For reasons I haven’t fully processed, I am put off by Answers in Genesis.
The organisation behind the enormous replica of Noah’s Ark as well as the Creation Museum, they are a major reason why tourists come to Kentucky every year. Their founder Ken Ham is famous for his interpretation of Genesis which holds that the universe was created 6,000 years ago in six 24-hour days.
Recently, I sent Answers in Genesis an email asking them how they can believe Genesis is one straightforward, encyclopedia-style recounting of natural history when there are in fact two different creation accounts in the first and second chapters of Genesis. The differences are not minor either; they include the sequence of creation, the method of creation and the way God is portrayed. This was not made up by some Bible scholar, it is there for all to see.
The gentleman who answered my email was civil and kind, probably more so than I had been in my original email, and for a moment I wondered if my dislike for Answers in Genesis is an overreaction. After all, one could conceive of worse tourist attractions, like celebrating slavery, for instance.
Yet I have to wonder if the endeavour is a net positive. In taking the position they have, Answers in Genesis shut themselves off from many of humanity’s finest minds, of both religious scholars and scientists from several different continents who independently came to their conclusions about the theory of evolution. And goodness knows the amount of seekers who, having a genuine curiosity about the Christian faith, are thwarted in their search because of the untenable version of Christianity they encounter on the Ark.
Musing further, I wondered what would happen if the organisation changed its name to Questions in Genesis and created a space where people could wrestle with this magnificent, multi-layered origins story. Would this not be better than condemning people who doubt Ken Ham’s novel interpretation of Genesis? Better than comparing such people who mocked Noah’s Ark, as Answers in Genesis blatantly does? (Their interpretation of the Genesis flood story is another matter entirely but let’s not go there.)
Perhaps too smugly, I comforted myself that I don’t mislead people by mapping modern questions onto Genesis. Yet while Answers in Genesis may be guilty of using the Bible to promote a fear-based agenda, they are not the only ones to have done so. Too often I also cling to positions that shut down communication and connection. We all, from time to time, retreat or refuse to engage with those who differ from us.
Some would say this response is natural and even partially good. How else does a child learn who and what to trust? How else would our hunter-gatherer ancestors have dealt with dangerous wild animals? (My apologies for that last question, Answers in Genesis–I know it’s a non-starter for you.)
Yet the organisation’s obsession with treating the Bible as an answers dispenser that shuts down honest inquiry does remain a problem. The thing with answers is that we can memorise them, know them inside and out, and master them. But what if the Bible was meant to unsettle and deeply disorient us before it yields up answers of any sort?
Is it possible to learn more of the Bible’s contents even as we grow increasingly ignorant of its purpose? As Dallas Willard once asked, “Has our presumed familiarity led to unfamiliarity, our unfamiliarity to contempt, and our contempt to profound ignorance?”
Any interpretation of the Bible that prioritises correct doctrine over authentic connection with God and our fellow image-bearers is a wrong interpretation. Not only is it a wrong interpretation, it is a harmful interpretation, a net negative, a destructive force unleashed in society.
Whatever my position, even I justify it by claiming obedience to God, if it does not nurture my everyday flesh-and-blood relationships, it is only a resounding gong and a clanging cymbal.
I began this post by giving my tuppence about Answers in Genesis. I implied that God is not interested in a project that is so self-serving and narrow-minded. But I am not so arrogant to think that I am morally superior. I am self-aware enough to know I also have things in my life God isn’t interested in.
God isn’t interested when I go to great lengths to prove I am more correct, or more sophisticated, or more enlightened, or more authentic than my neighbor. God is not interested in my storing up of grievances, my keeping track of the sins my family members or acquaintances have committed against me. God is not interested in a faith that says love God but not the creation, or love humanity but not the humans God places around us. God is not even interested in my knowledge of the Bible if it only serves to prop me up and make other people seem benighted, hell-bound or both.
The God revealed in Jesus is interested in our humility and contrition more than our being right; in our connection with others, not sitting in judgment of them; in mercy, not in sacrifice.
On this truth hang all the law and prophets.