Ken Ham’s Got 18 Tweets (But The Truth Ain’t One!)

I’m not a fan of Jay-Z, but I feel the title just fit. (If you don’t know to what I’m referring, don’t worry. If you do, you owe to me to share this post on your Facebook and Twitter).

In any case, next week, Ken Ham is going to be speaking at an Answers in Genesis conference, hosted by a local church. To commemorate this event, I thought I’d share this week a few more posts about AiG.

Over the past few weeks Ken Ham has been posting comments on his Twitter feed that can only be characterized as intentional trolls to rile people up, purposely offend non-believers, and just antagonize in general. I have to think there’s a method to his madness. I believe he’s intentionally doing it in order to stir up debate, and therefore interest, in his up-and-coming opening of the “Ark Encounter” attraction at his Creation museum this summer. In that sense, he is taking a page out of Donald Trump’s presidential election campaign: continue to say the most outrageous stuff, so that it will keep the attention and the spotlight on you.

Just over the past 48 hours, Ken Ham has posted the following tweets. In the spirit of Twitter, allow me to give a very brief response to each one of the following eighteen tweets:

1. Secularists are experts at misquoting, misinterpreting & misunderstanding the Biblical text -their research skills of the Bible are abysmal.

***Actually, many secularists misquote and misinterpret the Bible because they are assuming what Ken Ham says about the Bible is what Christians have always believed. Simply put, they misunderstand the Bible because they’re going off of what Ken Ham says.

2. The Bible teaches the earth is round (not flat) & hangs upon nothing (in space) – contrary to false secularist propaganda.

***This is a claim that I first came across back in the 1990s, from an A Beka book called Bible Doctrines for Today. The verses used to supposedly support these claims are Isaiah 40:22, which says, “It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth”! and Job 26:7, which says, “He…hangeth the earth upon nothing.” To the point, Isaiah 40:22 reflects ancient Near Eastern cosmology—it is not claiming the earth is spherical. We have ancient drawings of their view of the earth—it’s not a sphere. And the book of Job is poetry—it is metaphor, not scientific claims. This is not a matter of “false secularist propaganda;” it’s a matter of Ken Ham not knowing the difference between poetry and science; it’s a matter of Ken Ham misinterpreting the Bible…(and this takes us back to the first tweet).

3. No evolutionist observed life form from non-life. No creationist saw God create life–BOTH are beliefs. Evolutionists need to admit that.

***The theory of evolution does not claim to explain how life came from non-life. It doesn’t address the origin of life; it addresses the process by which the variety of species came to be. The only difference between traditional evolutionary theory and Ken Ham regarding the variety of species is this: (A) Evolutionary theory claims life evolved into the various species over the course of millions of years, ultimately from a common ancestor; (B) Ken Ham claims that life evolved into the various species over the course of the past 4,000 years from the 1,000 “kinds” that came out of Noah’s ark. Debate that if you want, but you’ll find that Ham’s claims are actually a form of “hyper-evolution” that would require a completely new species to appear every seven years (think two beagles procreating so much, with so much genetic mutation, that within seven years their “descendants” would be Siberian huskies).

A great post on this can be found here, by Joel Duff, who has a blog entitled Naturalis Historia. In any case, this “charge” by Ken Ham against evolution (i.e. evolution can’t explain how life came about in the first place) is a completely bogus and false charge. It is a lie.

4. It’s amazing how many secularists accuse God of moral issues when they have no basis for morality except their own subjective opinion!

***One could say this is technically true. The reality of morality is problematic for an atheist. Ham has a point: when Richard Dawkins accuses the God of the Bible of being barbaric and immoral, that moral claim directly contradicts Dawkins’ own claim that in a universe of blind chance, there ultimately is no right or wrong, or justice, or morality. But why does Ham tweet this out? I can only think of one reason: to intentionally tick off non-believers. Does that sound like something Christ would do? I’m pretty sure there is a better way to reach out to the lost than to essentially tweet out the proverbial “middle finger.”

5. How to tell those who oppose God’s Word are insecure in their faith – they use ad hominem arguments, expletives, hate, blasphemous words.

***Now it’s true: if you read the comments on Ham’s Twitter feed, you’re going to come across some very vulgar and angry atheists. I’ve had conversations with some of them—they’re really obnoxious. I have to think, though, their anger is first and foremost directed at Ken Ham. I can understand their anger and frustration: Ham is supposedly a Christian, but he routinely puts out lies in regards to science, and acts positively smug about it. He intentionally antagonizes unbelievers, they get angry, then he posts tweets about how sinful and bad they are because they’re angry at his un-Christ-like behavior.

6. Many have an evolutionary view of history thinking Noah was less intelligent than us without sophisticated tools – NO- it’s the opposite.

***This tweet goes along with Ham’s unsubstantiated, unbiblical, and unhistorical claim that people 4,000 years ago had access to advanced technology that would dwarf the technology we have today. Ham claims it was all completely obliterated in the flood—that’s why we don’t have any evidence of it. Just think about that claim, and ask yourself, “How can anyone take Ken Ham seriously?”

7. Many react emotionally to God’s judgment at the Flood because inherently they know they’re sinners in rebellion against a righteous Holy God.

***No, they react emotionally to Ken Ham’s claims, because they are intentionally misleading and false. And when Ken Ham is called on it, he turns around and accuses that person of being a sinner. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day made it a habit of calling any of their fellow Jews who didn’t subscribe to their added claims to the Bible as “sinners” too. Jesus called them “a brood of vipers.”

8. Most people who oppose and mock God’s Word are very ignorant of what God’s Word actually teaches – they’re sin nature shows clearly.

***Technically, this often is true. Many atheists who mock Christianity take their cue from Richard Dawkins, and don’t actually know anything about the Bible. But the opposition that comes up on Ken Ham’s Twitter feed is aimed at the false claims and teachings Ken Ham puts out there.

9. Just as surely as God judged with a Flood & the fossil evidence is all over the world – so He will judge again next time with fire.

***Ken Ham is the quintessential passive-aggressive. What does this tweet imply? Simple: Ham is equating people who are convinced of evolution with the evil humanity that got wiped out in the story of Noah’s flood—and then he’s essentially saying, “Just wait until God’s next judgment comes!” Yes, just as God judged evil with the flood, so will He judge a scientific theory with fire.

10. Hard to believe intelligent people believe matter came into existence by itself, & produced life by itself & eventually humans- foolish.

***See tweet #3. Ham is putting forth an utterly false understanding of evolutionary theory to condemn. Sure, belief that matter came into existence by itself is foolish—but that’s not what evolutionary theory says, or even addresses.

11. Biology, Chemistry, Anthropology, Geology, & Astronomy all confirm the Historical account of Genesis.

***This is just simply false. A complete lie…and, given Ham’s own “definitions” of “historical science” and “observational science,” completely nonsensical using Ham’s own logic. He claims there are two different kinds of science: observational science deals with observable experiments and technology; historical science deals with the past, and therefore cannot be observed, and therefore is a matter of belief. For the sake of argument, let’s accept those categories. If that’s the case, then biology, chemistry, anthropology, geology and astronomy (being the “observational” sciences) couldn’t confirm the historical account of Genesis, because that is “historical” science). Ken Ham’s nonsensical claims contradict his own nonsensical (and fictional) categories of science.

12. Amazing how many people claim Noah wouldn’t have had sophisticated tools when the account in Genesis does not tell us what tools he used.

***See tweet #6. Ken Ham thinks Noah had access to advanced technology and power tools…because the Bible doesn’t tell us what tools he used. This is what we call “an argument from silence.”

13. Genesis 4 relates a few generations after Adam people made instruments of bronze and iron, Probably a high level of technology by Noah’s time.

***See tweets #6 and #12. How does one get from “instruments of bronze and iron,” to “high level of technology”?

14. There is nothing in observational science that contradicts the Bible’s account of history of Creation, the Flood and the Tower of Babel.

***See tweet #11. By Ham’s own definitions, “historical science” is based on belief about the past, and therefore cannot be even addressed by “observational science.”

15. Atheists can’t change the fact of history that their ancestor was a man called Noah who was a preacher of righteousness – sad they rebelled.

***Yet another antagonistic, passive-aggressive troll to get non-believers angry. Not exactly the best witnessing method, in my opinion. Ken Ham can’t change the fact that the literary genre of Genesis 1-11 (which includes the flood story) is not history or science, but rather ancient myth—God-inspired ancient myth intended to teach the Israelites the truth about YHWH, using the genre they would have been familiar with. And yes, Noah is called a preacher of righteousness—it’s sad the Ken Ham has rejected the inspired message of God’s Word, and is displaying the contentious, divisive “works of the flesh” that Paul talks about in Galatians.

16. Those who claim tolerance are often the most intolerant of all – and often they’re intolerant of not just Christian doctrine but Christians.

***Again, technically true in many respects. There are quite a few atheists out there who are obnoxious, intolerant, foolish, and bombastic; and yes they positively hate Christianity. But let’s be clear, the kind of “Christianity” they are reacting against is the caricature that men like Richard Dawkins, and ironically Ken Ham, put out there. Dawkins and Ham are each other’s doppelganger. But as for Ham, all I say is this: ^“For, as it is written, ‘The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you’” (Rom 2:24).

17. Notice that those who claim they don’t believe in God spend a lot of their time shaking their fist at God who is long suffering toward them.

***See tweets #1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 15, 16. The atheists on Ken Ham’s Twitter feed are shaking their fists at him, because he is going out of his way to poke them in the eye, and then condemn them as rebellious sinners because they say, “Ow!”

18. The scoffers who scoff today will one day bow the knee to the God they scoff at-God has the last say “Every knee shall bow to Me”(Rom 14:11).

***See tweets #1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 15, 16, 17. More passive-aggressive, self-righteous, Pharisaical condemnation coming from the heretical organization known as Answers in Genesis, that ironically gives answers that are not found in Genesis.

My Appeal…
Please note, these eighteen tweets are just a sampling. Ham makes it a point to flood Twitter with comments like these for one purpose: to get a reaction and to antagonize. I have found that one has to strike a balance when confronting men like Ken Ham. It is very easy to get sucked into the madness and obsess over the inflammatory and misleading things he routinely says. It’s especially hard when you’re writing a book on it.

At the same time, for the sake of the countless people who have been hurt by the Pharisaical propaganda of Answers in Genesis, it is important to keep warning people about how toxic and heretical it is. I’m specifically thinking of my former students, and any student who has gone to a Christian high school, or attends a Church, where the young earth creationist heresy of Ken Ham is embraced, promoted, and yes, forced upon people.

I want to say to anyone who is walking away from the Christian faith because they have been told, “If you don’t believe the universe is 6,000 years old, then you can’t believe anything in the Bible, and Christ died for nothing,” stop: don’t believe Ken Ham or Answers in Genesis. They are not preaching the Gospel of Christ. Look at how nonsensical and condemning they routinely are. What would Jesus do? He wouldn’t embrace broods of vipers, and even though those white-washed tombs would kill him and throw him into his own tomb, he would rise up, and walk out into a new creation.

So yes, walk away from the false gospel of Ken Ham, but don’t walk away from Christ.