Worley said:

I figured a way out, a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers but I couldn’t get it past the Congress – build a great big large fence, 50 or a hundred mile long. Put all the lesbians in there, fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals. And have that fence electrified so they can’t get out. And you know what? In a few years they will die out. You know why? They can’t reproduce. If a man ever has a young’un, praise God he will be the first.

I asked Bob Stith, National Strategist for Gender Issues at the Southern Baptist Convention, for his reaction and he said Worley’s words were “a vile outburst” and said,

I think it is important to say in the strongest terms how disgusting and unchristian his comments are.

He added that the church is not in the Southern Baptist Convention.

The church website is down, but the Google cache indicates that it is an independent Baptist Church which believes the King James Version of the Bible is inspired. The “KJV only” churches are almost always in the extreme right wing of the church world. This church is a part of something called “The Only Hope” network. The church is also on this list of fundamentalist Baptist churches and this website seems to support Worley.

One claim I haven’t spent much time on until lately is Barton’s claim that Thomas Jefferson could not emancipate his slaves due to restrictions in VA law. Barton says in The Jefferson Lies that Jefferson could not have emancipated his slaves and blamed Virginia law. As I point out in the article and we point out in the book, that is a false claim.

Thanks to John Fea at Messiah College for the comments and blog post I cited.

Columnist Katherine Stewart wrote:

Barton recently came out with another piece of propaganda, The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson. To their credit, a pair of professors who identify themselves as conservative Christians, Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter, have stepped forward to debunk Barton’s latest exercise in their book, Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims About Our Third President. But that hasn’t stopped Barton’s book from becoming a bestseller.

Got your copy yet?

On Fischer’s show, Barton said Jefferson included miracles of healing and feeding the multitude in the 1804 version. In his book, Barton claims that three miracles in Matthew 9 (the raising of Jairus daughter in Mt. 9:1; healing a bleeding woman in Mt. 9:18-26 and the healing two blind men in Mt. 9:27-34) were included by Jefferson in The Philosophy of Jesus. However, a review of Jefferson’s table of texts as found in Henry Randall’s 1858 biography of Jefferson and Dickinson Adams’ definitive work demonstrates that these texts were not included in either of Jefferson’s abridgments.

The fourth false text Barton uses is Matthew 11:4-6 which reads:

4Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: 5The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. 6And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.

Again, a review of the table of texts comes up empty for this passage. Jefferson did not include it in either his 1804 or his 1820 versions.

Now complicating things a bit is the fact there are a couple of transcription errors in Randall’s texts that Dickinson Adams revealed when he studied the handwritten documents years later. I provided images in Jefferson’s own hand here. However, the transcription errors are not relevant to any questions we examine in this post.

Here are Randall’s transcriptions; Barton says he relies on these as well as Dickinson Adams for his research. However, the Matthew 9 and 11 passages are not there. There are a couple of verses which are ambiguous about miracles but in each case, there is strong reason to believe that Jefferson would have extracted the miraculous sounding part. Remember, no copy of the 1804 version survives. We have to go on his table and then compare those passages to what he did with them in the 1820 version. Contrary to what Barton says, the versions are not that different. Here are the two pages of these texts from Randall:

I will soon have from the University of Virginia digital copies of the table of texts Jefferson extracted from the Gospels. I will publish these for all to see.

In “The Jefferson Lies” and his talks about it, Barton claims that Thomas Jefferson

• included all the words of Jesus and miracles from the gospel of Matthew in what is often called the Jefferson Bible,
• personally helped finance the printing of the first “hot-pressed” Bible in America,
• did not question the Trinity until after he left the presidency,
• chose to include Christian language in his presidential documents by signing them “in the year of our Lord Christ,”
• increased the number of divinity professors at the University of Virginia which he founded as a “transdenominational” school.

These claims and others are presented in “The Jefferson Lies” as evidence that Thomas Jefferson has been misrepresented by modern scholars and secularists to serve modern political ends. In contrast, Christian college professors Throckmorton and Coulter demonstrate that Jefferson has been misrepresented in “The Jefferson Lies.” By presenting primary sources and Jefferson’s own words, Throckmorton and Coulter separate fact from fiction and show that the above claims are false.

Throckmorton and Coulter ground their work in the mission of Christian scholarship, which promotes accuracy in reporting facts within their historical context. Discussions of religious liberty, currently occurring in the culture, should be based in fact. Getting Jefferson Right fact checks claims which often made in debates about the separation of church and state.

Getting Jefferson Right is available on Amazon.com and coming soon to Barnes and Noble.

Take The Jefferson Quiz

For more information on the book, see Getting Jefferson Right.

“Anyone who reads this book must come to grips with the untruths and suspect historical interpretations that [David] Barton regularly peddles in his books, speaking engagements, and on his radio program.” — John Fea, Chair, History Department, Messiah College

Warren Throckmorton, PhD is Associate Professor of Psychology and Michael Coulter, PhD is Professor of Political Science, both at Grove City College (PA).

The bill defines SOCE as:

“Sexual orientation change efforts” means psychotherapy aimed at altering the sexual or romantic desires, attractions, or conduct of a person toward people of the same sex so that the desire, attraction, or conduct is eliminated or reduced or might instead be directed toward people of a different sex. It does not include psychotherapy aimed at altering sexual desires, attractions, or conduct toward minors or relatives or regarding sexual activity with another person without that person’s consent.

The bill is opposed by the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, as well as the CA Psychological Association, the CA associations of psychiatrists, clinical counselors and marriage and family therapists. The CPA testified on April 23, that “the statutory ban on types of therapy is not the right venue.” They also believe the bill micromanages the work of therapists. The CPA would favor a bill without an outright ban that required written informed consent.

I have concerns with the inclusion of the word “conduct” in the definition of SOCE. The 2009 APA report made a distinction between orientation and sexual orientation identity. Also, change of conduct is considered within the choice of the client. Therapists can ethically work with clients to change actions without making any effort to change attractions, if the client desires such change. This bill attempts to regulate the behavioral choices of citizens, something I oppose.

Although I agree with the CA professional associations and oppose the bill as written, I understand the urgency of those who support the bill. Too many teens are brought to therapists with the hope that some kind of therapy will change them. I also think NARTH has brought this on themselves via their irresponsible statements about sexual orientation and therapy over the years. I could definitely support a bill that would require therapists to inform clients and families about the lack of evidence to support the claims of SOCE therapists.

In The Jefferson Lies, David Barton claims that Jefferson came under the influence of groups in Virginia Barton labels as Primitivists and Restorationists. Specifically, Barton claims:

In fact, it was during his affiliation with Christian Primitivism that he first expressed anti-Trinitarian views in a letter to John Adams in 1813.

As we have seen, this claim is clearly false. Jefferson, in 1788, refused to sponsor a friend’s child as a godfather because he would have to affirm his belief in the Trinity. He told his friend, Derieux, that he held that belief [rejecting the Trinity] from early in his life. Jefferson also confided to a Unitarian friend that he attended Priestley’s Unitarian church before 1800, while he was Vice President. In Jefferson’s 1803 Syllabus, he laid out his belief that Jesus was not part of the Godhead. Barton’s attempt to make Jefferson seem orthodox during the active part of his political engagement is contradicted by Jefferson’ own words.

In Getting Jefferson Right, we go into great detail about Barton’s claims on Jefferson’s religious views. Barton tries to explain Jefferson’s religious statements later in life by an appeal to religious movements in central Virginia  (Primitivism and the Restoration movement). However, we debunk that effort and let Jefferson speak for himself about his religious influences and beliefs.

Get Getting Jefferson Right at Amazon.com.

Take the Jefferson Quiz.

Like Getting Jefferson Right on Facebook.

As you will see, Haraldsson highly recommends our book.

One way we are getting the word out about the book is The Jefferson Quiz. Go check it out and test your Jefferson knowledge. You can see the answers and  the results of others who have taken it after you are done.

Read the book on any digital device or computer you own. Click here to see how to do it.

If you have any questions about the book, leave them in the comments section here or at the site designed to support the book – Getting Jefferson Right.

About the book, Messiah College chair of history, John Fea, said:

*Getting Jefferson Right* is an intellectual and historical take down of David Barton’s pseudo-history of Thomas Jefferson by two Christian professors who teach at a conservative Christian college. Michael Coulter and Warren Throckmorton have done their homework. Anyone who reads this book must come to grips with the untruths and suspect historical interpretations that Barton regularly peddles in his books, speaking engagements, and on his radio program. I have yet to read a more thorough refutation of Barton’s claims.

–John Fea, Chair of the History Department, Messiah College and author of *Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction*

(Earlier I had mentioned a problem with images in the book. Those are now resolved. Anyone who bought the book without the images will get an email from Amazon with instructions on how to get their copy updated. People buying the book now should be fine.)