Creation Museum Founder Disinvited from Homeschooling Conferences
Ken Ham, founder and president of Answers in Genesis, was disinvited from several homeschooling conferences after he criticized a fellow speaker at two Great Homeschool Conventions conferences and on his blog.
"The Board believes that Ken's public criticism of the convention itself and other speakers at our convention require him to surrender the spiritual privilege of addressing our homeschool audience," wrote Great Homeschool Conventions conference organizer Brennan Dean in the email dismissing Ham.
"Our expression of sacrifice and extraordinary kindness towards Ken and AIG has been returned to us and our attendees with Ken publicly attacking our conventions and other speakers," Dean wrote. "Our Board believes Ken's comments to be unnecessary, ungodly, and mean-spirited statements that are divisive at best and defamatory at worst."
Great Homeschool Conventions, which aims to teach and encourage homeschooling parents, hired Ham to present at four conferences this spring and summer, along with Peter Enns, a senior fellow of biblical studies at the BioLogos Foundation.
BioLogos's mission is to "promote a perspective on the origins of life that is both theologically and scientifically sound," and Enns argues against a strictly literal reading of Genesis, according to his blog.
During the first two conferences, in Memphis and Greenville, SC, Ham showed audiences two video clips of Enns to illustrate how modern Christian speakers were compromising God's word, according to the Answers in Genesis website. He also told audiences that Enns had connections to Susan Wise Bauer, another speaker.
Bauer's publishing company, Peace Hill Press, publishes Enns's Bible curriculum for homeschoolers.
"Here is just one of many examples of Peter Enns rejecting the plain teaching of the Bible and undermining God's Word—he totally rejects a worldwide Flood," Ham wrote on his Facebook page the day after the South Carolina conference.
Conference organizers should not have been surprised, Answers in Genesis spokesman Mark Looy said. "We told the conference organizers in November that we intended to caution convention participants."
None of the parents at the conventions expressed concern about Ham's warnings, Looy said. "One speaker expressed concern, but the participants didn't have a problem with the content."
The withdrawn invitation was "out of the blue," he said. "We had no clue there was a problem. If there was, we would have sought to remedy it in time for the Cincinnati conference."
Ham was not removed for his message about young-earth creation, which the conference organizers agree with, Dean wrote in a public explanation. "Dr. Ham was removed for his spirit not for his message," Dean wrote. "We believe Christian scholars should be heard without the fear of ostracism or ad hominem attacks."
Susan Wise Bauer called the disagreement between Dean and Ham a "huge ideological clash between two men who have the same view of Scripture."
The discussion is about how to treat people you disagree with, she said. And while online support for each side has been strident, nobody knows how, or if, this is going to affect the number of people attending future conventions, she said.
Editor's note: This article has been updated from its original posting.
Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
Related Elsewhere:
Other Christianity Today articles related to origins include:
Adamant on Adam | Resignation of prominent scholar Bruce Waltke underscores tension over evolution. (May 25, 2010)
At Origins' Margins | Michael Behe wonders how much Darwinism can really explain. (March 27, 2008)
Living with the Darwin Fish | Why the discovery of yet another 'missing link' doesn't destroy my faith. (March 12, 2007)
The Art of Debating Darwin | How to intelligently design a winning case
Star Trek Into Darkness
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Darren Chester
The interpretation that there could be no death prior to Adam's sin can not comport with a literal view of Genesis. Genesis 2:16 and 17 records God's command to Adam: "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Day = "Yom" which supposedly always references a 24 hour period of time. Yet, when Adam ate he did not die that day. He lived hundreds of years longer. "Die" must have referred to a spiritual death, or separation from God. Romans 5:12 notes that this sin caused death to spread to all men. The word for men is "anthropos" and refers only to the human species, not to all of creation. Not only must our interpretation be literal, it must also be consistent. Hyper-literalism will lead us to the wrong conclusions...
K Wit
I think it really does come down to a literal view of the Bible, in this primary concept: Evolution requires death. The Bible says that death came as a result of sin - i.e., no sin then no death, and if no death present then no evolution. Since Adam and Eve sinned after they were fully man and woman, evolution could not have been at play up to that point. When you try to water down clear truths of the Bible to make it more palatable to those who have a problem with the supernatural, then you have left the path of Biblical faith and you should be identified as such. No personal attacks were made, rather an attack on poor theology. Way to go Ken, and in my opinion, the Great Homeschool Convention should publicly apologize.
Jon Godwin
@ Dan Carollo I doubt anyone here cares what Augustine says. This whole argument is more about protecting fundagelicalism in its current iteration and less about theology. "If it's not literal, it's not authoritative." - This is the mentality accepted by modern evangelicals. There's no stopping it. Appeals to church fathers, saints, reformers, etc. will all fall on deaf ears. Even Billy Graham's opinion matters not when you've got the expertly trained (well, a bachelor's in applied science) Ken Ham around. "I believe that God created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point He took this person or being and made him a living soul or not, does not change the fact that God did create man" - Billy Graham. Someone should call out Graham's obvious heresy.