David Barton's Jefferson
April 30, 2012
— Martin E. Marty
Our premier
historian of late colonial and early republican America, Gordon Wood, while
reviewing a book on Roger Williams warms up readers with references to Thomas
Jefferson. "It's easy to believe in the separation of church and state
when one has nothing but scorn for all organized religion. That was the
position of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson's hatred of the clergy and established
churches knew no bounds. He thought that members of the 'priestcraft' were
always in alliance with despots against liberty. For him the divine Trinity
"was nothing but 'Abracadabra' and 'hocus-pocus'. . . Ridicule, he said,
was the only weapon to be used against it."
If you wanted to
promote the idea of "a Christian America," one which would privilege
one religion, a version of Christianity, and de-privilege all others, and if
you want to get back to roots and origins, the last of the "founding
fathers" on whom you'd concentrate would be Jefferson. Yet the most ardent
public and pop advocate of privilege and virtual establishment, David Barton,
cites Jefferson for Bartonian positions which are directly opposite of
Jefferson's. Never heard of David Barton? Most of the historians you would ever
meet never heard of him, and if you told them about him and his positions, they
would yawn or rage about listing him among those who deal honestly with
Jefferson.
Sightings does not over-do ad
hominem and sneering references, so we leave to others all the disdaining
that Barton so richly merits. Do note, however, that he has invented a case and
product which serve his viewpoint and draw him enormous followings among
"conservative" factions which oppose separation of church and state
in most cases except those they choose. Listen to Mike Huckabee or Glenn Beck
or rightist cable TV and you will find Barton showing up everywhere.
His favorite
founder seems to be Jefferson, of all people. How does he work his way around
to the prime builder of "a wall of separation between church and
state," in the metaphor that would not be my favorite. Sample: Thomas
Jefferson, razor in hand snipped all supernatural references out of his copies
of the Gospels (in the four languages he read in White House evenings), to keep
Jesus as a pure ethical humanist. This spring Barton is publishing The
Jefferson Lies, which most historians would title Barton's Lies about
Jefferson. Astonishingly, he twists a slight reference to Jefferson's book
on Jesus and turns it into a tract which, Barton says, Jefferson would use in
order to convert the Indians to Christianity. Reviewer Craig Ferhman in the Los
Angeles Times found all that Barton found to be "outrageous
fabrication." On TV, Barton even said, with no evidence, that Jefferson
gave a copy of his Jesus book to a missionary, to use "as you evangelize
the Indians." Had the Indians been converted with that text, their heirs
would have had no place to go but to what became the humanist wing of the
Unitarian-Universalist church.
Why does any of
this matter? One, basic honesty is at issue; do American religionists need to
invent such stories in order to prevail? Two, what if they did prevail? Most of
the founders thought that religion was most honest and compelling when its
leaders and gatherings did not depend upon lies about the state and, of course,
upon the state itself. "Separation of church and state" is admittedly
a complex issue, dealing as it does with inevitable conflict and messiness in a
free and lively republic. May debates over it go on, but with honest references
to Jefferson and his colleagues and not on the grounds David Barton proposes.
References
Gordon S. Wood,
"Radical,
Pure, Roger Williams," New York Review of Books, May 10,
2012.
People for the
American Way, "David Barton's
'Outrageous Fabrication' about Thomas Jefferson," Right Wing
Watch, January 9, 2012.
Martin E. Marty's biography,
publications, and contact information can be found at www.memarty.com.
Comments
Post a Comment