Barton and Barna: If We Don't Do Something We Didn't Do Before, We're Doomed

And so it begins. The hype for George Barna and David Barton’s new book, U-Turn will be familiar to anyone who is aware of the Christian nationalist pitch. Charisma “News” has the story, which is really an ad for the book:

The United States became a unique, prosperous and admired nation because of its faith in God and the willingness of the people to abide by God’s standards and principles. Over time, however, the urge to glorify oneself rather than God has seriously eroded the strength and potential of the nation.
Based on shocking new research and compelling interviews, FrontLine’s newly released book, U-Turn, combines George Barna’s and David Barton’s unique insights and cultural analysis to demonstrate the moral and spiritual underpinnings that made the United States great, its decline over the past forty years and a detailed road map for the future.

How can America right the ship?

“Unless we invite God to be at the center of our process and operate in strict accordance with His principles, we are doomed to continue our downward slide,” Barna and Barton write. “Because He has proven Himself to be a merciful ruler, though, if we will humble ourselves before Him, there is hope. U-Turn will describe the radical action Americans must take in partnership with God to restore the nation.”

There is nothing new about this. This is the same Christian nationalist doctrine Barton has pushed for decades. Unless we do something we didn’t do before — make Christian doctrine the “center of our process” — then we are doomed as a nation. This simplistic prescription is based on a tendentious reading of history which is nothing new for Barton. For instance, Barton says the Constitution quotes the Bible verbatim. This, of course, is not true but is consistent with the faulty reading of history Barton wants us to believe. If he can get us to believe we once had the evangelical God at the “center of our process” and once self-consciously operated “in strict accordance with His principles,” then Barton has leverage to press these concepts today as political objectives.
When it comes to Barton’s status as an historian, Charisma probably hopes that the public has a short memory. The Charisma News piece neglects to mention The Jefferson Lies which was pulled from publication by Thomas Nelson in 2012.

Two Years Ago David Barton’s The Jefferson Lies Was Pulled From The Shelves

Two years ago today, Tommy Kidd was on the case, reporting for World Magazine that Thomas Nelson ceased publication and distribution of David Barton’s book The Jefferson Lies.

Eventually Barton claimed that the book would be republished by Glenn Beck’s Simon & Schuster imprint. However, currently there is no second edition.

World featured an online debate of sorts involving my Getting Jefferson Right co-author Michael Coulter, The Masters College historian Gregg Frazer and me on one side and Barton on the other.

I’ll present some of this work in Pepperdine University next month at the Conference on Faith and History.

Nice Review of Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President

This was a pleasure to see:

Excellent Rebuttal of David Barton’s inappropriately named book, “The Jefferson Lies.”, March 12, 2014
This book saved me the trouble of rebutting David Barton’s book, “The Jefferson Lies.” The authors supply the reader with the missing words of Thomas Jefferson. They also supply information from Jefferson’s time to provide background. David Barton is so intent on making all Founders agree with his ideas of what belief in God, the Bible, and Christianity entails that he “cuts and pastes” their writings to suit his needs. It is not enough for Barton that there were Founders who believed as Barton does. He cannot accept that some Founders, like Jefferson and John Adams beliefs were unorthodox to Barton’s faith. Jefferson in an Oct. 19 letter to William short footnotes all that he disbelieves about Christianity and Jesus. These include the virgin birth, deification, miracles, resurrection, ascension, trinity, corporeal presence in the Eucharist, original sin, atonement, election (pre-destination).
Bruce Braden, Editor of “Ye Will Say I Am No Christian: The Thomas Jefferson/John Adams Correspondence on Religion, Morals, and Values.”

Still wondering when Barton’s second edition of The Jefferson Lies is coming out. We’re ready when it does. For now, one can pick up Getting Jefferson Right at a bargain price at Amazon.
Not sure if the stars will ever align properly, but if they do, I would like to do a similar book on John Adams.

A Year Ago Thomas Nelson Lost Confidence in The Jefferson Lies

This week a year ago, Thomas Nelson publishers pulled David Barton’s book The Jefferson Lies from publication. As I recall, I first learned of the event from Tennessean reporter Bob Smietana who called me to ask for comment. I think the first to get it on the web was probably Thomas Kidd at World Magazine on August 9. The news broke the day after a major NPR expose on Barton’s historical claims. A day before that World posted an article citing Jay Richards and others who had raised concerns about The Jefferson Lies. There were many stories at the time on the removal of the book, an event which Thomas Nelson described as “extremely rare.”
Two of the stories World did on the constroversy (David Barton Controversy – #3; Lost Confidence – #5) were in World’s top 25 news stories for 2012.  In the aftermath, World magazine hosted a debate of sorts involving Barton, Glenn Frazer, Michael Coulter and me.
Another surprising source of coverage was The Blaze, Glenn Beck’s web presence. Without taking sides, Billy Hallowell made a good effort to present our concerns about Barton’s claims, and then allowed Barton to respond.  The Blaze also did two webcasts, the first with Barton and then with us. In the end, Beck allowed Barton to present his claims unanswered on his television broadcast. Since we were not invited to rebut those claims on the air, we addressed them in a  series of posts here (on Jefferson and slavery, part 1; Jefferson and slavery, part 2; Jefferson and slavery, part 3; Jefferson and the Bible, part 4; Jefferson and the Bible, part 5).  As I post these links, I notice that Beck’s network has removed some of the Barton videos.
Since then, a few Christian groups have reviewed Barton’s materials and made edits or ceased using his materials. Most notably, Family Research Council made Barton’s Capitol Tour video private on YouTube. Barton then made audio edits to the video to repair some of the errors and posted the edited version on his Wallbuilders’ account without explanation.
The Barton controversy continues to expose the gulf between evangelical scholarship and evangelical participation in the culture war. Just recently, Barton incorrectly said that out of 60,000 professors, just four criticized his book. He also said that “Christian professors were basically trained by pagan professors who hate God, and they’re just repeating what they’re been told.” Over the past year, Barton and his defenders have portrayed critics as academic elites who are using the strategies of Hitler and Alinsky. All because evangelical academics want to get the facts right.
For evangelicals to truly defend religious liberty and retake some moral high ground, there must be a truce in the war between culture warriors and evangelical scholars. Academics shouldn’t be judged by the academic cover they give to culture war talking points or icons. Nobody is really fooled anyway, and increasingly, younger people are just checking out. Hopefully, the ripples have not stopped rippling and there are more important lessons to learn from the controversy over The Jefferson Lies.

David Barton Says 4 Professors Criticized The Jefferson Lies; He Forgot Some

Facts are pesky.
On July 19, Steve Deace interviewed David Barton (at 24:12 in hour 3) in Iowa after the big political confab there with Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. Deace asked Barton to describe the controversy over The Jefferson Lies (now approaching a year ago). He also asked if there was any substance to the criticism.
Barton said a bunch of stuff he usually says about it (e.g., publisher Thomas Nelson got scared of the scary professors, etc.). Then he said:

You’ve got about 6,000 universities in America and they found four professors who criticized what I did. Well, 6,000 universities, you probably have 60,000 professors and they found four who didn’t like it.

Well, we all know who two of them are. But just four? I think he forgot some. Last August, World Magazine reported that Jay Richards assembled 10 Christian professors who expressed a negative response to the book.  Then there was Clay Jenkinson, and Martin Marty, and John Fea, and Paul Harvey, and Regent University’s Chuck Dunn, and Greg Forster, and Gregg Frazer and Steven Green. And then there were the 650 voters in the History News Network poll who helped Barton squeak out the Least Credible History Book in Print designation, just beating out Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States.” Then more recently, 34 Christian history and social science professors approached Family Research Council about the Capitol Tour video (which FRC removed from view due to the errors).
Please note that most of the people referred to in this post are evangelical Christians.
Christian publisher Thomas Nelson’s reasons for pulling the book were expressed in World’s report:

The publisher “was contacted by a number of people expressing concerns about [The Jefferson Lies].” The company began to evaluate the criticisms, Harrell said, and “in the course of our review learned that there were some historical details included in the book that were not adequately supported. Because of these deficiencies we decided that it was in the best interest of our readers to stop the publication and distribution.”

Need to refresh your memory? See the World coverage here and here
UPDATE: Readers have reminded me of some additional historian/professors who have had negative things to say about The Jefferson Lies. Let’s add Daniel Dreisbach, Kevin Gutzman, and James Stoner, and Miles Mullin and John David Wilsey and Randall J. Stephens and Karl W. Giberson

P.S. He still is completely botching the Jefferson Bible…
P.P.S. Are you a professor? Email or tweet to add your name, or leave your name in the comments.
English prof Jeff Sharlet and Religious Studies prof Julie Ingersoll have added their names to the “four.”
Add History professors Jared Burkholder, Jay Case, Brenda Schoolfield, Keith Beutler, Joseph Moore, Scott Culpepper, Bobby Griffith, Paul Fessler, Jason Dikes, Chris Gehrz, Chris Cantwell, Jonathan Wilson, Alan Snyder, Glenn Sunshine, Philip Perdue, and Rachel Larson, and also Religious Studies profs Michael J. Altman and P.C. Kemeny to the list of profs. Independent historian Michael Miles concurs.
Glad to add Yoni Appelbaum, GCC colleague Dan Brown (the entire GCC history dept is included in the 34 profs who wrote to FRC), math prof Sharon McCathern, Environmental Ethics prof Bron Taylor and English prof Steve Roberts.
UPDATE: Steve Deace posted my rebuttal to Barton.