David Barton was vice-chairman of the Texas Republican Party, and in 2004 worked with the Bush-Cheney campaign, in part touring the United States spreading the theory of Christian Nationalism to Evangelical groups - a role that would seem to fit Barton to T as he is the Founder and President of Wall Builders, a national pro-family organization which distributes historical, legal, and statistical information.

Barton is a self-taught historian who has collected quotes and anecdotes to prove that the American Founding Fathers were in fact "orthodox, evangelical Christians" (a term which is impossible to be defined) and that their intention was to construct a Christian government.

Unfortunately, critics claim Barton has a habit of playing loose with the quotes.

"The idea that the Constitution expressed a moral view seems absurd. There were no genuine evangelicals in the Convention, and there were no heated declarations of Christian piety," historian Robert Middlekauff has said.

Besides ignoring Evangelical Christians are the result of a fairly recent historical movement, and certainly weren't around when the United States was founded (nor can the Founding Fathers various faiths be even remotely described as Evangelical (see related subject Deism), critics also claim that Barton not only ignores evidence to the contrary of his beliefs, relies heavily on second- and third-hand sources, and has been accused of misquoting or distorting Supreme Court decisions

Still, Barton's website, Wallbuilders (http://www.wallbuilders.com), as well as various books and videos of his, are used by people and institutions -- commonly mistakenly called the Religious Right -- as Pat Robinson and Christian Coalition, James Dobson and Focus On The Family, Jerry Falwell and Liberty University, D James Kennedy and Coral Ridge Ministries, as well as Phyliss Schafly and Eagle Forum and various others.

According to Steve Weissman in his Truthout article "America's Religious Right - Saints or Subversives?" by Steve Weissman, in 2002 Barton appeared on Pat Robertson's 700 Club where he said "This is the book that the founders said they used in writing the Declaration ... John Locke's Two Treatises of Civil Government, from 1765 ... This quotes the Bible 1,700 times to show the proper operation of civil government. No wonder we have had a successful government - 226 years we celebrate this year. There are 1700 Bible verses at the base of what they did in writing the Declaration."

"So this is nonsense that these guys wanted a secular nation, that they didn't want any God in government, it doesn't hold up," said Barton, according to Steve Weissman.

In that same Pat Robertson segment, Barton was asked about a Revolutionary War motto. Weissman says Barton responded "The motto ... was 'No king but King Jesus.' It was built actually on what Jefferson and Franklin had proposed as the national motto, which is, 'Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.'"

But in particular it is the theory that the Founding Fathers were Evangelical Christians which is heavily pushed by Barton.

In fact, Steve Weissman in his Truthout article America's Religious Right - Saints or Subversives? said that "Barton systematically fails to see that many, if not most, of the founders were men of the 17th and 18th Century Enlightenment, who consciously rejected any literal interpretation of the Bible. To the degree they had religious faith, and many did, they believed in a God who - like a cosmic watchmaker - created the world and its natural laws, and then played no further part."

Weissman continued, "[Deism], as they called their belief, runs unmistakably through the Declaration of Independence, in which Thomas Jefferson wrote of the "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" rather than of the personal, miracle-working God of David Barton's Christianity."

To prove his point, Weissman quotes a Letter to Dr. Woods, "I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies."

But, Weissman says that instead of acknowledging the Letter's contents, "Barton short-changes this Enlightenment philosophy," and that "at one point, he even claimed that Jefferson wanted his wall of separation to work in only one direction."

In particular, Weissman says that Barton at one time had claimed that Thomas Jefferson had said that the "Government will not run the church, but we will still use Christian principles with government."

Of course, Jefferson never said anything similar to that, and Barton was forced to retract the statement.

Weissman notes that Barton also quoted James Madison, "the father of the Constitution," as saying that "We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."

Unfortunately, no other historian was able to find documentation of Madison saying anything similar - although they did find him saying quite the opposite, specifically with respect to religious freedom in Virginia. Weissman notes that once again Barton had to recant.

In fact, Barton has released a list of Twelve Questionable Quotes - phrases and quotations that he had used for years in his books and videos, and which he now says are probably not accurate.