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By World News Magazine
(WNS) – David Barton, president of the WallBuilders is one of America’s most popular Christian history writers.
His history books come across as thoroughly researched and brimming with endnotes and references to original sources.
Liberal critics have long accused Barton of misinterpretations and errors, and readers of the History News Network recently voted a new Barton book, The Jefferson Lies, as the “Least Credible History Book in Print.”
But now some conservative Christian scholars are publicly questioning Barton’s work, too.
Jay W. Richards, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, and author with James Robison of Indivisible: Restoring Faith, Family, and Freedom Before It’s Too Late, spoke alongside Barton at Christian conferences as recently as last month.
Richards says in recent months he has grown increasingly troubled about Barton’s writings, so he asked 10 conservative Christian professors to assess Barton’s work.
Their response was negative. An example is Glenn Moots of Northwood University who wrote that Barton in The Jefferson Lies is so eager to portray Jefferson as sympathetic to Christianity that he misses or omits obvious signs that Jefferson stood outside “orthodox, creedal, confessional Christianity.”
Barton has received support from Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, and other political leaders. He questions how many of his new critics have actually read his work, especially The Jefferson Lies.
Barton concedes that Jefferson doubted some traditional Christian doctrines, but argues that these doubts did not emerge until the last couple of decades of his life. He says that all of his books, including his latest, are fully documented with footnotes, and that critics who look at the original sources he is using often change their minds.
A full-scale, newly published critique of Barton is coming from Professors Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter of Grove City College, a conservative Christian school in Pennsylvania.
In their book Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President (Salem Grove Press), Throckmorton and Coulter argue that Barton “is guilty of taking statements and actions out of context and simplifying historical circumstances.”
For example, Throckmorton and Coulter 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 response posted on the WallBuilders website, Barton says that Throckmorton and Coulter’s book typifies attacks by “academic elitists” who position themselves as the “sole caretakers of historical knowledge.” He contends that Throckmorton and Coulter are hostile toward his “personal religious beliefs.”
Barton also disputes several of their specific arguments. For instance, contrary to Getting Jefferson Right, Barton insists that Jefferson did not merely buy a copy but was an investor in a 1798 edition of the Bible, which reveals Jefferson’s philosophical support for the sacred text.
Nashville based publisher Thomas Nelson recently ceased publication and recalled The Jefferson Lies, according to a report by the Nashville newspaper The Tennessean.
Casey Francis Harrell, director of corporate communications for Thomas Nelson, told The Tennessean that it had gotten complaints about the book and found enough errors to cancel it, halt new shipments and recall unsold copies.
Barton stands by his book, according to a variety of reports, and says Nelson never mentioned any concerns about the book. The Jefferson Lies was published in April and made The New York Times best-seller list.
Barton told The Tennessean that other publishers had made offers on his book and he hopes to sign a new contract soon.
Hawaii leis down the law
(WNS)–A federal court on Aug. 8 upheld a Hawaii law defining marriage as the union between one man and one woman.
Hawaii passed a marriage amendment in 1998, with 69 percent of the vote. The Aug. 8 ruling affirms that amendment, according to Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Counsel Dale Schowengerdt.
“The people of Hawaii adopted a constitutional amendment to uphold marriage, and the court rightly concluded that the democratic process shouldn’t be short-circuited by judicial decree,” Schowengerdt said.
The fight for marriage in Hawaii is not over. In 2011, legislators passed a bill creating same-sex civil unions. That law is part of a strategy by same-sex marriage advocates to challenge state marriage amendments and laws.
University of Texas Vindicates Mark Regnerus
(WNS)–The University of Texas at Austin announced Aug. 29 that a sociologist who has been excoriated by some in the media over a study showing that parents’ homosexual relationships can have negative effects on children is innocent of academic misconduct.
Dr. Mark Regnerus made headlines in June, when his study was published in the widely respected journal Social Science Research. According to his findings, children raised by homosexual parents are more likely than those raised by married heterosexual parents to suffer from poor impulse control, depression and suicidal thoughts, require mental health therapy; identify themselves as homosexual; choose cohabitation; be unfaithful to partners; contract sexually transmitted diseases; be sexually molested; have lower income levels; drink to get drunk; and smoke tobacco and marijuana.
As a result, a gay-activist blogger accused Regnerus of academic fraud, demanding in July that the university release all his research material and emails with fellow sociologists.
Administrators conducted an exhaustive pre-investigation to determine whether a more comprehensive one would be necessary — including hiring a consultant who formerly ran the Office of Research Integrity at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to oversee the process.
After sequestering all of Regnerus’s correspondence and conducting both written and oral interviews with him and his accuser, Scott Rosensweig, Research Integrity Officer Robert Peterson wrote in an Aug. 24 memorandum to administrators, “None of the allegations of scientific misconduct put forth … were substantiated either by physical data, written materials, or by information provided during the interviews.
“Since no evidence was provided to indicate that the behavior at issue rose to a level of scientific misconduct, no formal investigation is warranted.”
Glenn Stanton, Focus on the Family’s director of Family Formation Studies, pointed out that Regnerus went to great lengths to make sure his study was well-designed and executed, including soliciting input from other sociologists with whom he has ideological differences.
“Basically,” Stanton said of Rosensweig, “this guy was crying, ‘Fire!’ and they didn’t even find any smoke.
“The university has essentially concluded there is not even the slightest whiff of credibility,” to the accusations, he added. “That surprises none of us, because Mark is not an activist scholar, and that is very clear in the research that he did.”
The Alliance Defending Freedom agreed.
“America’s universities should always serve as truth-seeking, free marketplaces of ideas,” said Senior Legal Counsel David Hacker. “Disagreeing with a study’s conclusions is not grounds for allegations of scientific misconduct; therefore, we are not surprised that those accusations were found to be baseless. We agree with the UT-Austin inquiry’s conclusion that the academy is the appropriate place for debate about this study.”
Under the Radar
(WNS)–The national debate over same-sex “marriage” will center this fall on the platforms set out in the national conventions of the Republicans, currently underway in Tampa, Fla., and the Democrats, set for Charlotte, N.C., next week.
But another, more localized battle over legal recognition of homosexuality is playing out in city halls and town squares in the American heartland, often with pro-family forces trying to reverse decisions by government officials.
In Springfield, Mo., for example, the city council was to vote Monday on whether to prohibit discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations based on sexual orientation and gender identity or put the proposal to a public vote. Instead, after weeks of passionate debate, the council voted 7-2 to postpone action on the ordinance and appoint a task force.
The Springfield News-Leader reported that Stephanie Perkins, deputy director of PROMO, a homosexual activist network, said the delay was better than putting the issue to a public vote, where it would likely be defeated. The city is home to the national headquarters of the Assemblies of God Church and three Bible colleges.
The Rev. Mark Kiser, president of Reclaiming Missouri for Christ, noted that the council appeared ready to approve the ordinance last month but delayed action after religious opposition emerged.
“It was a huge victory on Monday,” Kiser said. “But there is a great chance that this is going to come up again, so we’ll have to be ready to do this again.”
Similar debates are going on in Salina and Hutchinson, Kan., as well as in Omaha, Neb., which narrowly passed an ordinance in March extending legal protections to homosexual and transgender residents. A tie vote scuttled a similar attempt in October 2010.
In Lincoln, Neb., the groups Family First and the Nebraska Family Council collected more than 10,000 signatures challenging a “fairness amendment” approved by the City Council in May. The petition forced the city either to let the ordinance die or submit it for voter approval. Officials declined to put it on the November ballot or specify when it might appear.
One factor may have been that last week a former star on the University of Nebraska women’s basketball team pleaded not guilty after police filed charges against her for allegedly faking an anti-gay attack. Police said she carved a cross onto her chest and slurs onto her arms and abdomen because she felt it would influence debate over the amendment.