David Barton’s Christian America

There is this question that we seem to be facing, actually have been facing since the founding of the United States of America -- I'm going to use the date 1787, the date of the passage of the Constitution.  Before that we weren't a nation but a loose gathering of sovereign states.  What is the question?  Is the United States a Christian nation?  And if so what does that mean?  Among those who argue that it is a Christian nation and that Christianity should be privileged as a religion (not sure whose Christianity will count as truly Christian) is David Barton -- a self-styled but not trained historian.  Martin Marty, one of the nation's truly great historians of American religion, offers his response to Barton's "work" in the aftermath of Barton's appearances on the Daily Show and elsewhere this past week.  Marty does so with a bit of whimsy, but he also notes that many of the strongest opponents of Barton's attempts to portray the founding of the nation come out of Evangelicalism.   I invite you to read and respond.

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Sightings 5/9/2011



David Barton’s Christian America
-- Martin E. Marty


Last weekend was supposed to belong to Osama Bin Laden, and he was noticed, also by those who monitor the fates of religions in media. Amazingly, he had to share space and time with a figure self-described as an historian, and other-described as “little-known.” To be starred on The Daily Show on Friday night, May 3, and to make page one of The New York Times the next morning, May 4, are signs that he is now a “little-less-little-known” figure. Whatever his qualifications and achievements, he has a huge following, publishes many books and many more articles, speaks publicly more than once a day, and has multi-followings in the multi-million ranks, and the religious right.

First, qualifications: I wish he were a distinguished professor at an Ivy League school. As things are, to mention that he has no training as an academic historian, is recognized and honored by no other workaday historians, follows few canons of scholarship, renders the critic suspect. He and his followers dismiss those critics with “You’re jealous!” or “ Notice that he cries all the way to the bank” or “You’re protecting your professional cabal” or “Notice that he always quotes documents to support his views” or “You are prejudiced secularists and liberals!” It is otherwise: Many of the main criticisms come from historians dubbed “evangelical,” who protest his ways and works.

Notice that self-identified “evangelicals” are not at the edges but in the center of the professional historian elite—among them, across the spectrum of non-secularists, Mark Noll, Joel Carpenter, Edith Blumhofer, George Marsden, Grant Wacker, Harry Stout, and dozens more who deservedly all but dominate their caste as it covers religious history. Find one who respects what Barton does to their field of work or through his methods. Ask them. Some other critics use the word “fraud” and more, with good reason, come up with terms like “distorter” or “ideologue.” Barton’s cause: to show from eighteenth-century documents that Founding Fathers determinedly and explicitly established a Christian state, which leaves all non-Christians as second-class citizens. He and his “Wall Builders” institute cherry-pick lines from the documents and banner them or engrave them in public expressions. Barton & Co. get to pick the history texts for Texas etc., and thus push out of contention authors and publishers who, for all their flaws, are vocationally committed to fairness and, yes, truth-telling.

Can he really believe his distortions? I don’t call him a liar because, beyond his showmanship, he does believe some of this, having said it so often that it acquires an aura of factuality and the appeal of self-evident truth. What would be the civil result if he’d succeed in gaining political success to establish or privilege Christianity in public life? To take faith out of the realm of “coercion” into “persuasion?” James Madison said that doing so, given the record of such legal support through centuries in many places, would turn out “knaves, hypocrites, and fools.” Let’s converse, not blast—and maybe produce a wise citizenry. James Madison would likely be glad, we’d all profit, and the non-established, unprivileged, other-religious or non-religious, would have the freedom for which those cherished Founders fought.

References


Sarah Pullman Bailey, “Historian or Fraud?” GetReligion.org, May 5, 2011.



Erik Eckholm, “Using History to Mold Ideas on the Right,” New York Times, May 4, 2011.


Richard T. Hughes,Christian America and the Kingdom of God (University of Illinois, 2009).




Martin E. Marty's biography, publications, and contact information can be found at http://www.memarty.com/


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Can American Muslims be both loyal to their tradition and full participants in American civil society? In this month’s Religion & Culture Web Forum, Vincent J. Cornell argues that an embrace of the tenets of Shari‘a fundamentalism has led even would-be moderate Muslim leaders to reject the principles of American constitutional democracy. Consequently, they advocate (often unintentionally) a retreat from full participation in American civil society into sectarianism and “millet multiculturalism.” Against this tend, says Cornell, it is necessary for Muslim thinkers to find an “overlapping consensus” between Shari‘a and constitutionalism—one that gives warrant for the exercise of “unsupervised reason.” Invited responses are forthcoming from Anthony Banout, John Kelsay, and Brett T. Wilmot.

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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.



Comments

Brian said…
Last week someone expressed concern/confusion about my calling the CC elitist. (Not saying it is not a highly respected periodical.) Said person has not returned, but below is an example by Marty.

Dr. Martin Marty (The Proletariat's Hero) chose to write these words:

"I wish he were a distinguished professor at an Ivy League school. As things are, to mention that he has no training as an academic historian, is recognized and honored by no other workaday historians, follows few canons of scholarship, renders the critic suspect."

That'll mobilize the folks at the union hall.
Glenn said…
Brian,

You might very well be correct in your assessment of CC. I'm not familiar with the periodical, but in Dr. Marty's case I'm not convinced that having academic standards renders him an elitist.

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