David Barton: Credentialed Historian
This post originally appeared at the Sectarian Review Blog, www.sectarianreviewpodcast.com
Sectarian Review’s official “David Barton Watchdog,” Jay Eldred, drew my attention to this story and I found it too humorous not to share.
Barton’s main purpose is to provide a veneer of intellectual rigor for Evangelicals who profit from perpetuating lies about American history, and he receives constant, and justified, criticism from actual historians like our network’s own Pietist Schoolman, as well as other respected scholars like John Fea.
Well apparently enough is enough. Barton is sick and tired of actual academics (he smugly writes off as “progressives”) questioning his authority and he wants us to know that he does have a Ph.D. He just doesn’t want us to know where it’s from. But if you watch the video, you can see a couple of diplomas in the background. This all very weird, but I suppose it is consistent with the way Barton deals with primary sources in general.
Warren Throckmorton has done some digging and has posted a compelling theory on his own blog.
If Throckmorton is correct, and the unaccredited Life Christian University is the source of Barton’s credential, we should not be surprised. Barton is not a true academic, he simply plays one for an echo-chamber populated by organizations like Life Christian. To support the fallacious claims the echo-chamber makes, it must have the appearance of legitimacy. Why not manufacture its own by credentialing its own scholars for the purpose?
Barton’s academic credentials have been murky and he has long been evasive about them. To be fair, the source of his degrees is only important because he postures himself as a scholar. There is nothing about earning a Ph.D. that makes anyone morally superior (just look at your’s truly). Yet Barton works hard to construct the persona of an academic, so questions about his training are appropriate.
In the end, Wall-Builder Barton is key figure (along with people like Ark-Builder Ken Ham) in a culture that is intellectually, artistically, and theologically incestuous. This particular episode offers some insight into the mechanisms of that culture’s institutions.
