Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History Vol. 1

532 Pages·2006·1.78 MB·English

by  Chris Rodda

L I AR S FOR J E SUS
Volume I

L I AR S
F OR J E SUS
—
The Religious Right’s Alternate
Version of American History
—
Volume I
CHRIS RODDA
Published by the author
somewhere in the Garden State
2006
Liars for Jesus:
The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History
©2006 by Chris Rodda
Not too many rights reserved. The use of a reasonable amount
of the content of this book is fine with me, provided that it is
used for the purpose of correcting the historical myths and
lies of the religious right – wherever they may be lurking or
may appear. By a reasonable amount, I mean as much as is
necessaryto thoroughly and successfully disprove a particular
lie or list of lies, whether that is one paragraph or ten pages.
In other words, use what you need, but don’t go copying entire
chapters onto your website or anything.
ISBN: 1-4196-4438-6
The Liars For Jesus website, www.liarsforjesus.com, contains
a footnote archive, allowing those reading this book to view
images of the documents cited in its footnotes, as well as links
to the many books cited that, thanks to a number of recent
digitization projects, are now freely accessible online.
This book is dedicated to
everyone working in any way
to combat the religious right’s
revisionism of American history.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
1. Congress and the Bible. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. The Northwest Ordinance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3. Indian Treaties and Indian Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4. Propagating the Gospel Among the Heathen?. . . . . . . . . . . . 123
5. Thomas Jefferson and Public Education. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
6. Did Prayer Save the Constitutional Convention? . . . . . . . . . 251
7. Treaties with the Barbary States. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
8. Treaties with Christian Nations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
9. James Madison’s Detached Memoranda. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
10. The Election of 1800 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
11. More Lies About Benjamin Franklin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
12. More Lies About Thomas Jefferson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425
13. Jefferson, Madison, and Blackstone?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497

Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I’d like to thank my parents, Jim and Anne, for
all their support and encouragement, and, most importantly, for
paying my rent so I wouldn’t have to finish writing this book on a
laptop plugged into my car lighter. I’d also like to thank everyone else
– particularly Debbie, Michele, Ricky (a.k.a. Tito from the Bronx),
Ron, and Al – who helped me pay my bills, bought the books and
other stuff I needed, got my electricity turned back on so I could keep
writing, and bought food for me and Mac. I’m guessing that my thanks
alone probably aren’t enough reward, and that they’ll all be expecting
me to pay them back now.
I’d also like to thank Bill (who wrote the foreword) and everyone
else who, for some reason, thought I could write a book. Apparently,
they were right.
Also indispensible in getting this book written were all my friends
and neighbors who proofread, made suggestions, and gave me ideas
– particularly my friends (as well as a few of my adversaries) from the
message boards.
And, last but not least, I’d like to thank Mac for all the times he
patiently waited to go outside while I finished just one more paragraph
or looked up just one more thing.
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