WILL THE REAL THOMAS JEFFERSON PLEASE STAND UP?

In their new book out today, Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President, two Christian college professors analyze popular Christian claims made about Thomas Jefferson. Professors Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter use Jefferson’s correspondence, contemporaneous accounts, and other primary sources to fact check key claims made in such recent Christian works as Kirk Camerons’ documentary, Monumental, and David Barton’s new book, The Jefferson Lies . “Unfortunately, there is often a wide gap between popular Christian speakers and writers and Christian social scientists on historical claims, particularly about early American history.

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SHOULDN'T A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT HISTORY BE HISTORICALLY ACCURATE?

Actor Kirk Cameron’s documentary, Monumental, comes out this week. In the promotional material, he claims to retrace history “in search of America’s National Treasure.” A WORLD magazine article explains the treasure Cameron seeks: “Monumental tells the story of men and women who risked all for liberty, including the travails of the Pilgrims, and shares stories of faith that helped shape education, government and civic life in the United States.” I feel sure the movie will tell lots of stories, but based on what I have seen and heard so far, there is good reason to question their accuracy. Judging from the brief segments available at the website WingClips and Cameron’s press statements about the film, Monumental does not get off to a very accurate start, raising this question: Shouldn’t a documentary about history be historically accurate?

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