A Talk with David Barton Part 2

When and why did you start WallBuilders?

I began a long, arduous search of statistical information – information obtained primarily from federal cabinet level agencies (Departments of Health and Human Services, Justice, Education, Labor, Commerce, etc.). With the aid of dedicated co-workers, on weekends and at the conclusion of the school day, we searched through literally thousands of articles and documents relating to the four areas. The results of that search were both clear and shocking: over forty categories of government measurements related to those four areas indicated the same dramatic statistical decline that had been apparent with the SAT scores. I published a book, using the government’s own charts and statistics, that documented those findings (America: To Pray or Not to Pray?). Having completed that work, I turned wholeheartedly back to my teaching and administrative responsibilities.

This book was published in 1988, at the time of the presidential election contest between George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis. Voluntary school prayer had become an issue in that campaign (Bush was for it and Dukakis against it); when some media saw the book, they sensed a campaign story and wanted to interview me. That interview was seen across the nation, and I was soon inundated with requests to speak to various groups about the findings in the book. In late September 1988, I took a temporary leave of absence from the school, and over the next 52 days, I spoke to 72 groups and traveled some 13,000 miles – all in a Ford van in which myself, Cheryl, and our three small children drove coast to coast three times (with my parents following in another van).

Following that trip, the requests for me to speak continued to pour in, and I finally had to decide between teaching school and speaking about God and public education. The response to my presentations had been so enthusiastic to that point that I felt like it was important to get the information out and potentially impact the culture. I therefore chose to continue public speaking and resigned from the school.

We started WallBuilders using the model in the book of Nehemiah, with our emphasis verse being Nehemiah 2:17, wherein Nehemiah called the people to rebuild and thus remove the reproach that had been upon them. We believed that message was appropriate to what we were doing: calling average citizens to participate in rebuilding the moral and religious foundations of the community and nation in which they lived. However, I was soon to be confronted with another Proverbs 16:3 thought that would again dramatically redirect my life and thinking.

Following the 1988 publication of the book on prayer, I had begun doing statistical correlative research on other Court decisions, pursuing what I believed had been indicated by the first book: can the removal by the Court of a Biblical value or principle be measured statistically for an impact upon society? That is, could the limitation of abstinence teaching in public schools (as argued in Kendrick v. Bowen in 1985, because of the alleged “separation of church and state”) correlate to a corresponding rise in teenage pregnancies and sexual activity? Could the suppression of the Ten Commandments in schools (in Stone v. Graham in 1980) result in a corresponding increase in violent crime in schools? etc.