Ken Ham's Blog, page 428

Will Pastors Miss the "Millions of Years" Point?

Recently, Baptist News reported on research in regard to what pastors believe about evolution and millions of years. The news item stated the following:

Pastors overwhelmingly believe that God did not use evolution to create humans and think Adam and Eve were literal people, according to a recent survey by LifeWay Research.

The survey of 1,000 American Protestant pastors also found that ministers are almost evenly split on whether the earth is thousands of years old.

The major portion of the report concentrated on the issue of evolution and Adam and Eve. For instance the item continued as follows:

In response to the statement, "I believe Adam and Eve were literal people," 74 percent strongly agree and 8 percent somewhat agree. Six percent somewhat disagree, 11 percent strongly disagree and 1 percent are not sure.

"Recently discussions have pointed to doubts about a literal Adam and Eve, the age of the earth and other origin issues," said Ed Stetzer, vice president of research and ministry development for LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. "But Protestant pastors are overwhelmingly creationists and believe in a literal Adam and Eve."

Based on a Gallup poll from December 2010, pastors are more creationist (referring to the belief that all things were created substantially as they now exist as recounted in the first chapter of Genesis and not gradually evolved) than the American public at large.

Forty percent of Americans believe God created humans in their present form, 38 percent say God used evolution to develop humans and 16 percent think man evolved with God playing no part in the process, according to Gallup.

In the LifeWay Research survey, about one in five pastors agree that most of their congregation believes in evolution. That includes 10 percent who strongly agree and 9 percent who somewhat agree. A majority (62 percent) strongly disagree and 13 percent somewhat disagree.

At the bottom of the article, we also read the following:

In response to the statement, "I believe the earth is approximately 6,000 years old," 34 percent of pastors strongly disagree. However, 30 percent strongly agree. Nine percent somewhat disagree, and 16 percent somewhat agree.

"Earth's age is the only issue in this survey on which pastors are almost evenly divided," Stetzer said. "But to many of the pastors, belief in an older earth is not the same as belief in evolution. Many pastors who believe God created humans in their present form also believe that the earth is older than 6,000 years." …

Those with a graduate degree are more likely to strongly disagree that the earth is 6,000 years old than pastors with a bachelor's degree at most (42 percent vs. 18 percent)."

Lifeway (the organization that conducted the research) also reports on the statistics at the Lifeway Research's website—again with most of the article dealing with the evolution issue. Lifeway also explains how the research was conducted.

The phone survey, conducted in May 2011, sampled randomly selected Protestant churches. Each interview was conducted with the senior pastor, minister or priest of the church called and responses were weighted to reflect the geographic distribution of Protestant churches. The completed sample of 1,000 phone interviews provides a 95 percent confidence that the sampling error does not exceed ±3.2 percent. Margins of error are higher in subgroups.

You can read the full report.

Here is the major observation I want to make. I have had Christian leaders get upset with me for publicly challenging certain academics who are Christians but who adamantly teach an old earth. I have been told, for instance, that one such academic is known to debate the existence of God with atheists, and he is not the "enemy" of AiG—those who reject God are the real enemy. Over the years, I have found many Christian leaders who don't believe in evolution, but they do accept millions of years before Adam and his fall. Some are very conservative in their doctrine, but they may teach the "gap theory" or "day age theory" to try to fit millions of years into the Bible. The point is, many Christian leaders think as long as they are against evolution, it doesn't matter what they believe about the age of the earth. But the problem really is millions of years—not evolution! What do I mean by that?

I have written many articles and blogs over the years to explain this important issue. I thought it would be good to point out that we have been saying these same things for years and years. For example, back in 1998, I wrote an article titled "A Young Earth—It's Not the Issue!"

I decided to republish this article here for you, as it is a good reminder for us.

Time and time again I have found that in both Christian and secular worlds, those of us who are involved in the creation movement are characterized as "young Earthers." The supposed battle-line is thus drawn between the "old Earthers" (this group consists of anti-God evolutionists as well as many "conservative" Christians) who appeal to what they call "science," versus the "young Earthers," who are said to be ignoring the overwhelming supposed "scientific" evidence for an old Earth.

I want to make it VERY clear that we don't want to be known primarily as "young-Earth creationists." AiG's main thrust is NOT "young Earth" as such; our emphasis is on Biblical authority. Believing in a relatively "young Earth" (i.e., only a few thousands of years old, which we accept) is a consequence of accepting the authority of the Word of God as an infallible revelation from our omniscient Creator.

Recently, one of our associates sat down with a highly respected world-class Hebrew scholar and asked him this question: "If you started with the Bible alone, without considering any outside influences whatsoever, could you ever come up with millions or billions of years of history for the Earth and universe?" The answer from this scholar? "Absolutely not!"

Let's be honest. Take out your Bible and look through it. You can't find any hint at all for millions or billions of years.

For those of you who have kept up with our lectures and our articles in Answers magazine, you will have heard or read quotes from many well-known and respected Christian leaders admitting that if you take Genesis in a straight-forward way, it clearly teaches six ordinary days of Creation. However, the reason they don't believe God created in six literal days is because they are convinced from so-called "science" that the world is billions of years old. In other words, they are admitting that they start outside the Bible to (re)interpret the Words of Scripture.

When someone says to me, "Oh, so you're one of those fundamentalist, young-Earth creationists," I reply, "Actually, I'm a revelationist, no-death-before-Adam redemptionist!" (which means I'm a young-Earth creationist!).

Here's what I mean by this: I understand that the Bible is a revelation from our infinite Creator, and it is self-authenticating and self-attesting. I must interpret Scripture with Scripture, not impose ideas from the outside! When I take the plain words of the Bible, it is obvious there was no death, bloodshed, disease or suffering of humans or animals before sin. God instituted death and bloodshed because of sin—this is foundational to the Gospel. Therefore, one cannot allow a fossil record of millions of years of death, bloodshed, disease and suffering before sin (which is why the fossil record makes much more sense as the graveyard of the flood of Noah's day).

Also, the word for "day" in the context of Genesis can only mean an ordinary day for each of the six days of Creation [see Get Answers: Genesis for more information].

Thus, as a "revelationist," I let God's Word speak to me, with the words having meaning according to the context of the language they were written in. Once I accept the plain words of Scripture in context, the fact of ordinary days, no death before sin, the Bible's genealogies, etc., all make it clear that I cannot accept millions or billions of years of history. Therefore, I would conclude there must be something wrong with man's ideas about the age of the universe.

And the fact is, every single dating method (outside of Scripture) is based on fallible assumptions. There are literally hundreds of dating tools. However, whatever dating method one uses, assumptions must be made about the past. Not one dating method man devises is absolute! Even though 90% of all dating methods give dates far younger than evolutionists require, none of these can be used in an absolute sense either. [See Get Answers: Radiometric Dating and Get Answers: Young Age Evidence for more information.]

Question: Why would any Christian want to take man's fallible dating methods and use them to impose an idea on the infallible Word of God? Christians who accept billions of years are in essence saying that man's word is infallible, but God's Word is fallible!

This is the crux of the issue. When Christians have agreed with the world that they can accept man's fallible dating methods to interpret God's Word, they have agreed with the world that the Bible can't be trusted. They have essentially sent out the message that man, by himself, independent of revelation, can determine truth and impose this on God's Word. Once this "door" has been opened regarding Genesis, ultimately it can happen with the rest of the Bible.

You see, if Christian leaders have told the next generation that one can accept the world's teachings in geology, biology, astronomy, etc., and use these to (re)interpret God's Word, then the door has been opened for this to happen in every area, including morality.

Yes, one can be a conservative Christian and preach authoritatively from God's Word from Genesis 12 onwards. But once you have told people to accept man's dating methods, and thus should not take the first chapters of Genesis as they are written, you have effectively undermined the Bible's authority! This attitude is destroying the church in America.

So, the issue is not "young Earth" versus "old Earth," but this: Can fallible, sinful man be in authority over the Word of God?

A "young-Earth" view admittedly receives the scoffing from a majority of the scientists. But Paul warned us in 1 Corinthians 8:2 (KJV), "And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know." Compared to what God knows, we know "next door to nothing!" This is why we should be so careful to let God speak to us through His Word, and not try to impose our ideas on God's Word.

It's also interesting to note that this verse is found in the same passage where Paul warns that "knowledge puffeth up." Academic pride is found throughout our culture. Therefore, many Christian leaders would rather believe the world's fallible academics, than the simple clear words of the Bible.

At Answers in Genesis, we believe this message needs to be proclaimed to the Church as a challenge to return to Biblical authority, and thus stand tall in the world for the accuracy of God's Word. Ultimately, this is the only way we are going to reach the world with the truth of the Gospel message.

Let's start the year by putting more and more pressure on our Christian leaders to take a long, hard look at how they are approaching the question of the authority of the Bible! Please help us fulfill our mission statement: to bring about reformation in the Church!

[http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/1998/01/23/young-earth-not-issue]

I have also found over the years that evolutionists don't really care as much if a Christian leader doesn't believe in evolution (they will still mock of course), but they really care (and become emotional about it) if a Christian leader rejects millions of years. When a person today stands up (as we do at AiG) and proclaims that we believe in no death before sin, only thousands of years for the age of the universe, and that most of the fossils were formed during the Flood of Noah's day around 4,300 years ago—then that person will be mocked at by the world and called "anti-academic," "anti-science," "anti-intellectual," etc.

For the secularists, they have to have millions of years—without this they can't postulate enough time for evolution. Millions of years is absolutely vital to the secularists in their attempt to explain life without God. They just can't allow anyone to question the idea of millions of years. And if you think about it, the millions of years was popularized before Darwin proposed his ideas. Without millions of years, Darwin could never have proclaimed his evolutionary ideas.

This is why millions of years is so aggressively pushed in the culture—on the TV, in public schools, museums, zoos, etc. This is also why the secularists have worked hard to indoctrinate Christian leaders/academics to accept millions of years. In doing so, they know two things will happen.

These Christian leaders/academics will have then allowed for the pagan religion of millions of years that is so necessary for secularists to teach their evolutionary beliefs.
These Christian leaders/academics will have then allowed for God's Word to be reinterpreted because of the millions of years beliefs. Thus this undermines Scripture and usually results in a loss of biblical authority in subsequent generations. This is exactly what the Already Gone book research details.

Bottom line—evolution is really not the problem as much as the age of the earth. Millions of years is the problem in today's world that has resulted in a loss of biblical authority in the church and culture and has led to an increasing loss of generations from the church.

I personally believe that belief in millions of years is the lie of Satan in this present world that is used as one of the greatest attacks on God's Word. Yet the acceptance of millions of years permeates the church. Really, it is no different than the Israelites who adopted the idols of the pagan cultures and worshiped pagan Gods—often mixed in with what God's Word instructed them concerning holy days, sacrifices, etc.

The church needs to wake up to the fact that when God's people accept the pagan religion of millions of years, they are helping the enemies of God attack His Holy Word.

I do appreciate the research that was conducted and reported on. I just pray people get the point concerning the millions of years issue.

You can read the full Baptist News report.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

Ken Ham's Challenging Message on 2 Chronicles to the AiG Staff

Ken Ham's Challenging Message on 2 Chronicles to the AiG Staff

Lawsuit over Academic Freedom

The Alliance Defend fund issued a news release on January 5 about a lawsuit against the University of Louisiana over a distinguished professor who, the ADF says, has been "repeatedly discriminated against." The professor is a creationist. Many of you will remember the movie Expelled, in which Ben Stein documented case after case of discrimination in academic circles related to the issue of Intelligent Design.

The current press release states the following:

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys have filed a lawsuit on behalf of an award-winning and internationally recognized professor at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette who has been repeatedly discriminated against for his public lectures and published works on communicative disorders, autism causation, and intelligent design.

"Professors don't have academic freedom if they are forced to parrot the politically correct party line," said ADF Legal Counsel David Hacker. "Despite his stellar academic record, this professor has found himself exiled from participating in the instruction of any department students simply because he holds views that some university officials don't favor. As a result, he has no other recourse but to file this lawsuit to protect his academic freedom."

Dr. John Oller, Jr., is a tenured professor in the Communicative Disorders department and an internationally recognized expert in theoretical semiotics and associated research. He has lectured around the world and has been acknowledged with numerous national and international awards and hundreds of published articles and citations.

In addition to being published widely on the association of toxins and disease agents with autism spectrum disorders, Oller has lectured and published works since 1981 on creation and intelligent design, arguing that linguistic and genetic complexities cannot happen by chance. In 2005, Oller started to receive criticism from his professional colleagues about his views, resulting in progressive elimination of his instruction opportunities within the department, including total removal from classroom instruction of department Ph.D., masters, and undergraduate students. His textbooks were also censored despite the fact that he continued to be published in significant outlets, receive academic awards, and obtain positive evaluations from his students.

At one point, one of Oller's colleagues allegedly wrote to a student, "Personally, I have found him (Oller) to be quite uniformed and biased in his ideas. Remember, as someone told you, he is also someone who believes in Creationism, in the fact that the world is only several thousand years old and in the inerrant truth of every word of the Bible…."

You can read the rest of the press release.

Dr. Oller, by the way, is also a contributor to our Answers magazine. Here are links to two articles he has written.

Words Are Us
More than PIE: Babel Explains Distinct Language Families

I would also ask you to be in prayer for Dr. John Oller and his family. Experience tells me that they will be receiving a lot of persecution (and will be greatly maligned) because of his stand.

This will certainly be an interesting case to follow.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

The Push for Millions of Years in Christianity

In a number of articles I've written lately, I have warned Bible-believing Christians that one of the major battles we are going to be involved in this year is to counter the increasing push by leaders in Christianity to indoctrinate God's people with the religion of millions of years. I personally believe this compromise is a major tactic by Satan to undermine biblical authority and adversely affect the coming generations in the church in regard to their attitude towards God's Word.

Last June, we saw Christianity Today magazine publish a major article (a cover story) about the battle over a literal Adam and Eve. In that article, two Calvin College professors even discussed their belief that a Christian did not have to accept a literal Fall! I quoted from this issue of Christianity Today in my blog post of June 1, 2011.

The article quotes two Calvin College professors. These quotes really illustrate the ultimate end of rejecting a literal Adam and Eve.

For instance, Schneider, who sees conservative Protestantism as being on "the brink of crisis" on this topic, wrote that the evidence "seems to discredit" the Fall from original righteousness as a historical event. Vices we associate with consequences of the Fall and original sin, such as self-serving behavior, exist in lower primates and would have been passed on via evolution to humans. Thus Eden "cannot be a literal description of how things really were in the primal human past."

Harlow proposed that understandings of the Fall may need to be "reformulated" and the church must be willing to "decouple original sin from the notion that all humans descended from a single pair."

Now, a Calvin College professor of geology emeritus, Davis Young, is leading off a series on the website for the magazine Books & Culture. The editor explains his website this way.

A bimonthly review that engages the contemporary world from a Christian perspective. Every issue of Books & Culture contains in-depth reviews of books that merit critical attention, as well as shorter notices of significant new titles. While the magazine's center is Christian, we seek common ground with like-minded souls from other communities of faith.

Books & Culture is published six times a year by Christianity Today International.

This month, Books & Culture announced the following on its website:

At the beginning of this new year, we are introducing a web-exclusive series of weekly pieces on science. Each month, we will focus on a particular book (or article or film). In January, the focus will be on Doug MacDougall's Why Geology Matters: Decoding the Past, Anticipating the Future (Univ. of California Press). We'll feature four responses to MacDougall's book, beginning this week with a response from Davis Young, who writes that "Why Geology Matters should be mandatory reading for all scientists, school board members, and academic deans and presidents, but especially pastors, theologians, Christian school board members, and Christian college leaders."

On the Univ. of California Press website, in a short summary about the book, we read, "In an entertaining and accessibly written narrative, Macdougall gives an overview of Earth's astonishing history based on information extracted from rocks, ice cores, and other natural archives. He explores such questions as: What is the risk of an asteroid striking Earth? Why does the temperature of the ocean millions of years ago matter today?" The author accepts the secular dates of millions of years as fact, and of course his views of global warming are based on this acceptance of millions of years.

Because we already know that Davis Young is an ardent old earther (he emphatically teaches millions of years), it is not surprising he is recommending Why Geology Matters for pastors, theologians, Christian school board members, and Christian college leaders. We are seeing more and more articles like this where certain academics who profess to be Christians write about the idea of millions of years as fact. The more Christian writers do this, the more the church becomes indoctrinated with these false ideas that undermine biblical authority (and in reality are examples of bad science anyway). Also, if the author is wrong about millions of years (and he is), then how can one accept what he has to say about climate change and other topics when the very foundation for what he is writing about is simply wrong? So if Christian school students and college students are taught to understand "climate change" and many other issues on the basis of a totally wrong premise, they will not understand what is really happening on this earth and why.

One of my heroes of the faith, the late Dr. Henry Morris (the founder of the modern biblical creationist movement), warned people about Christian academics like Davis Young. He stated the following several years ago:

A good modern example is found in the writings of Davis Young, now teaching geology at Calvin College, an institution belonging to the ostensibly conservative Christian Reformed Church. As a beginning graduate student, Dr. Young originally believed in a literal six-day creation and flood geology. Under the guidance of his Princeton professors, however, he converted to "progressive creationism" and the venerable "day-age theory" of Genesis. This position he strongly advocated in two influential books. [4][5] He did acknowledge, however, that the "natural" interpretation of Genesis, as well as the teaching of the early Christians and the Protestant reformers, was the literal interpretation. He had simply decided this had to be abandoned because of its supposed geological difficulties. He did, at that time, still hold out for the special creation of a literal Adam and Eve.

His progressive creationism did not even satisfy his theistic-evolutionary colleagues at Calvin, however, let alone his geological peers at the secular universities. So he is now ready to travel further down the road.

[Young] I further suggest that both literalism and concordism have outlived their usefulness, and that these approaches should be abandoned for a newer approach that does not try to answer technical scientific questions with Biblical data. [6]

By "literalism," Young means taking the six days of creation as literal days and the flood as worldwide in geological effects, the position advocated by most scientific creationists. By "concordism," he means any theory (gap theory, day-age theory, etc.) that attempts to develop a concordance between the creation record in Genesis 1 and the geological ages. Young now wants to quit trying to relate science and the Bible at all!

[Young] I suggest that we will be on the right track if we stop treating Genesis 1 and the flood story as scientific and historic reports. [7]

This approach is essentially that advocated by Christian "liberals" a century ago and now taught in most main-line seminaries.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

New York Times Review Fails to Recognize Poor Scholarship

Recently, two AiG staff members reviewed a book entitled The Anointed, co-authored by a writer who is well known for compromising the pagan religion of millions of years and evolution with God's infallible Word.

I wrote the following in a previous blog post:

AiG scientist Dr. Georgia Purdom (who holds a PhD in molecular genetics from Ohio State) and AiG's CCO Mark Looy have written a critique on aspects of The Anointed, particularly its introduction and first chapter. In these sections, there is a personal attack on my credibility, especially as a writer and speaker on apologetics (and other people are attacked as well). That attack plus the several outright mistakes we found in the book exhibited the poor scholarship seen in The Anointed. It's hardly what one would expect from a publication associated with such a prestigious secular university as Harvard.

Well the New York Times today has published a book review of The Anointed.  But, because the book attacks people like me who have a high regard for Scriptural authority but supposedly lack any scholarship, I find it highly ironic  that the review does not bother to point out the poor scholarship or mistakes in The Anointed. But as usual for such books that attack God's Word, the Times' review speaks of it in glowing terms.

In the review Dr. Purdom and Mark Looy of AiG wrote some time ago about The Anointed, they stated the following:

This is a book that attempts to be a scholarly look at "unscholarly" Christian leaders of prominence in America. It is, after all, published by the prestigious Harvard Press. Yet we were surprised to find several mistakes in the introduction and first chapter alone—plus a generally snide tone that is unbecoming of a scholarly work. For example, the authors gave the wrong month for our Creation Museum's opening (p. 11); they mistakenly claimed that Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, is a young-earth creationist (p. 19); the year given for the first "Back to Genesis" seminar is incorrect (p. 41); and the name of our daily radio program is incorrect (p. 11).

Misrepresentations

Also, we found many exaggerated misrepresentations in The Anointed, including the claim that the late Dr. Henry Morris of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), the founder of the modern creationist movement, supposedly drew significant inspiration from a "mentor," George McCready Price (p. 23). This is simply incorrect and was most likely regurgitated from the book The Creationists by historian Dr. Ronald Numbers. In addition, the authors asserted that Bryan College in Tennessee is "a leader in the young-earth creationist movement" (p. 213). In reality, it is not committed to the young-earth position at all—many of Bryan's professors reject it outright.

In addition, The Anointed authors attempt to portray Bible-believing creationists as some kind of reactionary minority within evangelicalism, declaring that creationists make up a parallel culture within Christianity. However, even with the general population of the United States, Gallup polls in recent decades have consistently revealed that at least 40% of all Americans believe that a Creator God made the first humans within the last 10,000 years.2 While many of these people surveyed no doubt hold to some views of evolutionary belief, the polls nevertheless consistently show that believing in a Creator who made human beings in the past 10,000 years is not a culturally marginalized position in America.

In my previous blog post on The Anointed, I warned people with the following about the authors of this book:

In our modern church today, there are many leaders who have compromised with the pagan religion of the day (i.e., evolution and millions of years—indeed, this really is today's pagan religion to explain life without God). Sadly, many Christian leaders have been teaching generations in the church to accept this secular worldview and re-write God's Word (particularly in Genesis) to fit with it.

Yes, as harsh as it might sound, today there are shepherds in the church who are also "wolves"—they have infiltrated the church with their destructive teaching. Now, I am not saying these wolves are not Christians—I suppose the term can fit Christians as well as non-Christians.

One such example is seen clearly in the writings of Dr. Karl Giberson. Until recently, he was a physics professor at Eastern Nazarene College in Massachusetts—probably leading many students astray about the Bible's authority with his compromised teaching. He has been involved with the theologically liberal BioLogos Foundation and recently co-authored a book (The Anointed, published by a division of Harvard University Press) with Eastern Nazarene College history professor, Dr. Randall Stephens. (By the way, Dr. Darrel Falk, a Nazarene professor in biology at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, has also similarly written against AiG and the literal creation position.)

I encourage you to read my previous blog post and the review of The Anointed.

Now, I want to be very clear: I am not saying that if a person denies the creation account in Genesis as true history and believes in evolution and millions of years (as Giberson does), he or she can't be saved. God's Word teaches that "if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9). And ultimately, only Jesus, who is the Word, can  judge peoples' hearts (Hebrews 4:12).

You can read the review on the New York Times website.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

NRB Award

Here are excerpts of  a news release we distributed yesterday to the national media about our website:

For the second time in six years, Answers in Genesis has won the prestigious "Best Ministry Website" award from the 1,200 member NRB (National Religious Broadcasters).

This award is presented to the website of a ministry that shows excellence in design and content, is creative in presentation, and is helping fulfill the ministry's mission," declared Dr. Frank Wright, president and CEO of the National Religious Broadcasters. "Not only is www.AnswersInGenesis.org attractive and easy-to-use, but its true hallmark is that AiG posts several new items to its site every day and they all relate to proclaiming the Bible's accuracy and authority."

Ken Ham, co-founder and CEO of AiG, paid tribute to his web team at Thursday's staff chapel.

"One of the reasons we receive about 1 million web visitors a month is that we have a hard-working, creative team that refreshes our website every 24 hours with excellent content," Ham said. "They are committed to proclaiming the authority of the Bible from the very first verse."

I encourage you to read the rest of the AiG press release at www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2012/01/06/nrb-best-ministry-website

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying.

Ken

"The BEST Trip We Have Ever Taken"

Even though the secularists write a few blog posts denigrating the Creation Museum, there is an overwhelming number of blog posts like this one that begins with the following:

Right after Christmas, my family and I took a trip with our youth department to The Creation Museum. We started following the progress of the museum back when it was just a thought. Then it was finished, but we didn't go for the opening year [2007] … Finally though …  we made it there! And boy was it worth it!

They added, "It is beautiful! Truly beautiful. Such detail and information every way you turn. It was so faith building and affirming. I thought it was the BEST trip we have ever taken."

Read their blog post to view the photographs they took and get a feel for why they made the glowing statements.

Digital Downloads Section Increasing Rapidly

On the AiG online store, the number of available digital downloads—such as books, videos, audio, and PDF—is rapidly increasing. I encourage you to become a frequent visitor with this part of the AiG website.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

Special Guests

On Tuesday we welcomed two special people to the Creation Museum. The first is almost a household name in Christian literature, Elisabeth Elliot. She lost her first husband in the 1950s when, as a missionary in Peru, Jim Elliott was martyred (along with four others) by the Auca Indians. Amazingly, she went to be a missionary among the very tribe members who killed her husband, living with the Aucas for two years. It's an incredible account. In fact, the death of the five men was recounted in a Hollywood movie a few years ago.

Elisabeth has written over 20 books (Through Gates of Splendor, Shadow of the Almighty, etc.) and has been living in America now for many years. She and her husband, Lars (they live in Massachusetts), were brought here by some long-time AiG supporters—the Price family of Dayton, Ohio.

Be sure to see Elisabeth's website, www.elisabethelliot.org.

Our other special guest on Tuesday was Rich Aguilera of Michigan. He wanted us to check out a portion of one of his children's live programs, "Live and Muddy." His apologetics ministry reaches out to young people and families on creation vs. evolution. He also produces videos and writes articles on biblical apologetics. Rich writes, "Everywhere you look, evolution is being presented as the 'official' explanation for our origins. Movies, books, toys, TV shows, schools, public parks, museums, etc. Our goal is to counter that influence so that people everywhere may understand what the Bible teaches and how our own planet provides the evidence of a God, the Creator."

See his website at www.onemustardseed.com.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

Popping the Question at the Museum!

A couple who have been dating visited the Creation Museum recently. Sam decided to propose to Ginger (both of them live in Pennsylvania) inside the gazebo next to the museum's lake. See them in the following photo, with the gazebo in the background (taken the day after he popped the question):

Then the photo below was taken the evening Sam proposed question. Sam also chose such a romantic setting because of the beautifully decorated grounds in the evening for our recent Christmas Town celebrations (we had over 60,000 lights on display).

By the way, over 25,000 visitors came to Christmas Town over eight evenings last month!

Ginger gave us more of the background:

We headed out on Friday and made it in time to see the live nativity scene. We toured through "Bethlehem," the botanical gardens, listened to a Magi, saw the animals, and started walking around the lake—making our way back to the warmth of the inside. But Sam wanted to make a detour into the gazebo to take some pictures. After a few minutes, the gazebo had cleared of people. He knelt down (not on one knee, but two) and proposed to me. It surely was a memorable experience, and the Creation Museum was a beautiful place to have it. We are getting married on March 24.

Congratulations to the couple!

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

A Very Special Home School Conference

This convention for homeschoolers is unashamedly Christian and creationist!

I praise the Lord for the vision of AiG friend David Nunnery. In March this year, in Spartanburg, South Carolina, he has organized a very special homeschool convention. He states the following on the convention website:

There will be two distinctions to this Convention. First any vendors that touch on the Beginning or Creation or have a Bible Curriculum must sign a statement in agreement of two theological principles:

Scripture teaches a recent origin for man and the whole creation, spanning approximately 4,000 years from creation to Christ, and the days in Genesis do not correspond to geologic ages, but are six [6] consecutive twenty-four [24] hour days of creation.
The Bible is the plenary, verbally inspired Word of God. It is our final authority for faith and practice and is without error.

I love how specific he gets with the wording to screen vendors and their products! And that is what should be done to help avoid compromise materials getting into the hands of unsuspecting homeschoolers and thus become a stumbling block in their children's lives. (By the way, from experience, this wording will not necessarily mean that all people associated with a particular vendor will be young earth creationists—one still has to diligently ask questions to check them out.)

And, there is another important fact as well. David states the following:

All of the profits for the Teach Them Diligently Convention will go to missions.

We read further.

It is our hope to help parents infuse their educational programs with a Great Commission focus. Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God (I Cor. 10:31). We desire to focus parents and children on the fact that we should be seeking opportunities to spread the fame of our Lord Jesus Christ whether through school, playing sports, or running the family business.

The Convention website also states the following:

The Teach Them Diligently Convention was born out of a recognized need for more events celebrating the focus of Christian Homeschool Families—which is to disciple their children to glorify God. The organizers of this Convention are also officers of Worldwide Tentmakers which is a Mission Agency focused on Tentmaking as a missions strategy as you would find in Acts 18. Therefore, Missions, discipleship, and parenting will be a large focus for the Teach Them Diligently Convention. This will be added to the normal Homeschool Convention focus on teaching techniques and use of curriculum. …

Certainly, families attend Homeschool Conventions to learn and buy new educational products and to hear speakers and attend workshops.Another driving motivation is camaraderie. I know this is true with my wife and myself. After spending vast amounts of time with people in churches and larger family outings where there are few homeschoolers around, there is this underlying feeling that your focus and parenting do not match those around you. Then at a Convention, a mom or dad or child is suddenly surrounded with several thousand homeschool families. By further specifying that this is a Christian Homeschool Convention in which the vast majority of the families are attending because of their desire to disciple their children, it is our belief that camaraderie will be that much more enhanced.

So in conclusion, why should your family attend the Teach Them Diligently Convention:

It will be enjoyable!
Great Speakers and workshops
Fellowship with other Christian Homeschool Families and Speakers
Preaching
Missions
Knowledge, Wisdom, Understanding
Shopping and Introduction to new educational products

If you are a Christian Homeschool Family, this is the Convention you want to attend. There will be something for everyone.

The conference will be held at the Spartanburg Expo Center, 6655 Pottery Road, Spartanburg, SC 29303.

You can find all necessary information at the Teach Them Diligently website.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken