Wednesday, August 8, 2012

NPR on the David Barton Controversy

Here.

1 comment:

Tom Van Dyke said...

A transcript! At last!

The idea that Jefferson was a civil rights visionary appalls the Rev. Ray McMillian, pastor of Oasis Church in Cincinnati.

"Thomas Jefferson hated African-Americans," McMillian says. "He hated the color of our skin. He talked about how inferior we are, in both mind and body."


I heard the show. The NPR transcript is correct when it puts italics on

"Thomas Jefferson hated African-Americans..."

Rev. McMillian definitely punched "hated" to justify NPR's italics.

Is it true? Of course not, unless he hated Sally Hemings, whom he took to Paris.

Although NPR let some crap like that through unquestioned, I thought it was pretty good, except that it will only reinforce existing prejudices on the left, that our "Godless" Constitution created America as an official agnostic state---neither believing nor disbelieving in God, sidelining the question of God, religion, &c.

Now, I have no problem with the way they nail David Barton in this---they got some recorded stuff that he said that doesn't appear in his writings. This article doesn't have it the transcript of his actual words, but

On his tours of the U.S. Capitol, for example, he claims that Congress not only published the first American Bible in 1782, but it also intended the Bible to be used in public schools.

if I recall correctly, they had a recording of David Barton explicitly saying exactly that the Congress had published that Bible in 1782, which Congress didn't.

But you can't nail Barton for an untruth by rebutting him with untruths like "Thomas Jefferson hated African-Americans."

Dr. John Fea of Messiah College and Dr. Warren Throckmorton of Grove City College, both reputably evangelical Christian colleges, also weigh in.

More on their remarks as we go on.