David Barton: Another Level of Deception

I only read two Christian blogs regularly. One is Rick Frueh's Spiritually-perceptive "Following Judah's Lion" (http://judahslion.blogspot.com/).

One of Rick's recent posts was "The Intoxicating Effect of Condemnation," about how we LOVE to condemn the world and its celebrities for (as we perceive it) their "...declining moral culture." That attitude is probably pervasive among Christians.

Rick's question that struck to my heart was simply, "...how can something decline when it is completely fallen to begin with?"

I've written several times here about David Barton, a leading minister of deceit to the American Church. I've written about Barton's gross falsification of history. That was my first gripe with Barton: how is telling a stream of lies in any way "Christian," or even honest history ?

In addition to lying about America, Barton lies about himself. He has no training as a historian, which he claims to be. And he studiously avoids, in his Who's Who entry and on his own "Wallbuilders" website, any mention that he is a professional political operative: co-chair of the Republican Party of Texas 8 times, and an official of the national 2004 and 2012 Republican Presidential campaigns. Barton's reticence, or rather deceit, about his political involvement is clearly because his politics reveal his agenda in falsifying American history.

Rick's question points up for me Barton's deepest deceit. Like most "conservatives," Barton wants to believe: and in his (mis-) teaching, wants us to believe: there was a better, wiser and more moral, human past. It's an unexamined belief even...rather, ESPECIALLY...among people who never consciously think about history: which may be one reason most unthinking people tend to latch onto "conservatism" as an agreeable philosophy.

Christianity is love of "the Truth," Who Jesus IS. History is a study that seeks truth about the past. By both measures, Barton reaches a new and deeper level of deceit.

His teaching that America's moral decline was caused by "liberal" courts, "liberal" social changes, and "liberal" laws of the past few decades clearly serves his Republican agenda. But framing as "moral decline" the very real changes America has undergone in our recent past makes that history subject to a Christian, not a Republican, interpretation.

So, Christian...when was Americans' society not completely fallen ? When were the hearts of men (American or any other nationality) not desperately wicked ? When was mankind not entirely in the grip of sin, and when did all men NOT fall short of the glory of God ?