Ken Ham's Blog, page 370

The International Conference on Creationism

This past Sunday night marked the beginning of the weeklong International Conference on Creationism (ICC) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, sponsored and organized by the Creation Science Fellowship of Pittsburgh.

I gave the opening talk, titled Genesis, Biblical Authority, and the Age of the Earth, to hundreds of listeners. Some were conference attendees and some were from the general public. They were incredibly supportive of the ministry and message of Answers in Genesis. I challenged Christians to take a stand on Genesis as written and reject compromise positions held by many church leaders who try to fit millions of years into the Bible. Although such compromise is not a salvation issue, it is an authority issue and a gospel issue.

I was also honored by being presented with the Luther D. Sunderland award (see the photo below), which I accepted on behalf of the entire AiG ministry as well as the pioneers of creation research that came before us.

Here are photos of Reid Moon from the Creation Science Fellowship, currently serving as the chairman of the executive committee of the ICC, as he presented me this award:

Here is a photograph of the award:

The ICC meets every five years. At the international conference, many experts present their research on topics relevant to biblical creation. Dr. Andrew Snelling, the director of research at AiG, and Dr. Georgia Purdom, a speaker at AiG, presented a paper at the ICC. Dr. Snelling has been given the award for the top research paper in the past at the ICC.

I am thankful for the work of the Creation Science Fellowship of Pittsburgh in bringing these cutting-edge creation researchers together for this special conference.

In addition to the wonderful speakers, another great thing about the ICC is that it’s a gathering of people who understand what’s at stake when we give up the authority of God’s Word in any area, especially Genesis 1–11.

Attendees lined up at the end of the Sunday evening session to obtain AiG resources. They ravaged the tables!

I also spent time after my presentation to talk with many of the attendees:

At Answers in Genesis, we are committed to high-quality creationist research. I encourage you to read the Answers Research Journal, our peer-reviewed research journal overseen by Dr. Andrew Snelling. It’s available for free online, and I believe it is the leading creationist research journal in the world today. Visit the ICC website to find out more about their fine work.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

Thousands of Creation Resources in Texas

This past Thursday evening through Saturday, I spoke at the homeschool conference in The Woodlands (Houston area), Texas. Over 6,000 people attended various aspects of the conference run by the Texas Home School Coalition, which included keynote presentations, workshops, and visiting the Exhibit Hall.

I was privileged to give one of the keynote presentations Thursday evening to kick off the conference—it was a packed auditorium:

The hunger for the AiG messages and resources was phenomenal. Whenever I was in the conference facility or at the AiG exhibit booth, I had people wanting to talk with me to share testimonies of how the message so positively affected them, how AiG resources have equipped their family, etc. In a blog post like this I can’t share the many, many testimonies I heard, but there is one that stood out to me. After hearing my antiracism presentation on One Race, One Blood, a man told me that he had been brought up in a home with a lot of prejudice against people of dark skin. He said this AiG message has totally changed him and will change his attitude towards others in his own family who had adopted kids from other cultures. I’ve had people at other conferences come up to me after that talk and tell me they are going to go and repent of their prejudice and apologize to certain family and friends because of past attitudes they had exhibited.

What a difference the truth of God’s Word makes in people’s lives! Yes, we are all related—we are all one race (Acts 17:26)—we are all sinners, we are all in need of the gospel message, and we all need to respond to the free gift of salvation in Christ. Such a message is so freeing to people. And what a difference it would make if our news media in the USA started proclaiming the truth that we are all one race biologically but two races spiritually—that is the real battle and a battle between those who are Christians and those who are not!

Hunger for Resources

One of the things I will never forget about the Texas homeschool convention was the hunger for the teaching and equipping resources from AiG. People lined up virtually every day of the of the conference to obtain AiG apologetics curricula (on science, the Bible such as the Answers Bible Curriculum, history, and other apologetics curricula), creation and Bible apologetics books, DVDs, etc.

What is thrilling to me is that thousands upon thousands of AiG resources have now gone throughout Texas into hundreds of homes. These will influence so many children and others over the coming years! A big part of the AiG ministry is to equip people with resources. Here are just a few photographs of the AiG booth and people obtaining resources:

Protest by the Houston Atheists

There was considerable publicity on the web (and in some media outlets) about the Houston atheists opposing me speaking at this conference. They had video chats making all sorts of ridiculous accusations, and they organized a protest. They claim to be the biggest atheist group in the USA, and so they were supposedly going to have a massive protest against me speaking to these homeschoolers.

Well, there was no protest Thursday night and apparently they couldn’t get enough people to protest on Friday. So on Saturday at around 8 AM, a handful of atheist protestors with signs turned up. I’m not sure how many ended up in the protest—I’ve heard figures from 15 to 20! Actually, considering 6,000 people came to the homeschool conference, that’s at least a 300 to 1 ratio! Apparently at least one of the atheists said the group would be there till 8 PM. But by 1 PM (when I left to fly to Pittsburgh to give a keynote presentation at the International Conference on Creationism on Sunday night), I only saw a small group of people and only a couple of signs. I think the heat was too much for them (high 90s all week).

And because of the atheist threats to protest and their stream of insulting comments about me and AiG, a number of convention participants told me this is what brought them to the conference. Some said that they were intrigued as to why the atheists were so upset, so they came to hear me and told me they were so pleased they did. So God even used the atheist opposition to bring more people to the conference! I believe people purchased even more AiG resources because they saw how important it was to stand on God’s Word without compromise—and the atheists’ opposition helped reinforce that! So even their protest, I believe, helped get more biblical-creation resources into Texas!

Here are some photographs of the atheists and some of their signs. As you view these photographs, please pray for these people—they are so blinded—so lost. Pray the Lord will open their hearts to the truth.

The signs show clearly they do not understand science. They don’t understand the difference between their beliefs about the past (historical science) vs. real empirical science (based on observation and repeatable testing) that builds our technology. They are the ones who are really ruining science education by influencing secular institutions to teach their atheist religion as fact and teach kids the belief of molecules-to-man evolution.

These people are a minority in this nation—as they were at this protest. Christians need to rally in this nation to have kids taught the truth about science—the difference between science that builds our technology (which we love and agree on) vs. science (historical or origins science) which is about the past. Actually, I taught about this at the conference so the adults and kids would know how to distinguish between belief and observational science—the kids at the homeschool conference understand science much more than these atheists!

During a couple of my presentations, I showed clips from the new movie Evolution vs. God (produced by Ray Comfort, of the Living Waters ministry). People saw that evolution-believing students and professors at universities in California have no real observable evidence for evolution—they just give the same old arguments about variations in finches’ beaks, different species of the same kind of fish, etc. (By the way, the hundreds of Evolution vs. God DVDs we had at our booth all went in a short period of time.)

I challenged people that if they obtained AiG resources and equipped themselves with answers, they could easily defend the Christian faith with such secularists and be very effective in pointing people to God’s Word and the gospel. Really, the signs the atheist protestors held were “empty”—they said nothing that would convince people of the validity of their blind faith in atheism. In reality, creationists could have held many of the same signs in regard to the atheists!

A number of people commented that they couldn’t understand why people who say they are atheists—who believe that when they die they cease to exist—would be so worried about what I was teaching at this conference. From an atheist perspective, why bother? Ultimately it’s all meaningless! As I explained, it illustrates the Bible’s truth in Romans 1—that everyone knows there is a God (it is written on their hearts), and thus they have to fight against it—they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. The fact these atheists protested is itself confirmation of Romans 1.

Teaching our Children

My final presentation was given to hundreds of adults and children about dinosaurs and the Bible and real observational science—lots of more kids are now equipped to know the truth about origins and thousands of resources have poured out into the community. I also gave out hundreds and hundreds of special attractive cards for the kids to summarize what I taught.

These cards help the kids (and adults) remember my favorite teaching sayings like:

Were You There?
Billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth.
It’s designed to do what it does do and what it does do it does do well, doesn’t it, yes it does, I think it does, do you, hope you do too, do you?

Kids love learning these sayings, and I’ve found parents do, too. Another card has my favorite dinosaur (T. rex) and how to describe it from a biblical perspective. Another card presents the seven ages of dinosaurs based on the history in the Bible. I have handed out thousands upon thousands of these cards to children across the country over the past few months. Praise the Lord for all the kids the atheists are not indoctrinating with their anti-God religion! It’s a shame the handful of atheists who demonstrated against me outside the conference on Saturday didn’t receive these cards when they were kids—maybe they wouldn’t have been so gullible to believe the lie of the evolution and millions of years.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

Truth in Action

Truth in Action is the name of the media outreach of a ministry that was once led by a great friend of the AiG ministry, Dr. D. James Kennedy—the late pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida and a well-known TV and radio Bible teacher. (TIA was previously called Coral Ridge Ministries.) Dr. Kennedy was also the honorary chairman of our Creation Museum during its construction.

TIA has a weekly TV program called Truths that Transform, and a portion of an interview conducted with me at the Creation Museum is being shown this week on this national program. The producers shared with us that this week’s program is about the biblical worldview:

Del Tackett and Ken Ham explain that a worldview is the lens through which we see the entire world—and that in order to work as designed, it must be built on God’s truth. The world offers us lies that end in destruction, but God offers us a ‘house’ built upon the solid rock of truth. From the foundation on that solid ground, we can prosper in God’s design and lead others to blessing as well.

Watch the 7:00 feature segment of this week’s program at this link.

Also, the feature story on the TIA homepage this week is about the biblical worldview.

I will be seen on future programs of Truths that Transform as I discuss a variety of topics.

Truths that Transform can be seen at various times and on different days of the week, depending on the station or network. To find the station and airtime in your area, enter the zip code into TIA’s station finder.

Potpourri of Ministry News

Some special people were at the Creation Museum on Friday—along with 1,800 others. (And we had over 2,500 visitors on Saturday—funny, some bloggers and commentators have recently been making predictions that the museum may close because of supposed low attendance, yet each year we have had attendance that has exceeded our yearly projections when we opened in 2007!)

First, the new athletic director of Bob Jones University, Neal Ring, and his wife, toured the museum for the first time. The Rings are from South Carolina, and they met up with family members who drove down from Wisconsin to join them at the museum. Here is a photo of them:

Also, AiG’s CCO/VP of Outreach, Mark Looy, welcomed his son Jon of Pennsylvania back to the museum (Jon worked here many summers ago), and he rode our new zip line course. Here he is on line three of our 2 ½ mile course. We sometimes have 120 zip line riders in a day.

And here is a photo (also taken on Friday) of staff member Stan Vandiver, who has just returned to the museum after dealing with some medical problems. When Mark learned that Stan had been awarded a Purple Heart in Vietnam, he asked Stan to bring it in. Stan is like most veterans who have seen horrific battle action—they don’t want to talk much about it. But Mark found out about Stan’s service and that he had been wounded twice—and so Mark asked him about his experiences, and Stan opened up. Mark asked Stan to bring his various service medals to work, and the photo below shows just one of them: the Purple Heart. Thank you, Stan, for your service here at the museum (along with your wife Roberta, who volunteers at AiG and has had her own recent health challenges) and for your country.

Lastly, I wanted to let you know that our friends at the 7 Wonders Museum at Mount St. Helens in Washington—a creationist outreach—have updated their website. Take a look at the site, and find out how the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens has helped the creationist/catastrophist case. Go to 7wondersmuseum.org.

On tomorrow’s blog post I will share some of the wonderful reports that came out of our participation at a homeschool convention in Houston, and the reaction of secularists to it. While 6,000 people were at the convention (many of them heard my keynotes), about 15 people outside (on Saturday) protested my appearance at the meeting.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

Bill Gates Promoting False History

Well, there’s another new curriculum that’s encouraging compromise—but this one is being supported by software billionaire Bill Gates. Gates, who has backed the controversial Common Core curriculum, is helping David Christian (a historian) promote Christian’s “Big History” curriculum, according to an article by Stephen Beale in Crisis magazine.

“Big History” is now available for free online. As Beale writes, it was “piloted last year in 55 high schools—45 in the United States, including four Catholic ones.” And unlike typical history curriculums that start with recorded history, “Big History” starts at what David Christian considers the beginning: 13.7 billion years ago.

Of course, this totally contradicts the biblical timeline. When we calculate the ages mentioned in the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 as well as the time that has passed from Christ until today, we find that the universe is only about 6,000 years old. There’s quite a difference between 13,700,000,000 years and 6,000 years!

Of course, “Big History” doesn’t consider that biblical timeline. According to Beale’s article, David Christian considers the Bible’s account of creation to be a “myth.” And yet he wants to answer questions for students such as, “What does it mean to be human? Who am I? Where do I belong? What is the totality of which I am a part?”

The one place where we can find answers to these questions is Scripture—but “Big History” dismisses God’s Word in favor of evolutionary ideas. So how does David Christian plan to answer these questions? I would submit that he can’t answer them—at least not without actually drawing on scriptural principles.

God’s Word offers answers to these and many more of life’s questions, while at the same time serving as the true History Book of the Universe! What makes us human? It is the fact that God specially created man from the dust of the earth in His image (Genesis 2:26–27). Who are you? Well, if you trust Christ as Lord and believe in His Resurrection, you’re a child of God (Romans 10:9). If not, then you’re a child of wrath (Ephesians 2:3). Where do you belong? Originally, before the Fall, Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden, which was paradise. But because of Adam’s sin, people are divided into two races: those who believe Christ and are in the “kingdom of his beloved Son,” as the Apostle Paul calls it, or those who are in rebellion against God and are in the “domain of darkness” (Colossians 1:13).

You see, it’s not “Big History” or David Christian that has the answers to these questions. The evolutionary worldview can’t provide humanity with a sense of purpose or hope. Instead, evolutionary ideas teach that human beings came about by chance processes, and that when man dies, that’s it! There is no hope of salvation . . . no life after death . . .  nothing.

The God of the universe, the One who was there in the beginning, has not only left us an eyewitness account of what happened in the beginning—He also offers salvation freely in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I urge you, if you haven’t received salvation in Christ, to repent and believe the gospel today!

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

Steve Golden assisted in the writing of this blog item.

A Word of Caution

Over the years we have been interviewed by hundreds of newspaper reporters and media personalities for television and radio programs. We have also debated secularists in public venues. Each request for an interview or a debate is carefully considered, and it is the exception that we don’t agree to such requests. However, because of the behavior of certain journalists or the mocking nature of a particular TV or radio program, we will sometimes refuse a request, for we believe it only opens the door for God’s name to be mocked and blasphemed.

AiG and other biblical creationists have debated many evolutionists over the years, though debates are becoming rare because evolutionists have had bad experiences in them. (By the way, we have an interesting debate possibility in the pipeline right now. We’ll tell you more when negotiations are finalized.) AiG is interviewed constantly by hostile media as well as friendly media. We are certainly not ones to shy away from probing questions or debate. But we do draw the line (and everyone has to) when we know the sole purpose is to ridicule, to blaspheme, etc.

In relation to this, AiG board chairman Pastor Don Landis has written a powerful article for our website today titled “Response to Persecution.”

He begins the article this way:

Persecution by the world against Christians comes in many forms. But its central core is the rejection of God and the resulting attack on those who follow Christ and claim He is the supreme Lord and the only way to salvation. Persecution has been growing more prevalent in recent years; however, in order to understand the persecution of today, we will first consider the persecution that has taken place in the past.

Pastor Landis then continued:

We have noted within the last several years a serious, growing antagonism and hatred being shown toward Christians—specifically Christian leaders such as Ken Ham. . . . Ken and the staff at Answers in Genesis believe the biblical view that God exists, His Word is true, and He is the Creator of all things. This automatically leads to complete confidence in the authority of Scripture, God’s inerrant Word. Because of this strong stance, Ken and others like him have become lightning rods for those looking to vent their anger and rebellion.

The truth that God’s Word is inerrant and completely authoritative must be denied and destroyed by those who suppress the truth. They must attack it in order to silence the external and internal evidence God has given mankind of Himself. I have proposed that the increased anger we see in atheists’ attacks demonstrates they are doing all they can to silence the voice of God. The angrier their attacks become, the more they are attempting to suppress the truth. Their anger actually becomes evidence of the truth of God and His Word.

The relativist who absolutely claims “everything is relative” destroys his own view by making this claim, since an absolute statement cannot be relative. In the same way the atheist attacks, slanders, maligns, and curses the name of God and all He stands for, all the while confirming God’s existence. How? Because God Himself predicted and described the nature of the rebel and the character of the attack!

Later in his article, Pastor Landis states the following:

So a word of caution! Be careful not to entangle yourself in debate with a person whose heart’s desire is to deny and destroy God. It might be helpful to point out what his behavior evidences and is exactly what we expect in the Christian worldview he so desires to destroy. However, our ultimate purpose in “debating” (speaking with) an atheist must be to share the gospel in love:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. (Romans 1:16)

The gospel is the message we have been sent to spread, and thus when we speak with unbelievers, it should be our goal to present the gospel and explain what Christ did on the Cross and in His Resurrection.

It is important to remember that we must pity these fellow human beings who have not seen the light of Christ, for they cannot stop their behavior or alter it. While unbelievers may not fully express their depravity, as a rule they fail to be civil and demonstrate the character of a God-fearer. They are in the state that we would still be in if it were not for God’s grace (cf. Titus 3:1–7).

I urge you to read the entire article.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

A “Great” Review

A skeptic recently wrote a review of the new video Evolution vs. God produced by Ray Comfort of Living Waters ministry.

I call this review a “great” one—why? Well it’s mainly full of ad hominem arguments and basically giving the same “answers” most people actually gave in the movie! The evolutionists can’t logically defend their pagan religion that attempts to explain life without God, so they mock those who don’t believe and try to intimidate them by explaining why you wouldn’t see the evidence. They are so blind! All they can do is attack Christians and mock God and His Word. I am reminded of this verse of Scripture:

Whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. (2 Corinthians 4:4)

The entire review is available here, but be warned, there is some bad language.

Now, there is no need to be tortured by this typical anti-Christian rhetoric—it’s the same old, same old. It’s really the best these skeptics can do. Yes, they are blinded to the truth—but willingly so.

I have included sections from the review below. Read as much as you can to get a feel for this review.

Yes, it is a “great” review because it clearly illustrates that secularists can’t ultimately defend their anti-God position, and this should be encouraging to all of you to be more courageous in witnessing to them. The interesting thing is that the reviewer basically gives the same non-answers you hear in the movie! In a way, this review really summarizes how many scientists and students answered in the movie—except many of the secularists in the movie didn’t call Ray Comfort names and didn’t mock God and His Word as this reviewer does.

This review will make you want to obtain this powerful movie, as it really does sum up the best these skeptics can do. It will help you not be intimidated by these secularists as they make their bold claims about their evolutionary beliefs, and it will encourage you to get answers from Answers in Genesis and be more bold in challenging generations who have been led astray by the priests of evolution in the secular institutions where they have studied.

To obtain the Evolution vs. God video as a download or DVD, go to our online store.

I urge you to get multiple copies and begin handing them out to people so they too can see how secularists have indoctrinated people to believe in a bankrupt religion—and that’s what the idea of evolution and millions of years really is!

Here are excerpts from this “great” review; some of the language is rough:

Ray Comfort, the . . . proselytizer best known for his unwitting invention of the banana fallacy. . . .

It is astonishing to think that, of all people, Ray Comfort (now commonly known as Banana Man) has discovered . . . . How amazing that the Everest-like mountain of hard evidence for evolution might be razed to the ground in one brief 38-minute film by a man with only a high school education and a reputation for being, as Dawkins says, an idiot. . . .

Even the Pope’s on board with this one and believes that the process of evolution brought all life into existence, except human souls of course, which the Church believes are specially created by God—and who are we to argue with the claim that an insensible agent manufactures an insensible product? . . .

[M]ost of the movie is shot up people’s noses, presumably by a dwarf. . . .

[T]his just confirms Ray’s boneheaded understanding that if we can’t observe it directly, it’s not science. . . .

Ray is preying on fresh-faced college students who are even more easily stumped by his irrelevant and misleading questions, most of which have nothing to do with evolution. That’s because, perhaps surprisingly, Ray Comfort doesn’t give a monkey’s uncle about evolution. He’s interested in using the word “evolution” without the meaning behind it and then promoting a cartoonish, slapstick, knock-off version, as in this highly amusing example taken from his blog. . . .

Here we see Ray’s preschool education paying off royally as he refuses to be taken in by such malarkey. Who in their right mind would believe that a mature female (we’ll call her Eve) just happened coincidentally to evolve at precisely the same time as the male (we’ll call him Adam) in order to keep the species going? This kooky vision in which distinct species arise one at a time, rather than emerging from breeding groups that eventually diverge, is a preposterous one, as Ray has cleverly deduced. . . .

[N]o, people choose to espouse evolution wilfully [sic] in order to kick that Giant Celestial Funsucker out of the equation (even though they know in their hearts He’s real), thereby temporarily relieving the need to be accountable to Almighty Him. . . . That’s why Ray’s knickers are in a twist. . . .

Ray Comfort is possibly the best example ever of the phenomenon Michael Shermer describes in his book The Believing Brain—that a person arrives at a belief first and only then (in Ray’s case in particular) bumbles about looking for all the evidence to back it up, no matter how nutty the belief may be. . . .

Ray’s cognitive style includes a childlike trust in authority, an intolerance of ambiguity, a tendency to be convinced by easy answers and suspicious of answers that are complicated, an inability to draw a straight line from cause to effect, and binary thinking on a truly grand scale. . . .

And speaking of imagination, I conclude by envisaging an alternate account of the creation story in the book of Genesis. Suppose for a moment that the Bible said something like this:

Genesis 1. In the beginning was a BANG, and lo it was big, and it was called the Big Bang. And all things proceedeth out of the mouth of the bang, except the Lord thy God, who awoke saying, “Whence cometh that bang?”; and the wife of God answered, saying, “What bang? …  And the Lord rolleth over and snoreth much, so that the drapes wafteth in the breeze and the dresser drawers goeth in and out. And the Lord thy God sleepeth heavily through the ages with many zzzees shooting from His lips, while the stars formeth in the heavens, and life evolveth on the Earth; from the creeping things, to the flying things, to the typing things. And yet God slept, waking only once to flood the Earth, which was better than the night before when God had gotten up at least five times.

2. And when God awoke He looked upon the Earth and shaketh His head, saying, “Intelligent design, my —-.” And the Lord flew down to Earth and asketh Mankind, “What giveth thou the idea that the Lord thy God had anything to do with this giant turd?” And Mankind did point to a book, saying, “But thou said—”; and God picketh up the book and swatteth Mankind over the head, saying, “Thou callest this journalism? I never said any of this stuff!” And Mankind did scuff its foot, and mutter “Aw shucks,” and stare embarrassed at the ground.

3. And the evening and the morning was the first day.

If that was the Biblical account, Banana Ray would be the captain of Team Evolution and his latest film would have been called Evolution vs. Satan—but, no luck. We’re stuck with the Bible as written with its damaging origin myth, which not only gets evolution wrong but, worse still, imagines women created as an afterthought out of a rib, thereby giving the nod to several thousand years of sexism, patriarchy, and its inherent abuse. And we’re also stuck with God’s representative on Earth, Ray Comfort, who believes that creationism is scientific because it can be observed (every animal bringing forth after its own kind) and therefore doesn’t require faith—but that evolution is unscientific because it can’t be observed (at least, he can’t see it) and is therefore the faith-based stance. It’s a hopelessly twisted position, born of ignorance, inflamed by fear, and perpetuated by a man so clueless, he thinks his pathetic, wandering argument is actually significant. It’s silly, it’s virulent and, most unfortunately, it’s dangerous. In fact—you might even call it bananas.

Sorry—but that’s a few minutes of your life you won’t get back! But what a “great” review to encourage you to be bold for your faith. Get the Evolution vs. God DVD, and start handing it out everywhere you can.

Also today on the front page of the AiG website, we have launched a new feature article titled “Evolution vs. God: Who’s Winning?” Resources like Evolution vs. God are an excellent starting place for training up your family in sound biblical apologetics, so that they will be prepared to give an answer to those who question their faith in the authority of the Word of God.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

A Boon to Boone County!

For your interest, here is a copy of the news release (slightly adapted) that was distributed recently by our local Chamber of Commerce about the impact of the Creation Museum. We are members of the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. The news release will give you an idea of how the museum has benefited the entire region as we welcome visitors from all over America and many people from outside the USA:

A Boon to Boone County and Beyond

Creation Museum Releases Economic Impact Figures as It Expands

PETERSBURG, KY—On July 16 in front of the Boone County Fiscal Court, Answers in Genesis shared with county commissioners and Judge-Executive Gary Moore the following statistics about the impact of AiG’s Creation Museum in their county and the region as a whole:

According to a formula provided by the Northern Kentucky Convention and Visitors Bureau, the museum is having an economic impact of about $60 million a year. Area hotels, restaurants, and other tourist attractions are very happy to have the museum in Boone County.
Of the almost 1.9 million visitors in the 6 years the museum has been open, 85% of them arrived from outside the state.
Approximately 51% of visitors came from more than 250 miles away.
In more than 10 years, $751,765 in payroll taxes have benefited Boone County.

The comments to the county commissioners were made in the context of AiG and the Creation Museum attempting to rezone land it owns adjacent to the museum property, upon which it wants to expand its zip line course. In mid-June, the Creation Museum saw the opening of the biggest and best zip line course in the region. Currently at over 20 zip lines (12,000 feet total), a few more lines will be added upon rezoning approval by the county. One will be a third of a mile long. The zip lines run from near the museum’s entrance, across a lake, and into dozens of acres of beautiful forested property.

Earlier this month the museum’s state-of-the-art planetarium launched its newest production, “Fires in the Sky,” which discusses comets, including a major one that will appear in the sky this November.

The following brief video highlights the three striking new exhibits that opened on Memorial Day weekend as part of the museum’s sixth anniversary and expansion: the large Dragon Legends exhibit that answers the question: “Were dinosaurs dragons?”; the high-tech insect display Dr. Crawley’s Insectorium, which rivals the quality of the Smithsonian’s insect collection; and the recent placement of over 20 rare Bibles and Bible-related artifacts from the famed Green Collection. This video news release was made before the exhibits were completed:

Here are some photographs of the exhibits now that they have been opened and are proving to be very popular:

One of the displays, with an animatronic Dr. Arthur Pod, inside Dr. Crawley’s Insectorium.

Steve Green and Cary Summers of the Museum of the Bible with me inside the Verbum Domini exhibit.

A part of our large new Dragon Legends display inside the museum’s portico.

The Creation Museum in northern Kentucky (near the Cincinnati Airport) is an outreach of the apologetics organization Answers in Genesis. Attracting over one million web visitors each month, the AnswersInGenesis.org website has been voted “Best Ministry Website” two times, as determined by the National Religious Broadcasters. Its Answers magazine has twice picked up the highest award for magazine excellence by the Evangelical Press Association. Also AiG will soon be building a full-size Noah’s Ark.

The good news is that last week the county gave us rezoning permission to expand our zip lines into the property we own next door to the Creation Museum. Very soon our zip line course will be more than two and a half miles long, with a third of a mile zip line to open soon. A company supportive of AiG installed this marvelously high-quality zip line course on the 70-acre property AiG owns. This is by far the biggest and best zip line course in the Midwest. Over 20 zip lines, 12 sky bridges, 2 new super zips (opening very soon), and a new challenge course. Not only does this course (which allows people a variety of options) attract a broad range of people, but it helps make the Creation Museum a great family friendly place to visit.

Plan your trip to the Creation Museum and see all these new features.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

Learned More in Five Days Than in Thirty Years!

This year, AiG’s popular VBS program Kingdom Chronicles has sold out! Our Vacation Bible School programs have become very popular, and churches are finding that children and even adults are being saved. The uniqueness of what we do with curricula from our creation and gospel ministry is that we teach apologetics, emphasize biblical authority, and present the gospel very clearly. Kids love that our programs have so much “meat” instead of the usual “fluff and stuff” from the many programs that are so shallow and don’t teach kids and adults how to answer skeptical questions leveled at them in today’s world.

Here is a great testimony from someone involved in an AiG VBS program Down Under. Yes, AiG’s VBS program is being used in my homeland. This testimony was written by a parent to the person who ran the VBS in her church:

Although my husband and I have been committed supporters of creation ministries for many years now, I really had no idea about this extraordinary [VBS] program created by Answers in Genesis. Now that I DO know I have not kept, and will not keep, quiet about it!

Experiencing those five days with my wonderful group of children and two special helpers . . . has again deeply convicted and reinforced to me the absolute urgency and necessity of teaching children from the youngest age the solid and unshakable Foundation of our faith—Jesus Christ our Rock—and the authority and inerrancy of the Word, from Genesis to Revelation.

This was certainly accomplished at the VBS, and the tragic reality for me is that the children (and all of us) learnt more truth in those five days than many adults who have sat in their church for thirty years. (An increasingly disturbing sign of these last days) . . .

You did not exaggerate when you described how professional and organized the entire program is—and of course all the creative expertise involved, especially in the fantastic songs written and performed, the drama presentation and the themed crafts. Even the morning teas [snack times] were tirelessly brought out in eye-catching colours and arrangements, with a relevant Bible reading! No participant was in danger of going home without a thorough grasp of foundational truths which every believer should be armed with, but tragically today isn’t.

In the five-day program Jesus Christ was honoured, confessed, and proclaimed without compromise. The written Word of God was upheld and revered—without compromise and excuse.

For me this is hugely encouraging to my own faith and walk. I would go so far as to say that many adult Christians I know would benefit immensely from participating in Answers in Genesis’ VBS.

I would also like to add that it was a joy, and incredibly satisfying for me, to work with [and] . . . to witness leadership ability and initiative, to see them encouraging and helping the children in our group, and to watch them enjoying and responding to all that was being taught. . . .

So . . . to sum up this rather lengthy letter, I am hooked!!! And I will be spreading the word far and wide amongst the churches for next year. . . . Anticipating greatly the coming months preparing for next year.

The Kingdom Chronicles VBS program was even used last week at our Answers Mega Conference in Tennessee. See the following photos:

We are also receiving such tremendous feedback from churches across the USA—including the fact that many parents themselves are saying they learn a lot from the AiG VBS programs!

I urge you to get your church to look at our VBS program for 2014 called International Spy Academy. It is gospel centered as usual. Children will compare Jesus Christ to other religions and search out the one true God! They will learn there is only one way to Heaven—the Lord Jesus Christ!

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

For Once I Agree with Bill Maher!

I never thought I’d say this, but, for once, I agree with TV commentator and comedian Bill Maher! In a 2012 episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, he interviews Ross Douthat, a Roman Catholic and a columnist for the New York Times. Now, Maher is known for blaspheming God and mocking Christians, which he did in his “documentary” Religulous. In fact, he deceived Answers in Genesis by giving a false name and coming under false pretenses to interview me. The segment featuring AiG in Religulous was a typical cut-and-paste job. (For more on what happened, see my blog post.)

But considering how the secular world is constantly challenging the authority of the Word of God, and also seeing the extent of major compromise on Genesis in the church, I thought it was time to revisit this Bill Maher interview program from April 20, 2012. In the course of talking with Douthat, Maher actually admits something that even some Christian academics and leaders deny: if we decide that one part of the Bible is untrustworthy, it hurts the trustworthiness of the entire book. Maher states just as much in the interview:

If it’s [i.e., the Bible] not 100% true, I would say the whole thing [the writings that follow Genesis] falls apart.

And you know, he’s absolutely correct! Here’s a man who is in open rebellion against God, who engages in blasphemy regularly, but even he can see the inconsistency of picking and choosing which parts of the Bible can be trusted. Sadly, the compromising Christian leaders and academics are helping Maher in spreading his hate speech regarding God’s Word.

Maher isn’t the first atheist to point out that if Genesis is wrong then the rest of the Bible falls apart. Atheist Richard Dawkins pointed out a few years ago that Christians who try to mix evolutionary ideas with Scripture, thereby essentially saying that Genesis is not trustworthy, were “deluded.” When asked if there was “a defining moment” when he decided he didn’t believe in God, Dawkins replied as follows:

Oh well, by far the most important was understanding evolution. I think the evangelical Christians have really sort of got it right in a way, in seeing evolution as the enemy. Whereas the more, what shall we say, sophisticated theologians are quite happy to live with evolution, I think they are deluded. I think the evangelicals have got it right, in that there is a deep incompatibility between evolution and Christianity, and I think I realized that about the age of sixteen.

What’s significant about these quotes is that professing Christians who accept evolutionary ideas and millions of years (such as those at organizations like BioLogos and Reasons to Believe) are teaching what Dawkins and Maher see as running counter to a belief in the Bible as the inerrant Word of God. They don’t think that these compromised Christians are doing any good for Christianity. No, they see this sort of compromise for what it is: helping the atheists undermine God’s Word. Compromising Christian leaders are causing generations to doubt God’s Word—and this doubt leads ultimately to unbelief.

My message for Christian academics, church leaders, and every professing Christian is this: you can trust the Bible, and you can take God at His Word from the very first verse. If you doubt the truthfulness of the Bible, I urge you to read our series of web articles “Can You Prove the Bible Is True?” And I also encourage you to order our two-volume set How Do We Know the Bible Is True? You’ll find answers to your questions about the trustworthiness of God’s Word in these excellent resources.

I also encourage you to watch my new video presentation, “Rescuing Our Kids.”

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

Experience the Mega Conference

These photographs will help give you a bit of a feel for the AiG Mega Conference this past week in Sevierville, Tennessee.

Hundreds of Families Attended

Kids, Kids, and More Kids

Buddy Davis leads all the kids in song (Buddy also conducted special programs for the adults).

Some of the Great Speaker Line Up

Todd Friel

Dr. Andrew Snelling

Dr. Tommy Mitchell

Bodie Hodge

Eric Hovind (pictured with me)

Dr. Georgia Purdom (pictured being interviewed by Eric Hovind)

Dr. Terry Mortenson (answers questions after a presentation)

The Teen Program

Bill Jack

The Kids’ Program

Exhibitors

We had a number of exhibitors, including Canyon Ministries.

Resources

We had a phenomenal response to the resources to be better equipped:

Music

John Elliott lead us in song, and he alternated with Buddy Davis each day.

Interviews

There were a lot of interviews with our speakers. Here I am being interviewed live by Tony Perkins.

Anatomy

Dr. Menton taught people about anatomy and the impossibility of evolution.

The Ark Project

This young lady advertised our Ark projects for us.

Evolution vs. God

Ray Comfort premiered the Evolution vs. God film. Here I am with Ray.

The Evolution vs God DVD can be obtained from the online store.

Opening and Closing Keynotes

You can watch my opening and closing keynote presentations for the Mega Conference at these links. My first keynote where I assert that America is under judgment (and that means we have to look biblically at what that means about the leaders of this nation) is at this link.

My final keynote presentation for the AiG Mega Conference is now available to view on YouTube as well. Not only is the American nation under the judgment of God, but I believe the church is also—we need to rescue our kids and help bring a new reformation. I encourage you to watch the video.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken