David Barton (author)

Early life

Barton is a lifelong resident of his native Aledo, a suburb of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. He graduated from Aledo High School in 1972. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in religious education from Oral Roberts University in 1976.

Career

After graduation from college, Barton served as a church youth director. He taught math and science and eventually became principal at Aledo Christian School, a ministry of the charismatic church begun by Barton's parents.

In 1987, Barton formed Specialty Research Associates, Inc., a company which states that it "focuses on the historical research of issues relating to America's constitutional, moral, and religious heritage." Specialty Research Associates has submitted amicus curiae briefs in court cases.

By 1988, Specialty Research Associates had changed its name to WallBuilders, and began to promote the view that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and should be ruled by biblical principles. WallBuilders publishes and sells most of Barton's books and videos, some of which present Barton's position that the modern interpretation of separation of church and state is not consistent with the views of the Founding Fathers. Barton has argued that the religion clauses of the First Amendment were not intended to include such faiths as paganism and witchcraft, but only monotheistic religions, and perhaps solely Christianity. A 2005 Time magazine article entitled "The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals" called Barton "a major voice in the debate over church–state separation" who, despite the fact that "many historians dismiss his thinking ... [is] a hero to millions, including some powerful politicians." Barton has appeared on television and radio programs, including those of Republican former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and talk show host Glenn Beck. Beck has praised Barton as "the Library of Congress in shoes". In September 2013, Barton returned to the political arena and advised state legislators on how to fight the Common Core Standards promoted by the Obama administration.

Barton is a former vice chairman of the Texas Republican Party under state chairman Susan Weddington. He has also acted as a political consultant to the Republican National Committee on outreach to evangelicals. The Tea Party movement sought to convince Barton to run against Senator John Cornyn of Texas in the 2014 Senate primary election. However, Barton announced on November 6, 2013, that he would not run for the seat. Barton headed the Keep the Promise PAC, a political action committee supporting Ted Cruz's presidential campaign.

Barton's first non-self-published work was a 2003 article in the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy, (Volume XVII Issue No. 2, 2003, p.n399), a survey of Thomas Jefferson's writings about the First Amendment.

Fringe views

Barton's official biography describes him as "an expert in historical and constitutional issues". Barton holds no formal credentials in history or law, and scholars dispute the accuracy and integrity of his assertions about history, accusing him of practicing misleading historical revisionism, "pseudoscholarship" and spreading "outright falsehoods". According to the New York Times, "Many professional historians dismiss Mr. Barton, whose academic degree is in Christian education from Oral Roberts University, as a biased amateur who cherry-picks quotes from history and the Bible." Barton's 2012 book, The Jefferson Lies, was voted "the least credible history book in print" by the users of the History News Network website. The book's publisher, Thomas Nelson, a Christian publishing house, disavowed the book and withdrew it from sale. A senior executive said that Thomas Nelson could not stand by the book because "basic truths just were not there."

Barton is a defender of maintaining Confederate historical monuments, which opponents claim extols slavery prior to 1865. Barton, conversely, questions why leftist opponents of the statues never mention slavery that still exists in Islamic nations. The opponents of the statues, Barton added, also ignore the vision of the founders, particularly Jefferson, to bring about the abolition of slavery.

Affiliations

Barton serves on the board of advisors of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools. This curriculum contains direct quotations from Barton's books, recommends the resources published by WallBuilders, and advocates showing that group's video, Foundations of American Government, at the beginning of the course.

Barton serves on the board of advisors of the Providence Foundation. In an article discussing Barton, The Nation described the Providence Foundation as "a Christian Reconstructionist group that promotes the idea that biblical law should be instituted in America."

In his book The Myth of Separation, Barton argues that Christians were the ones who were intended to hold public office and that Jews and members of other sects were not. According to Skipp Porteous of the Massachusetts-based Institute for First Amendment Studies, Barton was listed in promotional literature as a "new and special speaker" at a 1991 summer retreat in Colorado sponsored by Scriptures for America, a far-right Christian Identity ministry headed by Pastor Pete Peters, which has been linked to neo-Nazi groups. Barton's assistant, Kit Marshall, said in 1993 that Barton was previously unaware of the anti-Semitic and racist views of these groups. In September 2011, Barton sued two former Texas State Board of Education candidates for posting a video on YouTube that stated that he was "known for speaking at white supremacist rallies".

Barton is a lecturer for Glenn Beck's online Beck University.

Barton has appeared on Pat Robertson's The 700 Club, and The Daily Show. In 2013, he appeared on Kenneth Copeland's Believer's Voice of Victory. He made made statements linking abortion and climate change.

Reception of Barton's work

Barton has been praised by U.S. conservatives Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Sam Brownback.

Barton was recognized by Time as one of "The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America".

He has received criticism from others, including J. Brent Walker of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Gordon College History professor Stephen Phillips, U.S. Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the Anti-Defamation League, Senior Research Director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation Chris Rodda, Messiah College history professor John Fea Baylor University historian Barry Hankins, and Grove City College professors Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter.

Jay W. Richards, senior fellow at the Christian conservative Discovery Institute, said in 2012 that Barton's books and videos are full of "embarrassing factual errors, suspiciously selective quotes, and highly misleading claims." The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Barton's work as "anti-gay" "historical revisionism", noting that Barton has no formal training in history. A number of writers have called Barton's work "pseudohistory", though this designation has been disputed by Robert Knight of the evangelical Coral Ridge Ministries.

"Unconfirmed Quotations"

In 1995, in response to criticism by historian Robert Alley, Barton conceded, in an online article titled "Unconfirmed Quotations", that he had not located primary sources for eleven alleged quotes from James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and United States Supreme Court decisions (hence, the title of the article), but maintained that the quotes were "completely consistent" with the views of the Founders. (By 2007, the article listed 14 unconfirmed quotations.) In 1996, Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State accused Barton of "shoddy workmanship", and said that despite these and other corrections, Barton's work "remains rife with distortions of history and court rulings". WallBuilders responded to its critics by saying that Barton followed "common practice in the academic community" in citing secondary sources, and that in publishing "Unconfirmed Quotations", Barton's intent was to raise the academic bar in historical debates pertinent to public policy.

In 2006, Barton told the Texas Monthly, with regard to Jefferson's famous letter to the Danbury Baptists, that he had never misquoted the letter in any of his publications. The magazine noted that this denial was contradicted by a 1990 version of Barton's video America's Godly Heritage, in which Barton said:

On January 1, 1802, Jefferson wrote to that group of Danbury Baptists, and in this letter, he assured them — he said the First Amendment has erected a wall of separation between church and state, he said, but that wall is a one-directional wall. It keeps the government from running the church, but it makes sure that Christian principles will always stay in government.

The Jefferson Lies withdrawn from publication

In 2012, Barton's New York Times bestseller The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You've Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson (published April 10, 2012) was voted "the least credible history book in print" by the users of the History News Network website. A group of 10 conservative Christian professors reviewed the work and reported negatively on its claims, saying that Barton has misstated facts about Jefferson.

In August 2012, Christian publisher Thomas Nelson withdrew the book from publication and stopped production, announcing that they had "lost confidence in the book's details" and "learned that there were some historical details included in the book that were not adequately supported." Glenn Beck, who wrote the foreword, promptly announced that his Mercury Ink imprint would issue a new edition of the book once the 17,000 remaining copies that Barton bought of the Thomas Nelson edition had been sold.

A revised edition of The Jefferson Lies was published by Joseph Farah's World Net Daily Books in January 2016.

Personal

Barton is married and has three grown children, including a daughter who has performed minority outreach for the Texas Republican Party. He is a lifelong resident of Aledo, which is also the site of the WallBuilders Library.