David Barton
David Barton has produced “The Founders’ Bible” which according to his ministry website (https://shop.wallbuilders.com/the-founders-bible) is “chock-full of full-color insert pages on major themes found throughout our founding, highlights little known and relevant insights from the Founders on their commitment to the importance of the Bible, and includes subject index, concordance and Bible maps. It also includes copies of the following founding documents: The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights and later amendments.”
Another link (https://shop.wallbuilders.com/founders-bibles) states: “The Founders’ Bible is signature historian David Barton’s most significant life’s work. He is one of the premiere constitutional historians of our day with a private library containing over 100,000 documents from the Founding Era, one of the largest private collections in the nation. His exhaustive research has rendered him an expert in historical and constitutional issues.”
However, according to this article (https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/1/25/16919362/understanding-the-fake-historian-behind-americas-religious-right) Barton is a self-taught historian and activist. He’s received little formal historical training and his sole credentialed degree is a bachelor’s in religious education from Oral Roberts University, although he later claimed to have earned a doctorate from officially unaccredited Life Christian University on the basis of his published works.
He’s also the founder of WallBuilders, a think tank devoted to promulgating the narrative that America was founded as a specifically Christian nation, and that the Founding Fathers were “orthodox, evangelical” Christians. (In fact, the majority of the Founding Fathers had more complicated religious views, often blending aspects of Christianity with deism, the Enlightenment-era belief in an unknowable creator-deity who did not operate in human affairs).
In addition, he claims to have played basketball for Oral Roberts University, but the institution categorically denies this. (https://www.wthrockmorton.com/2015/02/25/oral-roberts-university-there-is-no-record-of-david-barton-ever-playing-basketball-for-oru/)
His book entitled, “The Jefferson Lies,” was pulled from publication due to the fact “there were historical details — matters of fact, not matters of opinion, that were not supported at all” according to Thomas Nelson Senior Vice President and Publisher Brian Hampton. (https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/08/09/158510648/publisher-pulls-controversial-thomas-jefferson-book-citing-loss-of-confidence)
David Barton shares the following anecdote at his website concerning Thomas Jefferson: Several times in his later years, Jefferson received letters from parents who named their children after the aged president. The mothers would ask Jefferson to leave some kind advice to the newborn child for them to read whenever they got old enough.
Thomas Jefferson was apparently moved to write back with advice and encouragement. So, nine days later he wrote back to the newborn Thomas Jefferson Grotjan:
“Your affectionate mother requests that I would address to you, as a namesake, something which might have a favorable influence on the course of life you have to run. Few words are necessary, with good dispositions on your part. Adore God; reverence and cherish your parents; love your neighbor as yourself, and your country more than life. Be just; be true; murmur not at the ways of Providence—and the life into which you have entered will be one of eternal and ineffable bliss. And if to the dead it is permitted to care for the things of this world, every action of your life will be under my regard. Farewell.” (https://wallbuilders.com/advice-from-thomas-jefferson-adore-god/)
However, while love your neighbor as yourself is obviously from the Bible, loving your country more than life is not. Adore God? Which god if one is a deist? And, he didn’t adore God if he denigrated the gospel accounts in His Word by calling many parts of them, “so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth and imposture” (Jefferson’s letter to William Short, April 13, 1820, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Andrew Lipscomb, 1907). Additionally, God’s Word nowhere says the dead are permitted to care for things of this world.
Oh, and the Founders’ Bible can now be signed or personalized by David Barton for an extra $10 charge.
Another link (https://shop.wallbuilders.com/founders-bibles) states: “The Founders’ Bible is signature historian David Barton’s most significant life’s work. He is one of the premiere constitutional historians of our day with a private library containing over 100,000 documents from the Founding Era, one of the largest private collections in the nation. His exhaustive research has rendered him an expert in historical and constitutional issues.”
However, according to this article (https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/1/25/16919362/understanding-the-fake-historian-behind-americas-religious-right) Barton is a self-taught historian and activist. He’s received little formal historical training and his sole credentialed degree is a bachelor’s in religious education from Oral Roberts University, although he later claimed to have earned a doctorate from officially unaccredited Life Christian University on the basis of his published works.
He’s also the founder of WallBuilders, a think tank devoted to promulgating the narrative that America was founded as a specifically Christian nation, and that the Founding Fathers were “orthodox, evangelical” Christians. (In fact, the majority of the Founding Fathers had more complicated religious views, often blending aspects of Christianity with deism, the Enlightenment-era belief in an unknowable creator-deity who did not operate in human affairs).
In addition, he claims to have played basketball for Oral Roberts University, but the institution categorically denies this. (https://www.wthrockmorton.com/2015/02/25/oral-roberts-university-there-is-no-record-of-david-barton-ever-playing-basketball-for-oru/)
His book entitled, “The Jefferson Lies,” was pulled from publication due to the fact “there were historical details — matters of fact, not matters of opinion, that were not supported at all” according to Thomas Nelson Senior Vice President and Publisher Brian Hampton. (https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/08/09/158510648/publisher-pulls-controversial-thomas-jefferson-book-citing-loss-of-confidence)
David Barton shares the following anecdote at his website concerning Thomas Jefferson: Several times in his later years, Jefferson received letters from parents who named their children after the aged president. The mothers would ask Jefferson to leave some kind advice to the newborn child for them to read whenever they got old enough.
Thomas Jefferson was apparently moved to write back with advice and encouragement. So, nine days later he wrote back to the newborn Thomas Jefferson Grotjan:
“Your affectionate mother requests that I would address to you, as a namesake, something which might have a favorable influence on the course of life you have to run. Few words are necessary, with good dispositions on your part. Adore God; reverence and cherish your parents; love your neighbor as yourself, and your country more than life. Be just; be true; murmur not at the ways of Providence—and the life into which you have entered will be one of eternal and ineffable bliss. And if to the dead it is permitted to care for the things of this world, every action of your life will be under my regard. Farewell.” (https://wallbuilders.com/advice-from-thomas-jefferson-adore-god/)
However, while love your neighbor as yourself is obviously from the Bible, loving your country more than life is not. Adore God? Which god if one is a deist? And, he didn’t adore God if he denigrated the gospel accounts in His Word by calling many parts of them, “so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth and imposture” (Jefferson’s letter to William Short, April 13, 1820, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Andrew Lipscomb, 1907). Additionally, God’s Word nowhere says the dead are permitted to care for things of this world.
Oh, and the Founders’ Bible can now be signed or personalized by David Barton for an extra $10 charge.