Featured David Barton - getting the comeuppance he deserves

The Founders desire was to have a republic, with the morality of jesus in the NT as its ethical basis!

they would have promoted and encouraged prayers and bible in the public schhools as textbook, and they would have allowed for religious diversity and practice, but would have made it clear that Christianity was the preferred one to have!

read them... they knew that the republic to exist had to rest upon the foundations of a people and a culture that promoted and kept the principles/standards as found in the Bible..

Divorce the bible/jesus/ and Christianity from the public square of the USA...

As we have attempted past 50 years, and this is NOT what they had envisioned!

 

==This is not about someone being "liberal" or being associated with the "ACLU". This is about being fair to the evidence of history. If we take parts, while ignoring other parts, we are not being fair to history. The fact is that more than a few of the founders were influenced by the teachings of men such as Thomas Paine. Many of the founders certainly supported a public religion but (at the same time) held to some very, very questionable teachings (John Adams denied the Trinity, Thomas Jefferson denied miracles, Benjamin Franklin was not sure of the deity of Christ, etc). Many of the founders actually rejected what we today could call a more "evangelical" view point as promoted by some of the other founders (such as Patrick Henry). My point is not to say that the founders were not Christians nor am I saying they were all deists. My point is that we have to pay attention to all of the evidence and (as much as humanly possible) allow that evidence to guide our thinking. Men such as David Barton (and those of the ACLU) allow a political, social agenda to guide their thinking and their view of the evidence.

 

==Evidence? Of course many of them admired the "morality of Jesus". Thomas Jefferson believed the moral teachings of Jesus were the greatest. However he also denied the deity of Christ, miracles, the resurrection of Christ, and the writings of Paul. Other founders were certainly less "hostile" to traditional Christianity than Jefferson. Still, if you read many of the early documents you see strong connections to Enlightenment writers and thinkers such as Thomas Paine.

==I agree that most (if not all) of the founders would have been comfortable with the Bible and prayer in schools. That, however, would never have been an issue in the late 18th / early 19th centuries. It is difficult to say how they would view or understand the modern debate over these things since we have some two hundred years of history that they did not. That is one reason I think it is a bit risky to try to guess what the founders would say about modern debates. They were men of their time (not ours).

==They certainly did not envision a nation that pushed God and Christianity out of the public square. However that does not mean that these men were all Christians or that they sought to build a Christian nation (as defined by David Barton, etc). This takes me back to my main point: We have to pay attention to both sides of the evidence and not just the parts of the evidence we like.

 

==I don't know that I could watch 10 dvds regardless of the content :smilewinkgrin:. If this is the same series that was aired (at least in part) on TBN a few years ago I have seen parts of the program. Like with most of Mr. Barton's material it is really hit and miss. He tends to focus on the evidence that he likes and ignore or down play (or deny) the evidence he does not like. I would say that you would be better off reading more respected historians such as Thomas Kidd, Mark Noll, or Edmund Morgan (among others). I'm not saying I endorse or agree with every statement those men have made but they are much more "main stream" than Mr. Barton.

 

If you're open to hearing from some respected (even by Evangelicals) scholars and historians in the field of religion in America, I'd suggest:

The Search for Christian America by Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch and George Marsden

 

I'm particularly vexed that this "Christian" nation persecuted Baptists so mercilessly, particularly in my home commonwealth of Virginia -- death always to the tyrants!!!!

 

I still don't get why they're stopping publication. Just move it next to Dan Brown and The Da Vinci Code. But add a little Free Masonry stuff, Thomas Jefferson's indiscretions, Indian massacres ordered by the Christian government, etc., to expand its readership beyond fundamentalist Christians.

 

I first saw Barton on TV several years ago and was taken by his support of a early Christian nation. I liked what he said and wanted it all to be true. I think most of what he said was true, but it was spin. He was only telling the positive side to catch the ears of Christians. I did some research on what he said about some of the early documents and they were right on for the most part. I think he got a little over zealous and went to far though with leaving out critical data.

When I now see him on Glenn Beck and TBN all the time I'm saddened. I saw him on Kenneth Copeland's show a while back and.... well .....YUCK!!!!!!

It is guys like this that give the enemy a foot hold. I saw the same thing with Kent Hovind. Sadly many gullible Christians will follow this stuff, heck I did for a while. We must stick to the message of the cross and not get all crazy about social agendas. IMO

 

I couldn't help myself on that one.