David Barton's Past a Foreign Country

[Stephen Fox]

While he has some legitimate points, his fundamentalist mindset and ideological construction belie his motives much like the John Birch Society influence on Pressler clouded his thinking on the first eleven chapters of Genesis.

Paul Harvey has done some interesting work here. Compare this thinking to the several links in the Mark Noll Thread in Public Policy; especially Burkee on Otten and the Mo. Synod where the comparisons to the muck that generated the takeover of the SBC ooze from the Intro to his Martin Marty endorsed work.

In the Meantime one of the best takes on David Barton to have crossed my path to date:

http://christiancentury.org/reviews/201 ... h-founders

[JamesK]

Stephen,

I have no desire to link hop for you or with you. Tell us what you believe, not what someone else believes, especially in a post which negatively attempts to accuse someone of being influenced by someone else. I have not been here long but have read some back things and it seems all I can know about you from your writing is your influence from others. These influences have obviously clouded your thinking. Can yo think for yourself? Can you articulate a personal belief without the crutch of another man?

I like Barton, for the most part. Pressler is someone who took a stand, doesn't matter if one agrees or not, and paid a price. He did stand behind what he has stated. You seem to be leaving a path of escapes because it is always someone else's thinking you cry out.

It might be good if you footnote everything you say because you might be found guilty of verbal plagiarism if you are not careful.

[Stephen Fox]

JamesK: You have outted me. I cannot think for myself.

Since I have confessed, tell us more about yourself. What do you read? Where did you go to school? How did you become convinced of the integrity of Judge Pressler's crusade?

BTW, the link is very good if you want to explore it; and the Burkee intro to Otten and the Mo. Synod.

Here is a thought from me; some thinking from wide reading. There is strong similarity between the John Birch Society influenced Mo. Synod history and the SBC Takeover.

[JamesK]

[Stephen Fox]

[JamesK]

I must have hit a nerve.

I don't care about Helms or the other things which have no application to baptist life, as far as I am aware.

We all have influences but there comes a time when we must be grateful for those who influenced us and become thinkers in our own right.

[Stephen Fox]

on the Fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention. It's a shame cause that grandson of his may not be able to identify Sam Currin if he gets an History of the SBC takeover coloring book someday; or may not be able to identify me if there is a scene to color from the 1990 New Orleans Convention. Great Scene, me at the microphone with David Currie's sister next in line and Judge Pressler's wife walks behind us as I am changing the expression of Barry McCarty's face on the platform whispering in Jerry Vines ear.
Lot to color there, JamesK, if your grandson ever gets that coloring book. Barry Was Helms choice to chair the NC GOP in 86, in case you wanted to know.

As for the Gospel and influence you may want to check Marilynne Robinson on Pentecost at the end of Gilead. She has had a lot of influence on me in the last ten years or so; as I imagine W.A Criswell formed your worldview.

Be good to that Grandson. You go see Malick's Tree of Life this summer with his Dad and Mom

[Sandy]

Not a bad review, I think I'll read the book.

The assumption that Barton, or any other conservative Christian, reads the Bible in a particular way, and is unaware of how it was collected and put together, is just that--an assumption. It is also an assumption to think that because some scholar has spent an inordinate amount of time poring over texts that he is studying through the lenses of some other scholar's presuppositions and prejuduces, he is correct. There's probably no other piece of human literature to which the statement, "That's what it says, but that's not really what the author meant to say.." is applied than the Bible, and next to it, the US Constitution.

Barton is usually guilty of leaving things out, rather than inventing things or adding them in. I did a research paper in college many years ago on the faith of George Washington, and discovered just how much factual material is left out of secular textbooks and historical accounts. That, of course, supports Barton's view, so he includes it. Other such information, which doesn't necessarily support his view, he leaves out. In that, though, he is not unlike most other "scholars" in any field who write up their research as if they are the only ones in the universe who possess their special knowledge in their particular field.

This particular book looks like it might be well balanced and well researched. I needed some good summer reading. I just finished Frederick Taylor's work, Dresden, and one I picked up in the airport a week or so ago, The Nazi Officer's Wife about a Viennese Jewish woman who survived the Holocaust by marrying a German soldier, who protected her.

[JamesK]

[Stephen Fox]

And like minded folks with intellectual curiousity

Sandy, if you liked the Paul Harvey Review in the Christian Century, you may want to explore the links in Public Policy to his take on Mark Noll's recent review of God's Own Party.

Even better, click on the Sample option at this link for Into and first chapter of the Burkee book with obvious implications to the SBC Troubles:

http://www.augsburgfortress.org/store/i ... 0800697928

[JamesK]

[William Thornton]

[Dave Roberts]

I don't know how to read that as a faux Fox post without fractured syntax and unanswerable questions about materials I haven't yet read. William, thanks for the paraphrasing skills .

[Sandy]

What!? No references to Marshall Frady, Will Campbell, the Texas Regulars or a whole host of other people whom I've never heard of? No connection as to why this particular book and this particular set of ideas somehow conspired to create the conservative resurgence in the SBC, and threatens to drag it off into the hinterland of ultra right wing politics? No reference to Franklin Graham or Judge Pressler? No prompting to get Frank Page to read this book?

[Stephen Fox]

I have in sight at this very moment three grand books, compliments of one of the grander libraries in the Southeast, Public at that. Alas I don't have a card here, but I know where they are.

Dochuk, Williams GOP and Crespino In Search of Another Country.
I predict it will be two years before the bulk of you catch up with me; maybe 6th months before even Aaron Weaver sees the first one.
I love you guys. I just hope you get up to speed soon.

[Stephen Fox]

Largest sit down lunch for women ever West of the Mississippi was an address by Ruth Graham to 11,000 women in Anaheim in 1969

God Bless Women Preaching