This isn't Biblical scholarship...originals and faithful, verifiable copies of 200 year old documents are not a problem.
David Barton
Discussion in 'Political Debate & Discussion' started by Salty, Jul 5, 2009.
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Baptist Believer Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
Expert? No.
The documents related to the founding of the United States, as well as the Supreme Court decisions, and government records regarding these issues are widely available.
To be clear, there have been at least two long-running positions regarding the relationship between church and state on the North American continent since the 17th century. This is an over-simplification, but Roger Williams, Baptists, Methodists, and other "New Light" congregations (sprang up in the wake of the Great Awakening) were generally on the side of separation of church and state (in the form reflected by current-day separation of church and state activists) and the Puritans, Anglicans (formerly Church of England), Roman Catholic, Congregationalists, and only-slightly reformed monarchists on the side of civil religion.
If Barton wanted to continue the discussion by advocating civil religion and treating the true history of our nation fairly, I wouldn't have a quarrel with him, I'd just disagree. But Barton not only does not treat the other side of the debate fairly, he pretends that there never was a debate until the 20th century and then paints those who disagree with his position as brainwashed dupes of radical atheists. Barton carefully and fairly cites the plenty of examples of those who support his side (like John Jay and Benjamin Rush), but consistently misquotes and misrepresents folks like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison who advocated the contrary position. Moreover, he misrepresents objective historical documents and claims they say things they don't say.
I'm happy to have a lively public debate about church and state issues, but if Barton presents false evidence in the court of public opinion, shouldn't somebody point that out? -
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The problem I see is that so many Christians want to put the founders up on these pedestals. However there is no reason to do that. Look, these were just men! Like us they had faults, failures, successes, and achievements. After the Revolution was over, many of these men developed very serious differences of opinion on how the U.S. government should operate. Thus the opinions of Jefferson may differ from Washington, Adams, or Hamilton. Neither were they all of the same faith. Some, as you have pointed out, were Christians of the best sort. However some of them denied the Trinity, the resurrection, the Deity of Christ, and the miracles in the Bible. Others were somewhere in the middle. In my opinion, Barton does not do enough to make facts like those well known to his readers/listeners. He presents one side without presenting the other. The same was true of the late Dr. D. James Kennedy. While I enjoyed Dr. Kennedy's Bible lessons, some of the things he said about the founders was misleading. He wrote a little book called "What They Believed: The Faith of Washington, Jefferson, & Lincoln". Of course anyone who knows anything about the "faith of" Thomas Jefferson will find it strange that an evangelical Christian would view his "faith" in a positive way. While Dr. Kennedy admits that Jefferson was not "a genuine Christian", he plays that down by callling Jefferson a "nominal Christian" and comparing him to others who attend church but have "never gotten beyond seeing in Christianity anything other than a code of ethics". My reading of Jefferson tells me that he was not even a nominal Christian. Thomas Jefferson was a heretic who, through his own work, attempted to exclude from the Bible the verses he did not like. That is a perfect example of what I mean when I say that Dr. Kennedy and Mr. Barton are sometimes "misleading". Christians who only read/listen to Kennedy, Barton, Lillback, and those like them, will come away with a very foggy view of our founders. -
So I see that whether or not our founding fathers were correct in their othodoxy or doctrine...... still you would make a distinction of judgement to proclaim those who were correct as Christian and those of incorrect interpretation as atheist? Even a dieist asserts some recognition and belief of the hand of providence working in and through the affairs of men. Why is it so wrong to label some of them as nominal Christians..... when today in our pews..... we probably have as many of that ilk warming the pews and standing in the pulpits as they did in that day. But even in the days of the founding of our country..... men who may not have believed the whole Bible, still looked upon it as a book of immense wisdom and suitable for guidance and direction.
Somehow, I don't see Barton's work as much as an argument for getting the church in government and schools as much as an argument for not taking the teachings and the foundations which drove our founding fathers in the decisions which they made from being taken out of the history.
You know? When one already has a side in perspective, then any other side often appears extreme (and moreso, if it takes one ....such as myself....to point this out to others.... whos proclaimed objectivity should already have them admitting). As much as you see Barton..... and/or my position as being against separation of church and state.... is it not possible that some of you who come from a position of wanting separation of church and state have difficulty in seeing a difference between your position and that of censoring history so that those arguments of individual conviction which drove our founding fathers to the decisions and press of unity in spite of differences..... are taken out?
As for 'oringinal autographs': It is precisely that so many do still exist or are of such recent origin that modern duplication can make those documents available to ones who have the time, money, and access to study them. I brought that up because of some of you profess that errors exist because original documents weren't consulted..... in which case I challenge which original documents have you consulted to prove his errors.
Like it or not, even the best history written is taken from the perspective of either eyewitness accounts OR the perspective of the historian who is rebuilding historic accounts based upon documents left behind by others. When so many of our founding fathers had a very excellant regard for and familiarity of Bible and peppered so much of their passions of persuasive argument with passages of direct or indirect quotes.... but these are disproportionantly ommitted from the modern text, then we pass along to our progeny the belief and testimony of a skewed history which negates or dulls the important part which religious teachings played in the establishment of our country and in the formation of its documents and ideals of freedom and justice.
If one were to google 'evoluntionary hoaxes' one would come up with far too many fraudulant 'evidences' which even evoluntionist have debunked..... but which are still being published in public school text books as though they were fact. In contrast, there seems to be little outcry from those who hold fast such a self-righteous standard of credibility to the likes of Barton who makes an honest attempt at restoring a balance into the presentation of history against that which would have been mentioned in modern text were there not a deliberate attempt to abort the importance of a belief in God upon the building of our nation by recent historians.
Oh well! It is through such fires as this discussion that we show the refinement of the metal which is in us. -
Baptist Believer Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
But I don’t think Martin (or anyone else) here on Baptistboard (even Pastor Mitchell) is suggesting either extreme that every founding father was a Christian or no founding father was a Christian. The faith of the founding fathers spanned those who were extremely devout and orthodox all the way to heretics and rationalistic unbelievers.
His second book, The Myth of Separation attacks the concept of institutional separation of church and state and seeks to build popular opinion to overturn Supreme Court rulings which uphold it.
Many, if not all, of his subsequent books advocate similar positions.
However, his underlying justification for these political/social positions is his assertion that history has been censored/changed/misrepresented to eliminate references to the influence of Christianity upon U.S. history. To that end, he is partially correct.
There really are some historians/politicians/activists who are ignoring or censoring the religious influences which shaped United States history. Because of this problem, legitimate Christian historians need to be supported by the Christian community to bring these issues to light. Unfortunately, Barton is not one of those people, but he is being supported by many Christians. Since anyone who is familiar with the founding history and documents and the legacy of the Supreme Court decisions knows that Barton is being dishonest, it makes it more difficult for historians who are being honest to be taken seriously. If we are going to enter the national debate on these matters, we need to be armed with truth and integrity.
His prayer came back heavily-edited so as not to offend the Roman Catholics (the dominant Christian group in our region) by reference to salvation by faith alone, and also converted all references to Jesus and the Father to a more generic “God”. My friend was incensed and decided he would not lead the prayer since it was just going to be a speech essentially dictated by the school board. They threatened to not allow him to graduate and he let them know that they would face some serious legal action and a scandal in the media if they even mentioned that idea again. So instead they assigned the prayer to another person, a young man whose life was anything but Spirit-filled, and he read my friend’s edited prayer.
After that exercise in what it means to be in a religious minority, I starting thinking about the meaning of the First Amendment and doing some reading into Baptist history.
Also, back about 10 years ago, I purchased (at significant expense) a bound collection of Supreme Court decisions assembled by a TCU professor by a church and state constitutional scholar for his classes at TCU. I did not attend his classes, but at that time, the Supreme Court cases decided before 1894 were not yet online.
I have some ideas to work around that though, but it is going to take a bit of time. I think I have selected my next example from his video, “America’s Godly Heritage” that I’ll try to post by the weekend.
Thank you!
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"So irresistible are these evidences of an intelligent and powerful Agent that, of the infinite numbers of men who have existed thro' all time, they have believed, in proportion of a million at least to Unit, in the hypothesis of an eternal pre-existence of a creator, rather than in that of a self-existent Universe. Surely this unanimous sentiment renders this more probable than that of the few in the other hypothesis." -Thomas Jefferson, April 1823
Thomas Jefferson was clearly not an atheist. However he was not a Bible believing Christian either.
As for "censoring history". People can, and should, do their own homework. If history is being censored in certain ways then it is up to people to do their homework and get the full story. Barton, while being a very nice man, is not doing that. He is telling one side of the story while ignoring or glossing over the parts that don't agree with his position. We need historians who are going to work hard to tell the whole story.
I don't see that these "quotes" are being "disproportionantly ommitted from the modern text". There are many American History textbooks out there to choose from. In fact, there are so many that it can be a pain trying to select one to use in class. There is even a text for those who believe that religion in American history has been short changed. It is called "Unto A Good Land" and it was put together by several very good historians. I don't use it in my classes because it does not come with a documents cd, but I certainly use it when prepping for class. I highly recommend it. It is an example of history you can trust from scholars who do the best they can to present the material fairly. Even when I disagree with a point they make I know that disagreement is based upon scholarship.
I uncomfortable with your remark about "recent historians". The vast majority of historians I know work hard to inform their students, their readers, and their listeners, about the facts. I know I certainly do. Are there historians who have political agendas? O, yes. However I think they are in the minority. -
I appreciate and respect both of your (Baptist Believer and Martin) recent replies. It is clearer now that you are not totally condemning Barton's work but rather addressing areas which you've seen to be reasonable criticisms or misrepresentations which detract, if these don't jeapodize his credibility.
As I've admitted, I have none of Barton's works to refer to: The only impressions which I have are based upon 'documentary' type programs presented on t.v. . As a child I had the chance to read some old text books belonging to my grandfather..... the publishing of which would have put them in the late 1800's is my guess...... and these were far different than the smidgen of history latter taught in jr. high. When living in Virginia, I had a very good text book on Va. history which instilled in me the values that our founders had based upon religious teachings..... regarding morality, man's duty to God, community and family, and the belief that liberty is God given.... but requires a moral people to keep it. That was in the 50's ...... and we transferred to FL before the year was half through. The text I studied in college seemed strangely different, deficient, and uninspiring, almost surgical in its bland and objective presentation; and that was in the late 60's, several years after the ruling on prayer.
I think I hear your saying that the chief problems in Barton's works are his interpretation of the influence and meanings of court decisions...... and presenting the impression that people such as Jefferson and Franklin or Paine were Christian. -
Revmitchell Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
That is not what is presented in this thread. What was presented in this thread was a misrepresentation of both the court and Barton. IN effect what happened was that Barton was being treated in the manner he is being accused of. -
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Revmitchell Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
The facts are the court referenced the Dr.'s comment in its final decision. -
Baptist Believer Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
[Posted by Revmitchell]"Barton has misrepresented his sources ... and ... he is an untrustworthy guide to this discussion."Look, you agree!
EDIT: For all those who are just joining this thread, Revmitchell did not say what I quoted above. I am merely illustrating the fallacy he is clinging to by creating a vivid, personal example of what his standards would look like if they were carried out on Baptistboard. -
Btw, windcatcher, that was a very good reply. I enjoyed reading it. :thumbs: -
Revmitchell Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
1. Barton said "the court made note"
2. That the court referenced the Dr.'s Statement
Therefore the statement that the court made note is true and correct and the dr.'s statement was used to support the courts decision. -
Instead of blindly clinging to anything...each of us should be willing to ask ourselves and contemplate the implications of one simple question..."What if I am wrong?" Unfortunately, few seem to be willing to consider that simple possibility. -
Baptist Believer Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
In case you missed it, that post was the refutation.
Right?
Obviously not... but I've following your line of reasoning (and Barton's) exactly. -
Revmitchell Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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Baptist Believer Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
Denial's not just a river in Egypt!
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I think when it becomes MOST important that we know the status of their Christianity is when we or our children follow into studying their specific lives and works..... and accept without question (which is an error in itself) the legacy they left us without discerning the error in their doctrine: For that matter, it behoves us to study the Bible thoroughly and be knowledgable as there is no doctrine or influence taught or written outside the inspiration of God which is totally correct and error free: Even the great leaders within Christianity like Luther and Calvin had their errors, yet they inspire us today and we thank God for using them and others like Tyndall and Wycliffe among so many others to bring us to the blessings of today. -
Just remember that Jefferson held the Bible in such regard that he edited out the parts he found objectionable. For example the excerpt from a letter to John Adams (which can be read in its entirety here):
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