Video Filing Cabinet: 2012

Saturday, August 11, 2012

"God is Very Clear": Glenn Beck With Discredited "Historian" David Barton

This video of Glenn Beck (from April 2012) is part of the publicity campaign for a book about Thomas Jefferson by David Barton that has been exposed as factually inaccurate.

On August 8th, 2012 - despite having attained a spot on the NY Times best seller list - Barton's book, The Jefferson Lies, (which claimed to expose liberal myths about the nation's third president) was recalled by its publisher because of numerous factual inaccuracies.

The Thomas Nelson publishing company said it had “lost confidence in the book’s details.”

Here is some of what caused that decision:

In July 2012 the book was voted “the least credible history book in print” by readers of the History News Network.

Glenn Moots of Northwood University has written that Barton was so eager to portray Jefferson as sympathetic to Christianity that he misses or omits obvious signs that Jefferson stood outside “orthodox, creedal, confessional Christianity.”

A second professor, Glenn Sunshine of Central Connecticut State University, said that Barton’s characterization of Jefferson’s religious views is “unsupportable.”

A third, Gregg Frazer of The Master’s College, evaluated Barton’s video America’s Godly Heritage and found many of its factual claims dubious, such as a statement that “52 of the 55 delegates at the Constitutional Convention were ‘orthodox, evangelical Christians.”

And a newly published book by Professors Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter of Grove City College, a largely conservative Christian school in Pennsylvania, says Barton "is guilty of taking statements and actions out of context and simplifying historical circumstances.” For example, they charge that Barton, in explaining why Jefferson did not free his slaves, “seriously misrepresents or misunderstands (or both) the legal environment related to slavery.”

In a highly unusual move for a book that was on the best seller list, Barton's publisher eventually pulled Barton's book saying: "Because of these deficiencies, we decided that it was in the best interest of our readers to cease its publication and distribution."

David Barton, a now discredited "historian" remains a professor at Beck University - described by founder Glenn Beck as "a unique academic experience bringing together experts in the fields of religion, American history and economics."