thing.  Perhaps Barton would find this distinction unintelligible, but we don’t hate his book (or him).  We find many of his claims to be erroneous and his arguments to be specious, but that’s not the same as hating something (or someone).   Hate derives from fear or in response to real or perceived threat or injury. Our criticism arises from dispassionate analysis of his claims.

On David Barton's claim that Unitarians were "a very evangelical Christian denomination"

David Barton told Liberty University students in their September 9 chapel that Unitarians were at one time “a very evangelical Christian denomination.” In his effort to define what he called modernism, he said this about the Unitarians the late 18th and early 19th century:

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.

Last week, I briefly examined Barton’s claim that Unitarians were a “very evangelical denomination” with the help of college professor and attorney Jon Rowe. In a 2007 post, Rowe noted that Unitarians during the era of the Founding Fathers denied the Trinity and the deity of Christ. While Unitarians used the Bible to come to their conclusions, one cannot call them evangelical in any meaningful or current sense of the word.
I also asked two Grove City College colleagues with expertise in religious history, Gillis Harp (professor of history) and Paul Kemeny (associate professor of religion and humanities), to react to Barton’s claim about the Unitarians. First, Dr. Kemeny contradicted Barton, saying:

To call nineteenth-century Unitarians a “every evangelical Christian denomination” is like calling a circle a square. While many were deeply pious, Unitarians rejected the deity of Christ and consequently the Trinity. Since the common sense meaning of “evangelical Christian” usually entails an affirmation of Christ’s deity and by implication the Trinity, it strikes me as a rather oddly creative use of the term to suggest Unitarians were “evangelical Christians.”  The Unitarians’ early nineteenth-century critics, such as orthodox Congregationalist theologian Leonard Woods, would likely be surprised to learn the Unitarians were actually “evangelical Christians after all.

As Kemeny notes, the orthodox theologians of the time did not think of Unitarians as orthodox. The Congregationalists of the eighteenth century were in dispute with their fellows who were moving in the Unitarian ways. For instance, President John Adams is often listed as a Congregationalist, but, as I documented previously, his views were decidedly Unitarian.
Dr. Harp also discounted Barton’s theory, saying

It is misleading to refer to early 19th century Unitarians as ‘evangelical.’  If Barton means that they were far more orthodox on many basic doctrinal matters than are Unitarians today – then, sure, one can say that.  But belief in the incarnation and substitutionary atonement are both essential to evangelicalism and these were both firmly repudiated by all Unitarians in this period.  Some Unitarians certainly continued to follow evangelical personal habits (daily prayer, Bible study, promoting evangelism) but that doesn’t make them evangelical doctrinally.

Christian scholars Harp and Kemeny agree that the claim is faulty. What about the original sources? If Unitarians of the era were evangelical in doctrine, perhaps this would show up in their writings. However, even a cursory examination of the leading Unitarian thinkers demonstrates that Barton is incorrect.
Barton cites Jared Sparks as a man who said George Washington was a Christian in the evangelical sense. However, Sparks was a leading Unitarian. Sparks’ ordination to the ministry in 1819 was the occasion for William Ellery Channing to preach a sermon outlining Unitarian beliefs in a break with the more orthodox Congregationalists.
Sparks was also the editor of the Unitarian Miscellany and Christian Monitor. In an 1821 edition, he explained the Unitarian position on Christ.

Unitarians believe, that Jesus Christ was a messenger commissioned from heaven to make a revelation, and communicate the will of God to men. They all agree, that he was not God; that he was a distinct being from the Father, and subordinate to him; and that he received from the Father all his power, wisdom, and knowledge. (p. 13)
Although unitarians do not believe Christ to be God, because they think such a doctrine at variance with reason and scripture, yet they believe him to have been authorized and empowered to make a divine revelation to the world. We believe in the divinity of his mission, but not of his person. We consider all he has taught as coming from God; we receive his commands, and rely on his promises, as the commands and promises of God. In his miracles we see the power of God; in his doctrines and precepts we behold the wisdom of God; and in his life and character we see a bright display of every divine virtue. Our hope of salvation rests on the truths lie has disclosed, and the means he has pointed out. We believe him to be entitled to our implicit faith, obedience, and submission, and we feel towards him all the veneration, love, and gratitude, which the dignity of his mission, the sublime purity ot his character, and his sufferings for the salvation of men, justly demand. But we do not pay him religious homage, because we think this would be derogating from the honour and majesty of the Supreme Being, who, our Saviour himself has told us, is the only proper object of our adoration and worship. (p. 15-16)

Regarding sin, Unitarians denied original sin and consequently the need for Christ’s atonement to pay the penalty for sin. Again in 1821, Sparks wrote:

We have only room to state, that we do not believe “the guilt of Adam’s sin was imputed, and his corrupted nature conveyed to all his posterity;” nor that there is in men any “original corruption, whereby they are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil.” (p. 19)

Disputes between trinitarians and the anti-trinitarians (as unitarians were often called) raged in eighteenth century New England. Historian E. Brooks Holifield wrote in his book Theology in America that the divinity of Christ was in doubt among New England clergy as early as 1735, adding

By 1768, Samuel Hopkins could claim that most of the ministers of Boston disbelieved the doctrine of the divinity of Christ. By 1785, James Freeman succeeded in leading the Episcopal congregation at King’s Chapel in Boston to delete Trinitarian views from their liturgy. (p. 199)

In his speech to Liberty University quoted above, Barton refers to 1784 as a point of reference for what Unitarians were. Perhaps he has this transition at King’s Chapel in mind when the church went from Anglican doctrine to Unitarian beliefs. The minister at the time, James Freeman, considered the church Anglican. However, in another sign that orthodox leaders of the day did not consider Unitarian views to be in line with traditional doctrine, the local Bishop refused to ordain Freeman in the Anglican church.
A question for Mr. Barton: Since the Unitarians at the time took pains to distinguish themselves from orthodoxy and the orthodox leaders of the day did not consider unitarian beliefs to be what we would today call evangelical, why would we dispute them now and call them “very evangelical?”
 

Should you believe David Barton when he speaks about history?

Last week, I wrote a quick post noting that David Barton thought a woman posing as a man to fight in the Revolutionary War was a good thing. Today women can serve openly, but this seemed odd to me in light of religious right concerns about gender bending.
Barton told the story about the female soldier on Glenn Beck’s Founder Friday show. The rest of the show was actually quite interesting with several stories about female, African-American and Jewish patriots. I found myself enjoying the presentation and thought this is important information. Then a question occurred to me: are these stories true?
Yesterday, I posted about how Barton cherry-picked correspondence between Benjamin Rush and John Adams in order to create a fiction about John Adams beliefs. In general, the distortions about the beliefs and actions of Thomas Jefferson and others have created doubt in me about the rest of what he presents. The result is that I feel I must check anything from his organization before considering it accurate.
This is a shame. This is a huge concern and one which provides a powerful incentive for advocates and scholars alike to get their facts straight. Given the status of those who consult Barton, it apparently has not had much effect as yet. However, in my view, those who look for better among evangelicals are not finding it at Wallbuilders.
Confirmation bias is a strong and powerful phenomenon, so strong that it can compromise good intentions and undermine the very ends you seek. I would like to believe but there is only One Being who can ask me to walk by faith and not by sight and it is not David Barton.