Originally posted by TexasSky:
[David Barton] is a Christian man trying to stand up for Christ.
Barton is telling untruths and distortions in the name of Jesus. Don’t you find that disturbing?
You are criticizing him, condemning him, based largely on statements made by people … who have said, loudly and clearly, they have a problem with Christians.
Christian scholars, especially Baptist scholars, have been among his strongest critics because they know our heritage of religious liberty and understand that Baptists were on the front lines of the fight to separate church and state. (Try doing internet searches for Isaac Backus, Roger Williams, Obadiah Holmes and John Clarke.)
That's the most UN-Christian behavior I can imagine.
The most un-Christian thing I can imagine is a person deliberately telling lies in the name of Jesus. It undermines the credibility of the gospel and can be devastating to the faith of many innocent people. Imagine the Christian teen who hears David Barton presentations (or those who have parroted his arguments like Carman, Jars of Clay, or their local pastor) and then go off to college to discover that Barton misquotes Supreme Court cases, mischaracterizes the views of prominent Founders, and promotes simplistic and one-sided views of history. It may completely sideline his faith since all the Christians he knows believe and promote falsehoods.
Furthermore, how can Christians be taken seriously in the mainstream when we say that Jesus is the Messiah when we won’t confront those in our midst who promote easily debunked falsehoods to the general public and try to change our national policy according their deceptions? (Yes, David Barton unfortunately has significant influence among “conservatives” in Washington.)
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
If I ever preach falsehoods, I hope someone points it out. I would rather be corrected by a brother or sister in Christ than to shame the name of Jesus with my life.
Christians should NOT jump on band wagons to condemn other Christans based on the words of athiests.
Well I’m not an atheist… I’m a devoted follower of Jesus and a Baptist. Many of Barton’s other critics are also Christians.
If the sky is blue, and both the atheist and the Christian agree on that issue, then it is foolish to insinuate that the Christian is a closet atheist or that the atheist’s observations are somehow illegitimate. In the same way, if an atheist can demonstrate that Barton has misquoted something, the truth of the matter cannot be written off as an expression of the bias of the atheist.
When I first started investigating David Barton’s claims back in 1994, I decided upon a methodology for my investigation:
1.)
Verify objective source materials
These materials include Supreme Court decisions and the major writings of prominent Founders. These items, especially the Supreme Court decisions, are completely objective since I was merely checking to see if the quotes were accurate and the claims about the specifics of the documents were factually true – even if I didn’t agree with his conclusions.
2.)
Verify subjective materials
This category would include quotes from historians and various quotes from speeches of prominent Founders. I intended to verify if Barton was simply quoting only those people who agreed with him, or whether Barton was trying to fairly present both sides of the issue.
I discovered very quickly that Barton did not accurately quote the texts of many Supreme Court cases (a completely objective basis of judgment) and often mischaracterized the parts he did quote accurately. In fact, he has such a bad track record of quoting famous and widely-distributed documents, how can I trust him when he is allegedly quoting from one of his rare books that I do not have access to?
The man has absolutely no credibility with people who have carefully checked his work.
I don't trust people who re-write history.
I don’t either. That’s why you shouldn’t trust Barton.
