Tag: Ark Encounter

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CCL Center is a Valuable New Resource

CCL Center is a Valuable New Resource

On October 9-10, we attended a seminar on archaeology presented by Dr. Rick Bullard at the new CCL Center in Florence, Kentucky. We also toured the Elliott Library and Museum located there. Suppose you are interested in historical books dating back to the early 17th century, original bibles, archaeological finds, and a library with books and artifacts related to the Restoration Movement. In that case, this is a learning center you should visit.

The Christian Church Leadership Center is unique in that it houses rare items not found in any other museum. The library’s curator is Jim Lloyd, and he has a thorough understanding of the books and the issues relating to the history of religion in America. Dr. David Fincher, president of Central Christian College of the Bible in Moberly, Missouri, was our host and the man behind the CCL project. In addition, he has connections with David Lipscomb University in Nashville and York College in Nebraska, home of the Clayton Museum of Ancient History.

We also enjoyed talking at length with Dr. William Custer, an expert in apologetics and the philosophy of religion. Custer is a graduate of the University of Chicago and an associate of Norman Geissler. These men and the CCL Center are interested in working with Does God Exist? to provide apologetics training to leaders in Churches of Christ and Christian Churches.

The CCL Center is offering monthly Saturday presentations by respected scholars on apologetics and topics related to the Restoration Movement. The session we attended, led by Dr. Bullard, was titled “Archaeology and the Bible: Stories and Artifacts.” Dr. Bullard is an archaeology professor who has spent many weeks on actual digs in the Holy Land. His father, Dr. Reuben Bullard, was a well-known archeologist and author of many books and articles. The program included lunch and a tour of the library and museum. For information about upcoming sessions, visit their website at the link below.

The CCL Center is about a 20-minute drive from the young earth Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter theme park. It is a tragedy that many people who visit those commercialized dispensational museums are unaware of the CCL Center with its positive biblical teaching. Attending sessions at the CCL Center is much less expensive, and the library and museum do not charge. We recommend the CCL Center as a new opportunity for solid biblical learning in the Cincinnati area.

— John N. Clayton © 2021

For coming events at the CCL Center: ccleadership.org/events/

For information about the Elliott Library: elliottlibrary.org/

Location: 8095 Connector Drive, Florence, Kentucky

Phone: 513-375-2645

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The Tradition of Dispensationalism and the Earth’s Age

The Tradition of Dispensationalism and the Age of the Earth
Grand Canyon Limestone

Yesterday we looked at the denominational tradition of dispensationalism and its promotion of the idea that Earth’s age is only 6000 years or so. The promotors of this denominational teaching have spent millions of dollars producing the Creation Museum in the Dallas area, the Creation Theme Park and Ark Encounter with Ken Ham in Kentucky. They have also produced massive numbers of books, videos, and public presentations promoting their doctrine. It is a high-dollar operation and has influenced many Christians.

The tradition of dispensationalism presented in these museums and programs has so many scientific and logical problems, it would take a book to deal with them all. Here are a few:

Their understanding of the origins of rocks is very weak. For example, the Grand Canyon has massive amounts of limestone. Their contention that the flood of Noah produced the limestone is dead wrong. A flood never produces a chemically precipitated rock like limestone. Sandstone, conglomerate, and shale are flood deposits, and they exist in small amounts in the canyon.

Their understanding of radioactive dating is very bad. Nuclear dating methods correlate well with other dating methods. Carbon 14 is not used for very old things because its half-life is too short, so scientists use many other radioactive materials for older datings. The average high school physics student knows these methods and understands this point.

Their understanding of geologic processes is very weak. For example, how long did it take for continental glaciers to carve massive numbers of lakes and huge moraines that make up much of Michigan, Wisconsin, New York, and the Great Lakes? How long does it take to produce anthracite coal – not the lignite that can form rapidly?

They create problems by trying to squeeze events into a 6000-year Earth history to fit the tradition of dispensationalism. For example, Methuselah lived 969 years (Genesis 5:27) and is the grandfather of Noah. If Noah lived 950 years (Genesis 9:29) and was 600 years old when he went into the Ark (Genesis 7:11), was Methuselah killed by the flood? Over and over, the Bible tells us that God is outside of time. (See 2 Peter 3:8, Psalms 90:4. Psalms 102:27, Acts 1:7.) Despite that, dispensationalists want to lock God into a human time frame. They say that God made the universe and Earth look old even though they are not. Now you have God deliberately misleading humans, which James 1:13 says God would never do.

Our plea is to take what the Bible says without allowing human doctrines or denominational teachings to tell us what to believe. God could have done the creation instantly, but He chose to use vast amounts of time. By doing that, He enabled humans to find the resources we need by understanding how they were formed.

Don’t follow denominational traditions of dispensationalism! Just read and believe what the Bible says, realizing that it does not tell how old planet Earth is. If you are interested in learning more about dispensationalism, drop us a request, and we will mail you a copy of an article we published in the November/December 2008 issue of our journal titled “Destructive Dispensationalism.” Or you can read it online at THIS LINK. You can also read our previous posts on this subject HERE, HERE, and HERE.

— John N. Clayton © 2021

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Ark Encounter Rain Damage

Ark Encounter Rain Damage One of the claims of atheists is that ministries are only religious if it benefits their pocket book. That is the primary reason why everything offered by the Does God Exist? ministry is free. The recent lawsuit over the Ark Encounter rain damage has given atheists ammunition for their arguments.

The Ark Encounter is a replica of Noah’s ark which is owned by the same organization which owns the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky. Both the museum and theme park promote dispensationalism and a denominational view of Genesis instead of a literal view. They are suing their insurance companies over rain damage that caused failure of an access road to the ark. The owners of those two attractions are asking for $1 million from the insurance company for “tortious injury.” The jokes circulating around the media on this end up raising questions about the accuracy of the Bible and the providence of God. Talk show hosts are getting involved, attempting to discredit God and the Bible.

It seems ironic to us that Ark Encounter rain damage would lead to a lawsuit. The justification for the project is supposed to be educating people about the message of the Bible. The message is getting lost in inaccuracies and now in money matters. This story of the Ark Encounter rain damage has been reported by all the major news media and mocked by many others. Here is a LINK to the Washington Post article.

The Church needs to be known for bringing hope to people outside of Christ, and meeting the physical needs of men and women. It is difficult to see how Matthew 25:31-46 fits with suing an insurance company for damage to a profit-making organization by natural causes.
–John N. Clayton © 2019

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Ham-Nye Walking Debate

Ham-Nye Walking Debate
You are probably aware of Bill Nye and Ken Ham and their debate which took place in 2014. As if that debate wasn’t embarrassing enough (for both sides), Ham and Nye followed it in 2016 with a walking debate at Ken Ham’s Ark Encounter in Kentucky. The Ham-Nye walking debate was more of the two men talking past each other.

Bill Nye, you will recall, calls himself “the science guy.” Ken Ham, the producer of the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter, is the CEO of Answers in Genesis. Nye takes a naturalist position on everything. While he avoids admitting to being an atheist, atheists hold him in high esteem, and he is heavily backed by atheist publications such as Skeptic, Skeptical Inquirer, and American Atheist. Ham takes an extreme young-earth position and promotes the ideas that dinosaurs lived with humans, that the flood explains all of geology, and that dispensationalism is the proper understanding of biblical history.

What happens in the “walking debate” is that Nye walks through the Ark Encounter exhibits challenging what Ham and AIG have put together as bad science. At the same time, Ham attempts to denigrate Nye’s scientific material with religious views of young-earth creationism. The Ham-Nye walking debate doesn’t resolve anything and only serves to bring the two sides farther apart.

The “Does God Exist? program maintains that science and faith are compatible and that science supports belief in God and the Bible as His word. Over the years we have pointed out that what the Bible actually says is not what either of these gentlemen is presenting. Nye is correct in showing some very bad science in Ham’s exhibits. Ham correctly points out Nye’s tendency to use unproven scientific guesses and assumptions to attack those who believe in God. It is evident that Ham knows little about science and Nye knows even less about the Bible.

Our courses, books, booklets, DVDs, and websites go into a more in-depth discussion of science and faith. If you want to hear two extremes that both oppose our position, you can watch the first debate or the second debate on YouTube.
–John N. Clayton and Roland Earnst © 2018

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Ken Ham Entangling Doctrine and Creationism

Ken Ham and the Ark Encounter
The May 2018 issue of the Christian Chronicle carries a major article by Bobby Ross titled “Ken Ham on God, Creation and the Earth’s Age.” Ken Ham is the founder of the Ark Encounter theme park in Grant County, Kentucky, and also the Creation Museum in Peterson, Kentucky. In 2014 he had a highly publicized broadcast debate with science guy Bill Nye.

At first glance, it might seem that a museum and theme park to teach biblical history would be a good thing. However, denominational doctrines presented by these venues conflict with teachings of the New Testament and include a great deal of bad science. Ham and his associates give an incomplete view of Earth’s history and the plan of salvation.

In the article by Ross, Ken Ham presents the plan of salvation as simply: “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, then you will be saved. Romans 10:9. In other words, salvation is conditioned on faith in Christ. Faith alone. Grace alone. Christ alone.” Although this correctly quotes Romans 10:9, it is an incomplete view of salvation. It ignores all of the passages that talk about the necessity of confessing Christ, repenting of our sins, and being baptized for the remission of sins and to received the gift of the Holy Spirit. (See Acts 2:37-40 and Romans 6.)

When considering the age of the Earth, Ken Ham accepts the 6,000-year chronology of 17th-century Archbishop James Ussher and ignores the literal meaning of the words used to describe the animals in the creation week. He also fails to take Genesis literally by considering who wrote it, who he wrote it to, why he wrote it, and how the people of the time would have understood it.

Atheists use the Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum to discredit the Bible. Ham’s debate with Bill Nye was a disaster for believers, and atheist groups have printed transcripts of the debate and encouraged people to distribute them at the attractions. In addition to the bad science in some of the displays, there is an association with dispensationalism which is also based on an incomplete view of the Bible.

The Does God Exist? program is about education. We are surprised that the Christian Chronicle, which is associated with the Church of Christ, would uncritically give full credence to Ken Ham and his denominational teaching of Bible history and the plan of salvation. We encourage our readers to go to the articles we have published on the errors of denominational creationist materials such as HERE and HERE and on the errors of dispensationalism you will find HERE.

We must not accept denominational interpretations of the Bible, but consider what the Bible actually says. To get a better understanding of Genesis 1 by examining the original language, we suggest that you read “God’s Revelation in His Rocks and His Word.” It’s available in printed form HERE or free online HERE.

As we reach out to the secular world and to family and friends who are struggling with their faith, we need to be careful not to use bad science or bad theology. Denominational creationists like Ken Ham have a great deal of both.
–John N. Clayton © 2018

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Another Lesson from (Recent) History

Mir Space Station photo by NASA
Mir Space Station photo by NASA

The older I get, the less confidence I have that the history presented by the media is correct. I was in high school from 1951 to 1955, and the sitcoms and movies that I see of things that supposedly happened during that period are so far from what really happened that I wonder where the people who make these programs got their information.

The April 2017, issue of Astronomy magazine, contains an article by Bob Berman telling of what actually happened in the Russian Mir space station from 1986 to 2001. The media reports at that time painted a very idealistic picture of great cooperation, wonderful technological achievements, and trouble-free living in space. We know now that the Russians controlled reports by cutting the pay of anyone who complained about what was happening on Mir or told of any negative events.

This is the twentieth anniversary of the time when United States astronauts inhabited Mir. When medical doctor Jerry Linenger arrived on Mir in 1997, he found clutter and leaky pipes. Propylene glycol was leaking into the air so the astronauts had to wear breathing masks and were not allowed to exercise because they couldn’t breathe deeply. The climate-control was dysfunctional, so the temperature stayed around 90 degrees. On February 23, 1997, an oxygen-generating canister exploded creating a fire that nearly killed everyone on board. On June 25, 1997, a supply ship rammed Mir once again nearly killing everyone on board. Berman calls Mir “a bit of a death trap.”

Media portrayals of what happened in biblical times are even more difficult. The portrayal of Noah’s Ark in the “Ark Encounter” and the movie Noah as well as movies about the Passion Week, and the entire Genesis account have been embellished, westernized, and modernized by the media and entertainment industries leaving completely erroneous concepts of what really happened. The biblical narrative uses an economy of language because the focus is not on the event itself but on the meaning of the event. We can trust the biblical narrative, but we need to be careful about buying into the media presentations of biblical events. There is a difference between history as revealed in God’s Word and history as shown in modern media portrayals.
–John N. Clayton © 2017