In a November 3, 2014 blog post entitled, “Does Young Earth Creation Make Atheists?” Ham took on James McGrath, a religion professor at Butler University who argued that young earth creationism (YEC) amounts to nothing less than Bible idolatry, and ends up turning people off to Christianity and on to atheism. McGrath points out, in an ironic twist, it is actually the views of young earth creationists that are the products of human construction. They have taken the Bible, distorted certain parts of it, and have constructed their own idol.
Ham vehemently denied this: “Biblical creation comes from a plain, natural reading of the Scriptures—reading Genesis (which is written as historical narrative) the same way we read the accounts of the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection.”
Well, that’s really the problem with Ken Ham, isn’t it? First, Genesis 1-11 is decidedly not historical narrative; and second, he is reading Genesis in the same way as the resurrection accounts. That would be like saying Jesus’ story of the prodigal son has to be read in the same way as the resurrection accounts, or else you are questioning the whole Bible and “putting man’s fallible opinion over the authority of the Bible.”
Ham then takes issue with McGrath when he accuses Ham of weaving a “web of lies.” Admittedly, that is some loaded language—but language that is entirely justified. But instead of addressing McGrath’s specific points, Ham deflects. McGrath isn’t just accusing Ken Ham, he is accusing “all Christians who take God at His Word”—and “taking God at His Word,” of course, means accepting Ham’s literalistic interpretation of Genesis 1-11. Furthermore, according to Ham, McGrath isn’t just calling him a liar, “he is ultimately calling God a liar.” There you have it—if you criticize Ken Ham, you criticize God. If that is not a characteristic of a cult leader like David Koresh or Jim Jones, I don’t know what is.
Ham also takes issue with McGrath’s statement that YEC is based on Ham’s own “dubious understanding of Christianity.” In response, Ham claims that YEC “has been by far the dominant view of creation for most of Christian history, as well as for the Jews before Christ.” Needless to say, such a statement is utterly deceptive. By Ham’s own admission, it was Henry Morris’ The Genesis Flood that spawned the YEC movement in the 20th century. So how can Christians throughout Church history adhere to a movement that was started in 1961 with the publication of Henry Morris’ book?
This is a very important point, because Ken Ham is thoroughly misleading people…probably even himself. Just believing that the earth is young—be it 6,000 years old or 10,000 years old—does not make one a “young earth creationist” in the modern sense, for the YEC of Ken Ham makes a whole lot more claims than simply the earth is young. It claims that Genesis 1-11 is doing modern science; it claims that if you doubt Ken Ham then you’re doubting God and undermining biblical authority; it denies that light travels at a constant speed in a vacuum; it claims that if you don’t think Genesis 1-11 is completely historical then you are undercutting the foundation of the Gospel and throwing the resurrection of Christ into doubt.
Furthermore, as I am writing in my book, there were scores of early Church Fathers–Ireneaus, Origen, Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa—the list could go on, that decidedly did not read Genesis 1-11 the way Ken Ham and the modern YEC movement does.
James McGrath is right: Ken Ham’s “gospel” is not the Gospel of Christ, and it is not the proclamation of the early Church. It is Bible idolatry. Simply put, Ken Ham is imposing an Enlightenment worldview onto the text of Genesis 1-11, and then turning around and claiming that that interpretation is biblical and in line with Church history.
It isn’t—not in any way, shape, or form.
The first martyr was Stephen, who was stoned to death by the Sanhedrin for having the gall to tell them that they had turned the Temple of YHWH into their own idol. The Sanhedrin would have none of it—how dare he accuse them, the Temple priesthood, of “temple-idolatry”—so they killed him. Now, Ken Ham obviously doesn’t kill anyone—but if you’ve ever read his blog posts, he makes it a continual habit to disparage and condemn any and all Christians who do not agree with him. He has made it his personal crusade, for example, to encourage parents not to send their children to Christian colleges like Wheaton, Calvin, or any Christian college that doesn’t endorse full-blown YEC. He has condemned the likes of Norman Geisler, Millard Erickson, Timothy Keller, Francis Collins—and yes, even original Fundamentalists like B.B. Warfield—all because they disagree with him.
Yes, Ken Ham has taken the Bible and has constructed his own YEC idol—it’s constructed from the Bible, but it looks like a giant ark. He even has his own temple as well, right outside of Cincinnati. He even routinely encourages people to sign over their retirement plans, bank accounts, insurance policies to his organization, so he can continue in his work “made with human hands.”
Don’t be fooled though—whatever Ham is preaching, it isn’t Christianity. It’s an Enlightenment worldview with a few decontextualized Bible verses slapped on…but it’s not the Gospel.
