You Can Follow Christ Without Following Creationists

This is what I wanted to tell the young-earth creationist Ken Ham after watching his recent speech at Cedarville University.

For those unfamiliar with his work, he debated evolution with Bill Nye in a nationally televised debate two years ago, and tours the country arguing for his perspective on Genesis.

Here are his main points in his address to Cedarville:

1. Anyone who doubts his specific view of Genesis simply has a problem with authority.

2. No matter what, young people are always the problem. If homeschooled or in private school, we simply ignored the truth. If we went to public school, we bought into the evolutionary lies. (He omits the reality that many public schools still teach creationism.)

3. Anyone who believes the 98% of scientists that acknowledge evolution is comparable to Richard Dawkins, the anti-theist author of The God Delusion. So there is no middle ground - you are either a creationist, or a hardcore atheist.

4. Pastor Andy Stanley is not a real Christian because he suggested that we worship Jesus instead of the Bible. (Many other pastors agree with Stanley, so much like Ham's omission on #2, he either forgets or disqualifies the millions of other non-literalist Christians around the world.)

5. The Son of God should not be the foundation of our faith because that’s supposed to be the Bible. So any Christian who puts Christ above all is…a bad Christian? This similar Facebook post from Ham also concludes that the foundation of Christianity is Genesis 1:1, not Jesus (and I'm assuming not Genesis 2.)

6. Little explanation of actual science. And how could any Christian admit to questions, when the majority of his speech has just proven how evil they are for asking?

This kind of rhetoric only stirs hatred between churches, friends, and families.

He sells an Us vs. Them dichotomy, where his particular view offers his followers the monopoly on truth. Any Christian who questions this view is dismissed as a phony with childish authority issues.

It couldn’t be that any Christians actually spent hours and years researching and reading about these issues (including many homeschool Christian parents who asked for a curriculum that acknowledges evolution), because Ham says it's simple. Ham says that if I'm not a bad kid, I'll shut up and listen - specifically, to him.

For Ken Ham, Christians are only acceptable if they believe Ken Ham's interpretation of the Bible. If Christianity isn't his way, then it isn't valid at all.

Call me a millennial, but I'd say that is an authority issue.