Creation Evangelism for the New Millennium

Rating:
Summary: Who Has Been Brainwashed?
Review: Dispite not being a very prolific book reader, it was impossible for me to not finish this book. A lot of the church still thinks of this issue as a side issue, even if agreeing with the view. It is not! This is a very timely book (even though the new millennium starts in 2001!). This really is a "must" for any christian seriously interested in evangelism ~ especially for evangelists, & church leaders.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty usual YEC stuff...
Review: I'm not a Creationist (nor a Christian) but I have read a great deal of Ken Ham's other works, and if you know the authorative ,and admittedly very readable, style of Ham's writings then this work won't surprise you. However, I am at a loss (as a professional classicist) to understand Ham's continued use of Ancient Greece as some sort of early evolutionised society for comparison's with todays. Essentially, Ken Ham uses the famous quote (from Acts I think) about how the message of preaching Christ crucified was a stumbling block for the Jews, and foolishness for the Greeks. Ham then equates today's secular society with the ancient Greeks, thereby implying that the belief in a crucified Christ is viewed by today's people as 'foolishness', akin to the Greeks.

Ham argues that the foundations of society have been changed and that the church needs to re-establish these foundations and preach the gospel from the start, not half way through. Ham also argues that people today accept evolution as an established fact, have lost complete faith in the Bible and do not take the message of Christ's dying for humanity's sin, as they do not know what sin actually is, why death was in the world, why pain and suffering existed, etc...Fair enough, fairly well argued, and I'm no theological scholar so I won't argue about the Biblical text's meaning.

However, Ham in this work (and on countless other AiG seminars and magazines) makes the astonishing claim that the people of Ancient Greece believed in a form of evolution, had no knowledge of why pain and suffering was in the world, no knowledge of sin and punishment and the need for a redeemer. They therefore knew nothing of the human condition (original sin and resulting death) nor the reason's for it.

In response I have two words: Pandora's Box. It is utterly crystal clear in Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days (dating from the 8th c b.c.) that according to Greek tradition, humans lived without suffering (in a Golden Age) and that toil and illness was directly introduced into the world by the opening of Pandora's Box. In fact, the text could not be more clear;

"For formerly the tribes of men on earth lived remote from ills, without harsh toil and the grievousness sicknesses that are deadly to men. But the woman unstopped the jar, and let it all out, and brought grim cares upon mankind." Hesiod, Works and Days. Lines 90-96.

Admittedly, even in this pre-fall paradise humans died, but it was as if overcome by sleep, and one lived on as a beneficient earth spirit after death eternally. Thanatos (God of Death) did exist, but in doing his task no-one ever suffered. As to the fall itself, the equivalent of Adam's original human sin, was humanity siding with Prometheus against Zeus when Prometheus openly defied Zeus, and in punishment Zeus sent Pandora as a punishment on humans (with her box!!) The same ancient poet also presented a doctrine of creation in which four or five different races of humans were directly created by Kronos or Zeus, and also prophesied the doom of the present race of humans once children were born already old.

Additionally, if one reads Virgil's Fourth Ecologue (and others) which were written comparatively quite close to the time of the Book of Acts, one can read pagan prophecies of the birth of a divine child who was to restore the Golden Age once again after a calamitous circle of events. This was written in the 50's BC, and it resembles the Biblical story so closely that early Christians granted Virgil the status of an enlightened pagan who foreknew the birth of Christ even though he was not a Christian (yeah right!!) Rome ruled Greece by this stage, and many of the religious views of the two were concurrent. It is obvious that the Greek mythic and poetic tradition therefore also knew the doctrine of a divine redeemer, but a pagan one!!

Ham is therefore wrong on his identification of today's society with ancient Greek religious views, as the Greeks did know (within their own religious context) why death was around, why pain and suffering existed, who created them and also a hope for a future paradise. They also in no way could be descibed as an evolutionised culture. For a scholar to proclaim these facts show nothing but a presuppositional bias, ie. they didn't know the Jewish God and associated doctrines (why should they have?) Therefore the assumption of Ham must be that the Greek versions are worthless plagiarism's and weren't really believed until the apostles came and saved all the lost ancient Greeks!!

Now, I assume that Ken Ham means that certain (but by no means all) Greek philosophical schools did believe in a materialistic universe, and believed in some form of auto-generation from the earth (hardly evolution, especially when you consider that to many Greeks, the earth was a living goddess.) This was not the mainstream view, in fact, philosophical traditions tended to be for the elite of Greece, not the common person. Plato and others railed against 'popular' religion for centuries, showing how vibrant it was and how threatened they were by it. Ditto Saint Augustine in City of God. Ham rarely states this in public, on the contrary he usually preaches inaccurate statements such as the above points (regarding Ancient Greece most commonly.)

I agree with Ham that the doctrine of Jesus Christ would have been regarded as foolishness to the Greeks, probably because they didn't need the message (they had their own form) or want it. The fact that comparatively few converted (even by the Bible's admission) shows that Ham is barking up the wrong tree in my opinion.

Thats all the philosophy I can write for one day.

Rating:
Summary: A vital evangelism tool, and a wake-up call to the Church
Review: Ken Ham lucidly shows that effective evangelism requires firm foundations. Trying to preach the Gospel in this evolutionised society is proving increasingly ineffective, and many Christians despair and can't figure out why. Ham accurately pinpoints the problem -- without the foundational truths of a 'very good' creation and a literal Fall of a literal first human couple, talking about sin and salvation won't mean much to many people. What is sin if not rebellion against the infinitely holy God who created us? If there is no creator, there is no sin, and thus no need for salvation.

The creation evangelism approach also provides answers to what it probably the most commonly asked question of any Christian --- how can there be a good God with all this suffering. Alas, if the Christian believes in millions of years -- i.e. the fossil record predating Adam -- then he has implicitly said that suffering was called 'very good' by God (Gen. 1:31). However, a consistently biblical approach shows that death, 'the last enemy' (1 Cor. 15:26), suffering and disease are the results of Adam's sin. I.e. don't blame God, blame sin -- of which we are all guilty!

This means of course that the fossil record must have formed after Adam -- mostly in the Flood of Noah's day. The Flood is sadly also neglected in much Christian teaching. Or it is diminished into a mere local Mesopotamian valley flood contrary to the explicit biblical teaching that it was global.

Ham also points out the need to follow Christ's example -- take Scripture as completely authoritative over any traditions of men (John 10:35, Mark 7:7-13). Sadly, even many Christian leaders have re-interpreted God's infallible Word to fit the teachings of fallible people, that we evolved from pond scum over billions of years.

Finally, the book provides many encouraging testimonies of people who came to Christ through creation evangelism -- it really does work!!

Rating:
Summary: Pretty usual YEC stuff...
Review: Ken Ham shows the relevance of Special Creation for the whole Gospel, and even for a correct understanding of God. His critics only put their feet inside their mouths. Saying that there is a contradiction between plant appearance and the existence of sunlight only shows their zero understanding of the Bible. ... Finally, the notion that Ken Ham brainwashes his readers is ludicrous in the extreme. No one is forced to read Ken Ham, let alone to be exposed to Ham's ideas over and over again in a coercive environment. By contrast, evolutionary teachings are repeatedly indoctrinated to mostly captive audiences, from kindergarten through college, under the coercive auspices of compulsory education--not to mention under the prestige of science.

Rating:
Summary: I Have A Word For This...
Review: PROPAGANDA. Just look at the book's study guide. Ken Ham repeatedly distorts history in this and other books, but calling readers to make sweeping generalizations to stereotype the moral values of broad groups of people is going too far. He even gives hints for readers like "todays high-school students :: don't know what true love is" and "the secular scientists :: anti-Christian, morality is relative." These doctrines are not racist, but they do utilize similar tactics to materials used by the Nazis to teach anti-semitism and militant nationalism. Students, cogitate! Educators, beware! Church leaders, to arms! (Well, no need to be that extreme) ;-)