The Kent Hovind You Didn’t Know

The last time we wrote about Kent Hovind was six months ago — see Kent Hovind Is Back! As we said then: “Hovind has been in jail during all of this humble blog’s existence, but we still wrote about his numerous legal gyrations.”

Upon his release (he had been locked up for income tax violations and related matters) he promptly returned to the creationism business and started Dinosaur Adventure Land somewhere in Alabama. Most of you know that he has a “doctorate” from a mail-order diploma mill, and he’s cited as an expert in Jack Chick’s Big Daddy. If you look at the comic, you’ll see the Hovind citation at the bottom of a yellow drawing — Chick’s version of man’s evolutionary history.

Anyway, Hovind is making a guest appearance at a church in Petal, Mississippi (near Hattiesburg), and one of our clandestine operatives — code named “Bluegrass” — tipped us off to an article about it. It’s at the website of HubCitySPOKES, a local newspaper in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Their headline is Controversial figure to lead seminar at Petal church. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:

Vision Baptist Church has invited Dr. Kent Hovind, an American Christian fundamentalist evangelist and convicted felon, to conduct a Creation Science Seminar April 6 and 7 at the church, located just east of Petal near the Forrest/Perry county line.

Surprisingly, the newspaper gives an unflattering description of Hovind. They say:

Hovind, who was found guilty on all counts of a 58-count indictment, spent 10 years as a federal inmate in Berlin, N.H., for tax evasion, obstructing federal agents, and structuring cash transactions, is seen as a controversial figure by many, especially the Young Earth creationist movement, whose ministry focuses on denial of scientific theories in the fields of biology (evolution), geophysics and cosmology. So, what’s the motivation for a Southern Baptist Church in a small conservative town doing bringing in such a speaker?

Here’s the explanation:

According to Ann Green, who formed Christ Only Ministries with her husband, Lindon, and Donnie and Tina Bond, said they had the opportunity to visit the Ark Encounter in Kentucky [Hee hee!] where they heard founder Ken Ham’s presentation comparing and defending creation against the evolution theory. … “When we went up there, we bought curriculum from Ken Ham and brought it back to the church and began teaching it,” Green said. It was then that they heard of Ken Hovind.

Ah, they learned about Hovind because of Hambo. The news continues:

“So, we got some of his materials too and started incorporating the two together,” Green said. [Smart move!] “It kind of enlightened us to the fact that we didn’t realize just how prevalent evolution is being taught, that the creation story was more accurate than the evolution theory and what science sometimes claims. [Right!] It’s really proving the creation rather than the evolution.” Lindon Green said it was strictly Hovind’s knowledge of the Bible and creation as a reason for bringing him in. “We’re not getting any of that other,” he said.

What’s “that other” stuff they don’t want? The newspaper describes it, and it’s really the reason we’re writing this post. They tell us:

Hovind has what many believe to be some far-fetched ideas, including:

• His creationist presentations have asserted that creationism is not taught in public schools due to a New World Order conspiracy, established by Satan and involving Ted Turner and Jane Fonda, the British Royal Family, the State of Israel, the American Civil Liberties Union, U.S. government officials, business leaders, and social activists.

• Hovind has several conspiracy theories about the U.S. government. He has claimed that the U.S. government was behind the 9/11 attacks and the Oklahoma City bombing.

• Hovind claims that the cyanide-releasing compound laetrile is a “cancer cure” which the U.S. government is conspiring to suppress and that diseases including HIV, Gulf War syndrome, Crohn’s colitis, and rheumatoid arthritis and Alzheimer’s were engineered by “the money masters and governments of the world” for the purpose of global economic domination. He has denounced democracy as “evil and contrary to God’s law,” and called global warming a communist conspiracy.

• In his lectures, he claimed that the United States government was implanting pet-tracking microchips into people allowing them to be tracked by satellite.

Wow! We didn’t know that side of Hovind before. But they’re not going to emphasize that stuff at the church seminar. The news story continues:

And while some of his beliefs are not things you’d think a Southern Baptist Church would condone, Green said the pastor, the Rev. Jimmy Clark, said the seminar is going to stick with creation vs. evolution. “We respect his (Hovind’s) opinion on the other things he believes and teaches [We all do!], but this is strictly going to be creation vs. evolution. That’s what concerns us.”

There’s much more to the article, but we were primarily interested in Hovind’s ideas, which we haven’t seen mentioned before. Now that we know so much more about him, we’d like to see him get more active. It can only be good for creationism!

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