Ken Ham: Answers to moral, social questions can be found in Genesis
DALLAS, Texas — Ken Ham says he has the solution for anyone confused about what the Bible says about all sorts of topics: go back to the beginning.
That was the message Sunday from the Creation Museum founder and CEO when he spoke at the First Baptist Dallas church on why it’s critical for believers to believe and teach the foundations of the book of Genesis.
In his message, titled "Divided Nation: Cultures in Chaos & a Conflicted Church," Ham said any social questions can be answered with, “You start with Genesis 1 through 11.”
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The 71-year-old Ham, a Young Earth Creationist, said it’s the Church’s failure to expound the teachings in Genesis that has fueled the sharp rise in the numbers of people leaving the faith, including Gen Z, which is said to be the first post-Christian generation.
“We’ve got major problems in our culture. We’ve got major problems in the Church,” he said. “There’s an exodus in the Church right now.”
Ham said that exodus is largely fueled by what he says is a misconception that all the various challenges facing the Church — from gay marriage to abortion to moral relativism in general — are different issues.
“They’re different symptoms of the same problem,” he said. “You know what the problem is? They don’t have the right foundation.”
Ham turned to the pages of Genesis 2, where God announces the institution of marriage in which a “man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.”
While marriage is defined in the pages of Scripture, Ham said the culture is redefining it — and Christians are tolerating it.
“God created marriage,” he said. “Not the Supreme Court justices or the president of the United States. God created it.”
Ham pointed to Jesus’ own quote from Genesis in Matthew 19 and Mark 10 as proving that Genesis is “foundational to marriage.
And for Ham, that also goes for any assertion about same-sex marriage being compatible with the biblical version.
“Marriage was created by God and there’s only one marriage He created,” he added.
Blaming in part what he called a “climate change cult,” Ham said the idea of abortion as an acceptable practice is also easily debunked by Genesis.
Because under evolution students are taught that man is an animal, Ham said, moral equivalency creeps in and infects our entire worldview — and soon, abortion can be defended as a morally acceptable practice.
“Get rid of spare cats, get rid of spare kids, what’s the difference?” he said.
But, Ham added, Genesis tells a different story.
“Humans are special,” he said. “We are made in the image of God. We’re different from the animals.”
Ham pointed to the human reproduction process and fertilization, in which “we have all the information that builds us as a human.”
“It’s a unique combination of information different from any human being who has ever existed or who ever will,” said Ham.
And because no new genetic information is ever added after the birth of a human, Ham said abortion is “killing a human being right from fertilization.”
A 2017 Gallup survey found that Americans remain largely divided on the question of evolution and man's creation. An equal share, or 38% of respondents each, said that God created man in present form, and that man went through evolution but with God guiding the process.
Ham acknowledged the difficulties in pushing back against a culture that believes man to be just another animal, and said for Christians to be successful in sharing their worldview — and ultimately the Gospel — it’s important to learn the skill of “arguing foundationally.”
“Unless they change their foundation and unless they believe God’s Word, they will not have the same foundation as you, they’re not going to have the same worldview,” he said. “Do you see the problem?”
A proponent of Young Earth Creationism, the belief that the Bible teaches the Earth is approximately 6,000 years old, Ham last month urged parents to reconsider sending their children to public school, which he called a “system [which] indoctrinates kids for six or so hours a day in the secular worldview of evolutionary naturalism and sexual humanism.”
In 2016, Ham criticized religious leaders like Pope Francis who claimed evolution and the “Big Bang” are defensible origin theories for the universe.
"Do we make God a 'magician' as Pope Francis said if [we] deny the big bang? No! 'For nothing will be impossible with God' (Luke 1:37)," Ham wrote in a Facebook post.
"Pope Francis reportedly said 'theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real' and 'evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation.' But it's inconsistent with God's Word! The pope is wrong based on Scripture. No matter what the pope reportedly said, God's Word contradicts the Big Bang and evolution — only God's Word is infallible," he added.
Ian M. Giatti is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ian.giatti@christianpost.com.
