World magazine breaks the story about conservative Christians who view David Barton of Wallbuilders as an embarrassment. The focus of the current controversy is Barton’s new book on Jefferson. My friend Jay Richards doesn’t mince words; he says this book and Barton’s other books and videos are full of “embarrassing factual errors, suspiciously selective quotes, and highly misleading claims.”
I’m not a scholar of Thomas Jefferson, but I am a scholar of John Locke. Barton has an article about Locke on his website, so I thought I’d weigh in with my opinion on whether it matches Jay’s description of Barton’s methods. It does, and then some.
I should note for the record that I’m not only a conservative (both theologically, as an evangelical, and politically, as a Republican) but one with a track record of defending Locke against claims that he was a deist or that his philosophy is antithetical to Christianity. As providence would have it, just over a week ago I published an article on how Locke’s Reasonableness helped me come to faith in Jesus Christ.
Yet Barton’s attempt to fit Locke into his larger historical narrative forces him into numerous distortions. Moreover, the article contains a number of incidental facutal errors that don’t even advance his thesis, indicating that his inability to write reliable history stretches beyond ideological cheerleading and into outright incompetence.
Specifically:
1) Barton: “One of Locke’s earliest writings was his 1660 ‘First Tract of Government’ followed by his 1662 ‘Second Tract of Government.’ Neither was published at that time, but they later appeared in 1689 as his famous Two Treatises of Government.”
The Tracts and the Treatises are different works. Far more embarrassing for Barton, they actually defend opposite positions! In the Tracts, Locke offers a Hobbesian argument that state authority should trump individual claims to liberty, especially in religion. Needless to say, Locke had a total change of heart between the writing of the Tracts and the Treatises. The late 1660s seem to have been a period of rapid change in his thinking.
2) Barton: “Locke . . . saw many of his principles enacted into policy during the rule of Lord Cromwell . . .”
Cromwell ruled 1653-1658; Locke’s first known writings on government, the aforementioned Two Tracts, were written after Cromwell’s death, and weren’t circulated outside Oxford that we know of until their rediscovery in the 20th century. Moreover, Locke was a strong royalist partisan during his time at Oxford in large part due to his detestation of Cromwell and the republicans, whom he viewed as turbulent religious fanatics. I think it would be difficult to find a ruler whose “policy” was more hostile to Locke’s “principles” than Cromwell; it’s not much of a stretch to say Locke supported the rebellion against James II largely because he saw James as a Catholic version of Cromwell – a man willing to tear apart the fabric of society out of loyalty to a narrow-minded religious enthusiasm.
3) Barton: “Locke . . . argued for a separation of the state from the church . . .”
Locke advocated religious toleration but not a separation of the state from the church. He supported the state-run, tax-funded Anglican church; he argued that those who dissented should be free to practice their own religions in their own churches, but not that the state should not run a church.
4) Barton: “In his Reasonableness of Christianity, Locke urged the Church of England to reform itself so as to allow inclusion of members from other Christian denominations – i.e., the Dissenters. He recommended that the Church place its emphasis on the major things of Christianity (such as an individual’s relationship with Jesus Christ) rather than on lesser things (such as liturgy, church hierarchy and structure, and form of discipline).”
None of these issues is discussed in the Reasonableness. The book does not even discuss the church of England, much less advocate reforms to its policy. Most of the book is exegesis of scripture; some of it is history and moral philosophy. To the extent that it has implications for church membership, they tell strongly against Barton’s thesis (see #7 below).
5) Barton: “Locke’s defense evoked strong criticism from rationalists, thus causing him to pen two additional works defending the reasonableness of Christianity.”
Locke was (and still is) welcomed as an ally by theological rationalists. The Reasonableness was (and still is) attacked by theological conservatives; Locke wrote his two “vindications” of the Reasonableness in response to the conservative John Edwards, who attacked Locke’s theology as rationalistic in a book entitled Socinianism Unmasked.
6) Barton quotes Locke as saying “[L]aws human must be made according to the general laws of Nature, and without contradiction to any positive law of Scripture, otherwise they are ill made.” However, in the footnotes he admits that Locke was “quoting Hooker’s Eccl. Pol. 1. iii, sect. 9.” Admittedly, Locke quotes Hooker without indicating any disagreement, but to portray Hooker’s words as Locke’s is still irresponsible. If Locke never said himself, in his own words, in all his hundreds of pages of writing about government, that human laws must not contradict scripture, that fact is worth noting. I’m not aware of his ever having said it. And in fact there is evidence Locke entertained doubts about the inerrancy of some parts of scripture, so it’s far from clear whether he really owned Hooker’s position here.
7) Barton’s discussion of Locke’s relationship to deism, and the theological attacks against him in his own time, makes no mention of the fact that Locke fought hard for the position that people could be saved in Jesus while denying the Incarnation, the Trinity and the Atonement. In Locke’s time that would have been a reference to Socinians and deists. Supporting this “latitudinarian” view of salvation was one of the primary motives of the Reasonableness, and it was on these grounds Edwards and others accused Locke of being a Socinian rationalist. Many interpretations of these facts are possible; Locke was certainly not a deist, and I believe there’s a strong case to be made that the charges of Socinianism and rationalism were overblown and that Locke does not deserve to be called a “forerunner of deism.” However, his influence was crucial to normalizing the presence of deism in Anglican theological discourse and the eventual admission of deists to Anglican membership. Not to even mention the key issues here, and to portray anyone who takes the other side as dishonest or ideologically blinkered, is supremely irresponsible. And in any event Barton has the camps backwards; in our time as in Locke’s time, it’s generally the conservative Christians who attack Locke’s theology and the liberals, rationalists, and secularists who defend it.
August 8th, 2012 | 3:47 pm
[...] article by Greg Forster is an absolutely devastating critique of David Barton’s writing on John Locke. Forster leads [...]
August 8th, 2012 | 5:09 pm
Ouch.
I must admit I am not familiar with David Barton, but in looking at the linked page, it seems to suffer from a kind of “proof texting” approach to a question. Just look for some quotes that support your position and lay them out as if this is an analysis. If only things were that simple.
August 8th, 2012 | 6:54 pm
National Public Radio has a story on the controversy involving David Barton this evening on “All Things Considered.”
It’s located here:
http://www.npr.org/2012/08/08/157754542/the-most-influential-evangelist-youve-never-heard-of
Wow. I have to say this is all news to me, but Barton does sound rather odd. Thomas Paine, according Barton, argued against evolution a century before Darwin wrote about it? Egads.
August 8th, 2012 | 6:56 pm
Sadly, too many of the people who see Barton on the Glenn Beck show (as resident “historian”) will remain blissfully unaware of criticisms such as yours. Thank you for the interesting piece.
August 8th, 2012 | 10:19 pm
The atheistic establishment has been “supremely irresponsible” in propagating its distortion of the meaning of “the separation of church and state.” It would be better to point that out than to criticize David Barton, who, whether he does so perfectly or not, attempts to restore the original understanding of that phrase.
If there were one boy defending the kid a gang of bullies was beating up on, to be fair in writing about that situation, you would have to do more than just describe how that one boy didn’t fight fairly. The “kid being beaten up” is the understanding of the founders of “the separation of church and state.” Whatever is wrong with the work of David Barton, there is also very much right about it. His work is much needed in our times. His is a reaction that is to be expected when a government originally founded upon theism and natural law has been slowly transformed into an atheocracy. Why criticize David Barton and let the atheistic bullies go? That is certainly easy to do, but what good does it do?
August 9th, 2012 | 12:39 am
David Barton lost all credibility when he started opening up a chain of gyms in Manhattan. His gym in Chelsea, in particular, is a temple to narcissism. I had not known he was so talented in two separate fields. He always seemed like a short, dumb, jock to me when I would see him at the gym. But appearances can be deceiving. He can bench press 300 years of American history.
August 9th, 2012 | 8:34 am
Harry
Barton’s work isn’t in any way a reasoned dialogue. He has flat out distorted and lied about facts easily checked in order to advance a Seven Mountain Agenda.
He conveniently over looks Jamestown – an expedition of commerce and not religious freedom such as the Pilgrims some 11 years later. This colony had the same temper of religious irreverence as the whole of England.
Barton has also forgot to lay out the background of European wars over religion causing decades of suffering in Europe. The First Amendment is the direct result of Crown or government required religions.
Omissions and contortions are Barton’s trade. Freedom of Religion doesn’t mean my (the Crown’s( religion or else.
August 9th, 2012 | 8:44 am
Harry:
It’s hard to make the argument that our government was founded upon theism when its operational document, the Constitution, doesn’t mention god.
August 9th, 2012 | 9:28 am
Harry – Giving bad arguments for a position may be politically useful in some senses, but people who find the flaws in the arguments are likely to dismiss the position, too.
So you should be very worried when someone puts out bad arguments for a position you agree with. And you should present good arguments for the position in question. (I gotta say, though, I haven’t seen the good stuff yet wrt to your claims…)
Atheists actually correct their compatriots when they do what Barton does, for that very reason.
August 9th, 2012 | 10:05 am
Barton is the Howard Zinn of the Right.
August 9th, 2012 | 10:24 am
I find this both fascinating and puzzling. Does anyone have a sense of the purpose behind Barton’s project? Is it that he’s trying to establish that the original meaning of the constitution is to uphold Christianity?
I can kind of see why one would try to do that. In recent years the Supreme Court has used some forms of original intent reasoning to interpret the constitution, so I suppose someone might think that making a case about the founder’s beliefs might be a way to influence constitutional interpretation.
But it’s extremely unlikely that the Supreme Court would credit the views of someone who does very sloppy work. There are historians of all stripes who have tried to influence the court but doing crazy work like this does undermine one’s credibility. There is no way that a court is going to believe this fluff.
There are real history books that demonstrate how the establishment clause was transformed over the years – Try Separation of Church and State by Philip Hamburger. It’s excellent and would probably make points that Barton would agree with (although its main point is that Protestants in the 19th century are mainly to blame for rigid separation of Church and State rhetoric, which was developed to freeze out Catholics from public roles – the Supreme Court eventually adopted this rhetoric to the chagrin of Protestants of the 20th century).
So instead it must be his goal is political, but what is that goal? To make people feel better, or get them motivated to vote, or to suggest that we should adopt certain policies? But you don’t have to make things up to do this.
Perhaps this is some kind of substitute for a social philosophy that would present a coherent view of how to order society. You could use a historical picture of a golden age as some kind of substitute for philosophy, and suggest that we should be doing what they did.
But if your picture of the past is skewed and manipulated to just create the picture you want it to be then what is the point? Why not just paint a picture of the future you want rather than some made up past?
August 9th, 2012 | 10:59 am
Sally Rogers,
I am pretty familiar with Barton’s work (his headquarters are about 45 minutes from my house). His goals are unequivocally political. And that’s where I really have problems with his work. On one hand, he readily admits that he is not a historian. But he engages in the production of work that is presented as historical in nature and as such, generally one would assume that (with rare exceptions that reflect mistakes that anyone could plausibly make) his information would checked for accuracy. But when examined closely, all kinds of factual errors turn up, oftentimes which contradict or undermine the point that he thinks he is making.
He does have a very impressive collection of early American documents that could be quite valuable to discussion of early American history if he didn’t present himself as some sort of authority.
I have sympathy with his political goals, but I just think his methodology is ethically suspect.
August 9th, 2012 | 1:34 pm
(Dunno how my link got mangled. Let’s try again: http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2012/08/05/barton-should-not-be-copied-only-scorned/ )
August 9th, 2012 | 1:34 pm
You say some interesting things–number 6 for instance. I doubt most would agree with you using that quote is irresponsible, especially Alexander Hamilton and James Wilson who used it.
Did you go to seminary? You call yourself an evangelical. If so, does the Bible teach Jesus Christ is God in human flesh, the second person in the Godhead, and if so, is belief in Original Sin mandatory for salvation, given without it there is no incarnation, and if no incarnation, no Deity? It isn’t that Locke is neutral on Original Sin, he accepts it is clearly taught in Scripture, but rejects it.
August 9th, 2012 | 1:45 pm
oft: Using the quote is not irresponsible. Portraying the words as Locke’s words when they are Hooker’s words is. Clearly Barton wants his readers to come away thinking these are Locke’s words.
My own beliefs are not really relevant to the discussion of Barton’s use of Locke, but for the record, yes the Bible teaches Jesus is God and man, and so forth. I believe in the atonement, incarnation, original sin, etc. as understood by historic Christianity.
As for what beliefs are “mandatory for salvation,” I prefer to stick to scripture to determine that. Where there is clear biblical warrant for saying that you can’t be saved if you don’t believe X, we must affirm that. Where there isn’t, we should be more cautious laying down such pronouncements. I can see clear biblical warrant for saying that belief in the incarnation is necessary for salvation (in John’s epistles, for example) so I disagree with Locke on that point. As for original sin, I don’t see as clear a warrant for saying you can’t be saved if you’re not on board for that. C.S. Lewis didn’t believe in original sin as historically understood by Christianity, either (see his chapter on this in The Problem of Pain) and his view of the atonement is probably unorthodox as well, though it’s a little fuzzy (see the chapter in Mere Christianity).
It’s important to remember that Locke clearly distinguished between what he personally believed and what beliefs he thought were necessary to salvation. He said (though not in the Reasonableness) that he did believe in the atonement; he just thought people could be saved without believing in it.
I don’t agree with your reading of Locke on original sin. Where do you find Locke saying that the doctrine of original sin is taught in the Bible? Certainly not in the Reasonableness, in which he argues that all his positions are from scripture (the title of the book is The Reasonableness of Christianity as Delivered in the Scriptures, after all).
August 9th, 2012 | 2:57 pm
Sally @ 10:59:
I listened to Barton in a radio interview say that his goal is to turn American back to its Christian roots, however one may quantify that. He pushes the dubious educational theory that teaching school children about Christian founders etc. will acoomplish that task. Its sort of a Christian version of the progressive idea that dredging up obscure minority or female historical actors will enhance the sell esteem and academic performance of minorities and females.
August 9th, 2012 | 3:03 pm
I assume that his work on original intent is to justify bringing back prayer in public schools. Of course, America has changed since the 18th century. If we returned religion to control of the states, we might get Baptist prayers here in Georgia, Catholic prayers in Connecticut, Mormon prayers in Utah, and Wicca prayers in California. I don’t know if Barton would be comfortable with that. (Sorry about the poor typing and proofing in my first reply; I am multitasking here at the keyboard, and not very successfully at that).
August 9th, 2012 | 3:21 pm
Im a Southern Baptist (it’s okay, I’m okay with it) who has a PhD in history (I focused on reconstruction era issues.) The pastor of our church began harping on David Barton about the time he got on Glenn Beck’s show. We were told that Barton was, time and time again, bringing America back to its “Christ centered” foundations. After reading a couple of his pieces and one of his books I had to take our pastor out to lunch to show him the errors in Barton.
For anyone with a master’s level history degree this stuff is obvious. I’m not certain why…no actually I completely understand why so many evangelicals are taken with him. He projects confidence and talks using codewords that appeal to evangelicals. But he’s a hack. My pastor didn’t respond well to my reasoned questioning of Barton. He ignored me for about three months. Finally I guess he read the paper I put together and heard some other stuff.
These kinds of people are scary. They incite waves of followers but have no credibility. It’s like this Truth Project video series from Focus on the Family, scary anti-intellectual, anti-thought stuff.
August 9th, 2012 | 3:29 pm
[...] Political philosopher Greg Forster, an expert on John Locke, decided to take a look at one of Barton’s essays on Locke and found it to be filled with errors. [...]
August 9th, 2012 | 3:46 pm
I went to a Catholic school and we prayed every day, went to Mass every week, had religion class. It was great and I do think it added a great deal to my education.
Why don’t Protestants concentrate on building their own schools so they can do whatever they want with prayer and bible reading? Catholic immigrants who were extremely poor built a huge and successful school system with absolutely zero money from the government, so I would think Protestants could do the same if they wanted to.
In many cities, Catholics continue to subsidize parochial schools for inner city kids who can’t afford to pay for them, even though there are no Catholic kids going to the schools and no Catholics at the parishes where the schools were built. Protestants could do the same for poor inner-city schools and make an incredible contribution by doing likewise.
It would make no difference what John Locke thinks about anything if people were to adopt this strategy.
August 9th, 2012 | 4:26 pm
Greg,
The contention, of Hamilton et al., is they are Locke’s words because he uses them without condtions, so it’s assumed he adhered to it.
Without dragging this on endlessly, Scripture is clear, assent to the vicarious blood atonement of Christ for Sin is a fundamental to salvation. Where does Locke affirm Christ’s blood atones for Sin? It seems to me, Locke believed God’s mercy is applied to someone by faith in Christ’s death–in that sense only.
You could be correct about Original Sin not as a fundamental to salvation, but Locke denying Christ’s satisfaction pertaining to judgment is what throws him off, “wherein not only he [Adam], but all his posterity was so involved, that every one descended of him deserved endless torment, in hell-fire. I shall say nothing more here, how far, in the apprehensions of men, this consists with the justice and goodness of God”
He missed the biblical mandate. Judgment is the issue. If God doesn’t eternally judge sin, He takes part in it, and can’t be Holy, and has no justification to punish Satan. Scripture is clear, blood atones for Sin.
No one knows for sure if he was truely saved, because we don’t know what he truely rejected–the heat was on him, and he had to dodge all the bullets. Not a very good testimony.
August 9th, 2012 | 4:46 pm
oft:
Locke writes in a letter that Christ’s death made satisfaction to the father for sin. I cited it in my book and can go look it up if you want the reference.
I agree that Locke generally does not do good theology. I just don’t see what that has to do with the subject of my post.
August 9th, 2012 | 5:11 pm
If Barton really wanted to contradict secular inaccuracies about the founders, he would admit Jefferson’s deism, while pointing out that his staunchest ally was Patrick Henry, among the most fervently religious Christians of them. There are some with an agenda who do make claims to suit that agenda on the opposite side of Barton, such as the claim that Washington was a deist (there’s some evidence of this, but quite a lot to the contrary). But that does not vindicate this ridiculousness.
August 9th, 2012 | 5:53 pm
I think most Americans can learn a lot of interesting things from David Barton, and many can be double-checked and verified. Naturally, since he is an evangelical Christian, or a Protestant, his belief will be somewhat different and fuzzy, but that is the nature of Unites States — it is a country founded by Protestants, Deists, etc. Works of Hillaire Belloc are quite enlightening in this respect, his Survivals and New Arrivals, or any of his books describing Reformation and Protestantism. (Overall Belloc is a profound historian and thinker, and he was quite familiar with United States — he married a Californian.)
As far as scholarly errors or mistakes or “sloppiness”— those are a real danger for anybody who engages is such pursuits. Mistakes happen, there isn’t enough time to follow each and every reference to its very end, there is wishful thinking, selective quotes and opinions in most scholarly works, etc. (This is what Belloc was also afraid of and that is why he often withheld references, despite the criticism of others in this respect.) Hopefully David Barton will respond to this scholarly criticism, because, honestly, most of us can only take it on “faith” of one or the other side. Most people aren’t experts either and they don’t have time to follow through each convoluted point of criticism with multiple complex references. What matters to most non-experts is that the overall picture and ideas presented by somebody be consistent and clear in what they are trying to present.
BTW, Sally Rogers, if you understood what Darwinian evolution is really about, you wouldn’t be so surprised. There was criticism of evolution way before Darwin. Ever since Empedocles wrote a poem about “love and strife” in nature, his controversial notion of useful random combinations criticized by Aristotle was warmly adopted by poets like Lucretius, and waxing poetic about evolution became a favorite dream of atheists, including Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus Darwin (evolution based on “lust, hunger and security”), by whose ideas Charles Darwin was certainly inspired.
August 9th, 2012 | 6:03 pm
Greg,
I stand by my response to number 6–the framers quoted Locke, citing Hooker.
I would like the reference because, as you say, Locke believed “death made satisfaction for sin.” That isn’t biblical. It is specifically, blood that atones for Sin, and the man had to be God to carry that out. So Locke had to believe Jesus was God, which no one claims he did.
August 9th, 2012 | 7:50 pm
Sorry to keep asking about this, but I honestly cannot understand the nature of this whole controversy. I majored in history in college, and I have to say I found his web site to be laughable in its over-simplifications and Barton’s denigration of people who bother to get an education.
But the main question I have is “why is this guy doing this?” Is it just to make a buck, or does he have some kind of larger goal?
Why would anyone care what Tom Paine thought about some old theory of evolution based on a poem by Empedocoles (assuming this is what he was talking about)? Of what relevance are his thoughts on the matter? Is Tom Paine taken as some kind of authority on evolution?
I just don’t get the point of the things Barton wishes to establish as true.
There is lots of very good research on how the Christian intellectual tradition worked out the ideas upon which the rule of law, limited government, respect for human dignity, and representative democracy are founded. Western civilization is a product of Christianity, and there are hundreds of good books exploring this topic. None of this research, to my knowledge, turns on Tom Paine’s views on evolution, Thomas Jefferson’s beliefs about religion, or John Locke’s understanding of the atonement.
Let’s say all the assertions made by Barton are absolutely 100% true and present the most complete picture of the thought of the founders. What difference would it make?
August 9th, 2012 | 7:52 pm
Delighted to help, even if I don’t share your theological methodology.
In the Reasonableness, Locke describes Jesus as a “mediator between God and man” (paragraph 233) and says that Jesus’ mission was “laying down his life for others” (paragraph 176). In private papers, he describes Jesus’ death as a “payment” for human sin that “satisfied” God’s justice, “a full and satisfactory ransom for our sins” (quoted by John Higgins-Biddle in the introduction to the 1999 Clarendon edition of the Reasonableness, p. lxxii).
Have fun!
August 9th, 2012 | 9:48 pm
Ouch. If I ever get my book finished, I’ll have Warren go over it BEFORE publication, not after!
August 9th, 2012 | 11:05 pm
“I doubt most would agree with you using that quote is irresponsible, especially Alexander Hamilton and James Wilson who used it.”
OFT: Please remind us with quotations to Hamilton’s and Wilson’s writings where they used this exact Locke quoting Hooker passage referenced above.
August 10th, 2012 | 6:03 am
[...] despite his claims to being an "historical expert," Barton tends to make sloppy, factual errors and extrapolations that are wholly unsupportable. For instance, he claims the U.S. Constitution is [...]
August 10th, 2012 | 7:24 am
Does anybody really think the contemporary understanding of “the separation of church and state” is that of the Founders? Where are the writings of the founders that justify the contemporary hostility to theism by the state? It will be news to some that the phrase “separation of church and state” doesn’t even appear in the Constitution anywhere.
If such harsh criticism of David Barton is warranted, then volumes of criticism of atheism’s perversion of the thought of the Founders is warranted. Where is that criticism? How can there be God-given, unalienable rights under atheism, which gives mere mortals authority over humanity that no mere mortal can wield without being corrupted, and which always leads to idiocy like mere mortals claiming for themselves the authority to sanction the killing of innocent human beings? Please note that every regime in modern history that has been hostile to theism has also been fatal to innocent human beings by the millions.
This silence regarding atheism’s perversion of the government established by the Founders, but much noise-making regarding the flaws in the works of David Barton, is quite mysterious. I would expect better of First Things commentators. David Barton has something very important to say in spite of the imperfections in the delivery of his message.
August 10th, 2012 | 8:36 am
[...] “David Barton’s Errors” by Greg [...]
August 10th, 2012 | 8:49 am
[...] Wednesday, Dr. Greg Forster of the Kern Family Foundation and the Acton Institute posted a blog on First Things discussing Barton’s treatment of John Locke. Forster is a Locke scholar, and the results aren’t [...]
August 10th, 2012 | 10:24 am
David Barton lost all credibility when he started opening up a chain of gyms in Manhattan.
I don’t know whether Giuseppe was being facetious or not, but David Barton the author and David Barton the gym owner are two different people!
August 10th, 2012 | 11:11 am
“This silence regarding atheism’s perversion of the government established by the Founders, but much noise-making regarding the flaws in the works of David Barton, is quite mysterious.”
Fair enough, one should question how our nation came to be so different from the way it was during the founding generation.
I would say it’s a very complicated story, involving many changes in both the make-up of our country (we are more diverse) and different understandings of the role of government in the face of new challenges that the founders didn’t face – the civil war, industrialization, and the huge economic development of our country.
The 14th amendment passed after the civil war, and designed in response to the ending of slavery is sometimes called the second founding because it so fundamentally altered our form of government, including the equal protections clause and a much larger role for the federal government in regulating how the states govern.
All these things took time and unfolded gradually in response to new problems and new ways of thinking about things. It’s not like a group of atheists wrote some books about the founders and changed our country, or that we can reverse this course by writing a few more books asserting things that aren’t really true about the founders.
If you want to know particularly how our First Amendment understanding of the Establishment Clause changed, there are several good books (the one by Hamburger I mentioned above). It certainly is a mess to try to unwind the various theories the court uses, but the basic thing they say they say they are trying to achieve is neutrality – no government endorsement, entanglement, coercion, or discrimination against religion. Obviously these goals are hard to pursue at the same time (does it discriminate against religion to refuse to endorse it?) and I often disagree with how they come out.
There are various ways to try to influence better ways of interpreting the constitution but doing bad scholarship and misinformation are not helpful. The reality is that the founders really weren’t perfect. They did a great job with some things and a not so great job with other things, just as we do today.
August 10th, 2012 | 11:29 am
Sally Rogers,
To your main question — “Why is this guy doing this?” — Yes, David Barton, Glenn Beck, the Tea Party and all the real American conservatives do have a goal or goals — they want to restore America and make it compatible again with the spirit and the principles of the Founding Fathers, because that is the system or a country which is still admired by pretty much every other country in the world as the best possible political compromise in the history of mankind! By conservative I mean G. K. Chesterton’s definition — conservative is a person who is trying to conserve and protect what if right and good, and thus s/he opposes what is wrong. A good way to learn about this agenda is to watch Glenn Beck’s programs while he was still with the FOX, search Youtube and the web. There were some really eye opening programs, including David Barton’s frequent appearances.
If Barton is denigrating the standard public school or college education, he is not the only one — so did Belloc, Chesterton and other Catholic thinkers. Like many others, likely you didn’t get your money’s worth, so you have a lot of reading and self-education to do if you really want to know.
Indeed, our Western civilization is a product of Christianity, it is dying and in real danger, and with its passing the nature of the Catholic Church will also be severely affected. I am not sure how much time there is to save it or restore it, of if it even can be saved and restored, but in my opinion the best and the most poignant Catholic historians are Belloc, Chesterton (his Short history of England is eye opening, see http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/), and Christopher Dawson to start with.
You are right Paine, Jefferson, Locke and many others are not some crucial cornerstones and perfect thinkers, each is full of errors and contradictions as well, like most Protestant intellectuals, but they had something important to say in their time and some of their ideas were instrumental in forming the world which we have inherited. The problem is to find out which ideas are right and which are wrong. Evolution is a very influential idea in modern history, it is inherent in everything today, but it has been around for a long time, and I just wanted to point out that there was evolution debate and criticism long before Darwin’s unrealistic mechanistic version of this idea appeared. In fact, a good history of evolution hasn’t been written yet.
August 10th, 2012 | 1:27 pm
[...] decision to pull the book has to do with conservative Christian criticism of the book—with the work of those who crossed the lines of the culture war because of a greater loyalty to truth than tribe. [...]
August 10th, 2012 | 3:59 pm
[...] treatment of the facts of history, not just his interpretation of those facts, are under fire. Greg Forster points out seven glaring historical errors, such as getting historical dates [...]
August 10th, 2012 | 4:05 pm
Thanks for exposing the truth. Barton has been doing this for so many years I imagine someone could start a website committed to exposing his errors. And I write this as a conservative Christian who agrees with him that America has a more godly heritage than many secular historians would have us believe.
I really hope Barton will humbly open himself to correction. I fear he will not. Here’s why I think he won’t: http://pastorbrett.wordpress.com/2012/08/10/what-david-barton-should-do-but-he-probably-wont-and-ill-tell-you-why/
August 10th, 2012 | 5:41 pm
Harry,
“This silence regarding atheism’s perversion of the government established by the Founders, but much noise-making regarding the flaws in the works of David Barton, is quite mysterious.”
I wonder why you are so attracted to bad history. This is the second or third time you have praised the virtues of bad historical tracts not because you believe their accounts but because you like their conclusions. Somehow, winning the culture war is more important to you than adhering to the truth.
August 10th, 2012 | 7:59 pm
[...] in “David Barton’s Errors,” Greg Forster, a scholar of John Locke and religion, went through Barton’s references to [...]
August 11th, 2012 | 7:31 am
A few thoughts on the very nature and purpose of government are in order, and might be helpful in understanding the necessity and importance of David Barton’s work.
Humanity preceded the state and brought it into existence. Humanity had God-given, inalienable rights before the existence of the state and continues to possess them. When Caesar claims to have the authority to sanction the killing of innocent human beings, it is time for humanity to knock Caesar off his high horse and put him in his place, reminding him that it is not his to bestow or withdraw the inalienable rights of humanity; it is his only to protect them. That is, of course, because those rights are just that — inalienable — they didn’t come from the state, and the very reason humanity brings the state into being is to protect those rights.
In the 19th century America corrected its unfaithfulness to the principles set forth in its Declaration of Independence; slavery was ended and the states explicitly and officially acknowledged the intrinsic illegality of taking the life of the the child in the womb.
Things changed in the 20th century as our founding principles were rejected by atheistic government, which is not and can never be neutral, although it pretends to be. It can only be hostile to theism and its claim that there is an authority above even the state. Inevitably atheistic government ends with mere mortals claiming god-like authority for themselves that seems to always be fatal to some innocent segment of the human family. When the U.S. Supreme Court withdrew the protection of law from the child in the womb, it struck down not only state laws enacted by the elected representatives of the people, it also officially struck down government based on the principles of the Founders.
That is not hyperbole. That is a fact. According to the Guttmacher Institute, in the United States, 1.5% of abortions are at 21 weeks or after. There have been well over 50 million abortions in the U.S. since Roe. That is at least 750,000 late 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions where children clearly recognizable as just that were murdered. Taking innocent human life at any stage of its development is gravely wrong, but you can show even a small child a picture of an unborn child at 21 weeks or later and they will know it is a baby, and say so if asked, “What is that?” History will record this blatant murder of children as an exercise in inexcusable, vicious brutality brought about by the atheistic government that replaced that of the Founders.
David Barton reminds us of America’s founding principles, of which we must be cognizant if we are going to restore America’s goodness and greatness. The lives of millions of innocent human beings are entirely dependent upon our doing so.
August 11th, 2012 | 9:27 am
[...] Greg Forster, First Things, David Barton’s Errors [...]
August 11th, 2012 | 9:30 am
[...] have a bit more to say about David Barton’s fall, but for now: turns out that Barton’s not much better on John Locke than he is on Locke’s intellectual descendant, Thomas [...]
August 11th, 2012 | 11:40 am
Gary North makes a compelling argument that the US Constitution was a coup d’etat by a cabal of political Unitarians (folks who, despite personal piety, deplored the application of Christianity to public life) who met for one stated purpose, then did something else. They offered us a new national covenant, one made in the name of a new deity — “We, the people” — i.e., we the bankers and our puppet politicians. The “no test oath” clause formally barred the God of the Bible from our national compact. Leaders who arose under this new covenant owed allegiance to no powers higher than themselves, or their hidden puppet masters.
In 1789, 12 of the 13 states viewed themselves as Christian social orders, and many required aspirants to civil office to formally confess faith in the God of the Bible, and the Bible of God.
Barton’s effort to redeem the US Constitution is a snipe hunt. A wild goose chase, as insane as efforts to mandate generic prayers to unspecified deities in the temples of humanism, the public school systems.
August 11th, 2012 | 9:51 pm
Harry@Aug. 10:
“Does anybody really think the contemporary understanding of “the separation of church and state” is that of the Founders?”
Most informed people agree with this statement. Certainly most historians do. That’s one way that Barton goes wrong. He confuses 20th jurisprudence with 20th century historical writing. Its the lawyers and judges who have twisted the first amendment, not the historians.
Yet he ustifies his mission by setting up a strawman and claims its the historians that have “secularized” history.
“How can there be God-given, unalienable rights under atheism . . .”
There can’t be. Maybe we should say that men are “endowed by nature with certain unalienable rights.” That way, we can call them natural rights and not supernatural rights.
Harry@Aug. 11:
“David Barton reminds us of America’s founding principles, of which we must be cognizant if we are going to restore America’s goodness and greatness. The lives of millions of innocent human beings are entirely dependent upon our doing so.”
The disgusting practice of abortion is a moral issue, not a historical one. Barton’s books about the founders, even if they were accurate, will have little impact on sexual promiscuity and abortion.
August 11th, 2012 | 10:02 pm
RJR fan @ Aug. 11:
North’s case. at least as you describe it, does not sound very compelling. The constitutional convention had plenty of unitarians, but plenty of orthodox as well. More important, the new Constitution made NO changes regarding the relationship of religion to the national government from that with existed under the original Articles of Confederation. Both our constittuions left religion questions to the states.
As to the new covenant with the deity called “the people,” well, that’s what we call a republic.
August 12th, 2012 | 8:23 am
[...] Political philosopher Greg Forster, an expert on John Locke, decided to take a look at one of Barton’s essays on Locke and found it to be filled with errors. [...]
August 12th, 2012 | 9:38 am
North’s book is interesting, albeit very contentious. His argument is more, at the federal level, by breaking the tradition of covenanting with the Triune God and replacing it with Art. VI. Cl. 3, all the while suggesting some generic (not necessarily Triune) Providence validated the system, it represented an implicit unitarianism. The fact that many of the key players in the system were secret unitarians either explicitly so (Jefferson, Franklin, J. Adams) or implicitly (Washington, Madison) solidifies the case.
August 12th, 2012 | 9:40 am
Harry,
Re abortion and history, I don’t think the American Founding stood for the proposition that life begins at conception. Rather, according to common law tradition, it began at the quickening.
August 13th, 2012 | 9:32 am
harry –
Late abortions frequently have medical reasons – nonviable pregnancies (e.g. anencephaly), or threat to the life of the mother. The proportion of late-term abortions that could potentially be called ‘murder’ is unclear.
Note: as I’ve said before, I think abortions probably should be restricted after 20 weeks, so long as medically-indicated abortions are still allowed. You can’t force someone to risk their lives for another.
August 13th, 2012 | 10:17 am
[...] been taking issue with specific claims made by Barton for some time. (See, for example, here, here, and here.) Indeed, entire books have been written in response to his [...]
August 13th, 2012 | 11:40 am
Among Barton’s errors, and one perpetuated by many revisionists, is the idea that separation of church and state is a modern, revisionist, judicial creation. In fact, the eighteenth century evangelicals who joined Jefferson and Madison in supporting religious freedom were equally adamant that such freedom requires a strict separation of church and state; mixing the two will corrupt both. Virginia’s Presbyterians and Baptists were equally adamant on this point. See my Wellspring of Liberty. That some modern courts occasionally make erroneous decisions should not obscure the historic foundations of religious liberty and separation of church and state.
August 13th, 2012 | 1:41 pm
Sometimes the framers did not quote the exact words of philosophers, but both agreed wholeheartedly with Locke and Hooker on the Scriptures.
State taxes supported Christianity in the 18th and 19th Centuries, so there was no strict separation as you mean.
The right to life is first listed in the DOI. James Wilson, speaks for the founders on the Laws of God, believed, as the others did, life begins at conception. He believed life began at conception, not at the quickening, which was only a philosophical understanding, taken from other philosophers. For example, In 1803, for example, England adopted a law known as Lord Ellenborough’s Act..The law established severe penalties for aborting infants in the first trimester as well: “…if any Person or Persons…shall procure to be used or employed, any Instrument or other Means whatsoever, with Intent thereby to cause or procure the Miscarriage of any Woman not being, or not being proved to be, quick with Child at the Time of administering…that then and in every such Case the Person or Persons so offending, their Counsellors, Aiders, and Abettors, knowing of and privy to such Offence, shall be and are hereby declared to be guilty of Felony, and shall be liable to be fined, imprisoned, set in and upon the Pillory, publickly or privately whipped. …”
Practically speaking, the framers believed life started as the Bible says (Jud 13:5, Hos 9:13-16, Jn 1, etc.) given Maine outlawed abortions quick or not in 1840.
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/tay/tay_03foundingfather.html
August 13th, 2012 | 9:02 pm
Don’t care about Barton and don’t know who Greg Forster is; I was pointed here by a friend’s facebook post because I’m semi-interested in the Jefferson/Locke discussion.
Stopped reading after point #1 after a quick google search revealed this:
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/tas/locke/mss/c1660.html AND
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/tas/locke/mss/c1662.html
Point #1 is completely false, and Barton’s statement, as quoted, still stands.
Seriously, if you want us to take a critique of others’ historic errors seriously, at least don’t make such a serious error on your very first point.
I got a good laugh out of it, though.
August 13th, 2012 | 10:29 pm
I looked at these links and don’t see anything that rebuts my point. These links describe the manuscripts of the two Tracts at the Bodleian Library. The point in dispute is whether the Tracts are the same work as the Treatises, or different works. They are not the same work, and nothing in these links indicates otherwise. I’m really at a loss to understand why you think these links have anything to say on the subject.
The composition of the Treatises took place in the early 1680s, possibly beginning as early as 1679 (although a later starting date is more likely). The origins of the Treatises has been the subject of extensive historical research. You can read an excellent overview of it in David Wootton’s introduction to The Political Writings of John Locke, pages 49-94. However, even a quick Google search for Locke’s Two Tracts would have been enough to save Barton the embarrassment he is now undergoing. Too bad he didn’t bother.
August 13th, 2012 | 11:23 pm
John Ragasta @ 11:40-
Certainly the idea of separation of church and state is an old one. As you note, Virginia adopted a very strict separation. In fact, I believe the state government even authorized the selling off of properties of the old colonial establishment. And this is the arrangement adopted in the US constitution. But other states adopted alternative plans. I think the revisionists main complaint is that the feds insist that that because the US government cannot establish an official religion, then neither can the states. And then the feds drill down into such questions as prayer in schools or the legality of a public high school holding graduation services in a chuch because it is the largest and least expensive building in the county.
August 14th, 2012 | 8:57 am
Hello, Ray Ingles,
You wrote:
Murder is deliberately taking the life of an innocent human being. The human being doesn’t have to meet your standards in terms of whether he or she “counts.” Biological humanity alone merits one the protection of law according to the principles of the founders, who held “these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” the first of which they listed was the right to life.
Besides that, any woman who is told that the only way to save her life is to kill her baby needs to get a second opinion, because chances are her doctor is either not familiar with the advances of modern medicine, or is familiar with them but has rejected the “Do no harm” ethic of Hippocrates, whose physician’s Oath has been rejected only twice in modern history: in contemporary society and in Germany during the twelve years of the Third Reich.
If a woman is already in the late second or third trimester and continuing the pregnancy really would take her life, the doctor could terminate the pregnancy without deliberately taking the life of the child. Modern newborn intensive care units routinely care for patients younger and less viable than those killed in late abortions.
At any stage of pregnancy, the doctor does not have to deliberately kill the child to save the life of the mother. A life-threatening pregnancy can be terminated such that if we knew how to save the child too, we would. If we don’t know how to do that then at least we didn’t deliberately kill the baby. There is a reason a “failed” abortion is when the baby survives. The procedure “failed” because the intention was to kill the baby. That is the problem. According to the “Do no harm” ethic of Hippocrates, which explicitly prohibits abortion, the intention can never be to kill.
August 14th, 2012 | 10:01 am
[...] and so I want to take a moment to point out that Rod Dreher, an Eastern Orthodox Christian, and Greg Forster, a First Things writer, both have taken the time to write lengthy critiques and rebuttals to the [...]
August 14th, 2012 | 10:02 am
SecularSquare
You are certainly correct about the states being permitted to maintain their establishments but: 1) The primary issue today is the meaning of the First Amendment; it adopted the Virginia, strict separation model. 2) In the early nineteenth century, the states uniformly moved in that direction, generally relying (often expressly) on a Jeffersonian vision. 3) Your point touches on the real problem for people like Justice Thomas — they don’t think the Bill of Rights should apply to the states (be “incorporated” into the 14th amendment to use the legal term). This is a more complicated debate, but I will say that the arguments for incorporating most constitutional rights (like the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms) but not the establishment clause are very weak. I cover all of this in detail in my upcoming book: Religious Freedom: Jefferson’s Legacy, America’s Creed.
August 14th, 2012 | 8:04 pm
The incorporation doctrine is the “real problem” for Barton as well. From what I can tell, he is historically correct in his description of the church-state relations at the federal level. But since the Supreme Court decisions have fundamentally altered application of the Bill of Rights through the incorporation doctrine, Barton’s point is purely an academic one. (Sorry to use “Barton” and “academic” in the same sentence, but there it is.) But as I wrote in an previous comment in this thread, Barton confuses 20th century historiography with 20th century jurisprudence. Historians know very well the different ways that states handled the legal status of religion. It was not the historians who changed things; its the lawyers and judges.
Your point #2 is also one that Barton seems to have missed. Eventually all the state governments in our “Christian nation” disestablished religion at the state level.
August 14th, 2012 | 10:36 pm
David Barton writes based on surviving historical documents and letters. He does no quote what other “historians” claim based on previous historians as facts. He quotes the people being discussed in their own words. It is this critique that is driven by political motives and agendas, not Mr. Barton. Sad that so many in this list won’t take the time to seek the truth. If there are errors or omissions, David will correct them, publicly. He owns more original documents than most museums. It so happens he uses better sources. A practice more historians should follow.
August 15th, 2012 | 2:27 pm
[...] despite his claims to being an “historical expert,” Barton tends to make sloppy, factual errors and extrapolations that are wholly unsupportable. For instance, he claims the U.S. Constitution [...]
August 15th, 2012 | 10:34 pm
What most disturbs me about Barton, beyond his obvious weaknesses as an historian, is the fact that his materials are being gobbled up in hundreds of home- and private schools. That he distorts history to serve a current ideology is bad enough; that tens of thousands of children are being taught with his materials is the worst of it. Thanks for this piece; hope it’s widely read.
August 16th, 2012 | 11:12 am
Here is a lengthy response to the accusations.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/exclusive-historian-david-barton-responds-to-critics-amid-jefferson-lies-book-controversy/
Some factual excerpts from the TheBlaze article:
But Barton told TheBlaze that Thomas Nelson was heavily involved in the book’s editing process. He described a scenario in which editors reached out to him and actively checked his facts out before the book went to print.
“They questioned and we sent them the documentation,” he said, describing a large carton of documents that was, at one point, shipped to the publisher.
Interestingly, when TheBlaze asked Thomas Nelson how much of the book appeared to be problematic and which facts and posited ideas were based in untruth, Thomas Nelson declined to share this information.
…
Barton seemed anything but shaken by the controversy when he spoke via telephone with TheBlaze. He freely answered questions about the controversy and explained that he’s prepared to respond to some of the critiques, while dismissing what he believes is an “elevated level of hostility that’s not really rational in many ways.”
While he stands by his central arguments about Jefferson, Barton isn’t pretending to be immune from error. The historian said that the book has already gone through three or four printings and that there have been word and text changes based on spelling or grammar errors along the way. Also, he addressed a willingness to amend historical items, should they be pointed out and proven wrong by other academics.
…
He went on to explain that if only one percent of the 5,000 facts that were included in his book are incorrect, that would mean that 50 facts could be viably challenged. But he maintained that he and his research staff work hard to verify and back up each and every tidbit he writes and speaks.
While Barton is perfectly willing to fix errors, he believes that many of the items being raised by Throckmorton, among others, are simply overblown and — also — wrongheaded. He says that the next edition of “The Jefferson Lies” will have changes and additions: many of them will include more sourcing to corroborate his claims in the book (and disprove some of Throckmorton’s views).
…
So, what are these supposed claims?
As the media continue to cover the debate surrounding “The Jefferson Lies,” few journalists, if any, have reached out and interviewed Barton about his responses to the specific charges waged by his critics. On Sunday, TheBlaze had extensive conversations with both Throckmorton and Barton, giving both parties adequate ability to explain and refute allegations.
To begin, it’s important to distinguish between the divergent views that Barton and Throckmorton have on Jefferson’s theological views. As reported, Barton has a very nuanced explanation of the former president’s life and a candid response to characterizations that he was an atheist and/or non-believer.
…
Here it is evident that, while Barton sees two different faith experiences coloring Jefferson’s life, Throckmorton sees a more streamlined unitarianism.
===
P.S. to the web editor — I think it would be only fair to start a new thread which would balance the previous accusations. Or at least give a link to this article.
August 16th, 2012 | 6:19 pm
Scott Kershern @ August 14:
Barton’s documents are more of an antiquarian interest than a historical one. And it is irrelevant how large his collection might be. All historians use historical documents and letters. They send an army of graduate student reseach assistants to cull university research libraries and state/local archives, etc. These collections, of course, are many times larger than that of Barton.
Ignorance of what “elitist” professional historians have written is no virtue. As a historian, Barton should show interest in what has been written. He might profit from knowing what errors have been made, where concensus exists, and what still is contested. For him to ignore all this is like a bible college graduate writing a bible commentary and boasting about ignoring “elitist” theologicans like Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Hodge, and Warfield.
August 16th, 2012 | 10:02 pm
[...] Another conservative evangelical scholar, Greg Forster, said he isn’t a scholar of Thomas Jefferson, but that he is a scholar of John Locke. He decided to look at an essay that Barton wrote on John Locke and found numerous errors. [...]
August 17th, 2012 | 11:22 am
[...] in “David Barton’s Errors,” Greg Forster, a religious scholar, found that Barton’s “inability to write reliable history [...]
August 17th, 2012 | 3:42 pm
Majoring in History in college is good. But Psychology is a field that is just as important. Almost everything Barton says is to convince you his agenda is true.
August 19th, 2012 | 4:40 pm
[...] [...]
August 20th, 2012 | 11:01 am
[...] from evangelical and conservative Locke scholar Greg Forster. In a blog article entitled “David Barton’s Errors” Forster deals with seven specific errors Barton makes with Locke in an article Barton wrote in [...]
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