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?

New Scientist: Public Schools Should Not Take Their Kids to the Ark Encounter

A post in the New Scientist has come out squarely against the idea that public schools should take kids on field trips to the Ark Encounter, despite a plea from Ken Ham to do so.  Josh Rosenau, of the NCSE writes:

Throughout the Ark, wordy signs, animatronic mannequins and strident videos all insist that it is no Sunday school tale, but a “historically authentic” boat that existed just as Ham and others on the young-earth creationist fringe imagine it.
Perhaps because of disappointing visitor numbers so far, it is offering reduced rates – $1 a student and free tickets for accompanying teachers – to tempt schoolchildren through its doors. Schools and parents should know that a visit wouldn’t educate or entertain, it would misinform and browbeat.

Publicly-funded schools certainly should not take their charges to the park. The US Constitution prohibits government bodies, including schools, from endorsing one particular religious belief over others. Ark Encounter is all about endorsing Ham’s particular reading of Genesis as the literal truth. The constitutions of nearby states, from which a trip might be feasible, echo that proscription.

While this may be true, that is not the best reason to stay away from the exhibit. I am always a little bit leery of anything the FFRF says, because, as an organization, it would think absolutely nothing of trampling religious freedoms in an effort to squash religion altogether. Having said that, it would be pretty hard to square a tax-payer funded public school trip to an attraction that is designed specifically to convert people to its particular brand of Christianity.  Especially when there is not a shred of scientific evidence that the flood on which the story is based actually happened.  As Christian geologist Carol Hill writes:

No geologic evidence whatsoever exists for a universal flood, flood geology, or the canopy theory. Modern geologists, hydrologists, paleontologists, and geophysicists know exactly how the different types of sedimentary rock form, how fossils form and what they represent, and how fast the continents are moving apart...

Kids can go see Ken Ham's monument to the Disney-ization of Christianity, but it will probably never happen as part of a sanctioned field trip.

John Wilsey: Is the Evangelical Right Actually Conservative?

John Wilsey, writing for the Christian Century asks a very important question: Is the Christian Right actually conservative.  The post is mostly an (well-deserved, IMO) indictment of modern evangelical Christianity:

Many on the evangelical right have also jettisoned the intellectual, credal, and liturgical traditions of Christianity. There’s not much new in that. The anti-credal trend goes back to early-19th-century America. But it continues, and this “crisis of authority” has profound ramifications, as Molly Worthen, Thomas Bergler, D. H. Williams, and other scholars have noted.

This is a major problem. If we take Russell Kirk’s emphasis on order in conservatism, then it is difficult to classify rightist evangelicalism as conservative. At the beginning of his Roots of American Order, Kirk defines order as “a systematic and harmonious arrangement” that “signifies the performance of certain duties and the enjoyment of certain rights in a community.” Disorder is “a confused and miserable existence” wherein “the commonwealth cannot endure.” Kirk’s understanding of order as central to conservatism is one rule by which we ought to measure the legitimacy of conservatism in American evangelical Protestantism.

As a result of turning away from objective authority, evangelicals have a sentimentalized religion. Sentimentalism yields a self-referential faith. Kirk calls this “egoism,” which is antithetical to “humility, charity, and community.” Sentimentalism turns inward and rejects the outside world. Self-help and self-defense messages abound, along with constant appeals to stay relevant for the young people. Bergler terms this process “the juvenilization of American Christianity.”

This goes hand in hand with the "Disney-ization of Christianity" and Mark Noll's perspective that the Scandal of the Evangelical Mind is that there is no evangelical mind anymore, but that the Church has abrogated its responsibilities in modern society and academia. Todd Wood, the young earth creationist down in Dayton, TN, lamented this a bit back, arguing that the church has set up a parallel culture with all the trappings of secular culture, only recognizable by the fact that its members go to church on Sundays.  Further, he notes that this culture is poorly done, which leads young people to abandon it.

So the modern evangelical movement spends that vast majority of its time focusing on the modern culture wars—homosexuality, gay marriage, pre-marital sex, evolution and other related issues—and in so doing, forgets that it has a rich history of three or four millenia, filled with some of the greatest minds that have ever lived. Consequently, instead of academic centers of Christian thought, we get the Creation Museum and pastors like Brad Shockley.  No wonder people are leaving the church in droves.

Creation Museum to Add Zip Lines??

As if to reinforce Internet Monk's observation that the Creation Museum in Petersburg Kentucky represents the Disney-ization of Christianity, we now find out that, in order to boost attendance, they are going to add zip lines.  Mark Hansel, of Cincinnati.com writes:

Mike Zovath, senior vice president of Answers in Genesis which owns and operates the museum, said the zip line course is designed to broaden the attraction’s appeal.

“We think it will draw a lot of young people that are looking for something exciting and fun to do,” Zovath said. “The longest is a 1,700-foot, double zip line that extends from an adjacent property, through the woods and across a ravine.”

The first stage of the zip line course is located next to the entrance to the Creation Museum and features a 650-foot dual racing zip line that extends across a lake.

What's the biblical message here?

Genesis 7:23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

24 The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days. 25 And because the Ark was long, being over 300 cubits in length, the Lord provided for Noah and his family zip lines for which to travel from one end of the Ark to the other.   26 This allowed them to manage the enormous tasks for which the Lord had commanded them.

Just incredible.  

Ken Ham Wants to Show the Plausibility of the Worldwide Flood

Mary Wisniewski of Reuters has written a story on the PR message behind the new "Ark Encounter" Noah's Ark theme park (what Barry Lynn calls the "Ark-'n-Park") in Petersburg, Kentucky.  She writes:

What is "gopher wood"? How did Noah fit all those animals on the boat? And how did he stand the smell?

In an office park in Hebron, Kentucky, the designers of the proposed "Ark Encounter" theme park are trying to answer questions like these in order to build faith in the Bible's literal accuracy. The project has run into delays because of lack of financing, which could cost it millions in potential tax breaks. Despite the uncertainty, a recent Reuters preview of the project showed that plans for the ark are continuing.

"We're basically presenting what the Bible has to say and showing how plausible it was," said Patrick Marsh, design director for the park, which will feature a 500-foot-long wooden ark and other Old Testament attractions, including a Tower of Babel and a "Ten Plagues" ride. "This was a real piece of history - not just a story, not just a legend."

The project is currently in the design phase. Not enough private donations have come in to start construction, and building permits will not be ready until November, according to Ark Encounter co-founder and Senior Vice President Michael Zovath.

For those that think that the worldwide flood model is plausible, I would recommend Mark Isaak's Problems With a Global Flood, which pretty much destroys any possibility of that model being correct, and doesn't even cover everything that other writers have written.  I would also recommend Carol Hill's article on the flood.  She writes:

No geologic evidence whatsoever exists for a universal flood, flood geology, or the canopy theory. Modern geologists, hydrologists, paleontologists, and geophysicists know exactly how the different types of sedimentary rock form, how fossils form and what they represent, and how fast the continents are moving apart...

Wisniewski spends a bit of the column asking some of the hard questions that have bedeviled supporters of the global flood model for years such as how they used gopher wood when gopher wood doesn't show up until quite a ways up the geological column and how all of the animals got where they were supposed to go (and back).

Toward the end of the article, there is a section in which one of the designers, Paul Marsh, intimates that, while they are trying to promote a biblical message, the project is a for-profit endeavor and that secular amusement park models are being used to effect this.  Wisniewski writes:

In the exhibit depicting the wicked pre-Flood society that God wanted to destroy, for example, Marsh plans a pagan temple with pagan ceremonies done in a "Disneyesque" way.

"You want everyone to have fun and buy souvenirs and have a good time, but you also want to tell everybody how terrible everything (was)," Marsh said.

It sounds like the only thing missing is the "Ark Waterslide."

"Be a clone and kiss conviction goodnight.  Cloneliness is next to Godliness, Right?"  -Steve Taylor

The Disney-ization of Christianity continues. Would it be wrong to pray that the private donations do not come in?