Quick, somebody call Clarence Darrow! The fundy hicks are at it again! Ok, maybe the headlines and stories in the leading Kentucky papers weren’t quite that blatant, but they were pretty close. The cause of this consternation? A proposed theme park named Ark Encounter
. It seems that a group in Commonwealth, which is owned in part by Answers in Genesis, wants to construct a theme park based on the Biblical account of Noah’s Ark, a park that will include, among other things, a full-scale replica of the famous craft.
This is all just too much for leading Bluegrass State intellectuals who are still reeling from the “embarrassment” of the recently opened Creation Museum and the election of Rand Paul to the US Senate. Here’s a sample of what’s been written,
But these incentives could have been awarded without Gov. Steve Beshear’s public embrace of an expansion of the Creation Museum – a project rooted in outright opposition to science. Hostility to science, knowledge and education does little to attract the kind of employers that will provide good-paying jobs with a future. – Lexington Herald Leader 12/3/2010
Creationism is a nonsensical notion that the Earth is less than 6,000 years old. No serious scientist upholds this view. – Louisville Courier Journal 12/2/2010
[T]he proposed creationism park reinforces unfortunate stereotypes of Kentucky and Kentuckians. – Louisville Courier Journal 12/5/2010
Now it’s not surprising that the newspaper types would be embarrassed by Noah’s Ark. We’ve come to expect this sort of thing. But what I find interesting about battles of this sort is how liberal types, who in general have utter disdain for constitutional, limited government, suddenly get their Thomas Jefferson on when they feel Evangelicals are horning in on their turf. Why the nerve of those fundies! Don’t they know that tax breaks are the exclusive domain of atheists?
For my part, I hope Ark Encounter is a smashing success. Maybe they can even invite Bruce Waltke to the ribbon cutting.
For further reading click here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Don’t stop with Bruce Waltke, invite Tim Keller too.
LOL, good point! Maybe they could make Keller Master of Ceremonies. I’m sure he’d be thrilled with the honor.
I am actually shocked at how many reformed and evangelicals have such a low view of Genesis!
Too often the church end’s up being conformed to the world’s way of thinking. And this certianly is the case regarding creation.
Growing up, I had a lot of confused ideas about Genesis and evolution, and, like a lot of people preferred to punt on the question. I somehow hoped to reconcile evolution and the Bible, but for the life of me I didn’t understand how they could both be true.
But really, that’s not surprising. Six day creation was not clearly taught at my church – it wasn’t often brought up, and when it was the hemming and hawing on the question “What about the dinosaurs?” was rather embarrassing – but evolution was dogmatically asserted or everywhere assumed in the books I read and in the lessons I learned in school. And I’m pretty sure many others have had that same experience in their formative years.
Even some of the great Reformed theologians of the past century were weak on this subject. I don’t have the reference handy, but I believe Warfield held to some sort of theistic evolution position. Gordon Clark doubted the proposition that the earth was created in six literal days (see What Do Presbyterians Believe? p.59), citing Augustine as his authority.
For my part, I didn’t come to a clear understanding of and belief in a six-literal-day creation until about ten years ago when I heard Ken Hamm of Answers in Genesis make the case.