Previously, I believed that at Liberty University, David Barton was viewed positively as a great historian. Since he speaks there frequently, some in certain circles must believe that. However, I was surprised to learn that Barton’s reputation is not as positive in the history department. John Fea was able to get a first hand look into the matter from a former history graduate student at Liberty. Russ Allen has his masters degree from Liberty and attended a talk given last week at Liberty by Barton. About Barton and his history classes, Allen told Fea:
The first time that I heard Barton’s name was in a graduate-level history classroom at Liberty University. In that setting Barton was almost unanimously viewed as a model of someone engaging in historical fallacy. His works are discussed only in light of their faults and supplemented with strong scholarly criticism.
This is pretty encouraging and raises my estimation of Liberty’s history department.
After Barton speaks to the student body, the history department must be busy undoing his many fallacies.
Lately, I have enjoyed John Fea’s blog more than ever. He has been crushing it when it comes to his posts on the GOP presidential race.
In light of the sad news of the death of Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, Fea wonders if Ted Cruz will honor the intent of the Constitution for a sitting president to appoint a new justice to the Court.
According to Article 2 of the Constitution, the President of the United States is responsible for the appointment of Supreme Court justices. If I understand the original intent of the Constitution, this is to be done by a sitting president, not a future president. Unless I am missing something, Barack Obama is the sitting president of the United States. He still has about 25% of his term left.
So I guess I don’t understand the argument that Cruz and McConnell are making. The framers of the Constitution did not say that the people have a direct role in choosing Supreme Court justices. They have an indirect role. In other words, the people elect the POTUS (well, technically the Electoral College does, but we won’t go down that road right now) and the POTUS picks the justices. In 2012, the American people chose Barack Obama as POTUS.
I don’t see how someone like Cruz–a defender of “original intent”–can see this any other way. Unless, of course, Cruz and McConnell think it is OK for politics to trump original intent.
I am with Fea here. I don’t understand how Cruz can claim to be a Constitutionalist and not defend President Obama’s right and obligation to make the appointment.
Messiah College history prof John Fea recently authored a history of the American Bible Society. In it, he describes the efforts of certain founding fathers (e.g., Elias Boudinot) to make sure the new United States would be a Christian nation. The American Bible Society was one of those efforts.
In the minds of the ABS founders and supporters, some of their fellow patriots were a threat to their Christian nationalist aims. One such founder was Thomas Jefferson. And yet, Fea notes in a History News Network article, David Barton and today’s Christian nationalists want to make Jefferson one of them.
According to Fea, the ABS founders would not recognize the Jefferson conjured up by Barton. Fea writes:
In the early nineteenth-century, the building of a Christian republic meant opposing Thomas Jefferson. Today, this no longer seems to be the case. In fact, some Christian nationalists believe that Jefferson and his legacy are actually useful in their ongoing argument that the founding fathers of the United States set out to forge a Christian country.
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Fellow Patheos blogger Fred Clark (Slacktivist) is worried for Messiah College prof John Fea and me. He says:
But I’m worried for both of them. Specifically, I’m worried because this is an election year and that means that the ever-shifting goalposts of the white evangelical tribal gatekeepers may well shift between now and November. Depending on the outcome of the upcoming Republican presidential primary races, the bounds of theological acceptability could shift in such a way that both of these fine professors may end up on the outside looking in.
I like Fred and appreciate his blog so his post deserves attention and I encourage you to read it. I appreciate his kind words and positive assessment of my work here.
He’s worried because Ted Cruz is doing well in the polls. Cruz is supported in no small way by David Barton. Barton appears to be Cruz’s evangelical endorsement broker and runs one of Cruz’s Super PACs. Both John and I have written in honest terms about Barton’s revisions of American history as well as his problems with more current events (e.g., Barton’s claim that Obama’s administration has not prosecuted child porn).
Fred thinks we may be in some jeopardy since we both teach at conservative Christian schools. I sincerely appreciate his concern. In a day when Wheaton College is moving against a tenured professor for her religious beliefs, I guess it looks like anything can happen. From http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist
Fea thinks he is ok, and I suspect he is right. I feel pretty confident that I am in good shape as well. I am not a stranger to efforts to silence me by pressuring my employer, it has happened on more than one occasion before, coming from both the far right and the left. Grove City College’s leadership has leaned on academic freedom as a value and I keep on writing. While I take nothing for granted, I have appreciated GCC’s stance on these matters through the years.
Leaving aside our employers, I think Clark sees something real when he discusses “the ever-shifting goalposts of the white evangelical tribal gatekeepers.” A Cruz win would shift the party dramatically toward the Christian dominionist view of the world. Although I consider myself generally conservative, many in the far right consider me to be a moderate. I honestly think Ronald Reagan would be considered a moderate in today’s GOP.
Having said that, I think John and I are fine. I have already gone on record as saying Cruz isn’t a good choice for the GOP. I will say that even if he turns out to be the GOP’s choice.
And besides, if something does happen and I have to start another life, Clark says I have potential to make a switch:
Throckmorton can be a tenacious pitbull when he sniffs out a story. Check out his ongoing series examining financial irregularities at the mission agency Gospel for Asia — it’s an impressive, dogged pursuit of answers to important questions. In another life, Throckmorton would have made a fearsome investigative journalist.
Recently I have been in conversation with some Christian conservatives who have decades of experience as Christian Right insiders. These Christians are growing more and more concerned about Barton’s views of the American past and are worried that they have been sold a bill of goods when it comes to their understanding of the American founding. Stay tuned.
Several months ago, I heard similar rumblings but then Barton started appearing at various conservative events and now he is picked to run the Cruz PACs. So it is hard to tell which conservatives are feeling they have been “sold a bill of goods.”
And the “bill of goods” isn’t just about “America’s founding.” It is about HIV/AIDS, PTSD, crime rates, Obama’s record on prosecuting child porn, Obama’s Thanksgiving proclamations, and Barton’s own NCAA basketball career.
Staying tuned. In fact, I’ve been tuned for about three years. Not sure what is taking so long.
Paul Harvey today seemed to rejoin the fray. That’s good.
