Ken Ham at BVG

So... I did a thing! Well, my dad and brother and I did a thing. We saw Ken Ham speak at Big Valley Grace tonight. It's been around 5 years since we've set foot on these grounds and it evoked a lot of emotion for us. It was awesome coming back to our old stomping grounds and seeing some people we hadn't seen in a long time (but still retain contact with on Facebook). We had a lovely ride from our parking spot to the building on a really cool shuttle. The music was excellently played and emotionally intoxicating. But it was weird for us also, not so much in the ways the church has changed but maybe more in the ways it was familiar and unchanged. Familiar architecture. Familiar ideas. I spent so much time on this campus! The building feels like home.

The message Mr. Ham gave really wasn't very rich in apologetic arguments like we were hoping. He started by explaining the dramatic and consistent decrease in church membership through the generations of the last 100-ish years and made his case as to WHY he believes apologetics is an important endeavor. He also noted statistics in the steadily decreasing condemnation of homosexuality. He blames the increase of atheism on the failure of the church. He gave a lot of citations from the book of Genesis and emphasized that chapters 1-11 are foundational to all of the 'truths' of God's Word. Ham is VERY fundamentalist and that much was clear (not that it wasn't obvious to us long before). He spent a considerable amount of time lamenting the increasingly widespread LGBTQ+ acceptance, which was a consistent theme in his message while justifying that he's not being "hateful." He argued that "two of each kind" on the ark does not mean "two of each species" but explained how it would have been two dogs or two cats, for example, which were then the ancestors of all known species of canines and felines, while, in the same breath, insisting that the speciation following the flood is NOT evolution. He says all animals before the fall were vegetarian and that the fossil record showing evidence of disease and carnivorous diet came AFTER sin was introduced to the world. Many of his arguments rested on reductions of complex issues into simple dichotomies. The lobby had tables piled high with books, disks, and curriculum for sale with Ken Ham's name on them.

I left the church feeling sad. It was kind of hard on all three of us in different ways. We love the people and the community, but it was clear that there was no place there for people who think like us. Though there were friendly faces and joyful reunions with people that we love dearly, they were a contrast to an environment that, to us, felt hostile - partially because of what we've learned since we left and partially because of the face that community showed us when we dared to question their core beliefs. It feels so much safer when you don't know too much. The "us vs. them" mentality, the homophobia, the condemnation of not only atheists but even other Christians who have different understandings of the world... those things saturated the language of the music and messages. We were blind to it when we were under the spell. It was so enticing to want to unsee everything we learned that made us now feel alienated where we used to feel "home." There was no way that the church had seemed to grow intellectually since we left. I still long for community, but I want one that celebrates exploration of ideas, growth in understanding, and a willingness to challenge traditional attitudes. This could never be "home" for us like it once was because I think the world is so much more amazing when we stop trying to protect beliefs that are dear to us.

"We are honored to host Ken Ham, CEO and founder of Answers in Genesis and founder of the highly acclaimed Creation Museum! Ken is a biblical apologist, originally from Australia, who is passionate about the relevance and authority of God's Word. He gives numerous faith-building talks to tens of thousands of children and adults each year, along with authoring many books. He is one of the most in-demand Christian conference speakers and talk show guests. In 2016, he opened the Ark Encounter, which drew over two million visitors and media in its first two years. As millions of people have experienced the life-sized Ark, the truth of God's Word has been explained and shown through the exhibits. Ken's emphasis is how the book of Genesis is relevant to every Christian and how compromise on God's Word opens dangerous doors regarding how the church and the culture view biblical authority."

Notice how he depicts the secular worldview as being made of sand while the Christian worldview is made of stone - per the house's foundation parable.

Graph depicting natural selection is a degradation of quality and weeding out of information. Strange because the process labeled as "natural selection" shows an example of artificial selection. He acknowledges slight evolution but refuses to call it by its name.

Ah... yea... racism is NOT a part of "the secular worldview," but but I see your earnest effort to make it look like you're on higher moral ground. Notice again the use of sand and stone imagery.