Telling Jefferson Lies: Debunking the Myth that America was Founded as a Christian Nation

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Roger Finke is distinguished professor emeritus of sociology and international affairs at Penn State University. Roger is also the founder of the Association of Religion Data Archives, which is an online archive of the best religion data available, a standard research tool for social scientists. He is the author of several books including the subject of today's interview: The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the 21st Century (2011) co-authored with Brian Grim. 

In this book, Grim and Finke found that as religious freedoms are denied in a society, b...

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Today's segment is the second part of my interview with Paul Matzko, historian and senior program manager at the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. Paul is also an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. Our topic today is Paul's answer to the question: has Christian nationalism ever worked? 

Listen in to find out. 

As a part of addressing the question, Paul tells the story of Quaker martyr Mary Dyer. 

Music provided by Earl's Taco Shack, Jonathan Swaim, and Jonus Fair. 

Artwork by Sara...

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Paul Matzko is a historian and senior program manager for AI and emerging technology at the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. He is also an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and host of the Unintended Consequences podcast. 

Today, he joins me to discuss how Christian nationalism differs from citizen engagement with politics. Often Christian nationalists complain that they are simply living out their faith in the public square. However, Paul teases out the differences between policies which benefit the common good and those which are designed to b...

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This segment includes a significant amount of a recent interview with historican and author Jemar Tisby. Although I interviewed Jemar in the spring, the content is incredibly timely and relevant now. In this discussion, we cover the Trump administration's war on due process, diversity programs, and foreign aid. 

A recurring theme is the grift, greed, and cruelty of the Trump administration's Christian nationalism. Jemar challenges listeners to speak the truth and act to preserve our freedoms.   

From the segment: "To put it in Christian terms, White Christian nationalism is wro...

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Today I feature an interview with Katherine Stewart, the author of the New York Time bestseller Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy.  The segment is timely in that we discuss income disparities accentuated by the passage of the recent Trump budget. The dominance of Christian nationalism in the current administration isn't helping many of the foot soldiers who helped bring Trump to power. 

Katherine discusses her new book and much more. Here is a sampling of topics:

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Why are Christian nationalists angry about the New York City Democratic mayoral primary victory of Zohran Mamdani? They surely are. Many are blaming "unchecked" immigration for his win. White Christians nationalist fear they are being replaced by too many non-Christians and too many black and brown people. In light of this event and the overall attacks on immigrants taking place in Trump's America, have I got a segment for you. We also hear from a founding father on why Muslims should not be discriminated against. 

In contrast to prior episodes, this o...

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Be it resolved: America's founders established a secular government with provision for a religious people. When the delegates met in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, they deliberately prevented the government from favoring any religion. Then when the Bill of Rights were added, freedom of religious expression was guaranteed. 

Those who wanted a Christian government at the time were upset at what they called the religious defect in the Constitution. They were honest enough to admit what today's Christian nationalists often cover up: The Constitution is not a Christian document and the n...

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Recently, David Barton and Matt Krause testified in front of the Texas House of Representatives Public Education committee. Barton and Krause both said some historically questionable things to support the placement of the Ten Commandments in every Texas classroom. A premise of this podcast is that it takes faulty history to pursue Christian nationalist goals, one of which is to erode separation of church and state. 

Texas Representatives John Bryant and James Talarico scrutinized Barton's and Kruse's arguments and determined that placing a Christian version of the Ten Commandments in every T...

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In this segment, I examine the notion that there was something remarkably Christian about America's founding era. Last week, I fact-checked Charlie Kirk's viral video defense of the belief that America was founded as a Christian nation in the legal sense. Most of what Kirk had to say was irrelevant or incorrect. 

Today, I consider an overview of moral and religious failings during the founding era. Along with guests Jemar Tisby, Mark Noll, George Marsden, Caleb Campbell, and Aaron Cowan, I contradict Charlie Kirk's call to return to America's Christian roots. I...

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In 2024, Charlie Kirk distributed a five-minute video defense of the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation. It has been played at least 20 million times on various social media platforms and is full of faulty history. This segment serves to correct the false claims and defend the proposition that America's founders set out to found a secular government with provision for religious pluralism. Unfortunately, this only applied to white males at first. 

Kirk and his fellow Christian nationalists use a variety of false stories to prop up a vision o...

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On January 3, 2025, Louisiana Representative Mike Johnson was re-elected to be Speaker of the House. In his acceptance speech, he quoted a prayer that he said Thomas Jefferson said every day during his presidency and every day of his life thereafter. 

There is a problem with this story. The prayer was written 56 years after Jefferson died. Jefferson never said the prayer even one day of his life. Later, Johnson and the House chaplain refused to acknowledge they spread false witness to the whole country. 

Before the prayer was associated with Je...

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In 2024, a video featuring Charlie Kirk defending America as a Christian nation was viewed over 10 millions times on social media. Many of the claims were false or misleading. This season of Telling Jefferson Lies will examine this video and other Christian nation claims by Christian nationalists in addition to Kirk. 

The first full episode is planned for April. 

There are lies, there are Jefferson Lies, and then there are Christian nationalists' stories. 

Music by Warren Throckmorton and Jonus Fair. 

Host: Warren Throckmorton; guest Matthew Boedy.  

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Although the dates have not been set, new episodes of Telling Jefferson Lies are coming this Spring. I want to go deeper into the faulty history of Christian nationalism but also examine the psychology behind it as well. 

Christian nationalism as an ideology is much more complex than fake quotes and false stories. The way history has been written from the beginning of the arrival of the Europeans must be examined as well.

This trailer focuses on January 6 with a clip from David and Tim Barton doing their Christian n...

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On September 3, 2024, author and historian Jemar Tisby's new book The Spirit of Justice: True Stories of Faith, Race, and Resistance officially drops everywhere. Today, I am posting most of the interview I conducted with Jemar for use in my podcast series Telling Jefferson Lies.

In this episode, I recreate my questions because of a recording glitch in the original. The recording on Jemar's end was excellent with brilliant content to match, so this is a quality and thought provoking episode. We cover much of the podcast material (e.g., Thomas Jefferson...

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On July 2, 2024, Caleb Campbell's new book Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor officially drops everywhere. Today, I am posting most of the interview I conducted with Caleb for use in my podcast series Telling Jefferson Lies. 

In this episode, I do say I want to smash Christian nationalists, but I hope it is clear that I am not serious, but instead I agree with Caleb's approach. There is often a difference between what we might feel like doing and we know we should do, and Caleb points us to our b...

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Excerpts from my interview with Scott Coley, lecturer in philosophy at Mount St. Mary's University. His new book Ministers of Propaganda: Truth, Power, and the Ideology of the Religious Right is out this week. In this bonus episode of the podcast series Telling Jefferson Lies, Scott discusses Christo-authoritarianism and the role of justice in overcoming self-interest. 

Music credits:
Seiche by Dustin Blatnik
Debris by Roman Candle
Night Walk by Warren Throckmorton

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Often debates focus on Christian nationalism and the problems which come from blurring the line between church and state. In this episode, I end the Telling Jefferson Lies series with some thoughts and testimony from experts about what is good about separation.

Helping me close out the series are:

Randall Balmer, John Phillips Chair in Religion, Dartmouth College
Caleb Campbell, Pastor, Desert Springs Bible Church, Phoenix, AZ
Michael Coulter, Professor, Political Science and Humanities, Grove City College
Greg Forster, theologian, Trinity International University
Charles Haynes,  s...

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In 2005, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor asked an important question for those who would erode separation of church and state: "Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly? "

I spend much of this episode affirming that we should not trade. Much of this series has been raising alarm about Christian nationalism and supporting separation of church and state. This episode assembles an all-star cast of experts in favor of a strong separation position. Joining me are:

Randall Balmer...

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In this segment, I argue that Christian nationalism is bad for religion in general and bad for Christianity in the specific case. This segment sets up the finale which argues that separation of church and state is a benefit to the United States and should be strengthened. 

If you like experts and multiple voices, this is the segment for you. Here is the lineup:

Randall Balmer, John Phillips Chair in Religion, Dartmouth College
Paul Kemeny, Dean of Arts and Letters, Grove City College
Bob Smietana, Journalist, Religion N...

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In this short bonus episode, Dartmouth College professor Randall Balmer provides an introduction to reasons why he doesn't see the U.S. as a Christian nation. 

Dr. Balmer is the John Phillips Chair in Religion at Dartmouth College. He has spoken at numerous colleges and universities, including where I met him, Grove City College. 

Balmer has published more than a dozen books, including Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter, God in the White House: How Faith Shaped the Presidency from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush, and Bad Fa...

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In general terms, I believe Christian nationalism is bad history, bad politics, and bad religion. In prior episodes, I have concentrated on the bad history. In this segment and the next, I focus mainly on the bad politics. Around the world, religious nationalism is associated with state sponsored violence against citizens, use of force to take political control, erosion of the separation of church and state, degrading of democratic principles and attacks on minority rights. I believe Christian nationalism is also bad for Christianity which I will examine in the next episode.
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As promised, here is the completion of my examination of David Barton's whitewashing of Thomas Jefferson. In our book Getting Jefferson Right: Fact-Checking Claims About Thomas Jefferson, Michael Coulter and I assume the position held by most scholars and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation when it comes to the paternity of Sally Hemings children, i.e., Thomas Jefferson was their father.

In The Jefferson Lies, David Barton deceives readers about what Madison Hemings said about his mother. Here is what Barton said Hemings told a Pike County (OH) newspaper in 1873.

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This supplements episode 10, Still Searching for Christian America, Part Two. You can listen to this first, but I definitely encourage you to go back and catch up if you do.

Everybody in Christian nationalism is talking about the seven mountains message. The message is at the root of much violent rhetoric coming from Christian nationalists but according to one of the key players in the movement, the origin story is fake.

Helping me out in this bonus episode is Senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish...

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Note: Earlier versions of this segment had a low quality version of a speech by Jerry Falwell. The audio problem has been corrected.

In this episode, I describe the National Prayer Breakfast movement, right-wing Christian nationalists, Reconstructionists, and non-denominational charismatic Christian nationalists. 

My guests for this episode are:

Julie Ingersoll, Professor of religion at the University of North Florida and author of Building God's Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction

Jonathan Larsen: Journalist, https://jonathanlarsen.substack.com/

Joel McDurmon: Attorney, t...

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In 1983, Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, and George Marsden published a book titled The Search for Christian America. They concluded that there was nothing uniquely Christian in the founding of the United States and there is no Christian America to which to return.

In this episode, both Drs. Noll and Marsden join me to say they believe today they were right in 1983 and the same conclusions are correct today. In between comments from these illustrious historians, I interview experts regarding the various conceptions of Christian nationalism, including "secular" leaning nationalism, white nationalism...

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Stephen Wolfe's book The Case for Christian Nationalism ignited a firestorm of controversy when it was released in 2022.  In the book, Wolfe calls for revolt against tyranny and for Christians to mobilize at the state and local level to enact self-conscious Christian governments. In principle, according to Wolfe, Christian state's could use violence to maintain a Christian social order.

With the help of Cato Institute historian Paul Matzko, podcast host Warren Throckmorton analyzes how Wolfe deals with Thomas Jefferson and highlights differences from other Christian nationalists such as David Barton. Also j...

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SHOW NOTES:

This bonus episode is a supplement to Conspiracy of Silence (Episode Seven of Telling Jefferson Lies). It provides the audio of the Family Research Council Capitol Tour led by David Barton followed by the the response of 35 historians and social scientists who, in 2013, asked FRC to remove the video from social media.

You can watch the original video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzGdHZDXxKI

To get the story, listen to the Conspiracy of Silence, episode seven.

Written and produced by: Warren...

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After David Barton's book The Jefferson Lies was pulled from publication in August, 2012, some Christian organizations wrote critical articles and publicly distanced themselves from Barton and Wallbuilders. Other groups some were caught off guard. The leaders of these groups knew they had false and misleading material being offered to their constituents, but they didn’t make any moves to remove it. 

This episode examines how two of those organizations, Family Research Council and Focus on the Family, handled the situation. I wish I could say this episode has a happy ending. Ult...

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This is a continuation of last week's episode on whitewashing Jefferson. Today, we specifically take on Barton's contention that Jefferson was a civil rights hero for African Americans and was a strong anti-slavery advocate during his entire life.

In fact, after 1784, Jefferson's promising beginning as an opponent of slavery faded away. While he continued to advocate emancipation, he linked it with deportation. He always believed that Blacks and Whites could not live together in one nation. He dedicated himself to the business of slavery and as president, supported the expansion of...

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Why did Thomas Nelson pull David Barton's book The Jefferson Lies from publication in 2012? Last week, we started to answer that question. This week we continue to provide specific illustrations of the historical errors which triggered that unprecedented move by Thomas Nelson.

In this episode, we focus on the errors regarding race and slavery. We spend a significant amount of time demonstrating how David Barton deliberately omitted parts of the 1782 Virginia law on manumission. We submit he did this to whitewash Jefferson's record and actions as an enslaver of human beings...

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Since the founding era, Christian nationalists have told and believed myths about the founders and their religious views.  Paul Matzko, historian and researcher with the Cato Institute and Anna Berkes, librarian at Monticello's Jefferson Library talk to me about the persistence of these stories throughout the history of the U.S.

Then, I fact-check a fable involving Thomas Jefferson and Daniel Webster which has been lately told by Eric Metaxas and David Barton but has been around since 1858. This is an episode which demonstrates how to examine the context and facts o...

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What was so wrong with The Jefferson Lies that Thomas Nelson decided to pull the book from publication? In this episode, Michael Coulter and Warren Throckmorton start answering that question by pulling  material from their book, Getting Jefferson Right.

In this episode, we take long looks into Barton’s handling of the Danbury Baptist letter to Thomas Jefferson, the Jefferson Bible, and a fable about Jefferson and church attendance.  We show how the use of ellipses, second and third-hand sources, and a creative imagination can make historical fiction out of history.
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In 2012, only four months after release, publisher Thomas Nelson removed David Barton's book The Jefferson Lies from publication.  Many people blamed or credited a book by Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter titled Getting Jefferson Right for moving the publisher in that direction. What happened?

Building on the foundation of the first two episodes, this installment in the Telling Jefferson Lies series provides the backstory to what was an unprecedented event for one of the largest Christian publishers in the nation. Warren Throckmorton interviews many of the people who were involved and s...

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"You know, he is the where's Waldo of the movement. He's a little bit everywhere."  Katherine Stewart, author of Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Christian Nationalism. 

"He's managed to create a kind of brand in a way for himself through Wallbuilders of being a trusted authority on the American past." Randall Stephens, professor of American Studies at the University of Oslo in Norway.

In this episode, we examine how David Barton bounced back from his early problems and thrived by creating a brand as a trusted authority on...

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In April 2012, Thomas Nelson published The Jefferson Lies, a book about Thomas Jefferson written by David Barton. By August of the same year, the publisher had removed the book from publication. What happened?

This series tells that story and so much more.

Just over a decade later, the Speaker of the House of Representatives declared his thanks to the same David Barton for his work in history.

This series explores how historical revisionism persists even when it can be demonstrated that the facts are not there.
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Telling Jefferson Lies not only documents the role of revisionist history in the maintenance of Christian nationalism, it addresses what Christian nationalism is about.  This weekend seems like a good time to preview that aspect of the series. 

The series starts in two weeks with a look at the origin story of America's Premier Historian, followed by an examination of the cataclysm of The Jefferson Lies of 2012. Then we take a look at a brief year long window when evangelical leaders had a choice about what to do with Christian nationalist re...

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A brief preview of the upcoming series Telling Jefferson Lies.

Telling Jefferson Lies chronicles how history can be hijacked for ideological and political purposes. We begin with the extraordinary story of how David Barton’s best-selling book about Thomas Jefferson was pulled from publication due to historical errors. After telling that backstory, some of which has never been disclosed, we described the reaction of the academic and church worlds. How Christian nationalists reacted moves us into a much broader story about the consequences of believing myths and failing to get history ri...

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This is the first teaser/trailer for the podcast series which begins in January, 2024.

Show Notes:

The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill by Christianity Today, hosted by Mike Cosper, from Episode 11, The Tempest. https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/podcasts/rise-and-fall-of-mars-hill/tempest-mars-hill-driscoll.html.

Music by Warren Throckmorton

For more information about Getting Jefferson Right: Fact-Checking Claims About Thomas Jefferson, go to gettingjeffersonright.com. When you buy the book, make sure you get the second edition which just came out in 2023.