Christian Nationalist "historian" caught citing a quotation that doesn't exist

Tim Barton attributed famous Declaration language to a colonial sermon. There's just one problem: It's nowhere in the text.

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The latest lie coming from Christian pseudo-historian David Barton and his equally ignorant son Tim Barton is one that’s easy to fact-check, yet a very gullible religious audience ate it up without question.

A quick refresher: Barton has made a career out of twisting and distorting the words of the Founding Fathers and the Bible in defense of Christian Nationalism, homophobia, and bigotry. He’s such an egregious Christian liar that he claimed to have an earned Ph.D. that was later revealed to be a hoax. And he once wrote a book about Thomas Jefferson that was so full of misinformation that his Christian publishers pulled the book from the shelves, saying, “There were historical details—matters of fact, not matters of opinion, that were not supported at all.” (The book was ironically titled The Jefferson Lies.)

And yet conservative Christians and Republican politicians still cite him as an authoritative source of information to the point that Barton is literally a consultant for the Texas Board of Education. Conservatives all know the sort of people who take them seriously aren’t really interested in honesty. They just want someone to say, with total confidence, whatever they all wish was true. Barton has capitalized on that by tying together his religious fantasies and his ignorance of U.S. history.

That’s what he and his son were doing this past April at World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Tim Barton opening a book he never read (screenshot via YouTube)

Midway through their interview with the church’s pastor, Tim Barton claimed that Americans owed a debt of gratitude to preacher John Wise, who allegedly inspired the Declaration of Independence. To make his point, Tim held up a book containing two of Wise’s sermons and explained the connection to the Founders:

This is a book with two sermons from John Wise. These sermons were actually preached back in the early 1700s, but this was reprinted in 1772…

… In one of these two sermons, John Wise, and I quote, says, “All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” [Lengthy pause]

That’s in the Declaration!

This is also where they got the idea he taught that God’s preferred form of government was the consent of the governed. He taught—and this is in these sermons, these two sermons—he taught that taxation without representation is tyranny.

Those are all things that show up in the Declaration.

This was reprinted by the Founding Fathers…

There’s just one problem with that link: The material Tim Barton was quoting never appears in those sermons. He flat-out lied about that.

You can read the “sermons” here. The part he literally quoted? It’s not in there. There are references to basic concepts of democracy but it’s not like those were original thoughts either. They were ideas that had been floating around at the time.

Warren Throckmorton, who brought this to my attention and who’s written extensively about the Bartons and their lies, pointed out that it’s far more likely both Wise and Jefferson were influenced by someone else: Enlightenment writer Samuel Pufendorf.

The more general claim that ministers and sermons directly contributed to what Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence is not supported by an appeal to John Wise. Whereas Wise’s books may have encouraged some readers to integrate Enlightenment views of natural rights with Christian theology, there is no evidence that Jefferson owned or read Wise’s books. It seems more plausible that Jefferson was influenced by Pufendorf independent of Wise. Furthermore, Jefferson’s own testimony points to other influences.

There’s a simple way to counter this, of course. The Bartons could just show us where in Wise’s sermons he ever said—and I quote—”All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” They won’t do that because they have a longstanding habit of never opening the books they cite.

Why would they lie about this? Because they know their audience won’t challenge them. They know the pastor isn’t going to follow up and ask, “Wait, what page is that quote on?” They also have a larger purpose in mind. Throckmorton writes:

Christian nationalists want their audiences to believe the US is a nation inspired and created by Christian influences alone. They seem to feel this gives them an advantage in political battles now. If the nation was inspired by Christian principles at the founding, the reasoning goes, then surely it ought to be ruled by Christian principles (as they define them) now.

He’s absolutely right about that. It’s obvious why Tim Barton was saying this: He wanted to make the point that the Founding Fathers took their best ideas from Christianity, furthering the idea that we live in a “Christian nation.”

That’s why these aren’t honest mistakes. It’s not like two researchers overlooked a footnote or misremembered a quotation. The younger Barton held up this book in front of a church audience and attributed to it a specific sentence that does not exist. It’s the same move pastors make whenever they insist God’s commands are perfectly in line with Republican cruelty. They know damn well that the members of their congregation are never going to dig into their lies.

But it’s not like this is the first time the Bartons have done this. That’s why no actual historians take them seriously. They’re con artists. Their goal isn’t to understand the Founding Fathers; it’s to rewrite history in a way that elevates conservative Christian goals. Every lie they tell serves the same purpose: convincing Republicans that their political agenda is the natural continuation of America’s original mission. They have their conclusion figured out before they ever dig into the evidence.

The Bartons know what every professional liar has already figured out: Confident lies are way more persuasive than verifiable truths. It’s what they’ve built their careers on.

And the problem with that is that these lies are used to justify real policy changes. If you can convince Christians that America was founded exclusively on Christian principles, you can argue that Christianity deserves special authority today. Hell, you can argue that children need to be taught Christianity in school for historical reasons, not religious ones. That’s what this is all about. If you can rewrite the past convincingly enough, you can reshape the future. And far too many white evangelicals love being lied to.

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