Fight, Laugh, and Feast at the Ark Encounter (Strumpets and Ham Version)

A few short weeks ago, the Fight, Laugh, and Feast Convention was held at Ken Ham’s Ark Encounter in Kentucky. I was alerted to it on one of the creation/evolution Facebook groups I have followed ever since I wrote my book The Heresy of Ham back in 2016. I don’t write much anymore about Ken Ham and YECism because, quite frankly, I feel I’ve said what I needed to say. I wrote my book to wrap my head around the reason for the mistreatment I received from an overzealous YECist headmaster at a school where I used to work, and to just get a handle on the problems with YECism as a whole. Once I did that, I felt it was time to move on. There were more important things in my life than worrying about Ken Ham. Still, I sometimes see what Ken Ham is up to, if for no other reason than to get a good laugh.

One of the things I said in my book was, when it comes right down to it, the issues of evolution, the age of the earth, and the correct interpretation of Genesis 1-11, weren’t really Ken Ham’s main concerns. If you take the time to really understand Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis, what they are most concerned about isn’t science or Biblical Studies—it’s about the singular agenda of fighting the culture war. As I wrote in my book, “He is so convinced that the reason for American society’s moral decline is directly linked to the theory of evolution, that he believes that if he can discredit the theory of evolution and convince people that Genesis 1-11 is scientifically and historically accurate, then this will convince people that the Bible is true, and thus lead to the restoration of Christian morality in our society.”

Well, there can be no clearer display of that concern than the recent Fight, Laugh, Feast Conference at the Ark Encounter. In a nutshell, it was a gathering of Christian nationalists and Reconstructionists like Doug Wilson (I wrote about him here) that brought like-minded Christian nationalists together to…to…to…how can I put it? To put their insanely stupid and muddled thinking on full display. There’s really no other way to say it. I know that many people in the creation/evolution groups I’m in decried it and were horrified by it, but my goodness…I just have to laugh at it. I can’t take it any more seriously than I can take Ken Ham’s intention to build the Tower of Babel seriously. As I read a few excerpts from the conference, I knew I had to write about it. The only true word in the title is “laugh”—as in, “It is laughable.”

A Brief Overview/Paraphrase of the Keynote Address and “Final Charge”
My friend Joel Duff was kind enough to share with the “Answers to AIG” group both the keynote address and “final charge” of the convention, given by a guy name Toby Strumpet…I mean Sumpter. Read them in their entirety if you want or sit back and enjoy my satirical rendition of them. I’ll offer my comments later.

The Kindness of Six-Day Creationism: by Terry Strumpet, I mean Sumpter
Let’s get one thing straight people! The further we get away from six-day creationism, the further we get away from the kindness of God and closer to the secular hellscape ‘merica is becoming! God’s Law is God’s kindness, and it should drive our culture and politics! And God’s Law says six-day creationism, so if you deny YECism, you’re rejecting God and have a bloodlust to inflict secular cruelty on the culture! Just look what happened during the Covid pandemic! So-called “Christians” like Tim Keller, Francis Collins, and Rick Warren sided with our godless government and said John MacArthur’s decision to reopen his church in May of 2020 was a bad thing to do!

You know what else those so-called “Christians” have in common? They accept theistic evolution! And really look at Francis Collins, the former Director of the NIH, the head of the Human Genome Project, and supposedly a Christian…but he started BioLogos, an organization that tries to get Evangelicals to be okay with theistic evolution! He thinks Genesis is “allegorical” and not historical! He wants Christians to be able to discuss controversial issues like evolution with grace, humility, and compassion! Well, where was the compassion in the Covid lockdowns? There are even rumors Collins okayed the taking of kidneys and bladders from babies, and even allowed aborted baby skin to be put on rats! Sounds like a Nazi doctor to me!

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think Collins sincerely believes everything he’s done is consistent with his Christian faith, but that Nazi is an abhorrent example of the Christian faith! That guy might look like Mr. Rogers, but he promotes a hellish agenda! And sadly, too many Evangelicals have been duped by him. Evangelicals are just too nice. But when they accept theistic evolution, they’re accepting human cruelty! On top of that they’re saying all those billions of years of death in evolution was God’s doing. They are questioning Genesis 1 and saying it isn’t meant to be taken literally. Oh yeah? Well, once you get all ambiguous about Genesis 1, you can get all ambiguous about morality!

If Genesis isn’t a science textbook, then the next thing you’re going to say is that Deuteronomy isn’t a civics textbook! But Genesis IS a science textbook and Deuteronomy IS a civics textbook, and we need to organize our American society according to it! That’s exactly what the Declaration of Independence is talking about! “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

You can’t have those unalienable rights unless you have a Creator who created Heaven and earth in six ordinary days! I mean, that’s what Thomas Jefferson was talking about when he mentioned “nature’s God” and “the laws of nature”! Am I right? And let’s not forget, he was talking about a revolution! Get my drift? It is so obvious! If you’re muddled on six-day creationism, you’re just like Joe Biden when he said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: all men and women created by — you know, you know, the thing.” Clearly, he doesn’t believe God created everything in six literal days!

Sadly, many of today’s American Christians have bought into the lie of that Nazi Francis Collins! They’re just too ambiguous about creation! And there’s a direct link from rejecting six-day creationism to nanny state, taxes, porn, sex-change operations, and covid lockdowns!

There’s another thing I’ve noticed. A lot of today’s atheist activists and LGBT activists grew up in Evangelical homes. Why is that? I’ll tell you why! It’s because even though those families were nice and polite on the outside, they were full of bitterness and meanness on the inside. And do you know where that bitterness came from? DARWINISM! THEISTIC EVOLUTION! We need to ask for forgiveness—this is the politics of six-day creationism! We aim to pull up evil by the roots, before it chokes out the flower of our culture and heritage! And our women! Don’t forget those ladies, y’all! Looking to us for protection…from darky, from Jew, from Papist…and all those smart-ass folks who say we descended from monkeys! That’s not my culture and heritage! Is that your culture and heritage?

…or else we’re gonna have our country run by folks like Francis Collins!

(OH WAIT…sorry, those last few lines were from the KKK rally scene from Oh Brother Where Art Thou? Well, the Francis Collins part is from Tony Strumpet. I guess I got the speeches mixed up.)

The Final Charge: by Terry Strumpet, I mean Sumpter
The Christian church has cowered long enough to secularism and all their high priests! Baalism, Zeusism, Dagonism, Secularism, Marxism! It’s all the same incantations of “big bang” and “billions of years” and “violent mutations”! They just sit around all smart-like, write their “academic” papers, gather round their black cauldron of radio-carbon dating, and claim evolution…and that there’s no God, no truth, and no meaning! It’s all lies and propaganda! God spoke! God spoke! God spoke!

Francis Shaefer once wrote “He is there, and He is not silent.” God spoke! He’s not silent! So don’t be embarrassed by the Bible! Prohibitions against shellfish? No trimming the sides of our beards? Mixing fabrics? Regulations for slavery? Death penalties for rebellious sons? Creation in six days? A gigantic floating zoo with giraffes sticking their heads out the windows? Burning bushes? Talking donkeys? Dragons and unicorns? Resurrection from the dead? Yeah, we believe in all of that. And we’re not embarrassed by any of it!

Gold! It’s all gold, I tell ya! It’s God big, giant, shining golden idol! Bow down to it! Don’t trim your beard! No shellfish for you! Get your slavery rules right! Kill your mouthy sons! Why? SIX-DAY CREATIONISM! Giraffes in a floating zoo! Burning bushes! TALKING DONKEYS, and DRAGONS, and UNICORNS, OH MY! THAT’S WHY!!!!

We need the kind of faith of our founding fathers! We need Jefferson’s God of nature and natural law! You know, the Biblical God who outlined the three branches of government and the separation of powers! Go, fight, feast win!

Wow! Sign Me Up!
I don’t know about you, but that is some thoughtful, insightful thoughts and insights coming from Tony Strumpet. If that doesn’t convince you how vital belief in six-day creationism is to our culture and politics, I don’t know what will. I mean, I never realized there is a direct link from theistic evolution to porn and the Covid response! And as for Francis Collins, such damning evidence! Want to know another proof that he’s a Nazi? His name is “Francis”—as in Francis of Assisi, a CATHOLIC who like animals…Hitler was raised CATHOLIC…and Francis has a thing for rats! Besides, nothing screams “Nazi” more than calls for humility, grace, and compassion.

And yes, Genesis is a science textbook, and Deuteronomy is a civics textbook! And we all know what that means…DC has to be moved to Jerusalem and we can only have church services in a third Temple. We need to replace Labor Day with the Festival of Booths, replace the president with a Davidic king, and set up cities of refuge, preferably places like NYC, LA, Chicago, and Portland…I mean all the criminals are already there, am I right?

And we all know that Thomas Jefferson was a six-day creationist…and not an Epicurean and Deist. Clearly, the inspiration for the American Revolution was six-day creationism and the desire to establish a monarchy that imposed a state religion based on the civic textbook of Deuteronomy.

…Oh wait.

Well, Jefferson did own slaves, and slavery is allowed in Deuteronomy, so that’s good! On with the revolution for a theocracy!

***

In all seriousness, no one should take Ken Ham, the Ark Encounter, Tony Strumpet, and the Fight, Laugh, Feast Conference seriously. As infuriating as their blather is, it is not a threat to the country. It is a threat to the Christian faith of many individuals, for sure. But it isn’t any kind of existential threat to the United States.

The biggest threat of these kind of Christian Reconstructionists/YECists is that they have bastardized the Christian faith by doing two things: (1) Making YECism a fundamental tenet of the Christian faith (it isn’t), and (2) Politicizing Christianity to an extreme version of the most right-wing lunacy. The result, as we have so clearly seen, has been some Christians have doubled down on the Hamite-lunacy, while others who have grown up in that culture have rebelled against that culture, and rightly so, but have simply rushed to the opposite edge of the political spectrum, slapped “ex-Evangelical” and “progressive Christianity” and have politicized Christianity into an extreme left-wing lunacy. And in the long run, that kind of mindset, be it politicized right-wing or left-wing lunacy, is the real threat to our culture and nation—not theistic evolution, and not rejecting Deuteronomy as a civics textbook.

To be clear, it is perfectly fine to be “more conservative” or “more liberal” in one’s political outlook. It is perfectly fine, for example, to be concerned about any number of social issues and critical of a number of things the government does—yes, even something like how the Covid pandemic was handled. Let’s be honest, there were plenty of mistakes, and yes, the attempt to censor and silence dissenting voices from established, respected medical experts was not good. We should be able to have open and honest conversations about those things. But attempting to link that with six-day creationism is just sheer lunacy. At the same time, immediately accusing anyone who voices a concern over things our government has done as being a “Christian nationalist,” or whatever, is equally crazy.

Practically speaking, what groups like AIG and these “fight, love, feast” guys have done is make it virtually impossible for Christians to have tough but honest discussions and debates over many things happening in our society. Accepting evolution doesn’t mean one is automatically all about killing babies, open borders, etc. And voicing concerns over things like sex reassignment surgery for minors doesn’t make one a Christian nationalist like these guys. But that is the kind of poison they have injected into public discourse among Christians. We need to discipline ourselves not to view our society and culture through their distorted lens and not accept their rules of the game they’re trying to force everyone to accept.

While we’re at it, can we be clear about American history? Yes, there was a strong Judeo-Christian influence on America at its founding; yes, many of the founding fathers were Christians; no, Thomas Jefferson wasn’t a Christian; no, his “nature’s God” and “nature’s laws” are not a reference to the biblical God and biblical morality—it was a reference the deistic notion of God—still, the Declaration of Independence is a really good document that emphasized really good things! But it sure isn’t advocating for the Christian Reconstructionist wet dream of a Christian theocracy in America. It, along with YECism, is an incoherent mess, historically, theologically, and scientifically. It’s not worth trying to clean up.

All I’m really saying is that these people cannot be taken seriously. I mean, they’re holding a conference in an ARK IN KENTUCKY! The only real threat they really pose is to your own sanity. If you take them too seriously, you’ll either be like them, wading in a flood of extreme right-wing lunacy, or else their doppleganger, wading in a flood of another kind of extreme political lunacy. So, mock them, laugh at them, but don’t take them seriously. Expose them for the incoherent mess that they make everywhere they go. Make sure the truth about what they actually say is seen clearly, but don’t them take up residence in your head.