Ken Ham Fires Back at Christians Who Blame Creationists for 'Mass Exodus of Youth From the Church'
Creation Museum CEO and President Ken Ham is pushing back against Christians who are blaming Creationists for driving away young people from the church.
"Many Christians who compromise with millions of years and/or evolution accuse me and Answers in Genesis of driving young people away from the church. They say that our supposedly 'anti-science' (really anti-naturalism and anti-atheist assumptions smuggled into science!) stance harms the church by making generations think that Christianity is anti-intellectual and not relevant to the current generation," Ham began in a blog post for AiG on Sunday.
"They also claim that we are lying to kids and that, when these children get older and realize they've been lied to, they will reject all of Christianity because we've told them that if they can't believe Genesis, then why can they believe the Gospels?"
Ham argued that young people are leaving the church because they have not been taught apologetics, and suggested that today's generation is "indoctrinated" from a young age to believe in evolution.
He went on to accuse the secular media and public school system of telling young people they "cannot trust the Bible," and said only few youth leaders and pastors are dealing with this issue. Ham further asserts that students need to be better armed to defend themselves against the ideas of evolution, and said that AiG is working to equip churches with answers to these questions.
"This mass exodus of youth from the church is why it's so vital that we provide solid apologetics material for our young people. We need to show them that science confirms God's Word beginning in Genesis, not secular ideas about the past," Ham continued.
"We need to point out the difference between observational science (science that works in the present and is directly testable, observable, and repeatable) and historical science (science that deals with the past so is not directly testable, observable, and repeatable and therefore needs to be interpreted by what one believes about the past)."
The Creation Museum CEO has also criticized Christians who believe in evolution of compromising on "God's truth," and said that such line of thinking can also lead to falsely justifying adultery and other "sinful tendencies."
"One of the problems with compromise in one area of Scripture is where do you stop compromising? If Christians accept the idea of human evolution, then why not accept the idea that our sinful tendencies are really just evolved tendencies?" Ham asked in a Facebook post earlier in July.
A 2014 Gallup poll found that Americans continue to be divided on the question of the origins of human beings. While 42 percent of those who responded said that God created humans in their present form, 31 percent argued for evolution, but with God guiding the process. Another 19 percent also backed evolution, but without God having any part in the process.