The New York Times’ conservative beat reporter, David Kirkpatrick, experiences God’s Washington, D.C., with David Barton, vice president of the Texas Republican party and point man in the conservative Christian movement to emphasize the importance of Christianity in U.S. history and to the country’s founders. Barton’s tours are just one example of the campaign to reverse “secularist revisions” of U.S. history: Newt Gingrich recently included a 19-page guide, “Walking Tour of God in Washington, D.C.,” in his new book; school boards have asked for Barton’s advice in creating curriculums; 12 state legislatures have passed laws (which critics call gratuitous) protecting teachers who discuss religion in history; and the custodians of historical sites have been besieged with calls asking them to focus more on the founders’ faiths. Academic historians, however, take issue with efforts to paint the founders as early versions of either evangelicals or secular humanists, noting that everyone would like to remake the founders in their own image, and, as with the Bible, almost every movement can find some support for their cause in a historical figure or moment. In truth, they say, the founders probably never imagined America changing this much, and — horror of horrors — maybe America should look beyond the founders’ beliefs to determine how we should handle the balance today.