When David Barton is the boogeyman of “extremism” and not the 20-year-old Jordanian man arrested in Houston after threatening to kill Jews, you know the shark has been jumped.
The Texas Tribune has a profile piece on David Barton, a conservative and Christian activist known most for his organization WallBuilders — an institution dedicated to the study and preservation of America’s founding.
The ire of the Tribune’s eye as it relates to Barton is his argument that the contemporary understanding of the “separation of church and state” is wrong. Unfortunately the Tribune is showing their ignorance because Barton is correct.
We’ve heard for decades whenever any political issue nears Christian doctrine that “church and state are supposed to be separate!” This, those mainly on the political left assert, means that religion — specifically Christianity — cannot influence the government’s affairs.
We heard it when the Legislature debated the “Ten Commandments” bill. We continue to hear it in the debate over school choice and parents’ desire to use their tax dollars to help pay for private school tuition. And we’ll continue to hear it on whatever issue the left finds it useful to invoke.
But they are just plain wrong.
The establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
That’s a prohibition on the government setting an official state religion, not a broad prohibition on religion influencing the decision-making of elected officials.
That’s just absurd and nobody can be reasonably expected to suspend their belief system while in office.
John Adams put that notion to bed when he said, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Barton’s position on the establishment clause is dead on accurate.
But of course the Tribune paints Barton as an extremist, and a particularly dangerous one now that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA-04) holds the U.S. House gavel. But you know who’s actually a dangerous extremist?
Sohaib Abuayyash, an illegal immigrant from Jordan, who was arrested by federal law enforcement last week after purchasing a firearm and threatening to use it against Jews.
Has anything been written by the Tribune about this? I can’t find it.
But hey, David Barton and his Christianity is the real problem.
Once again, the Tribune’s “extremism” coverage swings one direction only and it’s the same direction Barton’s politics trend.
You can’t find a single article about left wing extremism on that site.
Are we to believe it doesn’t exist?? Nonsense.
But that’s the way the legacy media operates. We saw it during the Trump years and we’ll see it even more should he win next year.
A guy threatening to shoot up a synagogue is a helluva lot more dangerous than an evangelical preaching about the importance of Christ and the value of the American founding.
If you haven’t already, subscribe to The Texan, a publication which understands that very basic, simple truth.