David Barton has maintained a successful career as a speaker and writer in Christian circles on the topic of American history. Through publications, video presentations, and personal appearances, he focuses on the role of Christians and Christianity in our nation’s early history. As an educational enterprise, nothing is wrong with that. Far too many Americans either have never learned or have forgotten what they have learned about American history in general. As a foray into group identity politics, Barton’s mission is relatively harmless. Feminist activists or ethnically based activists seek to identify the achievements of women or minorities in American history. Why can’t Christians do the same? Barton’s approach to the writing and teaching of American history, however, suggests a more insidious agenda. In an article entitled, “God Missing in Action from American History,” Barton attempts to establish that the contemporary approach to history ignores the role of God and religion. Moreover, he charges that historians have betrayed their craft by promoting this approach in order to support the secularization of American public policy. What Barton ironically demonstrates, however, is his own ignorance of and distain for history as a academic discipline and that his own approach to history itself constitutes part an effort to impact public policy.

Barton opens his essay with a dubious and downright peculiar claim:

On the one hand, the alleged dreariness of history may be audience specific. The same could be said for other disciplines such as science or math. It depends on who you ask. Or maybe any history other than Christian history bores David Barton. On the other hand, for those who believe such things, the exceptional and supernatural events from “bible history” are far more interesting than the mundane events taught about in today’s classroom. If President Obama actually walked on the waters of the Potomac (like many of his supporters apparently believe is possible) or if God rained fire and brimstone on San Francisco, history classes probably would be more lively.

Barton suggests that history instruction should follow the biblical pattern of instruction. First, it should be biographical in structure. To some extent, this is a legitimate complaint. Although many history survey texts contain biographical information and many history teachers assign biographies for additional reading, much historical writing employs so called “impersonal forces” in the explanatory models. Second, history instruction should discern God’s providence in men’s affairs. In Barton’s words,

That last suggestion is problematical. In the bible, readers are allegedly given the “inside scoop“ into God‘s direction of history. The text describes him creating the physical universe (Gen. 1:1), altering its physical properties (2 Kings 6:5-6), and interfering with the cognitive faculties and free wills of human beings (2 Kings 22:20-23) to accomplish his purposes. Unfortunately, he left no such record of his activities during the formation of the United States. History teachers could offer such vague allusions as “In God’s Providence. . . ” or perhaps “God saw fit . . . ” to their didactic instruction, but these add little to the understanding.

Barton directs his main objection, however, to what he perceives is the primacy given by historians to factors other than religion and morality in their explanatory models. He seems especially disturbed by the economic explanations of the so-called progressive historians such as Charles and Mary Beard. (Never mind that his God utilizes economics in his own explanatory models-- John 12:4-6; Matt. 24:14-16). According to Barton, the economic paradigm of the Beards and likeminded historians distorts the truth about the founding of America.

Under the economic view of American history, Americans now believe that the early colonists came to America seeking land and gold rather than for the reason most cited by the colonists: evangelization.

In addition, this focus on economics misleads Americans about their own revolution. Many issues contributed to the break with Britain. But the focus of historians on economics has led to a kind of reductionism in which British monetary policies are emphasized to the exclusion of everything else. Although the Declaration of Independence contains many charges against King George III,

since "taxation without representation" was the economic grievance in the Declaration, it became the sole clause that Americans studied.

Barton blames this approach to history for the current political climate. Because of several decades of the neglect of religious and moral aspects of history in favor of economic ones, religious and moral issues today do not seem as important as economic ones. Our country’s religious worldview has been eclipsed by a secular one. That this is so is a measure of the success of the deliberate plan on the part of historians. Historical revisionism, according to Barton, has altered

the way a people sees its history in order to cause a change in public policy.

Barton’s critique begins as a pedagogical complaint. But he turns it into an attack on history as done by professional academics and to an outrageous charge that historians have deliberately eviscerated history of its religious content in order to advance their secular political agenda. Barton’s attack is not a frontal assault by any means. He does not publish anything in peer reviewed professional journals; neither does he engage in debate with professional historians. His attack is more like an insurgency, operating behind the lines in American churches. And he is wrong.

The next post will show why.