Whether We Like It or Not . . .

The controversy surrounding the building of AiG’s Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky, USA (and near Cincinnati), refuses to go away. AiG certainly does not want to foment this just for controversy’s sake (although the free publicity has been wonderful national exposure for AiG, though some of it negative), museum critics continue to fan the flames even many months after Boone County officials and a judge’s ruling allowed the Bible-proclaiming project to go ahead. If donations to the Creation Museum continue to come in strongly before the end of 2000, groundbreaking should occur on March 17, 2001.

In a letter to the editor (December 20) to The Cincinnati Enquirer (the major newspaper in AiG’s area), two letter-writers continued the assault on the future museum. In doing so, they completely mischaracterized the intent of the museum, and the AiG ministries in general. Our rebuttal to the letter was submitted to the Enquirer the following day, and we post it here for you to read.

December 21, 2000

Dear Editor,

It came as a surprise to Answers in Genesis to learn that in our future Creation Museum, we will be “express[ing] its basic principle that the Bible and science are in conflict” (December 20 letter to the editor). We have never “expressed” any such thing. In fact, we have long stated that the very opposite will be displayed when the museum opens in 2002 just west of the Cincinnati Airport.

AiG is both pro science and pro Bible. We have seven full-time scientists (and numerous adjunct scientists) worldwide who hold doctorates in their fields. They produce a peer-reviewed technical journal, write monographs and books, engage in field and lab research, and conduct occasional creation/evolution debates on university campuses.

It should also be pointed out that most of the founding fathers of science were also Bible-believing creationists who saw no contradiction between their faith and their scientific pursuits. This long list includes such luminaries as Newton, Pasteur, Kepler, Kelvin, Maxwell, etc. They did not check their brains—or Bibles—at the doors of their labs or classrooms.

We certainly have no “fear” of science as the letter alleged. On the contrary, for five years AiG supporters in the region have contacted many evolutionist scientists on college campuses (and AiG has even issued its own challenge in this paper) inquiring about their willingness to publicly debate one of our scientists; all have declined. Also, we will showcase our scientific research in September when we will be hosting our own national science conference near Cincinnati, which will be open to the public (as are almost all of our 250–300 annual US meetings).

It appears that the ones who are truly most fearful in the creation/evolution controversy are those evolutionists who say they are too “busy” to debate, yet somehow found plenty of time to try to censor the museum project going back to 1996.

While AiG is pro science, we also recognize the limitations of science, especially when scientists—creationists as well as evolutionists—study the unobservable and untestable past (with only circumstantial evidence to consider). Because neither creation nor evolution can be proved or, much less, tested in a laboratory, both camps attempt to reconstruct the past with limited evidence at hand. It’s risky business—just consider “feathered” dinosaurs in China, life on a Martian meteorite, etc., pro-evolution stories that the Enquirer had to later retract.

We agree with the letter-writers that God indeed knows all the answers. And it just so happens that He has already revealed to us the answer to one of life’s deepest mysteries: where did we all come from? The answer is found in His Word, the Bible, and its Genesis account of Creation. With confidence, our future Creation Museum will declare that the Bible has answers, is scientifically reliable, and can be trusted from its very first verse.

Sincerely,

Mark Looy
Director, Ministry Relations