Bible Doctrines for Today, Answers in Genesis…and Porn?

As I am reading a considerable amount of Ken Ham “literature” these days, I can’t help but remember my first encounter with what I will call the “biblical literalist” movement—that strand of ultra-Fundamentalism that attempts to argue the Bible directly addresses and answers modern, scientific issues. I apologize in advance…my sarcasm is going to show in this post.

I was a first year teacher at a small Christian school when I was given the book Bible Doctrines for Today, published by the ultra-conservative Christian book publisher A Beka Books at Pensacola Christian College.  I was to use it to teach Freshman Bible.

After about the first week, I realized I simply could not in good conscience use that book—it was a piece of mindless drivel that not only reinforced the stereotype that all Christians are backward, anti-scientific, literalistic rubes, but that would also be considered heretical in most any period of Church history. That’s right—over the past 2,000 years of Church history, the only people who would agree with what was in this book are an extremely small fraction of modern American ultra-Fundamentalists, most of whom probably attend Bob Jones University and have yearly passes to Ken Ham’s “creation museum.”

Even though you might be tempted to think that all Christians are as backward as these ultra-Fundamentalists, the fact is that’s just not true. Most Christians I have known in my life are thoughtful, sincere, smart, and roll their eyes any time Ken Ham’s name is mentioned. Sure, there are some nuts out there—some of them publish books like Bible Doctrines for Today. But the fact is, those kinds of people do not represent either historical or global Christianity. Unfortunately, as I have come to learn, if you have been raised in the churches and schools that such biblical literalists control, your world is very, very small, and you have received more indoctrination than actual education.

Even though it has been twenty years, thanks to Amazon.com, I was able to find and purchase Bible Doctrines for Today and reminisce over the fascinatingly bizarre claims it espoused. What follows are just some of the highlights…enjoy.

Inspiration or Hypnosis?
My favorite claim from the book had to do with its view of inspiration. According to the book, “inspiration” meant that God literally dictated every word to the book’s author, so the “author” was not so much an author as he was a secretary. No, that’s not quite right either. To say “secretary” would be stretching it, being that this book claimed that the biblical “authors” had no idea what they were writing until they had finished! YES THAT’S RIGHT! Apparently, God hypnotized the biblical “authors,” put them in a trance, and literally wrote out, through their hands, what he wanted in the Bible. My jaw dropped to the floor when I first read these words: “It must have been exciting for them [the ‘authors’] to read for the first time what they had just written, God’s Word to man.”

WHAT??? There are so many things logically, historically, and BIBLICALLY wrong with this view that I can’t even begin to go into all of them. But a quick skim through virtually anything in the Bible shows how insane this view really is. Just imagine when God was writing Romans through Paul. What if Paul started coming out of his trance a bit early, let’s say as God was writing Romans 16:22: “I, Teritus, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord.” Paul is confused, and says, “Wait a minute God! You’re not Teritus! Neither am I! Aren’t you lying? Isn’t that a sin? How can God sin?” To which God replies, “Shut up, Paul! Just write it down! Wait, I need to write it down! Augh! Damn it! Wait, can I say that? Paul, quick, consult Bible Doctrines for Today to see what the folks at A Beka Books have decided I can and cannot do!”

The B-I-B-L-E! Yes That’s the Scientific Textbook for Me!
Another outrageous claim made in the book was that everything in the Bible—EVERYTHING—was scientifically accurate. And no, this was not simply about Genesis 1-2. This book ripped numerous poetic passages from the Bible and put them forth as scientific claims. For example, did you know that the Bible teaches that the earth is spherical in shape? Isaiah 40:22 says, “It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth”! WOW!!! Never mind that a circle is not a sphere, and never mind that the ancient view of the earth was certainly not that of a planet suspended in outer-space! Isaiah apparently beat out Copernicus by 2,000 years!

Did you know that the Bible teaches that the earth rotates upon its axis? Job 38:14 says, “The earth…is turned as clay to the seal.” AMAZING!!! That has absolutely nothing to do with the earth rotating upon its axis! But hey! Whatever!

Or how about this one? Did you know that the Bible teaches that the earth is suspended in space? Job 26:7 says, “He…hangeth the earth upon nothing.” HOLY COW!!! I didn’t know how scientific Job really was! He apparently even knew that the atmosphere has weight, for Job 28:25 says, “…to make the weight for the winds.” GEEWILLIKERS!!!!! And the authors of this book pointed out that this was not known by scientists until the seventeenth century! Well, screw you, Galileo!

What’s the Problem? (As if I had to explain it…)
What is wrong with presenting the Bible like this should be obvious to anyone who knows how to read. Without going into a long discourse on inspiration, everyone can at least acknowledge that the Bible contains various types of literature: history, laws, parables, and poetry among others. If I write a poem and say, “My love is a red rose,” I am obviously speaking metaphorically. I’m not trying to make a scientific statement. To say therefore that my poem can only be true if it is literally and scientifically accurate would mean that you would be in actuality distorting its meaning.

This, though, is exactly what Bible Doctrines for Today was doing with the Bible. It had already decided that the only kind of truth possible is that which is scientifically accurate. Therefore, it ended up presenting the Bible as ridiculously stupid and ignorant. Unfortunately, this view of the Bible seems to be gaining popularity among some segments of the Evangelical south. It is hopelessly unscientific, incredibly ignorant of Church history and biblical interpretation—and, to use Romans 2:24, it “blasphemes the name of God among the Gentiles.” Because of such ignorant twisting of Scripture, biblical literalists make Christianity seem stupid to outsiders.

Books like Bible Doctrines for Today do more damage to Christian youth than a steady diet of pornography. At least most Christian kids know pornography is dangerous and addictive. But kids who are exposed to Bible Doctrines for Today are being taught utter absurdities that most Christians throughout history have never believed. Consequently, too many kids either end up being a part of that 5% cultish minority that actually believes scientists are involved in an elaborate conspiracy to undermine Christianity, promote gay marriage, and keep the Democrats in office, or else they become militant atheists because they feel they have been manipulated and lied to for their entire childhoods. Most, though, probably just quietly walk away from Christianity as a whole because it just looks too ridiculous. Of course, the tragedy is that what they were given was, in fact, not historic Christianity. Hopefully, most Christians will be smart enough to realize that books like Bible Doctrines for Today are good for one thing: kindling.

Aftermath
To his credit, after I talked to the principal of the school about my reservations using the book in my Freshman Bible class and showed him some examples of the kinds of things that were in it, he completely agreed that I should not use it. That’s the problem with much of the so-called Bible curriculum that is made available to Christian schools: it is horrible.

Fortunately, the principal let me start making up my own curriculum, and I have been doing so ever since…well, at least up until this year.

To bring this back to Ken Ham, I will just say this. I recently got his book about his debate with Bill Nye. It might be actually worse than Bible Doctrines for Today. In it, Bodie Hodge actually brought up those verses in Isaiah and Job to try to argue that the Bible taught the earth is spherical, over 2,000 years before “modern science” ever figured that out. He also argued that the Bible says that God “stretched out the heavens” that it is actually talking about the expanding universe.

…just writing that last sentence makes me want to take up drinking.

So what’s my point? Twenty years ago I thought Bible Doctrines for Today was an aberration. Now, though, with Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis, I’ve realized just how toxic and poisonous such unbiblical nonsense it really is.