"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
Genesis 1:1 (NASB)
One of our primary goals here at TWW is to detect trends within Christendom and then alert our readers with our findings. In early January we posted an article entitled: "Al Mohler's Young Earth Rhetoric Heats Up". (link)
In that post we made the following statement:
"We believe the Young Earth Creationists, such as Al Mohler and Ken Ham, have made creationism a doctrinal issue. In other words, if you don’t believe just as they do – that the earth was created in six literal 24 hour days – then you are simply WRONG! This is legalism at its worst. It is incredible that Mohler “accepts without hesitation the fact that the world indeed looks old,” yet he insists on one view of creation – Young Earth."
Over ten months have passed since publishing that remark, and it appears we may be witnessing the "creation" of an alliance between Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Ken Ham, founder and president of Answers in Genesis. Why? Well, look who was featured as keynote speaker at the Answers for Pastors Conference hosted by Answers in Genesis (AiG) — Al Mohler. This three-day conference (held at the Creation Museum) wrapped up today. Here is a photo of Al Mohler addressing conference attendees two days ago. To check out this AiG conference, you can access the website here.
Don't you just love the advances in technology? What would we do without computers and the internet as well as cell phones and Twitter! In case you missed it, TWW has its own Twitter account, and you can sign up to "follow us", but we promise not to use it as much as some. For example, if we ever want to know what Al is up to, all we have to do is read his Tweets. Here is some recent activity on Mohler's Twitter account related to the Answers for Pastors Conference.
albertmohler
Speaking at 10:30 at the Answers in Genesis 2011 Pastors Conference; "The End is in the Beginning: Creation and the Gospel of Jesus Christ"
18 Oct
albertmohler
Listening to a truly fascinating and compelling address by Ken Ham. Incredible documentation of today's theological compromise. @aigkenham
18 Oct
albertmohler
RT @AiG: The Sweeping Away of Cultural Christianity: Serious Minded Christians will be the Only Christians Left @albertmohler #afp11
18 Oct
The ReTweet listed on Al Mohler's Twitter account (cited above) is extremely alarming to us. Since this Tweet was sent to AiG, we assume the sender believes that "Serious Minded Christians" MUST believe in a young earth. All indications are that Ham deeply believes this. How about Al?
Now let's get back to Ken Ham, who relocated to the United States from Australia on January 22, 1987. In a little less than a quarter century, he has created a massive YEC enterprise that is causing tremendous turmoil in the body of Christ. Ham is marketing his narrow interpretation of the Creation account to congregations, homeschoolers, and any other audience he can attract. For example, he recently spoke at First Baptist Jacksonville and will be visiting Bellevue Baptist Church in the coming days.
You may remember that Ken Ham was "disinvited" from speaking at several Great Homeschool Conventions, one which took place in Ohio, where the Creation Museum is located. Here is an excerpt from an article in Christianity Today which describes what happened last March. (link)
"Ken Ham, founder and president of Answers in Genesis, was disinvited from several homeschooling conferences after he criticized a fellow speaker at two Great Homeschool Conventions conferences and on his blog.
'The Board believes that Ken's public criticism of the convention itself and other speakers at our convention require him to surrender the spiritual privilege of addressing our homeschool audience,' wrote Great Homeschool Conventions conference organizer Brennan Dean in the email dismissing Ham.
'Our expression of sacrifice and extraordinary kindness towards Ken and AIG has been returned to us and our attendees with Ken publicly attacking our conventions and other speakers,' Dean wrote. 'Our Board believes Ken's comments to be unnecessary, ungodly, and mean-spirited statements that are divisive at best and defamatory at worst.' "
Please consult the CT article for details about Ham's highly inappropriate behavior. In response to being "disinvited" from this homeschooling conference, Ham and his loyal supporters are taking steps to prevent a repeat occurrence.
David Nunnery of Spartanburg, South Carolina has organized the first annual Teach Them Diligently Homeschool Convention. He and the organizers of this convention have put into place two distinctives that will ensure that only young earth creationism is represented at the conference. They are as follows: (link)
"There will be two distinctions to this Convention. First any vendors that touch on the Beginning or Creation or have a Bible Curriculum must sign a statement in agreement of two theological principles:
– Scripture teaches a recent origin for man and the whole creation, spanning approximately 4,000 years from creation to Christ, and the days in Genesis do not correspond to geologic ages, but are six [6] consecutive twenty-four [24] hour days of creation.
– The Bible is the plenary, verbally inspired Word of God. It is our final authority for faith and practice and is without error."
Earlier this week Ham issued this criticism on his blog:
"At a time when there is at least one group of homeschool conventions that has a watered down statement of faith and now allows all sorts of vendors in their exhibit halls (including non-Christian groups), I find it encouraging that the organizers of "Teach them Diligently" are standing firm on the Word of God."
It came as no surprise to us that they keynote speakers at the Teach Them Diligently conference are Ken Ham, Doug Phillips, and Voddie Baucham. You can find out more details here.
Our loyal readers know that we have SERIOUS concerns about all three of these men, who are causing much harm in the body of Christ.
It is absolutely incredible to us that Al Mohler is aligning himself with Ken Ham, who is closely affiliated with Phillips and his ilk. Will there be an alliance between Al Mohler and Ken Ham as the YEC controversy continues to heat up? Rest assured, we will be watching...
Lydia's Corner: 2 Chronicles 11:1-13:22 Romans 8:26-39 Psalm 18:37-50 Proverbs 19:27-29
I appreciate your work on this.
The young earthers have had amazing success in foisting their litmus test of Bible belief on a large segment of Southern Baptists. I suspect that Mohler is influenced by his employee who has a Harvard PhD in paleontology but is a strident YEer.
William
I have a theory regarding his employee-Wise. Mohler first hired Dembski a few years back. And then, voila, Dembski was out and Wise was in. I could be wrong but I believe that Mohler, who, in spite of his expertise in SOME areas, is not a scientist. Dembski is ID but not YE. I bet Mohler thought that ID+YE were one and the same. So, Dembski got dumped in short order and Wise came in.
I believe the Wise story is one of the saddest out there. Someone got to him and convinced him he would have to dump most of the bible if he believed in TE. So, Wise read through the Bible, tearing out pages that he would have to ignore if he didn’t believe in a YE. Apparently, that meant most of the Bible which is a mystery to me to begin with.I can’t believe these YE make everything about the age of the earth.
Instead, I look with hope to the great Francis Collins- a leaders amongst scientists, a friend and consistent witness to atheists, and a believer in TE. I also love Hugh Ross.
However, there is a fight brewing which ought to be interesting. Within the Calvinista crowd, of which Mohler is a member, there are a fair number of OE/TE guys. He’ll go after them soon enough because his buddy, Ham, will insist on it. That’s the trouble with alliances-they make very strange bedfellows and suddenly someone wants all of the covers.
“Despite widespread impressions to the contrary, [young-earth] creationism was not a traditional belief of nineteenth-century conservative Protestants or even of early twentieth-century fundamentalists.” — Mark Knoll in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.
Bridget
I knew I liked you! Mark Noll’s book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind is a favorite. We have written about that book on our blog. If I remember correctly he says that “the scandal of the evangelcial mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” He says that his book is “an epistle from a wounded lover.” After Philip Yancey’s book, Disappointment With God, this is the book I recommend the most.
Deb
Always remember who started this war…AiG/Ham/Mohler. Watch them carefully as they attempt to define what “real” Christians believe. And we need to be watching. This is an attack on Christians everywhere.
“one which took place in Ohio, where the Creation Museum is located.”
Oops. The CM is located in Ky. Just south of Ohio but still Ky. Sort of like the Cincinnati airport. It is located in Florence Ky.
Dee/Deb
These are the same people who believe that every character in the teaching parables of Jesus was an actual human being that existed at some point prior to the telling of the parable. Like the vineyard owner who hired some early, some mid-morning, some at noon, some in the afternoon, and some near the end of the day and then paid them the same.
The TRUTH of the parable does not require that it be literally referring to a human being.
Similarly, the TRUTH of Genesis does not require that anyone mentioned therein, except for God, be a literal human being that actually existed. Among the major truths in Genesis — God created everything, including everything that any of the neighboring peoples worshiped, so that people would not adopt the religions of their neighboring countries or tribes over the worship of YHWH.
BTW, I have heard scholars who are devoted Christians argue that the supposed orders from God to commit genocide actually represent the later writers trying to cover for their forbears’ behavior by giving them the “God made me do it” excuse, and as propaganda about the power of their God toward nations that opposed the “chosen people”.
Too many acronyms!
YE = Young Earth
OE = Old Earth
ID = Intelligent Design (which is the same as OE?)
TE = ????
If someone would fill in the blanks it would be appreciated.
TE = Theistic Evolution.
YEC = Young Earth Creationism.
Evolution = ??? Well it’s used in many ways. To some it means everything that not YEC. To others it means what Charles Darwin came up with (evolution and natural selection) and of course nothing has changed on that front. To others it means change over time without a tie to a why.
Ken Ham and his admirers are YEC. But not all who believe in YE/YEC think that Ken Ham and/or AIG is right. Or even close to it.
And, it seems to me, that over 1/2 of the people stridently debating this in public don’t understand their own arguments. They are just repeating what the folks they follow are saying. On ALL SIDES.
Which makes discussing this very confusing since if you leave out the foot notes on your statement it is almost a lock that someone will assume something you didn’t mean.
ES
Sorry about the lingo. Let me add to Lynn-the ID movement is not monolithic. Some believe the earth is old, some young and others don’t care. Some may not even be Christians. ID proponents adhere to the belief that the universe and the earth appears designed by an intelligence.
Thx for clarification on the acronyms. I didn’t know what TE was either.
Everyone in here sounds like a Hegelian Rationalist 🙂
Just to confuse
EC- evoulutionary creationism (used by some evangelicals so there is no confusion about the firm affirmation that …God creaated the heavens and the earth)
There’s a fascinating BBC documentary called “Did Darwin Kill God?” narrated by Conor Cunningham a philosopher and Christian about Darwin’s theory of evolution, Christianity, creationism, and the ultra-darwinists. It can be found on youtube and assorted places around the web. At the very least it takes some pokes at the creation museum and the four horsemen that are amusing.
Al Mohler is basically a coward. He surrounds himself with people that tell him what he wants to hear and insulates himself from the cold of reality in the paper their degrees are printed on.
Al needs to talk to people with those same degrees that are Christians or not hostile to the faith yet disagree with Ham and Wise and learn a little about what the reality is concerning the ‘science’ his yes men use to soothe his (and others) fears.
IF Al Mohler truly believes Christians must believe YEC to be ‘faithful’, then at least let them know they are going up against an army of 100,000 with 10 men. Those 199,990 others that Al and the Hamites like to pretend to their faithful exist are paper mache dolls enhanced by tricks with mirrors. And they fall like the phantoms they are in the face of the real troops.
Zeta
Zeta,
Well stated. The age of the earth should NOT be the focus of the debate. “Who” is the only relevant question from my perspective, and the answer is Almighty God. He created the heavens and the earth, and anyone who presumes to know how He did it is acting like God.
Bruce
Are you saying that we are absolute idealists, progressing through are little spats with one another? However, I will take it as a compliment because it sounds really cool.
BTW, thanks for visiting.
asachild
Thanks for adding the definition of EC. I am slowly beginning to hear that term more and more and I like it. It focuses on what we believe as opposed to modifying a term which has become a pejorative term in our circles. Just say evolution and you are branded a heretic. I mentioned to a few folks that I went to the Smithsonian and wandered through the Evolution of Man. You would have thought I had dined with Satan himself.
Nadine
Anything that pokes fun at the Creation Museum is a must see for me. I still remember watching as episode of the Duggars (I don’t watch them regularly but wanted to see this one) in which they visited the Creation Museum and had a tour by Ham himself. They then interviewed the oldest son. Now remember, this kid has seen nothing but what his parents fed him which, I can assume, as only AIG stuff when it came to his homeschool curriculum. Then, he did not go to college but opened up a used car dealership. He said, and I quote, “My studies show quite clearly that the earth is 6000 years old.” He sounded just like a pastor I used to know. He studied squat and believes he is an expert.
Zeta
“IF Al Mohler truly believes Christians must believe YEC to be ‘faithful’, then at least let them know they are going up against an army of 100,000 with 10 men. Those 199,990 others that Al and the Hamites like to pretend to their faithful exist are paper mache dolls enhanced by tricks with mirrors. ”
First of all-PREACH it, brother!
Secondly, Mohler and Ham are responsible for the numbers of people who will not look at the faith due to their blind observance on the altar of extreme literalism. Ham will die deluded but I wonder about Mohler. I thought he was smarter than this. Which leads me to wonder if he is using this issue as an ideological dividing point to further promote his supposed “conservative” jihad.
This, however, may prove to be folly.There are many in the Neo-Conservative movement who hold to OE/EC. This will eventually provoke a fight and Mohler will take his reformed Baptist group and go home. And the SBC will continue to see a slide in numbers. But who cares? They will all agree with Mohler and that is the end point of this game.