Brian Baxter *

October 2004

An old friend of mine, who happens to be a practising Christian, once told me that the worst kind of sin is spiritual pride. If this is true, Messrs Ken Ham, Carl Wieland and the rest of the crew at Answers in Genesis (AiG) should start taking their vacations in the Sahara Desert or Death Valley as a bit of prior acclimatisation never goes astray.

Of all the Religious Right literature that lands on my desk, whether from Australia or overseas, AiG publications are by far the most boastful and self-congratulatory. Their writers and lecturers are presented as peerless masters of their respective arts, the organisation itself has succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its founders, and its opponents, whether ‘evolutionists’ or ‘liberal’ Christians are stumbling around in disarray.

Creation magazine

To show you what I mean, let’s have a look through the latest issue (June-August 2004) of AiG’s flagship Creation magazine. The Focus pages, providing ‘news of interest about creation and evolution‘, appear to have been written directly by God. Problems such as the age of human fossils in the Kow Swamp are dealt with summarily:

Palaeontologists have argued about the age of human remains from Australia for more than 20 years without any agreement … The ages quoted by the scientists depend on technique used, the assumptions applied and the evolutionary model they prefer. However, all such remains are post-Babel and so less than 4,000 years old. (p.9)

So, all you squabbling palaeontologists out there, just give AiG a buzz about anything that’s been troubling you and they’ll sort you out in a trice. Just think of the time you’ll save on all that boring old research! Kow Swamp problem solved.

No doubt geologists will have converted to fundamentalist Christianity en masse after reading about the magnitude 6.5 earthquake near San Simeon, California in late 2003, which pushed up some local mountains by about 30 cm. As AiG points out:

Such rapid uplift - yet geologists say that millions of years are necessary. This was really only a minor quake compared to geological activity during the Genesis Flood; thus, further evidence of how rapidly the mountains around the earth could have formed at that time. (p.7)

Foolish geologists, if only you’d asked AiG in the first place you’d instantly have seen the error of your ways. Same goes for you, foolish biologists:

[A recently-discovered Indian frog] is described as a ‘living fossil’ - a representative of ‘an ancient lineage that dates back to the dinosaurs’ … ‘Living fossils’ surprise evolutionists, who think the fossil record reflects the order of evolution, over billions of years, rather than the order of burial since the start of the Flood, only around 4,500 years ago. (p.8)

Kids’ Corner

This sort of pontificating by AiG is par for the course in any issue of Creation, leaving aside the fact that the errors in their thinking have been pointed out to them by highly qualified scientists, theologians and others on numerous occasions. AiG simply ignores such criticism on the grounds that it is not ‘biblically based’. Unfortunately they feed this stuff to their child readers in the same way:

One hundred and sixty years seems like a long time. Was that the time when dinosaurs lived? ‘Of course not’, you may be thinking. ‘Dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago, long before people lived on the earth.’ Ah, but how do you know?… Let’s use our ‘time machine’, the Bible, which is a record of true history, to travel into the past … Dinosaurs could not have died out 65 million years ago because God only made the earth about six thousand years ago! (p.34)

If you think that’s bad enough, don’t worry, it gets worse:

… Most people believe from evolution that dinosaurs and people didn’t live together. That’s why they haven’t been looking for the evidence.

Palaeontologists, shame on you!

… When we do look, we discover fascinating evidence that indicates people possibly saw dinosaurs. Let’s go back 160 years. In 1845, people in the south of Australia discovered a large, odd bone. [A local aboriginal drew a picture of the animal to which he claimed the bone belonged.] … It’s amazing, but the animal looks … like a duck-billed dinosaur!… This is only one of many [such] stories from all over the world … (p.35)

So what should we do now, children?

Next time someone tells you about the time of the dinosaurs, remember our ‘time machine’, the Bible. Then explain that God made dinosaurs on the same day He made Adam and Eve and every other land animal.

It’s disturbing to think that, throughout Australia, tens of thousands of children are now being taught this way in fundamentalist Christian schools and by homeschooling parents. AiG resources are regularly used in these places.

Ken Ham and Carl Wieland

The remainder of this particular issue of Creation follows a familiar format. There are a few articles on unusual animals such as the kangaroo rat and the kinkajou. The accompanying photos increase the appeal of the magazine to children, while the text hammers away at the argument from design and other creationist furphies. Counter-arguments evidently don’t exist, or if they do, you’re certainly not going to find them here.

Ken Ham, Australian-born President of AiG(USA), talks down to us about ‘the problem of evil’, quoting liberally from Reconstructionist author Greg Bahnsen. Another major article, by CEO Carl Wieland, shows that he is still smarting over Ian Plimer’s Telling Lies for God (1994), a book which even some creationists now recommend as an authority against AiG. (p.14, n.8) Wieland’s piece takes the form of an interview with former NSW Chief Magistrate Clarrie Briese. After Plimer’s book appeared, Wieland put together a ‘Christian committee’ headed by Briese to investigate Plimer’s charges. Why Briese? Because of his former judicial office, or his reputation for scrupulous impartiality? Well, perhaps, but it didn’t hurt that:

… We knew that Clarrie Briese was sympathetic to AiG and subscribed to ‘Creation’ magazine. (p.13)

No prizes for guessing the outcome of the committee’s investigations.

Jonathan Sarfati

But the article which I feel best demonstrates AiG’s patrician outlook is a piece of ‘living hagiography’ entitled ‘An awesome mind’ and subtitled ‘Gary Bates talks to one of Christianity’s foremost defenders, Jonathan Sarfati’. At six pages, this piece constitutes over one-tenth of the entire magazine and is a true monument to narcissism. It may be objected that the subject of an interview often has little influence over what is said about him or her, but in this case Sarfati is one of Creation’s editors and so is quite without excuse.

Gary Bates, the ‘Head of Ministry Development’ at AiG, begins the saga by telling us that Sarfati’s books ‘have become best-sellers’, which probably isn’t saying a lot given the dimensions of the activist Young Earth Creationist (YEC) demographic. At least Bates doesn’t say that they ‘distribute’ a lot of Sarfati’s books i.e. dispose of them gratis to captive church audiences, which seems to be the fate of much AiG literature.

Bates continues:

One of the reasons [Sarfati's publications] have become such a powerful tool for Christianity [read: YEC] is the amazing flow of his clear, crisp, trademark logic, which has ’skewered’ and silenced many an evolutionary detractor. (p.37)

Name one such evolutionary scientist, Gary; name just one!

This ‘cult of the personality’ nonsense goes on for page after page:

[Sarfati is] one of the world’s most powerful defenders of the authority of the Bible … Here [is] someone the Lord [has] blessed with a brilliant mind like a steel trap … Amazing abilities [far above and beyond those of mortal men? Oops, sorry, that's Superman!] … Jonathan definitely fits the description of a real scientist, and a brilliant one at that … A formidable talent … A formidable mind … For most ‘mere mortals’ like me [G. Bates], this kind of ‘brain power’ is an almost unimaginable gift … Personally, I’m in awe of Jonathan’s abilities … (pp.36-41]

In fact, precious few people outside YEC circles have ever heard of Sarfati and his books are unimaginative potboilers. His speciality appears to be attacking slightly less extreme creationists such as Hugh Ross of the ‘Reasons to Believe’ ministry:

His ministry very much tries to reconcile the incorrect [ie, 'Old Earth'] interpretations of many evolutionary scientists with the Bible, and it is leading many Christians astray from the original meaning of the Scriptures [as determined by God's voice on earth, viz. AiG]. For example, Ross believes in the big bang and its timeframe of billions of years … Such views completely undermine the gospel of Christ … I believe such views are, in fact, one of the greatest dangers to Christianity. (his emphasis - p.41)

We should never forget that Sarfati is one of the chief popularisers of the ‘biblically impossible’ category, previously unknown to science. According to this principle, if a scientific finding contradicts what Jonathan thinks is in the Bible, the finding must be false and can be safely ignored. He could set up a lucrative consultancy advising the scientific community on what questions aren’t even worth asking, such as ‘How do evolutionary mechanisms operate?’ (Answer: ‘They don’t.’); and ‘What is the relationship between humans and chimpanzees?’ (Answer: ‘They are essentially unrelated species apart from the fact that both were directly created by God.’)

Creation’s readers

Let us close with a look at some of the letters appearing in the magazine’s ‘feedback’ column. Many of them are as hubristic in character as the articles on which they comment:

Re [article] ‘Can’t define life’ [in a recent issue of 'Creation'] … I found NASA’s definition for life really humorous - ‘A self-sustained chemical system capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution’. I was also surprised to find that apparently none of us are alive. I know that I am definitely not ’self-sustained’, but am sustained by Christ. And though the Lord equips us for many tasks, it’s obvious He hasn’t equipped any of His creation to be ‘capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution’! - Margaret Adamson, Texas USA (p.4)Re [article] ‘Designed by Aliens?’ … Are they serious? … I can’t stop laughing! The learned Dr Crick and other supporters of the hilarious ‘panspermia’ idea have actually come full circle. They are right back there with the ‘primitives’, spinning myths to try to explain the origin of things they don’t want to understand, yet DO understand in their hearts, but are too afraid and too arrogant to admit. What a tragic waste. May God reveal Himself to them … [1 Cor. 1:20]: ‘Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?’ - Norma Sandham, South Africa (p.4)

While it is tempting to dismiss such letters as the products of ignorance, they help show why creationism can be very appealing to religious fundamentalists. At a stroke, you can promote yourself above the world’s foremost scientists, teachers and other leaders, and consign them to the category of ‘fools’. You understand the message of 1 Corinthians and will reign with God in heaven forever. The ‘fools’ don’t understand, and won’t reign. Under the circumstances, surely the creationist can be forgiven a bit of oneupmanship.

And remember to keep passing the message on to the kids:

My son (15) REALLY likes the ‘Creation’ magazine … My husband (not a Christian), got my son a ‘New Scientist’ subscription, but my son is firmly on the side of the creationists … - English reader (p.4)

Conclusion

From virtually any standpoint, creationism appears to be one of the more ghastly caricatures of what most people take to be Christianity. Precepts such as ‘love thy neighbour’, though neither original nor unique to this religion, are conspicuous by their absence from AiG diatribes. 1 Peter adjures Christians, when defending their faith, to ‘do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience’, but creationists have a way of evading the clear intent of this text.

It has been remarked that Protestantism is so voluntaristic that it is precarious, ie that it leaves so many areas open to individual interpretation that the entire enterprise becomes prone to regular schism. I recently saw it estimated that there are currently over 15,000 identifiably different forms of ‘Christianity’ in the world and that this number continues to grow apace. The latest issue of Creation magazine gives us a good working example of this situation, as AiG turns ever more ferociously and dismissively on Hugh Ross’s ‘Old Earth’ creationists.

But whether Ham, Wieland and Sarfati are attacking Hugh Ross, theological liberals, evolutionary scientists or anyone else, they do so with bullet-proof confidence. If this seems like arrogance, just remember that for AiG, doubts are biblically impossible.

(This article was originally published in The Skeptic Spring 2004 (Vol. 24, No. 3).
Republished with permission.)