Warren Throckmorton, a Christian psychology professor best known for his earlier work advocating some forms of gay reversion therapy (and “some forms” is important; he does not advocate that everyone who is gay can or should attempt to change their sexuality, it’s a much more complex position than that), has lately started going after David Barton for the many falsehoods he advocates. And doing an excellent job at it.

In his latest post on a Barton claim, he documents how Barton completely misleads listeners during a Focus on the Family broadcast about a Supreme Court case where the death penalty was set aside. Here’s what Barton says about it:
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It seems that David Barton has taken on a whole new prominence after his appearance on the Daily Show recently, which has also brought out several prominent historians, including evangelical Christian historians, to point out why Barton should not be taken seriously. John Fea, chair of the history department at Messiah College, pointedly asks, “Should Christians trust David Barton?” And answers in the negative.

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Another guest post from Chris Rodda

In each of the last two Congresses, Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA) introduced his resolution for an annual spiritual heritage week. This resolution, packed with a seventy-five “Whereas” clause litany of Christian nationalist historical revisionism, was first introduced in the 110th Congress as H. Res. 888, then in the 111th as H. Res. 397, and now it’s back as H. Res. 253, reintroduced by Forbes on May 5.

When the GOP’s favorite pseudo-historian David Barton was on the Daily Show the other night, he boasted to Jon Stewart about so many members of Congress coming to him for historical information. Well, one of these members of Congress is Randy Forbes, one of Barton’s most active minions in Congress and a frequent guest on Barton’s radio show. And there couldn’t be a better example of Barton’s frightening influence in Congress than Forbes’s masterpiece of historical revisionism — his “Spiritual Heritage Week” resolution. As I detailed the last two times this thing was introduced, almost all of the historical misrepresentations and outright lies in Forbes’s insanely long list of “Whereas” clauses come straight from Barton.

I have too much new stuff to write to spend time writing something new about this resolution, and it’s completely unnecessary for me to do so anyway because the lies of David Barton and Randy Forbes haven’t changed. So, I’m just going to repost my post from the last time this shining example of dishonesty and Christian nationalist propaganda was introduced, which contains links to the whole series of posts I wrote over on Talk2Action the first time it was introduced back in 2008.

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Right Wing Watch highlights a statement from Newt Gingrich from last year that if he decided to run, David Barton would be one of his advisers. He is speaking on a Wallbuilders radio show:

Gingrich: All I can tell you is that sometime in February or March, Calista and I and our family will be making this decision. As you know, I’m a great admirer of your work and of all you’ve done to teach Americans about their history and the roots of American freedom. And I can assure you that if we do decide to run next year, we’re promptly going to call you and say “we need your help, and we need your advice, and we need your counsel.” It’s more than a voting matter. If we decide to run, David, we’re going to need you.

The country certainly doesn’t need more of his distortions.

A reader emailed me a link to this audio interview with David Barton where he spews the usual Christian Nation nonsense upon which he has built his entire ideology. And the bullshit comes hard and fast. Like this:

“If you take the Bible and Christianity out, you will not have a Republican form of government in America. You will not have a free market economic system. You will not have a benevolent nation. You will not have common school education available for every student. You will not have freedom of conscience or religious toleration. They go through at least a dozen characteristics that are unique to America that were produced by Christianity and the Bible…they don’t exist in other cultures, they exist here and they’re the fruit of the Bible.”

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Chris Rodda has a post at Talk2Action about Stephen Mansfield, author of a new book called Ten Tortured Words: How the Founding Fathers Tried to Protect Religion in America and What’s Happened Since. This guy is shaping up to be Robin to David Barton’s Batman and she provides several examples of his absurd historical revisionism. It begins with this declaration on the jacket cover for the book:

It was the steamy summer of 1787, as America’s founding fathers fashioned their Constitution, they told the most powerful institution in their new nation what it must not do:

“CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION.”

Uh, no. Sorry Stephen, but the first amendment was not written in the summer of 1787 at the Constitutional Convention, it was written by Congress in the summer of 1789. He also claims, bizarrely, that Jefferson “insisted upon the Bible as part of the curriculum at the University of Virginia.” Huh? He rather explicitly did the opposite. But best of all, Rodda catches him in this outrageous lie:
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I was having a conversation with my father the other day and this thought suddenly occurred to me. David Barton loves to point to the Massachusetts Bay Colony for evidence that America is a “Christian Nation.” That position is absurd enough when you consider that this was a colony under the rule of the British crown, rule that we overthrew in the revolution. But there is an added bit of irony here because Barton is a Baptist. Baptists, you see, were persecuted in Massachusetts under Puritan rule – sometimes banished from the colony (as Roger Williams was), sometimes they were imprisoned, sometimes they were subject to public whippings (Obadiah Holmes suffered both imprisonment and lashing at the hands of the magistrates there) and sometimes they were even put to death, hung or buried alive in the Boston Commons. Were we to return to the Massachusetts model, Mr. Barton would quickly find himself in prison – if he was lucky.