Matthew Walther Writes About What He Found at the Ark Encounter

Matthew Walther, writing for the Washington Free Beacon chronicles his visit to the Ark Encounter and asks some basic questions:

The question that Christian visitors to the museum will ask themselves is what the point of all this is. Looking at elaborate reconstructions of pre-Deluge ungodly living—robed priests on the steps of a ziggurat handing over babies to be sacrificed to a gilt snake idol, slave maidens striking titillating poses and feeding grapes to Sumerian emperors—and pondering the question of Noah’s occupation—they think he might have been a blacksmith—is fun, but is it spiritually edifying?

There is something striking, even sublime about the sight of the Ark itself, which is being billed as the “largest timber-frame structure in the world.” But was it worth spending $100 million, most of it in junk-grade municipal bonds via an arrangement that I cannot imagine many of our current federal judges think constitutional? What about the zip-line course across the surrounding valley that I decided to forego and the Noah’s Chili With Cheese and $2.50 soft drinks (no refills) at the adjacent restaurant and the planned Tower of Babel—not to be built to scale, one presumes—and pre-Flood city exhibits? Will this strengthen anyone’s faith or bring a single soul to Christ?

Or is it merely a monument to the nitpickers amongst us?

Or is it just another monument to the Disney-ization of fundamentalist evangelical Christianity?