Throckmorton Discovers David Barton's Distortions:

And doesn't like what he sees. Warren Throckmorton is a psychology professor at the evangelical Grove City College and holds the standard view on sexuality issues that one would expect from a conservative evangelical. Yet, he's taken some out of the box positions against anti-gay demagoguery that often comes from religious right corners. That's as much as I know about him.

Check out Throckmorton's analysis here, here, here, here, and here.

I've got mixed feelings on continuing to bash Barton. Part of me wants wants to move on; he's been hammered enough. On the other hand, three big national figures keep pushing his work into the spotlight: Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee and Glenn Beck. Barton has lost some followers, especially among conservative evangelicals who don't want to be sold a bill of goods. As John Fea points out, the anti-Barton criticism is causing some conservative evangelicals to "lose confidence" in some of Barton's claims. And Barton has, apparently, lost former big time promoter of his Brannon Howse, of Worldview Weekend, completely.

There is no question that the social and legal order of Founding era America was friendlier to orthodox Christians and evangelicals than it is today. And there are some notable Founders -- Witherspoon, Sherman, and others -- who would probably pass evangelicals' "Christian" test. But men like the first four Presidents and Ben Franklin were the liberal, ecumenical, universalistic "Christians" of their day, not "Christian" enough to be considered "real Christians" by evangelicals.