This probably won’t surprise you, but it’s nevertheless good to see it at the blog of Ken Ham (ol’ Hambo), the Australian entrepreneur who has become the ayatollah of Appalachia. He’s famed for his creationist ministry, Answers in Genesis (AIG) and for the mind-boggling Creation Museum.
We’re talking about A Political Solution Is Not the Answer to a Spiritual Problem. Don’t let the title mislead you. Hambo wants a political solution — but it must be his kind of solution. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us, and Hambo’s scripture references omitted:
Sometimes I fear that even many Christians think that the solution to America’s moral problems (including the legalization of gay “marriage,” abortion, and so on) is a political one — to work at mainly changing the culture through legislation and sometimes litigation. I suggest that these social problems are spiritual ones — heart issues.
After several bible quotes about going forth and preaching the gospel, Hambo says:
The point is, if you just try to change the culture in the sense of just working for political change, what will happen when the next generation comes through who may reject God even more, and then just change the laws back to what they want? Ultimately, any legal document, such as the US Constitution, is only as good as the worldview of those interpreting it. Because of man’s sinful heart, people will interpret such a document to say whatever they want it to say — which we have seen already happen in regard to abortion, the so-called “separation of church and state,” and the gay “marriage” issues.
Yes, the system we have isn’t reliable. But fear not — Hambo knows how to fix things. After some more bible quotes about being the “salt of the Earth,” he announces:
Now, I am not saying Christians should therefore not get involved politically — quite the opposite.
Note that Hambo has just contradicted the title of his essay. Let’s read on:
What I’m saying is that Christians need to understand that we need to be raising generations who are filled with as much uncontaminated salt as possible. They need to be taught what they believe and know how to defend the Christian faith. We need to raise generations of godly people committed to the Lord Jesus Christ, who will have a consistent Christian worldview, so when they get into positions of authority in the government, education, business, and so on, their Christian worldview will enable them to view the legal documents in the correct way — and then be real salt in influencing the culture.
Not very subtle, is it? Hambo wants people in positions of political power who will govern according to his view of things. He continues:
I totally agree that Christians should vote in elections. By doing so, they can help be salt and light to influence the culture for good by voting for those people who have a consistent Christian worldview. I’m adamant about the point that if we just think that all we need to do is vote for some so-called “conservatives” (whatever that word means these days) and it will change the culture, then the effort will fail! We need to be concentrating on raising up hearts and minds who will stand on God’s Word so they can be the ones to influence the culture.
What kind of platform would Hambo’s ideal politician run on? He doesn’t say, but for a clue, you can look at AIG’s Statement of Faith. All of his employees — and those who will become employes of his proposed Ark park, must agree with it. Here’s more from ol’ Hambo:
Sadly, most children from our church homes have been trained by the world, and so they have a very secular worldview. When they are in positions of authority, many are voting in a very anti-Christian way, because they’ve been trained by the world and so they think like the world. Many so-called “conservatives,” for instance, are voting for gay “marriage. We need people who have an absolute basis for their worldview — based on the absolute authority of the Word of God.
Uh huh. Moving along:
You cannot ultimately change a culture from the top down, when it has changed from the foundation up. Sadly, the secular world has understood that by capturing the hearts and minds of generations of young people, they could change the culture from the foundation up. Many Christians look at the consequences of this change and try to effect change from the top down! No. A slow but consistent change into secularism was allowed to occur foundationally, so now it will be a hard, long, slow process to reverse this massive change in the culture. And the way to do this is for Christians to be diligent in working hard to help change one heart at a time, little by little (starting in their homes and churches), and continue to be salt and light as best they can in a culture that has increasingly been overtaken by darkness.
So there you are. When all politicians are thinking the way ol’ Hambo thinks, then we’ll have the kind of government we need. And it will be wonderful!
Addendum: Hambo has advocated something similar in the past. See Ken Ham Unhinged: Creationism & Theocracy Too.
Copyright © 2015. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
But they had a theocracy. You only need to read the Bible to see how that worked out: arbitrary “justice,” bad leadership, foreign invasion and subjugation, slavery, genital mutilation, misery everywhere, animals being burned around the clock as “offerings” (of what? smoke? the smell of barbecue?), exorcists instead of real doctors and real medicine, etc.
We need a theocracy like a moose needs a hat rack.
Ole Hambo proclaims
Presumably, that’s why Hannah Overton’s murder conviction was overturned on appeal?
(Sorry Off Topic)
Hovind is free and the omnipotent Almighty Gawd stopped the stock market (Stopping the Earth like Joshua 10:13 would have been overkill).
I think Hambo heard John Lennon’s Imagine the wrong way.
The more I read and hear about religious fundamentalists, and I include the likes of ISIS along with Hambo’s crew, the more convinced I am that these people are certifiably insane. It’s one thing to believe that you personally know the truth about god but it’s quite another to insist that everyone else should think the same way as you do. I’m waiting for day when there will be a medication that will temper or least keep in check the “prophet syndrome” so we can be rid ourselves of these religious fascists.
I trust the curmudgeon to correct “belief” to “believe” for me!
[*Voice from above*] You should put your trust in me.
Hambo and other creationists like Hovind do not believe in a democratic political process as a legitimate means of government. His comment that electing people who think the “right” way now is insufficient because future generations could decide to vote to repudiate his way of thinking says all you need to know about religious fanatics.
Hambo wants a theocracy and a guarantee that it will be permanent by abolishing any means by which the people could select any form of government other than a theocracy.
Ham has the right to hope for “Christians to be diligent in working hard to help change one heart at a time, little by little (starting in their homes and churches)” toward his way of thinking. And the rest of us have the right to oppose him and his way of thinking.
Ham is shooting for the grass roots uprising that the right-wing fundies are insisting on implementing in America, e.g. Focus on the Family, ad nauseum.
Ken Ham: “Sadly, most children from our church homes have been trained by the world, and so they have a very secular worldview.”
It sounds as if Ham wants to isolate his “true believers” and their children from the rest of the world — like the infamous Jim Jones of People’s Temple. Scary. I wonder when Ham will start serving Kool-Aid at the Creation Museum?
Ken Ham: “A slow but consistent change into secularism was allowed to occur foundationally, so now it will be a hard, long, slow process to reverse this massive change in the culture. And the way to do this is for Christians to be diligent in working hard to help change one heart at a time, little by little…”
Perhaps many left the faith when they discovered they were being fed absurd stories of origins, floods, heaven and hell; told to love but instead heard hate; and worse, were molested by the ones they were taught to trust.
Looks like I messed up the tags again — please help, O Mighty One!
[*Voice from above*] I heard your cry. Be at peace. All is well.
Ol’ Hambo has solved a very old mystery:
“I suggest that these social problems are spiritual ones — heart issues.”
Aha! Thats’ where the human soul is situated – in the heart. I am eagerly looking forward to creationist experiments confirming this bold truth.
“filled with as much uncontaminated salt”
Excellent! First thing to go out when Ol’ Hambo has it his way is Evolution Theory. Second thing is the Big Bang. This nicely refutes the claim of our favourite Seattle Slasher:
“it is precisely the folks wrongly dismissed as “creationists” who would maximize the flow of scientific information.”
Not that Klinghitler will ever admit it.
Ken Ham: “A slow but consistent change into secularism was allowed to occur…”
Was allowed to occur?? Was allowed to occur?? And what is it that Ham would have done to prevent it? Torture non-believers? Re-institute the Inquisition? Burn doubters at the stake?
I didn’t catch the full implication of his statement on first reading. Just what is going through this man’s mind? Does he really think he and others like him can actually control what others believe? And who does Ham blame for the “allowing”? “Liberal” churches? “Compromising” ministers? Mainline Christian sects that accept science? (Like, for instance, Roman Catholicism, United Methodist, Presbyterian, etc., etc.)
The rational leaders within Christianity need to muster the courage to call this man out. He is doing much to destroy their religion.
Sadly, in Ham’s “ideal world with an ideal government”–meaning that his interpretations of the Bible and Science would reign as the ultimate standard–all of those so-called “compromising Christians” which Ham disdains would be forced into hiding or self-imposed exile. (It would be either that or life in the Hamite re-education camps, the largest being the forced labor public works project known euphemistically to the outside world as the “Ark Park”.)
As for me in such a world, all of my heretical writings (i.e., everything I ever published regardless of topic) would be on the Federal Banned Books list and I’d notice my photo on those flyers we see on post office walls.**
In Hamland, I probably wouldn’t get away with any more satirical blogging about establishing a new standard unit of measure for quantifying the vacuous nonsense of “creation science” pseudo-science: the kiloHam. And federal law would no longer allow the standard unit of measure for irrelevant piles of rubbish spewed during a debate, paraded on Youtube, or ranted on a denialist website: the GigaGish.
By the way, the proposed standard unit of measure for rage and defiance towards real science, the kiloLuskin, is still stuck in committee, the International Committee for Satirical Weights and Measures. [For reasons similar to that behind the small calorie (c) and large calorie (C), the once traditional and very popular loon-degree gave way to the luskin around the same time Dishonesty Institute propaganda flooded the Internet. So today, all calibrations and the unofficial definitions of the unit are necessarily based upon the kiloLuskin . The levels of rage and cluelessness found in Dishonesty Institute webpages and the books and videos of their Senior/Associate Fellows also provoked discussions of redefining kiloLuskins on a base-10 logarithmic scale. While a luskin-based logarithmic scale received enthusiastic praise throughout the science academy, both Ray Comfort and Georgia Purdom (on behalf of AIG’s team of baraminologists and creation scientists) virulently opposed such a change in a joint statement:
It was Darwin’s hatred of His Creator and obsession with imposing his materialistic, atheistic theory of evolution on all of science and even into mathematics which has infected our dysfunctional society to this day. Logarithms are an important and very dangerous foundation of Darwinism. Not only did logarithms set the stage for two world wars and both Hitler and Stalin campaigns of genocide, logarithms subconsciously prepare our children to accept the horrors of eugenics. As Ken Ham has reminded us countless times, “If our children are taught logarithms, they will start acting like logarithms!” Yet, there is more to this story. The proposal is for BASE-10 logarithms. We all know that Satan takes good things and then makes a counterfeit. In this case, BASE-10 is the counterfeit of the only truly good ten, The Ten Commandments.
As you might imagine, the French often oppose new units of measure, solely based on the name assigned and the pride of nationality that goes with it. Despite the passing of time,The French Academy of Science remains forever miffed over that Greenwich Mean Time snubbing of well over a century ago and so their representatives on the ICWW refused to approve the kiloLuskin. As the chairman of the FBSWM (the French Bureau of Satirical Weights & Measures) said in a news conference coincident with his press release:
“As usual, it’s always the Americans and the British who insist upon nominating their own for the naming of the newest standard units of measure. Ladies and Gentlemen, the time has come. We are drawing the line with the luskin. On behalf of the French people and the pseudo-science propagandists, nuts, and fruitcakes among us, I’m proud to say that we have our own French denialist loons who are every bit as angry and clueless as Mr. Luskin. So today, after careful deliberation and ratification by the FBSWM under the auspices of the French Academy of Pseudo-Sciences, we have forwarded to our delegates of the International Committee for Satirical Weights and Measures a set of names, very French names, each one fully deserving of this singular honor and each representing a long tradition of French megaloons. Vive la France!”
By the way, the kiloLuskin was first calibrated by averaging years of EvolutionNews editorials after leaving out those complaining about the Dover Trial. (Those classics which rage and go ballistic about the Dover decision must be measured in MegaLuskins.)
Yes, my life as a fugitive from YECist and IDist so-called justice is hard–but at least Ham and his loyal minions don’t have the powers of government behind them. ….. …..Not yet. [Cue the cello intro to The Theme from Jaws.]
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** FOOTNOTE: Of course, Professor Tertius has remained in the Witless Protection Program ever since “The April Fools Day Massacre: When “Creation Science” Suffered Its Worst Public Humiliation” Yes, every since I embarrassed the YEC world with “The Seven Deadly Questions YECists Dread”, I’ve lived life in the shadows, starting my car by remote control and keeping my speaking engagement calendar so secret that even the audiences have no idea when and where I’ll speak next. (The up side of that one is that I don’t have to waste much time on audience Q&A. I can just leave when I finish my lecture. And fewer autographs to sign at the stage door exit.) Yes, I’ve got as many hits on me from origins industry kingpins as Ken Ham has Ceiling Cat memes on Google and as many enemies as Donald Trump has to watch out for at a Cinco de Mayo parade.
Hmmm, I must have mixed up the blockspace code format here with one of the other standards on other platforms. I meant at least two large quotations to be so treated.
[*Voice from above*] I can’t figure out what was supposed to be in blockquotes. It reads well enough as it is.
Answer for SC: I had written around quoted paragraphs instead of …….
to set off the large quotations.
I wonder why WordPress doesn’t have a preview and edit mode like some other blogs. Another mystery of the cosmos.
RetiredSci Guy asked: Was allowed to occur?? Was allowed to occur?? And what is it that Ham would have done to prevent it?
He is basically saying that if he and his followers (and whoever he has determined to be “genuine” Christians) should have educated and trained up recent generations so that the status quo hadn’t happened.
Of course, if Ham read his Bible carefully, he would find that Jesus and the Apostle Paul are quite clear about “there be few who find it” and not to think many entire societies would even like Jesus’ followers–let alone do their bidding.
At the same time, if you step back and read Ham like you were studying a skilled politician, he knows exactly what he’s doing–and he knows how to appeal to donors especially. And every fundraiser today–political or otherwise knows that one must have a crisis to amplify and hammer…so as to induce people to react with their emotions , not their minds.
Lately I’ve done a lot of reading at the Biologos website. There one can see such a huge contrast with AIG, CMI, Creation.com, Living Waters, etc. First, add about 40+ IQ points to both the article authors and even the commenters. Secondly, donations and commerce are hardly noticed unless you look for them. I could list many more differences but actually seeing it beats my describing it. (I don’t necessarily agree with every analysis there but it’s all sane and I see a lot of scientists and academics. Then, when I look at Creation.com’s summary of their arguments/claims, it is so very very pathetic….and stuck in a time warp of the 1960’s. Same rubbish.)
Is this the First Law of Third Prof?
IQ (AIG) +40 = IQ (Biologos) ?
That’s still not a compliment for Biologos ….
I regret to differ. Ham isn’t crazy, let alone certifiably insane. He wants a theocracy, but he has no idea what that entails. That is ignorance, not insanity. He thinks that would work, for his definition of “work”, because he doesn’t know what happens in theocracies. He has never considered for a moment actually investigating the theory, history and current state of that idea.
Now, you will say, and rightly, that to cultivate ignorance on so catastrophic a scale requires conscientious effort. But Ham possesses the compartmentalised mind that all fundamentalists must acquire. He simply never thinks about the things he never thinks about.
Since he never thinks about it, it simply cannot occur to him to ask whether there are ever factions in a theocracy. Not having asked that question, he simply cannot consider asking how factional differences might be resolved among parties each of which is certain of its correctness, and hence, of its right to govern – this being a theocracy. The necessary outcome cannot occur to him.
Ham is an authoritarian. He craves authority – that’s why he has to be in absolute control of his own enterprise, and is his own religious denomination – but even more urgently, he can’t question authority. He can’t question anything, in fact. Ham’s mental landscape consists only of propositions that are either unquestionable or unthinkable.
Yes, yes, I know that’s mad. It’s a private construction only loosely connected to reality. Yet it functions. It has brought Ham the rewards he enjoys. So Ham’s not mad. He’s a bit more dangerous than if he were simply mad. His construction of reality is close enough that there are some who accept it – and him. In fact, there are quite a few. Not enough to establish his theocracy, and getting fewer, but still.
No need to be alarmist. Ham has no chance of success, except in the continuance of his irritation. He’s a cockroach under the floorboards of the Enlightenment, and we have to live with him. As I’ve said before, his Ark Park might ruin him. Authoritarians thrive only on success, and that puppy can’t succeed. When it all goes down the tube, the followers find another prophet. It is to be hoped that it’s one no more charismatic or able than he is.
@Dave Luckett
Authoritarians thrive only on success.
But there are the famous cases of the predictors of the End of the World, who keep their following after the Day.
I agree with you that we must bear, albeit not gladly, with fools.
Is this the First Law of Third Prof?
IQ (AIG) +40 = IQ (Biologos) ?
That’s still not a compliment for Biologos ….
I don’t recall talking about a “First Law”, but if you don’t think 40 IQ points is an enormous differential, think again! It’s close to THREE standard deviations. That’s huge!
Contrary to popular belief, IQ does not necessarily measure breadth of knowledge or quantity of factual recall on demand. Some describe IQ this way: It doesn’t quantify learned information, but instead reflects a person’s ability to learn information and then apply it in useful ways.
Thus, you could have two people with IQs of 140 (that’s nearly 3SD above average) but find a vast gulf between their understandings of evolutionary biology, paleontology, and geology.
1) Joe is a fictional state supreme court chief justice for the State of Mississippi. He graduated #1 in his law school class and scored in the top 2% on his LSATs. Three of his cases got appealed to the U.S. Supreme where one was let stand and the other two went to trial only to see his rulings and the decisions he wrote heavily quoted and fully upheld. He grew up in a Southern Baptist Church but is now an elder in an IFCA church. He occasionally golfs with former Alabama State Supreme Court chief justice, Roy Moore, who he admires greatly and thinks Moore got a raw deal for defending the Word of God.
2) Bill earned his M.S. in Vertebrate Anatomy and works as an Assistant Curator for the Natural History Museum. Bill won many academic awards and both his Bachelor’s Thesis and another research paper he wrote in grad school were published in academic journals, the one with the Department Chairman as co-author. He attends the Westminster Presbyterian Church in a university town, describes himself as evangelical rather than fundamentalist–and is somewhat annoyed if someone confuses him with the latter.
His Honour, Joe, is a big fan and donor of Answers in Genesis and has already made provision in his will to bequeath part of his estate to the Creation Museum. He also tries to keep up with the Discovery Institute and bought extra copies of Stephen Meyer’s Darwin’s Doubt to give to friends.
Bill especially enjoys working in the fossil archives warehouse and hopes to work on a paleontological dig next summer. He assists some of the display experts put together large exhibits which involve placing both the reconstructed skeletons and true-to-life models in realistic habitats so that the public can get a general idea of life in the various geological eras on the shores of the ancient Western Interior Sea of North America. Sometimes he writes “copy” for the explanatory signs displayed around the exhibits to explain scientific concepts and terms to museum visitors.
Joe tries to read the latest articles by Ham on the AIG website and occasionally posts comments on AIG’s Facebook page. Bill likes to read the Biologos website’s articles but often discusses them in the comment sections below the articles at http://discourse.biologos.org/
Bill and Joe. Two sharp gentlemen, successful in their chosen fields, and sharing IQs of 140s. No, they aren’t necessarily typical of the average AIG fan nor even the average Biologos fan. Yet, consider how their posted comments would compare. It also highlights issues of cognitive dissonance as well as relevant education in their backgrounds.
Because I didn’t post this comment on an AIG discussion forum, I’m confident that I don’t really have to explain my purpose any further. Yet I will….
P.S. I would estimate that if one were to compile IQ estimations of the authors posting articles on the AIG and Ray Comfort websites by using their GREs, LSATs, and SATs, they would average around 115. If all their respective commenters were assessed, I would guess that they would average around 103.
So, obviously, when I wrote that there’s a 40 point IQ spread between Biologos and the YEC websites, I was using hyperbole to make a point. A differential of 40 IQ points is huge. I gave a BIG compliment to Biologos. The simple fact that all of the people being compared are functionally literate and chose to write in their spare time automatically wipes out the lowest quartile of IQs and a bit more of the next.
Of course, I’ll wager that MNBO was also having some fun with the topic while using some hyperbole of his own when writing: “That’s still not a compliment for Biologos.” Indeed, it is tongue-in-cheek humor–but only if the reader knows the motive and perspective of the author. He was having some fun at the YEC websites’ expense.
This is a good example of how written texts can involve considerable ambiguity even if the language used is well understood by readers. Now that you’ve read this entire post, do you see how the intentions of both authors (mnbo and I) were not 100% clear? Our interactions could be understood in multiple ways.
Does this happen with ancient texts? Yes. All the time. Even the Bible? Yes. But so often the ambiguities come about because modern day readers are looking for answers to questions the authors never intended to address.
“If all their respective commenters were assessed, I would guess that they would average around 103.”
Indeed I tend to think this highly optimistic ….
Dave Luckett says of ol’ Hambo: “He’s a cockroach under the floorboards of the Enlightenment, and we have to live with him.”
Nice metaphor.