Ken Ham’s Cruel Boasting Over the Loss of Gungor’s Faith

Over the past four months, I have written precisely one blogpost related to Ken Ham, AiG, or young earth creationism. That’s right—only one. The reason why is fairly simple: after 2 ½ years of writing about it, I finally got to the point where there wasn’t much else to say. When it is all said and done, I am convinced that YECism (particularly of the Ken Ham/AiG kind) really isn’t so much about trying to get to the truth of science, or even what the Bible actually says, as it is about fighting their perceived culture war.

Now don’t get me wrong: I certainly do think there is some major cultural tension in our society today—and sure, you can call it a “culture war.” In fact, the state of our current society, quite frankly, rather scares me these days. But that really is a whole other issue. What I came to realize about YECism, though, was that the real concern isn’t so much about proper science or proper biblical exegesis. The real message boils down to this: “The reason why immorality is running rampant in our culture is because people don’t accept Genesis 1-11 as straightforward history and science. If you want to save our culture for Christ, then you need to convince people that dinosaurs and human beings were created on the same day, about 6,000 years ago, on the sixth day of the universe’s existence. If you don’t believe that, then Christ died for nothing.”

Simply put, for YECists like Ken Ham, their ideological agenda drives their science and exegesis.

And so, after 2 ½ years reading up and writing about it, the schtick was just getting old and predictable. I still would check the AiG website or read things others have posted on the creation/evolution Facebook pages I am part of, but by and large, I just needed a bit of a break from pointing out the same, tired talking points.

Another Potshot at Gungor
This morning, though, something from Ken Ham caught my eye on Twitter. He had shared an article entitled, “The Evolving Faith of Lisa Gungor.” She and her husband formed the Christian music group Gungor. Now, ironically, I first came across Gungor three years ago, when I read a post by Ken Ham criticizes Michael Gungor for coming out as a theistic evolutionist. I ended up writing two posts of my own about Ken Ham’s criticism of Gungor: “Hey Kids…Do You Like Gungor?” and “Ken Ham vs. Michael Gungor: Round 2.” In the process, I checked the group out on iTunes and was really quite impressed with their album I am Mountain.

As it turns out, over the past year Michael Gungor has decided he no longer believes in God. The article that Ham shared today was about how Lisa Gungor’s faith has “evolved” during this time as well. Near the end of the article, after saying she doesn’t know what to call herself now, and that she tries to avoid labels, she says, “My perspective is I’m trying to live in the way of love and the way of Jesus the best I know how. I know I don’t have it all right, but I love the way of Jesus. I don’t have a definition for that.”

Now, what Ken Ham wrote in his Tweet was this: Sad consequence of compromising Genesis with evolution (I’ve often said, Theistic Evolution is A step away from Atheistic Evolution); not taught apologetics to answer questions such as why death, suffering, disease; trusting man’s word over God’s Word. Clearly, Ken Ham wants his Twitter followers to know one thing: this is what happens to you if you accept theistic evolution—you end up turning your back on God!

The only thing is that the article doesn’t say that it was evolution that led Michael Gungor to no longer believe in God. In fact, the article is somewhat saddening, in that I think it actually encapsulates what I’ve come to find so disheartening and tragic about the state of Christianity in America today. And that is why I decided to write this post. Simply put, it is a sad article—and therefore Ken Ham’s almost gleeful tweet strikes me as extremely cold and self-righteous. Instead of mourning someone’s loss of faith, Ken Ham has chosen to use it to score points promoting his own agenda.

What the Article Was About
But let’s first get some perspective. The article gave a rough sketch of who Michael and Lisa Gungor are, what led to Michael’s loss of faith as well as Lisa’s own faith struggles, and then how Lisa’s faith has changed in light of all that had happened. The highlights can be summed up as follows:

• They grew up in a very charismatic Christian church where everything was exciting, but where it wasn’t really encouraged to ask tough questions.
• After they started dating, and the later when they were married, tension started to build in their faith precisely because they weren’t being allowed to ask the questions they had. In their church, any kind of “doubt” was seen as being in opposition to faith.
• Eventually, they got kicked out of their church for some of the beliefs they had (the article doesn’t specify).
• The writer of the article then writes, “It’s not uncommon. Many Christians have dealt with the pain of being rejected on some level by their faith community for asking questions that fell outside whatever lines of inquiry their church found permissible.”
• Lisa confessed that she had a really hard time reading the Old Testament (presumably because there is a lot of brutality and violence in it, seemingly ordered by God Himself).
• Michael eventually confessed to her he didn’t believe in God anymore—but he still remained a very moral guy and loving husband.
• She held onto her faith but struggled with the reality of pain and suffering: a friend of hers battling cancer had seemingly had a miracle of healing…but then it turned out to not be a total miracle of healing—and then Lisa felt guilty for praying for her friend’s healing anyway, in light of the fact that there are so many people in the world who are suffering and who will continue to suffer.
• Then their second child was born with Down Syndrome—and that’s when Lisa had somewhat of an epiphany: “This little girl is born into a world that our society says is broken and needs to be fixed and at the same time, I’m feeling that within myself. I’m broken, and I need to be fixed because I don’t believe like I used to.”
• In the end, Lisa doesn’t know what to call herself, but she’s trying to live and love like Jesus, even though she knows she doesn’t have everything figured out.

Let’s Be Honest
Let’s be honest—I’m guessing that for most people, most Christians specifically, there is something in that article that everyone can directly relate to. I know many Christians (and some former Christians) who have admitted how frustrating it was to be afraid to ask their questions and express their doubts, and how when they mustered up the courage to ask a tough question, they were looked down on or their faith was called into question. And the Old Testament? Come on—that’s a toughie! And what about trying to deal with and understand human suffering, especially if you have gone through it yourself?

Let’s be honest, if you’ve grown up in a Christian culture where you are discouraged from asking questions, and where most of the Bible is conveniently ignored (because it’s hard to deal with), and then you happen to go through some very difficult and dark times—is it really all that surprising to find people who end up walking away from the faith?

Now, I guess you can say I’ve been blessed in one regard: I’ve always been so strong-willed, I was never afraid to ask difficult questions, either in my Christian high school, or any place I found myself in. I’ve always had the conviction that if God can’t handle my questions, then He isn’t worthy to be followed anyway. And if someone ever looked down on me for asking the hard questions, my attitude quite frankly was, “Screw that guy. Doubt is the beginning of faith—not it’s antithesis.”

But then again, the past twelve years of my life have been filled with one horrible thing after another: getting betrayed by an administrator at a Christian school where I worked; enduring through my wife’s cancer and cancer treatments while she was pregnant with our child; trying to take care of a baby and giving my wife time to recover from the ordeal; going through a long, drawn-out divorce because through the cancer ordeal my wife basically grew to hate me; getting betrayed by another administrator at another Christian school immediately after the divorce was finalized; and now struggling to get by as an adjunct professor and a single-parent as I raise my son who is developmentally delayed.

Life is hard, and suffering is real, and it takes you to some very dark places. It is a continuous struggle to put your life back together, and you find that you never really fully do. And quite honestly, my own faith has certainly changed, and my own attitude is many ways jaded and in other ways humbled (or perhaps humiliated).

Still, I didn’t chuck my faith. Why? Quite honestly, having studied and taught Biblical Studies for the past twenty years, I’ve wrestled with the difficult questions and I’ve found convincing answers. Simply put, I am intellectually convinced that what the Bible teaches is true. Even in my darkest moments of despair, I felt like Peter’s words were mine, “Where else would I go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). Then I probably would add, “…damn it.” Even though I often feel like I want to chuck it all, I have to be honest with myself–I really am convinced it is true, frightenly so.

That being said, when someone I know says he doesn’t believe in God anymore, or when I read this article about how Michael Gungor is no longer a Christian, I get it. I can fully understand…and it’s sad—not in a “Oh, it’s sad how that poor schmuck lost his faith, not like me!” kind of way. But rather in a “Yeah, I get it; life is brutal…it’s really easy to go off the edge on the ‘narrow way,’ because not only is it narrow, there are also no guard rails, and I’m hanging on by my fingernails a lot of the time” sort of way.

Conclusion: Some Really Bad Ham
My basic point is this: I do not believe how any Christian who has really struggled in their life could ever show the callousness that Ken Ham chose to show in his tweet about Michael Gungor’s loss of faith and Lisa Gungor’s struggles in her faith. Anyone who has experienced true suffering and has struggled to reconcile their doubts with their faith would never be so petty, pharisaical, and yes dim-witted, to point to someone else’s lose of faith and announce to the world, “Look at that guy! It’s just like I’ve always said! If you don’t believe Adam and Eve had a pet triceratops, or that Behemoth was a sauropod, you’re going to end up denying God! Have fun in hell, jerk!”

There are a host of things wrong with YECism and the things YECists like Ken Ham put out there. But in my opinion, one of the worst things is that such teaching—that particular version of ultra-fundamentalist Christianity—actually contributes to many Christians’ loss of faith by discouraging real questioning, by teaching that doubt is a threat to faith, and by demonizing anyone who dares question them…never mind the pseudo-science and really bad biblical exegesis.

Put that all together, and it’s a recipe for disaster. And whether it is because of the militancy of such ultra-fundamentalism like that of Ken Ham and AiG, or the radical over-reaction in progressive circles to such fundamentalism, the faith of a lot of people is going to continue to be crushed, and that is very sad to see. It certainly should never be a cause for boasting.