“This is what Chris Roseborugh, the minister who hosts Fighting for the Faith and researches false teachers for a living, had to say about David Barton: ‘There are people who twist God’s word and then there are people who just make fleeting references to it…Dave Barton…is flat out deceitful…he needs to clean up his act…he is discrediting himself and he is discrediting Christianity by engaging in this kind of deception.'”
(Seth Dunn – Pulpit & Pen) My grandfather was a World War II veteran. He was a part of the 10th Mountain Division, which fought the Axis Powers in Italy. He was a gregarious storyteller and relayed to our family more than a few humorous tales of his wartime service. If my grandfather had traumatic experiences during the war he did not, like many of his contemporaries, let on about them….
I do know that my grandfather sometimes had trouble sleeping, suffering from night terrors, but, again, that was not the type of problem about which the members of the greatest generation let on. Yet, the reality is that many soldiers came home from World War II with what is now known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). A half-century after the end of the war, veterans still return from the battlefield suffering from PTSD. As the United States faces terrorist and insurgent threats, a new type of warfare, the American solider is perhaps even more susceptible to suffering from PTSD. Fighting irregular troops in urban environments, some of whom aren’t much more than children, can have a devastating long-term effect on the psyche of a combatant who returns home to a neighborhood which doesn’t look that much different from the foreign “battlefield” in which he fought. According to a recent report from the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA), the suicide rate of veterans is 22% higher than that of non-veterans. In response to this situation, the DVA has made treatment available to veterans. The government, as it should, recognizes the serious health risks related to PTSD, as do I. That’s why I was incensed to learn that multi-millionaire word-faith prosperity preacher Kenneth Copeland and popular evangelical speaker David Barton had taught their audiences that veterans could be cured of their PTSD by claiming the promises Moses gave to Hebrew soldiers in Numbers 32:20-22. A video of this outrageous claim is shown below:
Related:
The Religious Right uniting with Religious Renegades, Part 1