Ken Ham's Blog, page 444

Not So Honorable After All

Do you recall me mentioning a few weeks ago a 7–8 minute TV segment that appeared nationwide on the PBS program Religion & Ethics News Weekly? It was a balanced piece, and gave us considerable national airtime on hundreds of PBS stations (for which we're very thankful).

Here is a link to that PBS video. As you watch, please note the comments (towards the beginning of the segment) made by a pastor in Louisville, Kentucky, who stands against Answers in Genesis, our Creation Museum, and the future Ark Encounter (a full-size Noah's Ark).

Note that Pastor Joseph Phelps was interviewed as saying, "I honor anyone who has a different understanding of creation than I or our church might have." Well, we are in receipt of an exchange of letters between Pastor Phelps and one of our supporters in northern Kentucky, who lives just a few miles north of the proposed Ark Encounter site. There is no indication that the pastor wanted his letter to be kept confidential, yet I won't reprint the entire letter here. However, I will note that one of the last lines in his letter to our supporter said the Ark Encounter will be promoting a "religious theme that runs counter to all intelligent understandings of this earth."

I just don't see how this pastor could say on TV that he "honors" anyone with a different view of Genesis when he makes a snide comment stating that our beliefs "runs counter to all intelligent understandings of this earth."

This is just another example of the sad compromise that exists within the Christian church, and this compromise sometimes turns into attacks on a ministry like ours that attempts to uphold the accuracy and the authority of the Bible from the very first verse. He also did not write in a way that honored our AiG supporter, who is a highly professional man (he is a captain for Delta Airlines)—and very intelligent and educated.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

Demolishing Doubts

Last year we published the first of what we hope will be a several-volume series entitled Demolishing Supposed Bible Contradictions, which was based on the contradictions web series. So far it has been selling well. The purpose of this series is to answer people's questions about the supposed contradictions in the Bible. But if the Bible is God's revelation to man, it should not contain any errors.

Skeptics often point to one or more of these "supposed" errors to show God's Word can't be trusted—and to cast doubt on the authority of the Word. The world often mocks Christians by saying, "See, I told you the Bible could not be trusted!"

Often these "contradictions" are merely due to reading into the text something that is not there, or not fully reading what is there. But there are answers to these "contradictions," and we hope to deal with many, many of these over the months.

Yesterday, we posted the first of many articles as a follow up to the original contradictions web series—the second book will be based on this new web series. We are in the final stages of editing and preparing the second volume in this series. We pray these answers will help strengthen your faith in the Word of God.

Australian Pastor Looking for an AiG-Style Missionary

I am composing this as I am about to fly back to the USA from my native Australia. Australian pastor Warren Smith and his family (see photo of the three of them below) came all the way from Sydney, Australia, last month to attend our Apologetics Mega Conference near our AiG headquarters in northern Kentucky. While they were here, they had a great opportunity to talk with many of our staff and share their heart for creation evangelism in their area west of the huge city of Sydney.

Pastor Smith informs us that a short distance from his Sydney-area church, there are a large number of schools with many new families—some of them who have come to Australia from many different parts of the world.  Here is what he shared with us as he seeks assistance for his church outreach:

Thanks for your generous hospitality and willingness to try and help finding someone who might be interested in a missionary opportunity in Sydney's West. The following is a start on what I am looking for. I can give anyone who is interested a fuller description of the church and area.

Along with the needed theological training, they will need a missionary heart to see children, young people, and families from a low socio-economic area make commitments to Christ.

We have lots of school work where the Scriptures are taught in primary schools [K-6]. There is also Sunday school for K-9. I would like someone to be able to take the new AiG Bible curriculum and begin teaching it and assisting other teachers to do the same. Next year they could use the "Kids Answers" course to start with.

Further we have for the last 2 years used the Vacation Bible School from AiG and would like someone to coordinate this holiday program.

There is no shortage of school children. We have 13 primary schools as well as one right next to the church. We also have 3 secondary schools.

This assistant would also assist me in leading the morning and evening service teams. Anyone with website development skills would greatly assist in all we want to develop with the children and young people to young adult ministries.

We are a small church [90–100 people] but with so many missionary opportunities. We struggle with attracting people with a missionary heart to come and do a creation/gospel ministry, so we are looking for someone with a missionary heart who is equipped to take the gospel to children, young people and families in the area.

If you would like to know more about this opportunity for missionary work in creation evangelism in the land  "Down Under," just contact us, and we will be happy to put you in touch with Pastor Smith.

It is refreshing to see a pastor with such a heart to reach people with the gospel through using a platform of apologetics and the reliability of the Word of God.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

Observing the Observatory Construction

I shared with you two weeks ago that we opened a new high-tech exhibit inside the Creation Museum. In the exhibit, Dr. David Menton can be seen on a video, speaking on the topic of homology, humans, and apes (and other animals), and how different they all are. Using a special technology, it appears as if the laser pointer held by Dr. Menton has laser beams coming from the pointer, and they highlight parts of skeletons found in the real glass cases below.

Yes, even after being open four years now, the construction at the Creation Museum doesn't stop.

From the exterior of the museum, the latest and most visible addition to the Creation Museum is the construction of an observatory, which will house some high-powered telescopes. At night a roof will slide from one side to the other so the telescopes can peer into the heavens. (You can see a close-up photo of the sliding roof below.) This will be a great addition to the popular Stargazer's Planetarium inside the Creation Museum.

We broke ground on the observatory a few weeks ago. AiG's Dr. Jason Lisle (whose doctorate is in astrophysics—he designed the programs inside our high-tech planetarium) declared the following

We have eight telescopes. All except one were donated. One of the telescopes is quite well-known in astronomy circles, called the Johnson telescope. It was the first telescope to combine elements of the Newtonian and Gregorian styles into what is now called a "Johnsonian" style telescope. It was used by NASA in the Moonblink program, and is the original telescope invented by Mr. Lyle Johnson.

Dr. Lisle added, "I understand the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., sought this telescope, but the family wanted the Creation Museum to have it and be used for God's glory."

Here's an updated photo display of the observatory building under construction. We hope to open it next month.

And here are a couple photos of how the observatory will look when finished.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

Digging Montana and Ohio

Our second Dinosaur Dig of the summer has just concluded in Glendive, Montana. AiG's Buddy Davis and about 20 friends of the ministry unearthed some really nice finds—like a dinosaur rib (about three feet long) and a dinosaur vertebrae. This makes our fourth trip over the past two years working in conjunction with Otis Kline and his group Foundation Advancing Creation Truth (FACT)—see http://www.creationtruth.org. The Creation Museum anticipates hosting a couple of more digs in the near future if you are interested, check our website from time to time.

Come to Unbury Caesar (Creek's Fossils)*

Meanwhile, Dr. Andrew Snelling—our staff geologist—helped lead a fossil hunt for members of the  Creation Museum who were in town to attend AiG's Apologetics Mega Conference last month.  About 30 participants, from children to grandparents, set off early for Caesar Creek State Park in Ohio, one and a half hours' drive from the Creation Museum. After an introductory talk on the fossils to be found, the group headed off to the fossil-collecting area along the walls of the dam spillway; Dr. Snelling tells me it was excessively hot and humid, but the effort was worth it all. A vast array of excellent fossil specimens were collected, including fragments of a trilobite and a cephalopod, and plenty of lamp shells (brachiopods) and lace corals (bryozoans).

The event closed with lunch at a picnic pavilion and a closing talk on the significance of these fossils in terms of the Genesis Flood. (Dr. Snelling is the author of the sequel to the classic book The Genesis Flood, entitled Earth's Catastrophic Past). Here is a photo of the group dig:

*With apologies to Shakespeare and his play "Julius Caesar"—and the phrase: "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him."

Here Before You Know It

Quick—what major international event will be happening exactly one year from now and AiG will be there? On August 2, 2012, over 100 AiG Supporters will join Dr. David Crandall and me in London, England, for the 2012 London Olympic Games. For 10 days, our AiG team will be on the streets of London conducting efforts in "creation evangelism." A special evangelistic booklet entitled Big Ben—Time will be distributed—in 10 languages—through-out the city.

The world is coming to London by the millions, and AiG will be there with the wonderful truths of the Word of God to present to them.  Please be in prayer that this evangelism outreach will result in hundreds/thousands coming to Christ. Perhaps you will consider joining the team? Details are forthcoming on our website, but please think now about blocking off a chunk of August of next year and join us.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

Back to School—Creation Museum's Very Special Offers

The Creation Museum is hosting our first-ever "Back to School Days" the entire month of August. I'm in Australia right now, but I was delighted to see this museum blog post. If you have children, or if you influence children, I urge you to take advantage of the museum's fantastic one-of-a-kind activities, special events, "sneak peek" days (on the full-size Noah's Ark we're building), and excellent admission discounts that we have for you!

Read the post linked to above and see some of the great pictures there. However, I want you to be among the first to know—and see!—the very special Ark Encounter "sneak peek" room at the museum that we have just opened for a limited time. Students (and accompanying adults) who come during August can get into our huge Creation Museum and our children's petting zoo, plus the beautiful gardens for half price. You will also be able to see a scale model of the actual Ark Encounter themed attraction that we are trusting the Lord to complete in 2014. There is so much to the biblically themed Ark Encounter attraction, and I want you to visit our sneak peek room with its artist drawings and posters (that are not available for viewing by the general public).

Of course the main reason for the Back to School Days month-long event at the Creation Museum is to equip students to be ready to stand firm in their faith against the onslaught of evolutionism that they'll face the first day they return to school—and that they, of course, face virtually every day in the secular media. The museum has never before offered such a large variety and emphasis for students from grade school to college.

In addition to offering specially prepared talks—which will include some fascinating illusions by Dr. David Menton of our staff, special tips on navigating college by Dr. Jason Lisle, extra family-focused concerts by Buddy Davis, and numerous of my talks (hope I'm not too jet lagged!)—there will be extra discounts on resources and food. And it's an opportunity to see the "most-feared" natural history museum in the world! (That's the actual opinion of quite a few atheists and evolutionists who think the Bible is full of errors, and that we're harming children by helping them to see that God's Word is true!)

Take a look at the pictures at the blog post, print out the 50% off coupon, and then plan an end-of-summer family trip to the beautiful rolling hills of northern Kentucky and to our museum—just 20 minutes southwest of Cincinnati, Ohio! I'll be back from Australia this week, and hope to see you soon here at the museum.

Drawing Students

Some young people, who are friends of the daughter of one of our bookstore workers Rose Keilholz, toured the Creation Museum. Ages 10, 11, and 12, these young people drew some depictions of their museum experience.

With school starting up later this month throughout the United States (some schools begin in September), I've been thrilled to see so many young people coming through the museum this summer—especially those who have been exposed to evolution and billions of years in their public schools, TV programs, etc. and may have been questioning the accuracy of the Bible.

Here are their drawings.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

Reaching Secular Educators in a Big Way—NEA Outreach

Those of you who have been following the Answers in Genesis ministry for several years are probably aware that in early July of every year, AiG shows up in a most interesting place—at the annual convention of the National Education Association (NEA). We are there as the guests of the NEA Creation Science Educators Caucus, which is allowed to have exhibit space inside the massive expo hall—it's offered to various caucus groups within the NEA. We blogged about this Chicago NEA convention on a special part of our website—see this blog post.

AiG has joined with the CSEC for perhaps 15 years now, and it has been likened to AiG appearing in a "lion's den" because of the very liberal nature of most of the members of the NEA union. Just about every socially liberal, leftist group seems to be represented there, and some of the attendees who drop by the CSEC/AiG booth can be quite hostile to our volunteers there (including a few AiG staff who come to the NEA Convention during their vacation time, so they can engage with people and share their faith). A photo below shows one very angry atheist who dropped by the booth, who was passing out flyers for the Communist Party USA.

Notice (from the photo below) that we had a rather bold banner this year. Perhaps that is why we got such a rather hostile reaction from some attendees. James Opperman of AiG is on the left, Nicki Biegler is in the middle, and Dan "the Animal Man" Breeding joined us, along  with some his fascinating live animals—they were a huge draw.

Tony Ramsek of our IT department has led this effort for several years now, and through the generosity of one of our long-time friends in Pennsylvania (he financially underwrites most of the costs), we are also able to share with secularist school teachers and administrators that there is a different—and more reasonable—worldview related to origins and the meaning and purpose of life, and also to minister to Christian educators who attend the convention (they are, in a sense, "missionaries" to children in the secular world of public education). More than anything, the NEA outreach is a highly evangelistic effort, and I praise God for the several volunteers this year who came out (three from the Bright Lights ministry) and engaged NEA attendees with the gospel. And they passed out an incredible amount of AiG resources—over $50,000 worth!

In fact, almost everything we brought (about 9,000 items—DVDs were popular, as well as our Kids Answers Books) was gone (distributed at no charge). We ask you to pray that the DVDs will be watched, the books will be read, etc. by those who picked up the resources—that they will not end up in a trash can or on some dusty shelf.

Here is a photo of just some of the thousands of resources we had on display at the NEA convention:

As We've Been Saying All Along . . .

I encourage you to visit our website every weekend for our news feature News to Note, where Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell analyzes news items of the previous week that relate to the evolution/creation debate. It's a great way to stay on top of science news.

One of the items discussed this weekend by Dr. Mitchell is how evolutionists continue to recognize (though they are often stubborn to realize this) that the evidences they have been interpreting as "proof" of evolution must be discarded. That has been the case recently with the classic, supposed bird-reptile fossil Archaeopteryx, which creationists have dismissed as a "missing link" for decades. Read Dr. Mitchell's careful analysis, and then read this quote—it's a quotation from page 458 of the article Dr. Mitchell cited from Nature magazine (that she didn't have room to include in her piece on Archaeopertyx):

"Archaeopteryx has also been in the cross-hairs of creationists, and remains a lightning rod for political debates and legal proceedings about teaching evolution in schools. Of course, Xu and co-workers' finding only deepens the impact of Archaeopteryx by highlighting the rich evolutionary nexus of which it is a part, but how the ever-clever creationist community will 'spin' it remains to be seen."

Well, read Dr. Mitchell's article yourself and see who's really been spinning tales for years!

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

"Gold Rush" in Alaska

With my blog post today, I wanted to draw your attention to our Vacation Bible School (VBS) curriculum and how an estimated 250,000 young people will have attended one of our VBS programs in churches this year.

Matt Graubner is one of our Creation Museum staff who sent me this email below about how our Gold Rush VBS was used in Alaska—a state that had its own Gold Rush over 100 years ago as thousands of people moved to Alaska to prospect for gold.

Ken:

A couple months ago my parents were part of a team that traveled from Nashville, Tennessee to Alaska to put on a VBS program for children there. They utilized the AiG "Gold Rush" program.  I thought you might enjoy the pictures and description below (having seen the other testimonies we've received and put on your blog). Here is what my mother wrote to me:

Matt:

I just want to share with you about our time in Alaska.  We had a team of 20 people go to Anchorage in June and work with Grace Works Anchorage. We used the VBS material from AiG: "Gold Rush."

This was a little different VBS. We worked in a public park. Our team had to adapt some of the VBS material, but it worked out well and we feel we planted the seeds.  Thanks again for the great material. Here are some pictures we took.

– Ann Graubner

Bengals' Back Back

That is, a running "back" with the Cincinnati Bengals was "back" at the Creation Museum recently. Cedric Peerman visited along with his pastor, Bill Rillo, of Hyde Park Baptist Church in Cincinnati. Here they are with Cedric in the middle; to the right are Pastor Rillo and his wife; Mark Looy and John Pence of our staff are on the left.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

Photo Gallery

Last week, I spoke at a homeschool convention in Phoenix, Arizona. Three sisters approached me and shared how they became Christians as young children and then committed their lives to the Lord. They had read our children's book A is for Adam. When they had come to the end of the book and the question "Is your name in the 'Lamb's Book of Life'?" (Rev. 21:27), they prayed to receive Christ.

Here is a photo of them with me last week in Arizona.

Recently at the Creation Museum and while I was away, Dr. Bob Taylor (dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Bob Jones University in South Carolina), his wife Barbara, and her cousin Terry Chamberlain (chairman of the art department of Cedarville University) toured the museum and had this photo taken. Our CCO Mark Looy (far left) greeted them in my absence.

Lastly, a special couple paid an anniversary visit to the museum this week and spent two memorable days here. James and Cindy Montalto of Long Island, New York, were the first museum guests to get married on the Creation Museum grounds. That was almost four years ago. They came back to visit just before James starts a new job. In the photo, they stand in the foreground with a very special background that brought back great memories: their 2007 wedding ceremony was held just across the lake and under the pergola (somewhat visible to the left of the arched bridge).

I wrote about their wedding 4 years ago—see previous blog post.

Here is a photo taken of them in 2007.

I hope you can make it to the museum this summer—perhaps your photo might show up here.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

The Memory Man Returns to the Museum

Tom Meyer is a ministry friend who has been living for the past four years as a student and teacher in Jerusalem. He still spends chunks of time in the U.S. (he's from Chicago originally)—including teaching stints at Shasta Bible College in northern California. Tom visited the Creation Museum again this past week. We had him speak to our staff during two chapel sessions and also five times to our museum guests; he recited Genesis chapter 1–11 from memory in front of our visitors and, on alternate days, he recited all 22 chapters of the book of Revelation from memory! For our staff on Tuesday morning, he spoke the books of Nahum and Jonah from memory, and on Thursday, it was portions of Exodus and Matthew.

Tom and his wife Sarah were married in Jerusalem last month—they met there three years ago. He proposed to her on a Christmas Eve in Bethlehem in 2010. Yes, he's a romantic!

Tom plans to return to Israel next year to begin work on a PhD in the area of archaeology and the Bible.

Find out more about Tom's evangelistic ministry in Israel—a nation which has very few, Bible-believing churches—by going to www.thescripturecannotbebroken.com.

While on that website, you can see about booking him for your church or school before he returns to Israel next year.

A recent article about Tom and Sarah's current travelling ministry appeared in a Minnesota newspaper (the state where Sarah is from).

Scientists are Biased

I encourage you to read Dr. Terry Mortenson's recent blog post on how the secular media and the scientific community are highly prone to suppressing anything that questions the scientific validity of Darwinian evolution and global warming. Dr. Mortenson, one of our researchers and speakers, points out that all scientists are biased individuals and bring their worldview to their studies. (Yes, even our own AiG scientists have their own presuppositions that come to bear on the evidences they study.) Dr. Mortenson has written extensively on the theme of how, in the past 200 years, scientists have generally worked within an anti-biblical and naturalistic worldview (with some of them being outright atheists) and those kinds of presuppositions have influenced them away from the Bible. Sadly, even many Christian leaders have accepted the views of fallible, biased secularists and have rejected the clear teachings of Genesis about a recent creation and a global Flood.

More than ever, Christians must stand up for biblical authority by studying how we can use science to confirm the Bible, and then help young people know how to answer the skeptical questions of the day.

See this blog post to read Dr. Mortenson's insights.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks or praying,

Ken

The Norwegian Terrorist—a Christian?

I wanted to briefly comment on the horrible terrorist actions of a crazed gunman and bomber in Norway—who killed 76 people late last week. (This Saturday, in our news commentary called News to Note, Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell will go into depth about these brutal events and the man behind them.)

First media reports about the killer indicated that he was some "right-wing Christian fundamentalist." Some commentators called him a "Christian" terrorist as opposed to a Muslim terrorist (see this report, for example). To be fair, it was police who initially described the killer to reporters as a "right-wing Christian fundamentalist"—you see, under the category "religion" on his Facebook page, the murderer wrote "Christian," and that's what apparently led police to make their wrong pronouncement. Sadly, they also added the loaded and unfounded term "fundamentalist."

Many reporters as well as anti-Christian commentators ran wild with that false characterization of a "Christian fundamentalist." However, a review of his 1,500-page manifesto and watching one of his videos have led our researchers to conclude that his beliefs are not based in biblical Christianity at all. On pages 1307–1308 of his manifesto, for example, he distinguishes between what he calls cultural Christendom and religious Christendom, stating that "a majority of so called agnostics and atheists in Europe are cultural conservative Christians without even knowing it." He attempts to explain the difference, and then states his own personal belief:

If you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God then you are a religious Christian. Myself and many more like me do not necessarily have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God. We do however believe in Christianity as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform. This makes us Christian.

So this was a man who is certainly not a Christian believer who had any relationship with God. In addition, he redefines the word "Christian" in such a way that when he declares it the duty of all Europeans to rise up to defend Christendom against Islamic people (and others, like "cultural Marxists")—he even considers European agnostics and atheists to be a part of Christian Europe!

Read more about these tragic events in Norway in this weekend's News to Note.

Kentucky Tourism and the Creation Museum

AiG and the Creation Museum are members of the local Chamber of Commerce. Ever since the museum opened four years ago, it's been amazing to see so many businesspeople come up to some of our AiG staff at various Chamber meetings to congratulate us for bringing so many tourists and tourism dollars to the area (on Saturday we had close to 3,000 people visit the museum). And it's always wonderful to hear from many of these businesspeople who are Christians and say to us that they are so thankful God is blessing the museum outreach.

At a recent Chamber of Commerce breakfast, three of our staff members heard a talk by the Commissioner of Tourism and Travel for the state of Kentucky—Mike Cooper. As Mike summarized the importance of tourism to the state, he not only highlighted the success of the Creation Museum as a big tourist draw,  he also said he looks to even bigger and better things through the next AiG project: the Ark Encounter (a full-size Noah's Ark) in Grant County, Kentucky.

During a question-and-answer time at the conclusion of Commissioner Cooper's talk, someone asked if he could give an update on the progress of the Ark Encounter. Commissioner Cooper deferred to the AiG staff in the audience, and so we had the opportunity to share that we hope to have groundbreaking in late summer, and that things are progressing well as we work with Grant County officials (and the state of Kentucky in general).

Commissioner Cooper indicated that of the several northern Kentucky counties, Boone County—where the Creation Museum is located—saw tourism revenue last year of $1.2 billion, which was by far the highest figure for any of these counties. Of course, the Creation Museum doesn't take credit for the majority of those dollars, as we have a very good aquarium and other tourism attractions in the area. But the museum impact has been significant (as local hotel and restaurant owners will attest).

Five years ago, some people thought the Creation Museum wouldn't fly. In fact, one Chamber of Commerce member who attended the recent breakfast confided afterwards with Mark Looy, our CCO, that he didn't think many people would visit and that the museum would fizzle; but to his credit, this man admitted to Mark he was wrong.

Today, some people are saying that the Ark Encounter won't bring in the 1.6 million people a year that our feasibility study (through the respected America's Research Group) has estimated will visit. But the state commissioned its own study to gauge the possible number of visitors to the Ark Encounter (and we had to pay for this second, independent study, by the way), and Hunden Strategic Partners came up with a figure of 1.2 million visitors a year who would come from outside Kentucky; now, when you take that 1.2 million out-of-state annual figure and add the many tens of thousands of people (or hundreds of thousands) who will come to the Ark from throughout Kentucky, the two separate studies are quite similar in their projections. Yet there are still some opponents of our ministry who dismiss these figures from two renowned research groups and say the Ark Encounter won't see good attendance. Well, we've heard all that before—with the Creation Museum.

Here is a photo of Commissioner Cooper addressing the recent Chamber of Commerce breakfast in northern Kentucky.

For updates on the Ark Encounter, go to www.ArkEncounter.com.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks or praying,

Ken