Sunday, May 08, 2011

David Barton: Feted Fundamentalist Flimflam Fabulator

by Edd Doerr

Glenn Beck calls him "the most important man in America" and puts him on his Fox News show. Mike Huckabee says he wishes that "all Americans would be forced -- forced at gunpoint no less -- to listen to every David Barton message". Newt Gingrich regards him as an important adviser. Michelle Bachmann calls him "a treasure for our nation". Kansas Governor Sam Brownback has said that Barton's "research" "provides the philosophical underpinning for a lot of the Republican effort in the country today -- bringing God back into the public square". The retro Texas State Board of Education has used him as a textbook adviser. The New York Times gave him a write-up on May 4.

So who is David Barton? A 57-year-old Texan with a BA from Oral Roberts University and -- drum roll, please -- an "honorary doctorate" from Pensacola Christian College., a publisher of textbooks for use by fundamentalist Christian schools, exposed in Albert Menendez' book Visions of Reality: What Fundamentalist Schools Teach (Prometheus Books, 1993). Barton heads an outfit called Wallbuilders, which is dedicated to tearing down the wall of separation between church and state erected by the First Amendment. He is an indefatigable speaker at fundamentalist and Republican events, He was vice-chair of the Texas Republican Party from 1997 to 2006 and a pal of Texas governor Rick ("Gov Goodhair") Perry.

Barton has no credibility wharever among professional historians and scholars. Among his critics are Professor Derek Davis of the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty executive director J. Brent Walker, and Indiana State University historian Richard V. Pierard. On May 6 People For the American Way published an 11-page docement about him that is available on line.

Probably the most comprehensive antidote for Barton's faux history preachments is Leo Pfeffer's majesterial book Church, State and Freedom (Beacon Press, 1968). Shorter and more readily available antidotes are my long section on "The Founding Fathers" [Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Paine] in S.T. Joshi's book Icons of Unbelief (Greenwood Press, 2008), Humanist historian Robert S. Alley's Public Education and the Public Good (Americans for Religious Liberty, 1996), and Forrest Church's The Separation of Church and State (Beacon Press, 2004). The Menendez, Alley, Church, and my "Founding Fathers" reprint are all available from me (PO Box 6656, Silver Spring, MD 20916) for $10 each.

8 comments:

Explicit Atheist said...

I have not read Forrest Church's book, but I did read the appendix of the book So Help Me God — The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle Over Church and State, Reverend Forrest Church, September 2007, Harcourt Press that is titled "Did George Washington say, 'So help me God,'?". It is not good.

The Rev. Church makes two new arguments which are both mistaken. One is that David Humphreys, who was Washington's "principal aide" and who accompanied General Washington to Federal Hall Inauguration Day, rejoiced at George Washington's "civil piety" in an article published nine days after the inauguration in the Pennsylvania Mercury, May 9, 1789. That civil piety rejoice quote is part of a concluding paragraph of a serialized letter that started back on April 9, 1789, and continued regularly in the Tu, Th, & Sa weekly editions for the greater part of a month. The letter was addressed to "Mr. Humphreys" and at its conclusion on May 9th the letter is signed by "Apocalypsophilos". The Philadelphia Federal Gazette, 9 May 1789 featured a reprint of this article. The introduction to the reprint reads: "Extract from an essay published by Mr. Humphreys, in the Pennsylvania Mercury, this morning." The publisher of the Pennsylvania Mercury at that time was Daniel Humphreys. David Humphrey's father Daniel died September 2, 1787 and David's brother Daniel was born May 4 1779. So the PA Mercury publisher Daniel couldn't be either of them. The anonymous author of this letter to the publisher of the PA Mercury explained that it was written in response to an "alleged" Indian speech which he characterized as "a stupid nonsensical squib thrown out against the christian religion by some person, who preferred heathenism to christianity." Reverend Church has acknowledged he was mistaken in identifying the author of the letter as David Humphreys and promised to correct the version of his book's appendix that he maintains on the internet.

Reverend Church's second new argument is that Thomas Jefferson's March 2, 1801 letter to Chief Justice John Marshall sought reassurance from Marshall that he wouldn't be expected to append shmG to his oath of office. This is also incorrect. The first law passed by Congress was titled "act to regulate the time and manner of administering certain oaths". Section 4 of that law read " ... all officers ... under the authority of the United States, shall, before they act in their respective offices, take the same oath or affirmation ... " As a former Secretary of State and Vice President, Jefferson would have taken that oath. Article II of the constitution specifies a presidential oath. Unlike Washington and Adams, Jefferson was not involved in writing or approving either of the oath laws (as minister to France from 1785 to 1789 he was unable to attend the Constitutional Convention and he served as the first Secretary of State under George Washington from 1789-1793). Jefferson's letter sought nothing more or less than clarification from the Chief Justice whether, as President-elect, he had to recite both oaths or just the presidential oath specified in the constitution. Jefferson was probably aware that judges had to swear to two different oaths, the federal oath for all officers and a judicial oath. Jefferson noted that the oath "prescribed by the Act of Congress" was similar to ("seems to comprehend the substance of") the constitutional oath and expressed skepticism that Congress had the authority to specify an additional oath for President. The Chief Justice replied that, in his judgement, the constitutional oath is "the only oath to be administered".

Explicit Atheist said...

Another argument made by Forrest Church is that Washington Irving was correct with the other details of the inauguration and therefore his claim that George Washington appended shmG should be given the benefit of any doubt. However, the reason that other historical details of the inauguration appear to be correct is that they were based on the previously published biography of George Washington by Mr. Sparks, from George Washington's manuscripts in the Department of State, and apparantly copied (without acknowledgement or permission) from Memoir of the life of Eliza S. M. Quincy, ed. E S Quincy, Boston [Printed by J. Wilson] 1861. But Mr. Sparks' biography, George Washington's manuscripts, and Eliza Quincy's Memoir all fail to support the claim that GW appended shmG.

Vincent said...

I filed a friend of the court brief in Newdow v. Roberts in which a group of history professors explained why, in all likelihood, GW did not say shmG.
There were many reasons, but the most compelling I believe was that just days before, Congress had debated whether to include those words in the oath of members of the House of Representatives, with specific reference to how they were not in the Presidential Oath, and that to say them would have in essence have been to thumb his nose at Congress; something just not in his character.

Ray Soller said...

There's more about David Barton over at John Fea's blog of today, Blogging David Barton's Appearance on Jon Stewart: Part Five.

Explicit Atheist said...

George Washington utilized many phrases for divinity. Providence was his favorite word for deity, maybe because of its ambiguity. God is not a word he utilized. I don't think the word God appears in any of his letters.

This propaganda as history problem goes beyond Barton and his irresopnsible and shameless supporters in Congress and state capitals. The web page of the Library of Congress appears to imply, incorrectly, that Congress passed an 18th century law to publish bibles, and the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies says that George Washington set the president of appending shmG to the presidential oath of office.

Explicit Atheist said...

.... Set the precedent of...

Don Wharton said...

@Vincent Thanks for your comment. That is a very important piece of historical information.

Ray Soller said...

The brief to which Vincent is referring evolved into an article "So Help Me God": A George Washington Myth that Should Be Discarded that was written by Professor Peter R. Henriques.