Tag: Grand Canyon

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Canyonlands Educational Tour 2018

Canyonlands Educational Tour
One month ago, on Sunday, September 9, 2018, we began our thirty-sixth Canyonlands Educational Tour. Since 1968 we have been taking what I call field trips into the Grand Canyon and the areas that surround the Grand Canyon. That includes Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, Canyonlands National District including Lake Powell, Meteor Crater, Painted Desert, Petrified Forest and the areas that surround all of those places.

My constant companion and technical expert has been Alan Doty from Sedona, Arizona. He holds advanced degrees in geology and has been a well-known figure in the area and an active Christian. Alan has made over 300 trips to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and was the first to climb Isis Temple. His knowledge of the area is second to none. Our trips into this area have included four boat trips on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, ten bus trips in which we spend a day at each of the sites of interest, and 16 hikes into points of interest in the canyonlands area. We have prepared field trip guides and have conducted studies and lectures on all of the trips.

Why do we do this? The Does God Exist? ministry is dedicated to providing evidence to convince thinking people that science is a friend of faith in God, and that science and the Bible do not conflict. As educators in the public schools, we have seen a great deal of bad science and bad theology combine to destroy the faith of many young people. There is no area where more bad science and bad theology have been promoted than in the canyonlands area.

Not understanding the evidence and not taking the Bible literally have led to a major source of conflict for many people. By taking the Bible literally, I mean looking at who wrote the passage, to whom they wrote it, why they wrote it, and how people of the time would have understood it. Having a week of concentrated study in one of the greatest natural science laboratories on Earth is a wonderful way to combat bad science and bad theology. It is also our hope that participants will go back home and use what they have learned in our seminars to build the faith of people in their home congregations. At the same time, we want to prepare them to combat the efforts of local skeptics to discredit the Bible and destroy faith in God.

Over the next few days, we want to give you a glimpse of what we did on this year’s Canyonlands Educational Tour.
–John N. Clayton © 2018

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Canyonlands Field Trip Purpose

Canyonlands Field Trip

Today is the final day of the 2018 DOES GOD EXIST? Canyonlands Tour. The pictures are of Bryce Canyon and Alan Doty who has served as a guide along with John Clayton. They have been making these educational tours for several years. The purpose of the Canyonlands field trip is not just entertainment. We want to help people understand the history of how God has crafted the Earth He created to make it a suitable home for people. We also want to show that science and faith are friends, not enemies. This video is from an earlier journey to the Canyonlands. We share it here so that John can tell you why he believes these trips are important.

You can watch the video series John mentions by using THIS LINK.
We also invite you to see our two previous posts about the Canyonlands Field Trip HERE and HERE.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Grand Canyon Formation

Grand Canyon Formation
As we told you before, this is the week of the 2018 Canyonlands Tour. We mentioned the plaque at the Grand Canyon watchtower with the verse from Psalms. Today, we would like to share with you a video segment from a previous field trip to the Grand Canyon. In the video, geologist and teacher John Clayton uses the diagram shown above as he describes the layers of the Canyon and the various processes that formed them. The Grand Canyon formation processes are complex and involve God’s work through natural forces over a vast span of time.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Canyonlands Tour 2018

Canyonlands Tour 2018

This week John Clayton is with a group of people on what we call the Canyonlands Tour. Many times over the years John has taken groups of people to visit the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and Zion Canyon, as well as other locations in northern Arizona and southern Utah.

The Canyonlands Tour is not just a sightseeing trip. It’s an opportunity for Christians to learn about how God has worked to create those “natural wonders.” John uses his knowledge of geology to explain the many interesting and beautiful features of the “canyonlands” area. Some people try to explain the Grand Canyon by “flood geology.” John explains what the real science of geology actually tells us about the formation of that remarkable Canyon.

With the assistance of Alan Doty who has hiked the canyons many times, the Canyonlands Tour is always an interesting and educational experience. One of the places on the agenda is the “desert view” area overlooking the Canyon. That is the location of a watchtower which visitors can tour.

On a level of the tower, there is a wall which has a plaque attached as you can see in the picture. The plaque contains the words from Psalm 66:4. It says, “All the earth worships Thee; they sing praises to Thee, sing praises to Thy name.” That plaque has been there for years. With atheists demanding the removal of any acknowledgment of God on public property, perhaps the only reason those words are still there is that some might interpret the “Thee” and “Thy” as referring to the Grand Canyon.

However, those pronouns do not refer to the Canyon, but to the One who created it. The process of creating the Canyon was no small feat. It did not happen in one flood. The people on the Canyonlands Tour will learn something about the processes that science still does not fully understand. In the meantime, there are those who say the Grand Canyon disproves God. It does not. It only invalidates a false interpretation of the Bible which many have adopted.

It’s too bad the people who placed that plaque didn’t include verse 3 as well. It says, “Say to God, ‘How awesome are your deeds! So great is your power that your enemies cringe before you'” (NIV). I am sure that there have been some atheists who have cringed when they read the words of that plaque. I suspect that sometime an “offended” atheist will demand its removal. However, nobody can remove the Grand Canyon and the testimony it gives to the power and glory of God.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Educational Programs of Does God Exist?

Educational Programs of Does God Exist?
The Does God Exist? ministry is heavily involved in educational programs. Right now we have 3600 students taking our correspondence courses in apologetics. Most of those students are confined to prisons all over the country. With our financial assistance, twelve of the students have gone on to receive college degrees.

Every year we have offered $1000 scholarships to graduating seniors to help them attend a university program. Students are selected based on their writing a paper on the compatibility of science and faith. Many of those papers have appeared in our printed journal.

We hope to offer another “Canyonlands Field Trip” this fall. This trip is also an educational program because it includes a college-level course in the geology and geomorphology of the Grand Canyon and the surrounding area.

In 2015 the “Clayton Museum of Ancient History” opened at York College in York, Nebraska. It displays artifacts collected by Foster Stanback. Foster selected the name for the museum as a token of appreciation for this ministry. Amber Soderholm has been the museum designer and curator. She has built a program of interactive learning for children in the museum and developed a program with 15 “Junior Docents” which meet each week. The museum also features temporary exhibits, like the current one on Martin Luther. Thanks to Amber’s hard work, 10,000 visitors have come to the museum since it opened. For more about the museum go to www.claytonmuseumofancienthistory.org.

We receive emails from people who attend the museum and who have questions in our area of expertise. York College has excellent scholars who help with technical questions of a historical nature. We are sorry to say that Ms. Soderholm has taken a new position with the Grove Museum in Tallahassee, Florida. However, we trust that the educational programs of the Clayton Museum will continue under new leadership.
–John N. Clayton © 2018

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Canyonlands Trip 2018

Canyonlands Trip
DOES GOD EXIST? MINISTRY CELEBRATES 50 YEARS WITH CANYONLANDS TRIP
Our first lectureship was in the fall of 1968, and our first Grand Canyon trip was in the winter of 1970.

WE WILL CELEBRATE THOSE EVENTS WITH A CANYONLANDS TRIP September 9-14, 2018
– We will visit Sunset Crater, the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, Lake Powell boat trip, Meteor Crater, Painted Desert, and Petrified Forest by Air Conditioned Bus.
– As we travel, Alan Doty and John Clayton will give lectures on the things we are seeing and how they support the biblical record.
– This will be a trip for believers. Prayers and singing will be a part of every day’s activities.

Trip arrangements are managed by Story Land and Sea, 12835 E. Arapahoe Road, Tower 1-500, Centennial CO 80112. Phone 877-865-6711. Email Mark@StoryLandSea.com or visit their website www.StoryLandSea.com. No money is paid to or managed by John Clayton, Alan Doty or the Does God Exist? ministry. The total cost is $1100.00 which includes bus travel from Flagstaff, all entry fees including the boat trip, breakfast Tuesday through Friday, motels Monday through Thursday night. Not included are lunch and dinner meals, gratuities, travel to and from Flagstaff, or Sunday night and Friday night housing.
–John N. Clayton © 2017

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How Long Does it Take to Make a Canyon?

Yellowstone Canyon
Yellowstone Canyon

Yellowstone National Park is one of our great American treasures. During several summers at Montana State University, we spent a lot of time wandering around this huge wilderness. Most people think of Old Faithful and the geyser basin when they think of Yellowstone, but the canyon and falls are some of Yellowstone’s most beautiful places.

What does it take to make a canyon like this, and what does this tell us about the history of the Earth? The answers to these questions are remarkably simple. You need something that is capable of cutting down through a material, and you need a material that can be cut. On planet Earth, the primary geologic cutting agent is water. When water is frozen, it gouges and cuts a wide U-shaped channel. This is called a glacier, and the shape of its canyon is easy to identify. In the liquid form, water makes a V-shaped channel like the Yellowstone Canyon. How long the channel is and how deep it is cut are determined by how much water flows, how long it flows, and how hard the rock is. In Yellowstone, most of the rock is geyserite, a soft yellow rock easily cut and eroded by water. This soft rock is produced by volcanic processes, and deep canyons can happen quickly when flooding occurs.

In other places like the Grand Canyon and most of the eastern part of the United States, the rock is much harder and takes much longer to erode. Yellowstone is a young topography caused by recent volcanism. The sedimentary rocks of the eastern United States and the Grand Canyon took a long time to deposit and a long time to erode. All of this points to God’s patience and timelessness. We should not try to lock God into a time-frame that makes God look small and trivial. Remember that “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8).
–John N. Clayton © 2017