NPR quotes a spokesperson for Thomas Nelson publishing.

"When the concerns came in, from multiple people, and that had weight too, we were trying to sort things out," said Thomas Nelson Senior Vice President and Publisher Brian Hampton. "Were these matters of opinion? Were they differences of interpretation? But as we got into it, our conclusion was that the criticisms were correct. There were historical details -- matters of fact, not matters of opinion, that were not supported at all."

Barton's first book, The Myth of Separation, was followed by other slightly more subtle efforts at attacking separation of church and state.  In short, Barton promotes a theory that separation of church and state is a "liberal myth" and never intended by the Founding Fathers. He also claims that the nation has been in a steep decline since the school prayer rulings in 1962 and 1963.  His attacks on separation of church and state are conducted through his nonprofit organization Wallbuilders, based in Aledo, Texas.

Conservative Christian Scholars Led the Current Backlash Against Barton

Barton has been debunked for years by Chris Rodda, Rob Boston, and other defenders of separation of church and state, but this time it was conservative Christian historians and theologians who led the charge.  Barton has been controversial, even in conservative Christian circles, for his extreme politicization of religion and more recently for his partnership with the apostles and prophets of the New Apostolic Reformation and with Glenn Beck.

The most recent critiques of Barton's books have come from Christian scholars who countered numerous claims in Barton's latest book. These include John Fea, Chair of the History Department at Messiah College in Pennsylvania. Fea argues that although Barton is very popular in some conservative Christian circles, virtually no Christian colleges, conservative or not, teach or endorse his revisionist views. Note that Liberty University Law School dean Matthew Staver list of required reading for his students includes David Barton's book Original Intent. Hopefully this is the exception to the rule.(John Fea - Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four.)

Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter of Grove City College in Pennsylvania wrote a book dedicated to countering Barton's The Jefferson Lies, titled Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims About Our Third President.  In an interview for Religion Dispatches, Coulter stated,

"Sloppy and misleading historical writing used for advancing an agenda harms the general reputation of Christians as scholars."

Greg Forster also sharply refutes Barton in First Things in an August 8 article titled "David Barton's Errors."  It concerns Barton's writings about John Locke.

The bad press for Barton from conservative sources didn't end there.  Rod Dreher in The American Conservative wrote,

Count me as a conservative Christian who is alarmed by this kind of thing.

...History will always be contended over, of course, but the goal should be trying to make the study of history an exercise in finding the truth, not massaging the past to make it fit a contemporary political narrative. When conservatives and Christians do this, we are no better than those we criticize. I don't want my children to learn politically correct history, from either the left or the right. You shouldn't either.

Surveying the Damage Already Done

Despite the debunking of Barton's work, he has already played a role in revisions of curriculum revisions by the State Board of Education (SBOE) in Texas and elsewhere. (He has sued two former Texas SBOE candidates for a You Tube video referencing Barton's speaking engagements in the 1991 to white supremacist groups, despite the fact that this is documented on the ADL's website and has been in the public record for two decades.)  

Barton says he has made about 8000 appearances around the country, speaking to churches, ministries and Tea Party groups.  His work is featured in many home schooling and private school curricula.  In 2007, Frederick Clarkson wrote about the significance of Christian nationalist history and reported,

Christian nationalism is permeating not just cultural but national political life. The Republican National Committee employed leading Christian revisionist author David Barton to barnstorm conservative churches in voter mobilization campaigns during the past few election cycles and to make appearances with GOP candidates. The talented Mr. Barton made hundreds of campaign appearances in 2004 alone.

In Alabama, two NPR executives were fired in June, apparently for refusing to air one of Barton's Wallbuilders series. (See Salon's article "Tea Party takes over Alabama public radio." On August 8, NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty profiled Barton on All Things Considered.  NPR fact checked Barton, including his claims that the clauses in the Constitution are direct quotes from the Bible. From the NPR report,

"We looked up every citation Barton said was from the bible, but not one of them checked out."

"I almost wish that there would be like a simultaneous telecast,"  Huckabee said at a conference last year, "and all Americans will be forced, forced - at gunpoint, no less - to listen to every David Barton message.  And I think our country will be better for it."

Ongoing Damage

According to Chris Rodda, the inaccurate Founding Fathers' quotes promoted by Barton have been repeated on the floor of the U.S. House and Senate. He has been publicly endorsed and shared the stage with numerous politicians including Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, and Marco Rubio.  His revisionist history can now be found on the websites of Religious Right and Tea Party groups across the nation, with many marketing his media.

Barton is one of the Religious Right leaders  pushing for Mitt Romney to name one of their own - preferably Mike Huckabee - as his vice presidential running mate.

Hopefully, the events of this week will slow the damage done to American history by David Barton, but those who want to believe his pseudo-histories will likely join Barton in dismissing his critics as "elitist academics" or claim, as Wallbuilder's Rick Green did in June, that the negative critiques are proof  that Barton is right. No doubt we will continue to encounter Barton's pseudo-history for years to come.

Also see:  

• Chris Rodda's Liars for Jesus, which Rodda has made available online for free.  Pick a chapter - any chapter - and read it, to understand how Barton abuses historical facts.
  
• and Right Wing's Watch's , recent list of "demonstrably false claims made by David Barton."