Tag: wallbuilders

GOP Lawmakers Encouraged to Avoid Registering Poor, Young, Irreligious Voters and to Take Dominion Over Government

David Barton regularly hosts a strategy conference for state and federal legislators. For the version held this year in November, Barton posted photos which revealed some interesting details of the far right battle plan. I am surprised he posted this one:

Take note of the slide being used by George Barna. I assume this is from a talk on election strategy, Barna’s slide encourages selective voter registration. The audience is encouraged not to register young, uneducated, lower income, and irreligious people. Barna told the audience that those groups gravitate toward socialism.

In addition to the rather undemocratic tone of this advice, I don’t think he is correct. While it was true at one time that college-educated voters on average went for the GOP, now the trend has reversed. College-educated voters now are more likely to vote for a Democratic candidate.

Wallnau Climbs His 7 Mountains

Another revealing photo from the conference gallery is this one of Lance Wallnau teaching lawmakers about 7 mountains dominionism. Simply put, this view of Christian involvement in culture mandates a takeover of seven aspects of society: Religion, Family,Education, Government, Media, Arts & Entertainment and Business.

Wallnau is clearly teaching the legislators about the seven mountains mandate. Since these Christian legislators are considered government level apostles, their job is to take dominion in the mountain of government. This is the objective of Project Blitz which is supported by Barton via financing by his Wallbuilders organization. Project Blitz seeks to pass legislation which privileges Christianity in Congress and in state legislatures.

Barton and his group of Christian nationalist lawmakers aren’t interested in pluralism. They want to empower Christian Republican voters to enact a legal structure that privileges conservative Christians. Even though this is their right to pursue, in my view their aims are contrary to the vision of the framers who crafted a framework for pluralism and freedom of conscience for all.

 

 

 

Trump’s DNI Pick John Ratcliffe Once Hosted Wallbuilders for a Local Prayer Breakfast

This came across the wire today.

 

John Ratcliffe is Donald Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence to replace Dan Coats. In addition to having little intelligence background or experience, questioning Russia’s role in the 2016 election and inflating his resume, he is (or at least was) sympathetic to Christian nationalism.

It seems fair to go back to Ratcliffe’s days as a mayor of Heath, TX since his public service experience is so thin. He has been a Congressman since 2014 when he defeated 91 year old Ralph Hall and conservative Republican in a primary. There is no serious Democratic resistance in the district. In that race, David Barton endorsed Hall.

Given Ratcliffe’s rise to power, no doubt now all is forgiven. In addition to a Trump loyalist, Russia doubter, Rep. Ratcliffe may be sympathetic to Christian nationalism.

Hat tip to Ron West’s blog.

 

Another Conservative Calls Out David Barton's History

Charles C. W. Cooke is the online editor for National Review Online and recently had this to say about self-styled historian David Barton.


Generally, an individual occupying such a position with NR is not known as a liberal or even a “liberal bastard” as Glenn Beck once said about David Barton’s critics. Thus, I was interested to see such plain language aimed at Mr. Barton, a darling of some within what is left of the conservative world.
The Twitter thread is filled with polite give and take wherein Mr. Cooke doesn’t give an inch, reminding his readers that once upon a time Mr. Barton once admitted using second hand quotes without providing proper context. Even then, Barton claimed he only did what those pagan academics did.


Cooke here refers readers to Barton’s efforts to backtrack after it was discovered that some of the quotes in his book The Myth of Separation could not be located in primary sources. Barton said it was his idea to take those quotes out of his books. However, that hasn’t stopped him from using quotes that are not in primary sources or manipulating the words of certain founders to get the meaning he wants (click the links for a few illustrations).
One of the most egregious instances of academic deception was Barton’s effort to pass off a diploma mill doctorate from Life Christian University as an earned degree. He has never explained why he went to all the trouble to create a video for his Facebook and YouTube accounts, post it for one day, but then remove it the next day when I revealed that the “earned” doctorate he proudly pointed to was given to him by a school he never attended. I wonder if donor funds went to pay the fee for that piece of paper.

The Problem with the Mercury One/Wallbuilders’ Internship Program

Monday, Glenn Beck devoted some time on his broadcast to graduates of Mercury One’s internship program. The program went from June 5-16 and featured history lessons taught by David Barton.  The segment of the broadcast gave time to the participants to debrief about what they learned. Watch (the embed feature no longer works so try this link):

The comments from students provide a window into the problems with the internship. It appears that these students have a lot to unlearn. Worse, they don’t seem to know it.
For instance at 1:24 into the segment, the second student who spoke, Sonja, said

Mr. Barton showed us the Quran that was actually printed in 1803, I believe, by Jefferson after the Barbary wars, and the thought, the idea that the leaders of the country would not only say, hey, this would be a good idea to learn but they encouraged promoted that to learn about people who were different, to learn, not that they were terrible people, not slandering them, but saying this is who they are, this is what they are about. That is a completely different approach to knowledge and truth than we have today.

My point is not to fault Sonja for her fact problems but to fault her teachers for providing a completely misleading narrative (which Barton has usedGlenn Beck Interns before). Sonja has been misled on two important points.

Jefferson did not print a Quran in 1803 or any other year.

The first version of the Quran printed in America was published in 1806. You can peruse a copy here; there is no mention of Jefferson or the government. The translation from a 1647 French version was originally conducted in 1649 and then reprinted by Henry Brewer for Springfield, MA publisher Isaiah Thomas in 1806 (source). Brewer and Thomas may have capitalized on the interest in Islam during Jefferson’s terms as president since we were at war with several Islamic nations. However, Jefferson had nothing to do with the printing. (Source, source)

The leaders of the U.S. didn’t print a Quran, so they couldn’t have encouraged the public in the manner described.

There was no concerted effort by the government to educate the public in the manner described. While the publisher may have hoped to discourage Islam, I can find no evidence that the publisher and the government acted on such a motive. (Source, source)

Beck Doubles Down on the False Narrative

After Sonja spoke, Glenn Beck compounded the error by suggesting Congress printed the Quran without comment for a purpose. Beck said:

There’s something specific about that struck me that was unusual. It wasn’t Congress or anybody around Jefferson that said, ‘hey, we are going to print these excerpts.’ They printed the entire thing, without comment in it. They just said, ‘you need to read this whole thing.’ That is not what we do now.

First, the government didn’t print the Quran. Second, the printers of the 1806 Quran did include comment which was quite judgmental of Islam, calling the contents of the book “absurdities.”
I challenge Barton or Beck to provide a primary source supporting the claim that Congress or Jefferson had anything to do with the 1806 edition of the Quran. I will apologize and remove this post if they can do that.
Beck titled his segment, Mercury One Arms New Generation of Leaders With Truth-Detecting Tools. Unfortunately, if today’s broadcast is any indication, these students have been disarmed. They won’t be able to be effective because they are now confidently misinformed. Because of the video, we know who is responsible.
I also invite any of the students to contact me about their experience.

David Barton Offers Spring Break Teachers Conference

Instead of relaxing and refreshing, school teachers can now look forward to several days with David Barton over Spring Break.
Wallbuilders Teachers Conference
Barton left off some of the “how-to” topics he should cover.

So many topics, so little time.