Dispatches from the Creation Wars

This is a very good question. A little background may flesh it out a bit. Barton's first book, The Myth of Separation, contained all of the fake quotes on that list. He was ripped for this by genuine historians, especially Robert Alley, a Madison scholar, and was forced to admit that those quotations had never been found in the genuine writings or speeches of the men they were attributed to. That list includes many of the most common quotes offered by "Christian Nation" advocates.

Barton claimed that he issued the retraction because he "came to believe that historical debates undergirding public policy should be conducted using a standard of evidence that would be accepted by courts: only the "best evidence" should be used." Yet here he is on the board of advisers of a group that puts out a curriculum that includes nearly all of those fake quotes and he apparently hasn't bothered to inform them of the fact that the quotes are not authentic, nor has he suggested that they take them out and adhere to this "higher standard" he now claims to believe in.

But Barton is hardly the only Christian Nation revisionist quoted in the curriculum. As Rodda points out, they also rely on the "scholarship" - and I'm using that term very loosely - of William Federer. How bad a scholar is Federer? He continues to use those same fake quotes even after Barton publicly retracted them and admitted they're not authentic. And they also pass on the false story about Jefferson's "National Prayer for Peace" (the same one Joseph Farah passed on last week). Federer offers this quote, repeated in the NCBCPS curriculum:

President Thomas Jefferson, March 4, 1805, offered A National Prayer for Peace:

Almighty God, Who has given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Thy favor and glad to do Thy will. Bless our land with honorable ministry, sound learning, and pure manners.

Save us from violence, discord, and confusion, from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitude brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues.

Endow with Thy spirit of wisdom those whom in Thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that through obedience to Thy law, we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of earth.

In time of prosperity fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in Thee to fail; all of which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen.

As I noted last week, this is actually the day of Jefferson's second inauguration and there was no such prayer offered. Rodda digs a bit deeper and points out that this is actually taken straight from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, but a far later edition than Jefferson could have seen:

Federer gives two sources for this prayer. The first is the 1944 book The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson. All that appears on the page of this book cited by Federer, however, is part of Jefferson's second Inaugural Address, given on March 4, 1805, the same date used by Federer for the prayer. Federer's second source is a newsletter published by the Plymouth Rock Foundation, one of many Christian reconstructionist organizations that masquerade as historical societies.

The real source of the prayer is the 1928 edition of the United States version of the Episcopal Church's Book of Common Prayer, published over a century after Jefferson's death. This prayer, entitled For Our Country, was a new addition in the 1928 edition. It does not appear in the 1789 edition, which was the edition in use in 1804, or the next edition, published in 1892. Since appearing in Federer's book, however, this twentieth century prayer has been erroneously attributed to Thomas Jefferson on hundreds of Christian American history websites, and, along with the other lies and misquotes that I've exposed in my prior pieces or will expose in the rest of this series, is now being presented as historical truth in our public schools via the NCBCPS course.

No matter how often these lies are debunked, they simply won't die; there is no silver bullet to kill this beast. And even when these ridiculous pseudo-historians claim to be adhering to a higher standard and are forced to admit that these claims are false, they still endorse projects that include those same lies. There simply is no intellectual honesty to be found here.