A Cheat Sheet to Understanding the Heresy of Ham

There is no place better to learn about the heretical theology of the Hamites than the source of the heresy itself: Ken Ham’s Answers in Genesis website, and more specifically, his personal blog he posts on the website. If you actually read the man’s own words, you’ll soon see just how bizarre his claims are.

The Cultish Mentality
Now, I have chosen to characterize Ken Ham’s claims as heretical; others have accused young earth creationism of being a borderline cult. The well-known Old Testament professor Bruce Waltke, actually lost his job at Reformed Theological Seminary back in 2010 because he said the following:

“…if the data is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution, to deny that reality will make us a cult…some odd group that is not really interacting with the world. And rightly so, because we are not using our gifts and trusting God’s Providence that brought us to this point of our awareness.”

Despite his actual clarification and support for the historicity of Adam and Eve, his comments were considered just too far for the folks at RTS.

I was fortunate to have Waltke as my professor at Regent College back in the 1990s. The fact that this well-known Old Testament professor was let go over that comment should alert you to how dangerous even commenting honestly on this topic has become. At the time, I thought Waltke’s comments were a bit much. A cult? Really? Now, though, I can see his point.

What are some characteristics of a cult? I found this little web page by Andy Naselli, in which he outlined six basic sociological characteristics of a cult. As we go through Ken Ham’s organization and teaching, I believe we will see these characteristics come up time and time again.

http://http://andynaselli.com/sociological-characteristics-of-cults

They are as follows:

1. Authoritarian Leadership: The leader’s word is considered ultimate and final
2. Exclusivism: They believe they alone have the truth
3. Isolationism: The more extreme cults completely isolate themselves from the world
4. Opposition to Independent Thinking: People are not to question; the leader has already done the thinking for them
5. Fear of Being “Disfellowshipped”: Questioning doctrine will get you kicked out
6. Threats of Satanic Attack: Basically, fear tactics are used, and all opposition is painted as satanic

Watch for these characteristics as I take you through the teachings and blog posts of Ken Ham.

The “Talking Points” of Ham
Reading Ken Ham and the literature of Answers in Genesis can be quite over-whelming. If you’ve ever been at one of their conferences or heard a speaker from AIG, you’ll notice how they just fly through loads of material, claims, and reasons for YEC—they don’t give you a moment to breathe, think about what they said, and critically examine what they say. Why do they do this? I think I know. If they gave you time to think about, it wouldn’t take any time at all for you to say, “Whoa…what was that? That doesn’t make sense!”

In any case, I believe it is actually is quite easy to sum up the gist of AIG’s claims and what Ken Ham posts on his blog, for he repeats himself ad nauseum. It’s the same basic talking points, over and over again. I believe it was none other than Karl Marx who said something like, “If you repeat something long enough, people will just believe it is true.” (I’m sorry—I don’t know the exact quote, so if anyone knows it, please respond in a comment).

If you want to know what Ken Ham is about, just look for these four “talking points”:

1. Ham constantly claims that there are two different kinds of science. There is “observational science”—the kind done with experiments; the kind that builds our technology. And then there is “historical science”—Ham defines “historical science” as beliefs about the past that cannot be tested or observed. It is a belief about the past that is based on one’s worldview.

Let’s think about that for a moment. Contrary to what Ham claims, no real scientist thinks there are two kinds of science. Yes, some science makes claims about the past, but those claims are based on actual testable and observable evidence from today. Why do astronomers think the universe is 14 billion years old? Because they’ve measure the rate at which the light of stars are moving away from each other. Since light travels at a constant rate throughout the known universe, they can “turn the clock back” so to speak, and using basic math, determining at what point in the past all the material in the universe was concentrated in one place. This takes us to the “Big Bang Theory”—the actual theory, not the stupid show.

So why does Ham make up this fictitious category of “historical science”? Well, look at his definition: he defines this kind of (fictitious) science as belief without evidence. Well now, that doesn’t really sound like science, does it? Ham has to define it this way, though, for one basic reason: he wants to argue that Genesis 1-11 is scientific. But he has a problem: nothing that science has discovered about the past agrees with a scientific interpretation of Genesis 1-11. Since Ham insists that Genesis 1-11 is God’s eyewitness historical/scientific account of the creation of the universe, and since science doesn’t support his claims (for that matter, neither does Church history!), and since he is at heart an Enlightenment thinker who thinks the only kind of truth is scientific fact—Ham has to make up a new category of science, define it as “belief without evidence” and voila! Genesis 1-11 is science—historical science!

It is a shell game on an organizational scale. If you catch him on this, you destroy his entire argument and everything he claims. And believe me, he invokes this “difference between observational and historical science” in virtually every post and on virtually every page of his writings.

2. Ham also repeatedly defines the scientific theory of evolution as an anti-God, atheistic religion. Simply put, his portrays the scientific theory as a philosophical worldview. The two are not the same. Now it’s true that many atheists (like Richard Dawkins) have tried to argue that “evolution proves God doesn’t exist,” and it’s true that many a small-minded atheist buys into this claim, but that doesn’t make it true. The theory of evolution is absolutely limited to explaining phenomena in the natural world. It does not say there is no God; it is too limited and too powerless to even address that question. And so, ironically, both Ken Ham and Richard Dawkins are putting forth the same basic lie that the scientific theory of evolution is the same thing as philosophical naturalism/atheism.

3. Ken Ham also makes it a habit to disparage, criticize, and condemn any Christian or Christian organization that doesn’t agree with young earth creationism. Often, he calls them “compromised Christians who are undermining the authority of God’s Word” and who are actually helping the devil lead children away from God. Some of the people and groups he has criticized are Timothy Keller, NT Wright, Peter Enns, Karl Giberson, the BioLogos Foundation, Calvin College, Wheaton College, the Christian singer Michael Gungor, conservative theologian Millard Erickson…and yes, even some of the original Fundamentalists who came out with the “Five Fundamentals” in the early 20^th Century! Who would have thought that the original Fundamentalists were too liberal for Ken Ham?

4. Finally, everything in the natural world, can, according to Ken Ham, be ultimately explained by going back to Noah’s Flood, 4,000 years ago. Grand Canyon? Noah’s flood. Fossils? Noah’s flood. Why can’t we find the Garden of Eden? Noah’s flood. It’s all so obvious.

So there you have it—your “cheat sheet” to understand just how Ken Ham goes about making his case. You’ll see all these cultish characteristics and talking points in action in future posts.

But all this Ham is making me sluggish…it has to be bad for the heart. So I promise tomorrow something different–maybe some tea and Turkish delight. Or maybe just an introduction to C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity.