Brian Baxter *

October 2003

Until recently I did not regard Answers in Genesis (AiG) and other Australian creationist bodies as fully-fledged members of Australia’s Religious Right. While they share some interests with the Festival of Light, the Australian Family Association and similar groups - for example, opposition to abortion - AiG is overwhelmingly focused on the creation issue.

However, I now feel that AiG is in fact an integral part of our Religious Right and that creationism itself is a significant component of the Religious Right’s world-view. In this article I will try to explain why I changed my mind.

Who are we talking about here?

‘Religious Right’ is a general term borrowed from studies of a similar but much more influential American phenomenon. Broadly we are looking at a set of political pressure groups operated mainly by evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants who seek, among other things, to reintroduce strict censorship regimes, outlaw abortion and gay rights, and oppose feminism and school sex education. To these concerns I would now add: to promote creationism against evolution.

Like all shorthand terms, ‘Religious Right’ has its faults, but in Rob Boston’s words:

… I think we are stuck with the term ‘Religious Right’. I find the most commonly used substitute, ‘religio-political extremists’, to be a bit of a mouthful. Like it or not, ‘Religious Right’ is the term in common parlance in the media and the larger culture.

As in the United States, there are only a handful of sizeable Religious Right organisations in this country. Boston lists the most prominent American ones as the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council. For Australia I would currently nominate the Australian Festival of Light/Christian Democratic Party, the Australian Family Association and Salt Shakers, although there is also a large number of smaller groups and one-man bands. Australia is a much less religious country than America and our Religious Right is correspondingly less powerful, though by no means ineffectual.

How does creationism fit in here?

At first sight creationism does not seem directly related to the major ’sexuality-linked’ preoccupations of the Religious Right, but there is an intuitive connection hinted at by evolutionary theorist Niles Eldredge:

Are there creationists who are religiously motivated but are not at the same time social and political conservatives? There must be, but in twenty years I have yet to encounter a single such person.

Creationist writers often make the link considerably more explicit:

The danger of teaching the Theory of Evolution is that it will deprive children of a sense of responsibility to and a relationship with a Creator God. A child taught that he has evolved from an animal may well grow up to behave like one! Hence the decline in moral standards, escalating divorce rate etc. …Because [American] culture has changed its foundation to ‘man’s opinions determine truth’ (evolution), then when [someone says], ‘abortion is wrong’, the answer is … like this: ‘What are you talking about? I have a right to do what I want with my body. We’re just animals anyway. No one has a right to tell me what to do.’

In short, for the conservative Christians who make up the Religious Right, creationism provides a coherent rationale for society’s recent descent into a cesspit of immorality, the baleful effects of which are apparent on all sides. Drugs, nude beaches, Queer As Folk - what can you expect from people who have been taught to believe that they are descended from apes?

AiG’s social views

As Australia’s most prominent creationist group, AiG spends the vast majority of its time directly defending creationism and attacking evolution. However, its attitude towards social issues, particularly sex-related ones, is pure Religious Right.

AiG writers are especially vehement about abortion. I have referred elsewhere to Jonathan Sarfati’s apparent inference from Genesisthat the penalty for abortion should be death, but he is by no means alone in his condemnation. Ken Ham has a great deal to say about the matter too:

… ‘Pro-choice’ people are without excuse when they choose to believe there is no Creator who owns them … ‘Pro-choice’ also means that these people choose to make their own rules and choose not to abide by the absolutes of God’s Word … [I]t is obvious that human life begins at conception. Thus, abortion is killing … Those demanding freedom to abort babies have chosen not to serve God. They serve Satan …

Gay rights are regularly given short shrift in AiG publications. It all seems so simple once Ham and his colleagues have explained it to you:

Of course, in regard to homosexuality we know that this is anti-God, so we can say that it is wrong. Why? Not because it is our opinion, but because God the absolute authority says so - end of argument!

Further comment seems superfluous. As for pornography and censorship issues, get ready:

But how did [pre-Babel] linguistic unity provide the possibility and potential for immense iniquity? Perhaps we can find the answer by looking at the vast English-speaking world today. Almost instantly, demonic perversions and poisons can penetrate and permeate the minds of millions through the Internet, as well as via avalanches of morally hideous films, videos, books and magazines. Now, what would happen to this Satanic sewage if [English speakers] suddenly discovered that their linguistic unity was shattered? The blow to Satan and sinful men would be staggering …

We could go on in this vein for some time, but do you really want to? All right, just one more, this time Ken Ham’s commentary on Michael Crichton’s book The Lost World (the follow-up to Jurassic Park):

Throughout the book, God’s name is taken in vain over and over again. It made me sick to the stomach to have to read such language … And then there were the vulgar swear words. To be honest, I felt ‘dirty’ after reading page after page with the disgusting language … I don’t know how much of the evolutionary philosophy will be in the movie, but no doubt it WILL be there … And I’m sure our children have [already] watched cartoons and nature programs that are pervaded by evolutionary philosophy, witchcraft and other anti-God material.

Incidentally, when it comes to the active promotion of a Religious Right agenda and its integration with creationism, AiG is left in the shade by John Mackay’s rival ‘Creation Research’ organisation. Mackay is so reactionary about these matters that he remains virulently opposed to the practice of cremation, an issue which was settled for most people a very long time ago. Not for John, however:

If the ancient Jews had regularly practised cremation Christ wouldn’t have risen bodily from the dead … The coming of the Creator-Christ (Christianity) to the UK put an end to cremation. The rebirth of paganism (evolutionism - nature worship) has brought it back.

Where this leaves the doctrine of God’s omnipotence I’m not entirely sure.

Religious Right groups and creationism

I recently decided to search my holdings of ‘mainstream’ Religious Right literature for references to creationism. While I vaguely recalled seeing it discussed from time to time I was quite unprepared for the mass of material I found. Here I will look briefly at three of the larger organisations, namely the earlier-mentioned Festival of Light, Salt Shakers and the Australian Family Association. However, I discovered creationist links and references in most other like-minded groups; and it is worth noting that the national evangelical weekly New Life, which often prints Religious Right media releases, has a strongly pro-creationist editorial bias.

The Festival of Light has various ‘arms’ including the Christian Democratic Party, represented in the NSW Legislative Council by Fred Nile and Gordon Moyes, and a monthly tabloid called Family World News (FWN). ‘No to Evolution!’ blared the front-page headline in FWN’s issue of August 1995, following up with an article heaping praise on the now-discredited creationist Prof. Dmitry Kuznetsov (recte: Dmitri Kouznetsov) and advising readers that:

For information on Professor Kuznetsov and on other world-class scientists, apply to the Creation Science Foundation, … Acacia Ridge, Qld. …

Most readers will be aware that the Creation Science Foundation is one of AiG’s former titles.

In 1996, leading Religious Right personality Bruce Coleman wrote in FWN:

It is difficult for Christian students in the USA to find a Christian tertiary college that believes in ‘a literal Genesis as foundational to the rest of the Bible’ … comments the Creation Science Foundation. It also appears that ‘many seemingly conservative theological schools and Bible Colleges in Australia …’ are similarly compromised. Pray that the message of the literal truth of Genesis will be clearly established in our Christian Schools, Churches, Bible and Theological Colleges as the basis of Christian theology, Biblical understanding and as a solution to the issues of life.

Regular FWN columnist Cameron Horn has published an entire 454-page book attacking anti-creationist authors such as Ian Plimer; while Fred Nile himself has attacked the ‘permissive media’ for being:

… particularly venomous in their attacks on spokesmen for ‘Right to Life’, Festival of Light, Salt Shakers, Creation Science etc…..

A recent issue of New Life tells the story of Eleanor and Beville Varidel who enjoyed:

… a 7-year close association with the Hon. Rev. Fred Nile MLC. We served as personal assistant to [Fred and Elaine Nile], and national field officers of [the Christian Democratic Party]. During our years of Christian service we have seen growing evidence for the need for God’s people to recognise the authority and accuracy of the whole written Word of God from Genesis to Revelation. We have observed that disbelieving any part of the Word of God is the beginning of a downward spiral … [W]e came to appreciate the growing body of creationist material available through AiG.

The Varidels, having decided that ‘the basic cause of [social] problems has been the increasing acceptance of the anti-God theory of evolution‘, now travel around rural parts of NSW and Queensland hawking AiG literature and other materials.

I think enough has been said now to establish that the Festival of Light and Fred Nile’s other enterprises can fairly be regarded as active supporters of creationism.

Salt Shakers

This group was formed in Melbourne in 1994 by Peter and Jenny Stokes and now has a national outreach. Like the Festival of Light, Salt Shakers focuses mainly on themes such as opposition to abortion, gay rights and pornography. The author David Marr gave this group a terrific serve in his recent book The High Price of Heaven and noted in passing their anti-evolutionary views.

One does not have to search very far to locate creationist material in Salt Shakers’ monthly newsletter. They quote directly from the AiG’s Creation Science Prayer News and reprint articles by major American creationists such as John D. Morris. Peter Stokes himself is a confirmed creationist:

[Having listened to a description of aspects of human development on the ABC] they suggested that it all happened about 2 million years ago!! … [W]e realised that this was a story with no God, no purpose and no hope, typical of what we hear from humanistic, long-age evolutionists. It is the cause of despair for many in our society.

Like AiG, the ‘conservative evangelical’ Salt Shakers doesn’t mind using material from the cultic Seventh Day Adventists when it suits their purposes:

Speculation that the Biblical account of Noah’s flood describes a localised, Black Sea-area flood is flawed, says Dr James Gibson …, a Seventh Day Adventist scholar …

And I can’t resist including their publication of this stupendously ignorant letter by Murray Graham, a gentleman with other strong Religious Right connections:

Sumner Berg … decries the Biblical concept of the Great Flood. How then, may I ask, were fossils produced? Obviously, without total sudden entombment in liquid mud, they wouldn’t be preserved … Marine-life fossils are also found at high mountain elevations - another biblical confirmation factor.

Salt Shakers also directly sells American creationist literature (e.g. by televangelist John Ankerberg). It is therefore fair to describe this group not merely as a supporter of creationism, but as a creationist organisation. Even more enthusiastically than Fred Nile’s groupings, Salt Shakers is an active propagandist for this cause.

Australian Family Association

I knew this one was going to be a tougher nut to crack, as the Australian Family Association (AFA) is an offshoot of the National Civic Council. These bodies are dominated by conservative Catholics, generally loath to directly contradict the Pope, who takes a fairly liberal line on the question of evolution. Catholics are permitted to accept the theory of evolution regarding the origin of the human body, though not of the soul.

Having looked unsuccessfully through a number of AFA publications, it suddenly occurred to me that the current National Vice-President (and former National Secretary) of the AFA is a man named Bill Muehlenberg. Muehlenberg is not a Catholic, but rather an evangelical Protestant who arrived in Australia from the US several years ago, intent on helping us to improve our deplorable moral standards. He has since flitted from AFA to Focus on the Family to Salt Shakers and back to the AFA again. (Focus on the Family is a smaller Australian Religious Right group which has also sold creationist literature in the past.)

My suspicions about Bill had been aroused by a New Life article in which he referred to the creation/evolution debate as one of the ‘tough issues’ of the Christian faith. And these suspicions were amply confirmed when I found an article he had written for the Salt Shakers Newsletter, entitled ‘Darwinism Under Fire’:

Darwinistic evolution is a competing worldview to the Biblical Christian worldview. One may hold to one or the other, but they cannot be held … simultaneously.

Muelenberg proceeded to slam ‘the church’ for its ‘uncritical’ acceptance of Darwinism and then quoted modern critics of evolution such as Michael Denton, Phillip Johnson and Michael Behe:

These three authors have collectively undermined many of the faulty towers of Darwinism. A few more well-aimed hits and the whole edifice could collapse. Darwinism has been one of the great intellectual superstitions of modern times. Every Christian should get and master [these] books …,and help put to rest the pseudo-religion of Darwinism.

I doubt whether Muehlenberg speaks for the AFA membership as a whole, but he has been a very senior official for some time and these views raise questions about the organisation’s objectivity in this matter.

Conclusion

I believed until the last few months that AiG occupied a sort of cul-de-sac in terms of its relationship with the ‘mainstream’ Religious Right in Australia. I now feel that this is incorrect. There are ideological, personal and organisational links between AiG and the other bodies mentioned here which make it clear that they all form part of a recognisable Australian Religious Right.

Going a little further, an argument can be advanced that Religious Right organisations must take creationism’s part against evolution or at the very least observe the strictest neutrality. To do otherwise would be to jeopardise relationships with a substantial portion of their support base, both actual and potential.

People attracted to Religious Right groups usually begin by asking the question: ‘How can we fight declining moral standards, abortions, homosexuals, pornography, de facto relationships etc.?’ But creationism goes one step further, offering a superficially coherent answer to the question: ‘Why has all this happened in the first place?’ Of course, this query has given rise to a wealth of outlandish conspiracy theories. But the specific creationist response - ‘The Devil and Darwin made ‘em do it’ - is very appealing to the conservative Christian cast of mind.

References

Advocate (Melbourne), 1 May 1986

Brian Baxter Should Christians Support Answers in Genesis?, The Skeptic, Summer 2002

David Bird Evolution: Fact or Faith?, Family World News, August 1995

Robert Boston Close Encounters with the Religious Right (Prometheus. 2000)

Creation, June-August 2002

Creation News, April (?) 2002

Creation Science Prayer News and variant titles, September 1984, December 1989, May 1997

Rodger Doyle Why America is Different, Free Inquiry, Summer 2002

Niles Eldredge The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism (W. H. Freeman. 2001)

Family World News, October 1996, July 2002

R. H. Garrett Evolution - But a Theory, Age (Melbourne), 31 March 1989

Ken Ham Creation Evangelism for the New Millennium (Master Books. 1999)

Cameron Horn Science V Truth (Fuzcapp Productions, 1997)

David Marr The High Price of Heaven (Allen and Unwin. 2000)

New Life, 21 December 2000, 27 February 2003

Salt Shakers Newsletter, June 1997, March and May 1998, May 1999, February 2000, August 2001

B.A. Santamaria The Revolutionary Epoch: its Nature and Demands, The Australian Family, September 1990

(This article was originally published in The Skeptic Spring 2003 (Vol. 23, No. 3).
Republished with permission.)