In light of my post yesterday, I’ve gotten a couple of responses questioning my calling Ken Ham and young earth creationism a heresy. I want to make a few clarifications.
What Exactly is Heresy?
First, I am not using “heresy” as just a disparaging comment. I am convinced that in light of Church history, what Ken Ham is teaching is demonstrably a heresy. A fairly good definition of heresy comes from theologian Alister McGrath: Heresy is “best seen as a form of Christian belief that, more by accident than design, ultimately ends up subverting, destabilizing or even destroying the core of the Christian faith” (Heresy: A History of Defending the Truth, 11-12).
Therefore, Ken Ham’s claims about history and the natural world are not just historically and scientifically wrong, but the way in which he attempts to make those claims the foundation of the Gospel itself—that is what makes him heretical.
This is where knowledge of Church history comes in handy. In the few centuries of Christianity, Church leaders occasionally had to come together to discuss and clarify in Church councils precisely what I call the “creedal fundamentals” of the Christian faith, the most well-known being that of the Nicene Creed.
They had to clarify these “creedal fundamentals” because there were often people out there who were claiming to follow Christ, but who were actually teaching certain things that the Church had never held or taught. The Gnostics were prevalent in the first few centuries, and Arius promoted Arianism in the 4th century (this was the teaching that Jesus did not share equality with the Father, and was merely a created being).
Debates and differences of opinion on certain things is one thing; teaching something that the Church has never held, and claiming that the Church as always held that teaching that it has never actually held in history—that is something entirely different.
There will always be differences of opinion on various topics within the Church and different view on how to address societal and cultural challenges that come up. But what the early Church Fathers in those Church councils wisely did was to articulate the bedrock fundamentals of the Christian faith, so that the primary beliefs of Christianity could be clearly distinguished from the secondary issues that Christians can disagree on.
Heresy, therefore, consists in either a denial of any one of the primary beliefs of Christianity, or the elevation of a secondary issue to the level of primary belief. This is what Ken Ham is guilty of. For the sake of argument, even if it turns out that somehow the entire universe is only 6,000 years old, that gigantic sun itself literally “poofed” into existence within the span of 24 hours on the fourth day of time itself—even if that is true, it has never been held as a primary belief of the historic Christian faith, therefore to claim it has been is both deceptive and heretical.
Therefore, when Ken Ham makes that assertion, establishes an entire organization to promote that idea, and proceeds to condemn any and all Christians who don’t think that as “compromised Christians,” he is, in fact, elevating a secondary issue that Christians throughout history have had different opinions on, and is holding that secondary issue as not only a primary belief, but as the foundational belief on which rests belief in the resurrection of Christ. To say his teaching his a heresy, therefore, is not just my way to disparage him for being wrong. It is a valid description of his teaching: it is outside of historic Church teaching. It is not what the Church has ever taught or insisted on. What he teaches is not Christianity.
Second, merely thinking the universe is 6,000 years old, or merely doubting the validity of evolutionary theory, or anything in between—that is not heresy. That is simply using your God-given intellect to think through issues. People have different opinions on these things; of course, in the long run, some opinions will be proven to be right, others wrong. I’m sure not everything I think is true is actually true. I’m pretty sure I’m wrong on a few things. But making adherence to belief that the universe is 6,000 years old a major tenant of the Christian faith, and actively teaching the blatant historical falsehood that “the Church as always taught the universe is 6,000 years old”—that is heresy.
Now, about Evolution…
By the way, in regards to evolution itself, there are thousands of Evangelicals who probably say something like, “I don’t believe in evolution. I believe in creation. I don’t believe the universe came about by random chance.” Well guess what? I believe God created the universe too. I don’t believe the universe came about by random chance either. But, if properly understood, the theory of evolution doesn’t say God doesn’t exist; it doesn’t say the universe came about by random chance. It simple describes how the varieties of life came to be.
In the same way, simply describing the natural processes that cause a cluster of cells, just conceived as a result of a sperm and egg, to develop into a fetus and eventually into fully-developed baby born nine month later—describing that natural process does not mean you are denying the existence of a man and woman who had sex and conceived that child; and that doesn’t mean that God is not ultimately responsible for the creation of that life. He creates life through natural processes. To claim, therefore, it is either natural processes or God—well, that is just a false choice.
Simply put, evolution is a provisional scientific theory, it is not a philosophy; it is not a worldview; it is not a religion. Right or wrong, it is nearly impossible to come to an informed opinion about something like evolution when there are men like Ken Ham that are telling people that “Evolution is an anti-God religion.” He is purposely deceiving people in this regard. Ken Ham claiming “evolution is an anti-God religion” would be like me claiming that Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is ‘anti-God,’ because God doesn’t change. Hey, God is not relative! There are moral absolutes! Einstein’s theory is the reason we live in a morally-relativistic culture! It’s because of Einstein we have abortion, gay-marriage, and Miley Cyrus!
Every clear thinking person is able to see that I’m confusing Einstein’s scientific theory regarding the speed of light in regards to gravity (and all that other “scientific stuff”) with moral and metaphysical truths. The two are not the same. Yet, this is exactly how Ken Ham portrays the scientific theory of evolution. Don’t misunderstand me: I don’t buy every single claim of evolutionary theory; I have a lot of questions about it—but I believe intellectual honesty is necessary in order to even understand basically what it is.
Modern, Enlightenment Paganism
Finally, Ken Ham often says he is horrified by the rise of moral relativism in our society. So am I. We probably agree that we are effectively living in a neo-pagan, post-Christian culture. His problem, though, in trying to address our neo-pagan culture, is that he’s not promoting a Christian worldview. He is, in effect, a thoroughly Enlightenment thinker who has more in common with David Hume than with the apostle Paul. He is actually working from an Enlightenment worldview, and trying to slap Christian labels onto the thoroughly pagan concepts of Epicurus. (I wrote about Epicurus in my book review on N.T. Wright’s “Surprised by Scripture”).
In ancient Israel, after Jeroboam broke away from King Rehoboam of Judah, and became the king of the ten northern tribes of Israel, he decided to erect two golden calves—one in Dan and one in Bethel—so that his people would have a place of worship and not go to Jerusalem. Now, he didn’t tell his people they were worshiping pagan gods. He told them these were the places they could worship YHWH. He was using the pagan practices of the surrounding culture, slapping the name “YHWH” on them, and claiming this was good for his kingdom.
It wasn’t. It was still paganism. Like Jeroboam adopting pagan practices, Ken Ham has adopted an Enlightenment worldview, accepted its idolatry of what N.T. Wright calls “scientism,” and has slapped a Christian label on it. You can’t fight the evils of a pagan age by accepting its worldview and then slapping a Bible verse on it. It’s still idolatry…it will still make you spiritually deaf and blind.
Looking Ahead
More details on what Ken Ham actually teaches and claims will be forthcoming. But along with my analysis on Ken Ham, I will also do two other things in this blog in the near future. First, I’m going to make a “mini-commentary” on C.S. Lewis’ classic, Mere Christianity, and second, I’m going to re-post some earlier articles I wrote on my previous blog about the New Atheist movement. That way, over the course of the next month or so, you’ll be able to understand better (A) what historic Christianity is, (B) what the New Atheist movement says, and (C) what Ken Ham’s heresy is all about. We’ll run the gamut of belief…and non-belief…and heresy.
Joel, I am really enjoying your posts and I also have serious reservations about Ken Ham’s theories to try to explain a 6000 year old earth. I am also very concerned that Ham’s teachings could cause many crisis of faith issues with those who are taught these ideas are “truth” and then are exposed later to all the physical truths we now know about the universe (I would not be the least bit surprised with advancement in telescopes that we will soon have undeniable proof that we indeed live in a very old universe – although 99.9% of scientists today believe that proof is already evident).
Only exception or question I have is regarding your statements that a 6000 year old earth has never been taught in the past as a key tenet of Christianity. I thought the 6000 year old earth discussion occurred as an answer to Darwinism and the creation of the universe by chance once these theories gained so much traction during the past century?
I am very much looking forward to the rest of your posts regarding Ken Ham.
Jack Everett
Thanks for you comments, Jack.
Very briefly, my point was that the whole “6,000 year thing” was never held as a fundamental of the Christian faith. When you look back to the Church councils, when they addressed heresy and clarified the key tenants of the Christian faith, like in the Nicene Creed–never once does the issue of “How old is the earth?” come up. The fact is, the early Church Fathers had a wide variety of opinions regarding Genesis 1-11, but no one ever claimed that was a “make or break” issue.
Yes, the young earth-6,000 year discuss did come about as a reaction to Darwinism in the 19th century. That tells you that for the first 1850 years of Church history, no one ever really believed it or found it a key issue. But ultimately the whole “debate” stems from a number of Enlightenment assumptions. 19th Century propagandists took Darwin’s theory to try to justify their atheism, or capitalism, or eugenics. Christians, being rightly alarmed at those things, mistakenly confused the atheistic take of “Social Darwinism” and the actual biological theory of evolution. If you read William Jennings Bryan’s summation in the Scopes Monkey Trial, it becomes obvious that he was concerned with the effects of Social Darwinism and the corrosion of morals that it brought, but he didn’t really have anything to say about the biological theory itself. The key to understanding this whole supposed “debate” is to make that distinction between the actual scientific theory and the worldview of philosophical naturalism/atheism. The two are not the same. Unfortunately, Ken Ham has made his living convincing people that they are. That’s the problem.
My biggest concern with Ken Ham, though, isn’t really with the scientific issue–even though I think he is completely wrong there. My problem is with how he is distorting the Bible and misleading people about the facts of Church History. He completely misrepresents science as well, but that’s just par for the course with him.
Thanks for you comments. Keep them coming. Tell friends about the blog!
Joel
I think you are the heretic. We have the genealogy of Jesus. Add 2000 years to it and voilá, 6000±. Genesis says that the sun was created on one day, yes a 24 hour day, and yes it popped into existence the moment that God said the word, same with every other 24 day of creation, remember “evening and morning”, there is no metaphorical way to look at genesis. If you believe for a second that evolution is true then you are also denying that Adam and Eve were the first humans created, which would make God a liar when he inspired the new testament, because we have 8 mentions of Adam and eve being the first beings there. Also we have Jesus quote “in the beginning he created them male and female” which despite not mentioning the names is clearly talking about Adam and Eve and not amebas, fishes or monkeys. If evolution is true it would also mean that there was death before Adam’s fall.
Evolution is indeed a no,no. A heresy that once convinces the believer it opens the gates to all kinds of other heresies, because if Genesis is metaphorical, what else is metaphorical? Maybe Jesus was not a man but a fable, or an enlightened man that reached nirvana… if you don’t understand the ramifications of evolution and how destructive to the faith it is then I question your own discernment, is like your conscience has been severed from the Holy Spirit, like you are not being guided by him if you believe such nonsense.
In Christianity and Church History, “heresy,” properly defined, is a teaching that either (a) directly goes against the core teachings of the Church as defined in the creeds, or (b) elevates a secondary belief/issue to the same level as the core beliefs in the creeds.
Evolution is simply a biological explanation of how nature works.
How to read/interpret Genesis 1-11 have never been a core tenet of the Christian faith. Christians have always debated and differed on how to interpret those chapters–they are still Christians.
If you elevate a literalistic interpretation to the level of a core tenet of Christianity, you are elevating a secondary issue to a core issue–and that actually is heretical.
Amen!
I am reading this post 9 years later. Yes, I agree, it puts many at a crisis of faith, especially young people. So many young people who grew up being taught a literal interpretation, as the absolute truth, as Ken Ham teaches, they get out into the real world, and then get exposed to science, and they don’t know what to do with that information. So they leave the faith, because they were taught that it’s either one or the other. It’s very sad. Part of why we’ve lost a generation. I think.
Joel – I enjoyed your blog on Ken Ham and find that I agree with your conclusions. By the way, I want to recommend a blog on history by Dr. Tracy McKenzie, head of the History Department at Wheaton College (where I have been adjunct professor since 2002). His blog can be accessed at:
https://faithandamericanhistory.wordpress.com/2015/08/02/is-the-past-really-dead-and-gone/
My students are aiming to become secondary history teachers and, no doubt, many will teach in the public schools where they need to have issues like the relationship between their faith and the theory of evolution all sorted out. Your article will be quite helpful.
Thanks Jack…I’m going to sharing more about Ham in the future. As I said elsewhere in my posts, though, I don’t want to simply focus on that one issue. It is tantalizing because it is such a hot topic in some Evangelical circles, but people need to see that it is nothing but a sideshow that actually distracts people from being able to explore and understand the Bible, Church history, science…you name it.
I am purposely trying to write these posts (as well as my other projects) in definite “non-academic” language. Hopefully I succeed in that. I’ll look into Dr. McKenzie’s blog. And, as I tell everyone, don’t forget to subscribe to my blog and tell others about it. The more people I get following my blog, the better chance I’ll have at getting my work published. Who knows? Maybe down the line I can work at Wheaton! 😉
This is not a conspiracy against creationism or a unanimous rally against God, it is simply scientists being honest about the findings and saying yes, evolution is true, whether you or me like it or not. So there you have it, 10 more pathetic attempts by creationists to disprove evolution. A bit too simple to walk all over these claims, but the fact they have to use such weak arguments shows just how little they have going for them. All 10 of these seems to be nothing more than “nuh uh” when faced with actual evidence.
The problem with Answers in Genesis, well articulated. One day the penny will drop and all but the die-hards will desert. We’ll balk at how many people were sold a lie and gave their hard-earned money building a folly.
How many lives could have been rebuilt in Syria or in other desperate parts of the world with those £100 millions spent on animatronics? Delusional. Please wake up people.
I realize this is a dead post, I have listened to Ken Ham randomly ( im not a follower of Ken Ham, just happened to see a few videos of him and his stance) and from my point of view you are twisting his words. So far as I know this assertion you made “it has never been held as a primary belief of the historic Christian faith, therefore to claim it has been is both deceptive and heretical.”, has nothing to do with what ive heard Ken Ham say. RATHER those who he deny the “young earth” literal 6 day creation are paving the way for the challenging of biblical authority. The scriptures should be our source, not man’s interpretation of what he sees and how he quantifies/qualifies it, pushing it into God’s word. Dr. Ross often says we know the universe is old because we know the speed of light, that’s presupposing that God had to wait for the light to work the way we perceive it, or its presupposing that the Lord could not have instantly stretched the heavens or placed the celestial bodies where they are now vs a gradual drifting of all celestial bodies from the so called singularity point. We tend to forget that God is in charge, creation belongs to him, and it works the way he wants it to, he can ignore the laws of physics and “science” at his command.
I bet you are not going to post my comment. Now I understand why I only can see praise for you in here. A floating name on the internet with no info at all about who you are is being praised for going against Genesis and there are no objections? Give me a break. You are not fooling me Satan.