In Huckabee's Christian Nation, all Americans Would be Forced — Even at Gunpoint — to Listen to History Revisionist David Barton

At the Rediscover God in American Conference in Iowa on March 24, David Barton proclaimed that the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence were a compilation of sermons preached from the pulpit.

He said that 29 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence had seminary or Bible school degrees and that "more than half these guys were trained ministers [...] these guys believed that the Bible applied to every aspect of life.  It was 11 years later that they did the Constitution and it's not surprising that so much of that document has so much Bible throughout.  You look at the clauses and you take the Bible and you take those clauses and that's the same language, all the way through, phrase after phrase, concept after …"

Unlike the Bible, the Constitution does not reference God or Jesus.

As Chris Rodda, author of Liars for Jesus and senior researcher at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has pointed out time and time again, seminary degrees at the time were nothing more than college degrees and were not necessarily related to theology majors. She writes at Talk2Action,

Barton cleverly uses the word 'seminary' to dupe his followers into thinking that 29 signers of the Declaration of Independence had theology degrees and were ministers, when in reality the word 'seminary' just means college, although its use today is almost always to refer to a theological seminary. The truth is that only four of the 56 signers of the Declaration went to college to study theology, and only two, John Witherspoon and Lyman Hall, stuck with it and became ministers, but Hall was booted out of his church for some moral indiscretion and decided to become a doctor instead of a minister. Of the other two, one became a lawyer and the other became a merchant.

Over a decade ago, an extensive list of Mr. Barton's misrepresentations was compiled by Bob Boston in Church & State in 1993.

More recently, Evangelical Christian filmmaker Chris Pinto released a film in October debunking many of Barton’s assertions about America being founded as a Christian nation. Here's a clip about Barton's Christian heritage tours at the capital:

Despite the fact that historians, theologians and others have pointed out the errors in Barton's version of history, Mike Huckabee is enamored. Speaking at the same Rediscover God in America conference, Huckabee wished "that there would be a simultaneous telecast and all Americans would be forced — forced at gunpoint, no less – to listen to every David Barton message and I think our country would be better for it. I wish it would happen."

The gunpoint allusion was undoubtedly a joke; however, it appears that Huckabee does think that America would be better off if all citizens embraced Barton's version of history.

D. Beeksma

One of the growing crowd of American "nones" herself, Deborah is a prolific writer who finds religion, spirituality and the impact of belief (and non-belief) on culture inspiring, fascinating and at times, disturbing. She hosts the God Discussion show and handles the site's technical work. Her education and background is in business, ecommerce and law.

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