Posted by
The Interface on Sunday, February 22, 2009 7:41:20 PM
The proposition before us is best accomplished with a demonstration that shows how feckless most modern historians are, and how to determine the difference between a good historian who’s done his homework, and a lazy historian with an agenda.
The case study is one recently published by Dr. Mark Beliles and Dr. David Barton over at the WallBuilders website. The historical person in question is one of the liberals’ favorites, Thomas Jefferson. The issue:
It is a common assertion among many academic writers today that Thomas Jefferson, in what those writers wrongly allege to be Jefferson’s disdain for religion in general and Christianity in particular, founded the University of Virginia as America’s first explicitly secular school.
As an example of true scholarship (follow the link above for references; there are 47 footnotes with detailed references, and in some cases, weblinks, to the original data), the authors of this article then give, not one or two, but six citations of such alleged historians who, in recent works, make this assertion very clearly. For example, Professor Anita Vickers of Penn State University:
After Jefferson left the presidency in 1809, he embarked on what has unequivocally been determined as his finest architectural design achievement: the University of Virginia….A Deist and a Secular Humanist, Jefferson rejected the religious tradition that had provided the foundation for the colonial universities.
So then, after establishing that they are not hyperventilating over a straw man, they then give us the critical criterion for making the distinction I described in the first paragraph above, that is, how to identify academic malpractice (emphasis added):
Sadly, the current academic over-emphasis on peer-review among professors has caused many to develop the regrettable tendency of heavily reading, quoting, and citing each other rather than actual historical documents related to the object of their inquiry. That is, rather than saying “Thomas Jefferson says that the University of Virginia was founded in order to . . .”, they instead say, “Professor _____ says that Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia in order to . . .” Consequently, when one academic writer makes a particular claim, many others repeat that claim as though it were indisputable fact – even if that claim can be factually disproved.
In other words, they commit A Capital Mistake and let their agenda influence their alleged work. Convinced of the truth of their position, they lazily echo one another in a reverberating chorus they hope will be accepted as truth by their audiences. They fall into the category of people identified centuries ago by the apostle Paul, who
…measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. (2 Corinthians 10:12)
Unfortunately, given the current lack of cognition in the general populace as a whole, and college students in particular, their success has been significant.
Returning to our example, four oft-repeated claims have emerged about Jefferson’s founding of the University of Virginia:
1. Jefferson founded a deliberately secular university
2. Jefferson sought out Unitarians to be its faculty
3. Jefferson barred religious activities and instruction from the program of the school
4. Affirming its commitment to secularism, the University of Virginia had no chaplain
Drs. Beliles and Barton then proceed to demolish all four claims using, not other so-called scholars’ citations, but the relevant data drawn from the recorded words of Jefferson himself and his contemporaries. In so doing, they give us an example of true scholarship, and reach diametrically opposite conclusions derived from clear references that are so clear they require no interpretation unless one is seeking a way to reverse their clear meaning.
Thus the modern historians are shown to be driven by an agenda rather than a search for the truth. And when an agenda drives one to embrace error, one should question the validity of that agenda. As one of my former pastors once said, “How can it be scholarly if it is wrong?”