General Order Respecting The Observance Of The Sabbath

Do you have any opinions of your own, or do you just like spamming the board with links to reconstructionist / revisionists like known liar David Barton and the late revisionist James Kennedy?

 

"DAVID BARTON'S BAD HISTORY

When A Myth Is As Good As A Mile

David Barton makes a number of inaccurate statements in his anti-separationist book the Myth of Separation and its accompanying videos. Barton also relies heavily on half truths, often failing to tell the whole story behind selected historical incidents.

Two versions of Barton's hour-long video "America's Godly Heritage" are in circulation. Although the newer edition (1992) omits some of the more egregious errors of the earlier tape, both are similar overall and contain the same information. (A condensed, 12-minute version of the tape titled "Foundations of American Government" is also in circulation.)

Since Barton's materials are being used increasingly by the Religious Right in their war against church-state separation, Church & State examined the book and videos carefully and prepared the following analysis of some of Barton's key points.

Barton: The Supreme Court in 1947 lifted the phrase "wall of separation between church and state" from a speech Thomas Jefferson made in 1801.Later in the speech, Jefferson went on to say, "That wall is a one directional wall. It keeps the government from running the church but it makes sure that Christian principles will always stay in government."
Response: This inaccurate claim about Jefferson is undoubtedly Barton's biggest mistake, and he omitted it in the updated version of his tape. But earlier copies remain in wide circulation, and the charge is being recycled repeatedly by the Religious Right.
Barton is wrong on three counts. In truth, Jefferson first used the "wall" metaphor in an 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association. The letter says nothing about the wall being "one directional" and certainly does not assert that it was intended to keep Christian principles in government.

Barton: Fifty-two out of 55 of the founding fathers were "orthodox, evangelical Christians."
Response: This is a good example of the half truths common in Barton's materials. Most of the founders were members of the Church of England, which can hardly be described as an evangelical body. While it is true that many of the framers were devout Christians, that does not make them theological compatriots of today's Religious Right. (Barton must have again realized his mistake. In the updated version of the tape, he says 52 of the framers were simply "orthodox" Christians and adds, "Many of them were evangelicals.")
Richard V. Pierard, history professor at Indiana State University, calls Barton's claim "ridiculous." According to Pierard, the term "evangelical" did not come into wide use in America until the late 19th century and cannot properly be applied to any religious movement of the colonial period. "To try to take a later definition and impose it on these people is a historical anachronism," Pierard said.

Barton: Early versions of the First Amendment considered by the Congress prove that all the framers meant to do was prohibit the establishment of a national church.
Response: This charge is an ironic one, because early versions of the First Amendment prove exactly the opposite. Before the language of the First Amendment we know today was settled on, drafts were submitted to Congress explicitly forbidding only the establishment of a national church or one denomination in preference to any other. These were all rejected. If Barton were correct, and all the framers wanted to do was bar an official Church of the United Slates, one of these early versions would have sufficed.

Barton: In 1844 the Supreme Court ruled that public schools must include Christian worship.
Response: This is an oversimplified interpretation of a complex Supreme Court decision in a case known as Vidal v. Girard's Executors. The controversy centered around the request of Stephen Girard, a wealthy Pennsylvanian whose will instructed that his money be used to set up a school for orphans. Girard, a native of France who was wary of clericalism, stipulated in the will that no members of the clergy could hold office in the school or even visit the campus.
Girard's heirs challenged the bequest, but the Supreme Court, In a unanimous opinion, refused to nullify the stipulation. The will, the justices noted, had barred only clergy, not religious instruction entirely. The court also noted that the religious freedom provisions of the Pennsylvania Constitution were broad enough to provide "complete protection of every variety of religious opinion...and must have been intended to extend equally to all sects, whether they were Jews or infidels."

Barton: In 1854 a small religious group asked Congress to officially establish a system of separation of church and state in the United States, but Congress refused.
Response: This is an example of Barton taking an obscure incident from U.S. history and, through distortion, giving it an exaggerated sense of importance. What actually happened is quite different from what Barton describes. A religious group did not ask Congress to establish church-state separation. Rather, a Baptist association from North Carolina and several citizens from Kentucky presented Congress with "memorials" (petitions) asking them to abolish congressional and military chaplains. In 1854 the House and Senate Judiciary Committees issued reports denying the petitions.
While there is language in the reports referring to the United States as a "Christian" nation, it is clear from the context that the committees saw the country as "Christian" only in a social sense, not a legal one.
Far from rejecting church-stale separation, the Senate committee report specifically affirms the doctrine by stating that the First Amendment prohibits the government from giving any denomination financial "endowment at the public expense, peculiar privileges to its members or disadvantages or penalties upon those who should reject its doctrines or belong to other communions..."
Elsewhere the Senate document reads, "We are Christians, not because the law demands it nor to gain exclusive benefits, or to avoid legal disabilities, but from choice and education...." (Not surprisingly, Barton never mentions that congressional committees in the latter half of the 19th century twice rejected proposed constitutional amendments that would have had the United States officially recognize the authority of Jesus and forthrightly state that America is a Christian nation.)

Barton: In the late 19th century "Christian principles in government" were challenged at the Supreme Court, but the justices upheld them and pointed out that Thomas Jefferson supported mixing Christianity and government.
Response: This is an extremely bad interpretation of 1878's Reynolds v. United Slates decision, in which the Supreme Court ruled that Mormons do not have a religious freedom right to practice plural marriage. Reynolds was a free exercise case; it had nothing to do with a Challenge to "Christian principles in government." Furthermore, while the justices do quote from Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists that contains the "wall of separation between church and state" metaphor, they say nothing about Jefferson favoring Christian principles in government..
Clearly the justices could make no such assertion about Jefferson, as he never said anything even remotely akin to what Barton alleges. In reality, Jefferson specifically denied that Christianity is the basis of the common law and regarded efforts to declare it so as anti-separationist propaganda. In an 1824 letter to John Cartwright, Jefferson observed, "The proof...is incontrovertible, to wit, that the common law existed while the Angle- Saxons were yet pagans, at a time when they had never heard the name Christ pronounced, or knew that such a character existed. What a conspiracy this, between Church and State!"

Barton: Everson v. Board of Education, a 1947 Supreme Court parochial school aid case, was the first court ruling upholding church-state separation.
Response: Barton's assertion is incorrect. The U.S. Supreme Court had dealt with the church-state issue several times before Everson was decided. Many of these decisions upheld the separation concept.
For example, by 1947 the high court had already ruled that Jehovah's Witnesses could not be compelled to salute the flag in public schools. In the early 1900s the high court decided a series of cases giving members of some religious groups the right to refuse the military draft in wartime, granting them conscientious objector status on the basis of religious belief. In 1925, the court ruled unanimously that states could not force children to attend public schools if their parents would rather send them to religious institutions. In addition, numerous state courts and lower federal courts had grappled with the church-state issue prior to 1947."


- http://candst.tripod.com/boston1.htm

 

"Barton: The Supreme Court's decision in the 1962 case Engel v. Vitale, which banned government-sponsored prayer in public schools, cited no historical or legal precedents and relies on a legal theory that the justices made up out of whole cloth.
Response: Even a brief perusal of the Engel opinion shows that Barton is again wrong. In fact, Justice Hugo Black's majority opinion in Engel cites the history of the First Amendment and the early colonial experience with state-established religion. The concurring opinion by Justice William Douglas cites several previous church-state cases.

Barton: Religious practices in public schools had never been challenged in the courts prior to 1962.
Response: 1962's Engel case was the first time the U.S. Supreme Court took up school prayer, but several state supreme courts had ruled on the issue prior to that. For example, the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down government-sponsored Prayer in schools in 1892; the Nebraska Supreme Court followed suit in 1902, and the Illinois Supreme Court removed mandatory worship from public schools in 1910."

- http://candst.tripod.com/boston1.htm

 

The writer of this clearly displays his ignorance, as it is the polar opposite of the language of the First Amendment.

 

Boy MP, this post couldn't more misguided. George Washington did in fact issue those proclamations, and Lincoln did cite them. And what does Barton or J. Kennedy have to do with it?

Each and every one of us cites articles and historical events on here, and are not accused of spamming.

Am I missing something?

 

Is there a way for me to change the color of a posters text? Ken is posting in red now, and it's harder to read. At least for me.

 

Timothy is absolutely correct. You seem to have bought into the liberal mantra that has distorted the First Amendment so terribly.

 

Not buying into the Big Government conservatism of the present day Republican Party does not mean that one is living a dual, Godless life.

 

Sorry. I didn't know my posts aren't showing up clearly for you. I will cease putting other folks' words in maroon.

 

Hey, Timmy, the main problem I have with your politics is that you seem to me to wanting to live in a theocracy. Fortunately, most Americans don't. You and Ahmadinejad appear to be similar in that desire - you two just want a different religion running the theocracy.

 

Considering this is a discussion board, you have the option to skip any topics you don't want to discuss.

Why the personal attack?

 

What personal attack? I correctly observed the OP was spamming the board with rapid and repeated new threads that were only linking to revisionist websites, such as Barton's Wallbuilders and Coral Ridge; all without making a point with any original commentary. Nowhere did I personally attack anyone.