Getting Jefferson Right in Church and State Magazine
Taken from Church and State Magazine, November issue, published by Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Over a decade ago on August 9, 2012, Christian publisher Thomas Nelson made an announcement that was unprecedented for that company. The firm decided to pull Christian Nationalist David Barton’s book The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson from publication. The publisher’s representatives said they lost confidence in the book’s facts.
Debunking Barton: Let’s get Jefferson right!
What led to Thomas Nelson’s decision? While there were several factors, one I know the most about is my book with my friend and colleague Michael Coulter, Getting Jefferson Right. When I learned that Barton planned to bring out a book on Thomas Jefferson that argued that Jefferson was not a strong advocate of church-state separation, I obtained a review copy of his book and set to work writing a book-length review. In the midst of writing, I invited my then Grove City College fellow professor Coulter to join me, and we completed the book about one month after Barton finished work on The Jefferson Lies in April 2012.