By Susan Trollinger and William Trollinger
We at RightingAmerica are pleased to share below our article on Ark Encounter, which appears today over at The Conversation. Many thanks to the editors at The Conversation for their permission to re=post our work here!
The Ark Encounter, an evangelical theme park located near Williamstown, Kentucky, has welcomed between 4 million and 5 million visitors since its opening in July 2016. Hundreds of thousands more are sure to visit this summer.
This theme park boasts a re-creation of the story of Noah’s Ark from the Bible. As described in Genesis 6:14-16, God directed Noah to build this ark to spare eight humans and a male and female pair of every kind of creature from the flood that God was going to unleash on the world as a punishment for sin.
As scholars of fundamentalism and creationism, we have visited the Ark Encounter multiple times. We have also written a book, “Righting America at the Creation Museum,” about the ark’s companion site, the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky.
What we find particularly striking about Ark Encounter is that it is a tourist site devoted to emphasizing – with great specificity – the wrathful nature of God and the eternal damnation that awaits unrepentant sinners.
What is Ark Encounter’s argument?
According to Answers in Genesis, the fundamentalist organization that launched Ark Encounter, and its CEO, Ken Ham, Ark Encounter is a centerpiece of AiG’s mission to “expose the bankruptcy of evolutionary ideas and bedfellow: a ‘millions of years old’ earth (and even older universe).”
So, according to AiG, when Genesis 1 says God created the Earth in six days, it literally means six 24-hour days. Similarly, when the Bible says Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day and gives details about their descendants and how long they lived, this is interpreted as recounting real history. And all of this means that, according to AiG, the Earth is “about 6,000 years old.”
While scientists have estimated the Earth to be about 4.5 billion years old, AiG counters by claiming that radiometric dating is not reliable. Instead, they assert that the catastrophic biblical flood created all the geological formations that make the Earth look ancient.
Over the past few decades, this argument has become a doctrinal touchstone for many American evangelicals.
An enormous structure
We most recently visited the Ark Encounter on March 15, 2022. Measuring 510 feet (155 metres) long, 85 feet (25 metres) wide, and 51 feet (15 metres) high, the Ark Encounter is, to quote one visitor we overheard, “so huge!”
After purchasing tickets that cost US $54.95 per adult, we and other visitors boarded buses and made the ascent up a long hill. Getting off the bus, we walked to the Ark, keenly aware of how small we were in relation to this ginormous structure.
Inside the Ark, visitors walk through three enormous decks, encountering rows of clay food storage containers, burlap sacks and animal cages. They observe over 100 bays featuring placards and digital animations that, among other things, go far beyond the Bible to explain Noah’s training in shipbuilding, carpentry and blacksmithing. The same creativity applies to the various displays explaining how eight human beings on the Ark fed, watered and managed the waste of 7,000 or so creatures.
Visitors also walk through a life-size diorama of the plush living quarters of Noah’s family, where they learn about the skills, gifts and interests of Noah’s sons – details not included in Genesis. They also learn about Noah’s wife and his sons’ wives. The Bible never identifies these women by name, much less describes them. Nevertheless, the Ark gives them names, different ethnic complexions, biographies and even hobbies.
Notwithstanding the occasional placard acknowledging that designers have taken “artistic license” with these dioramas, we couldn’t help but notice how much of what is in the Ark is not actually found in the Bible.
But visitors to the Ark seem to embrace these dramatic additions to the biblical text. As religion scholar Paul Thomas observes in his new book, “Storytelling the Bible at the Creation Museum, Ark Encounter, and the Museum of the Bible,” the world created by the designers of the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter satisfies the evangelical longing “for a time and place governed by biblical principles, even if that idealized time and place … never really existed.”
A very angry God
AiG requires all Ark Encounter employees to affirm a 46-point faith statement. They must agree, for example, that “gender and biological sex are equivalent and cannot be separated,” modern understandings of “social justice” are “anti-biblical,” and all humans “are sinners” and “are therefore subject to God’s wrath and condemnation.”
This emphasis on the overwhelming wrath of God is perhaps the most noteworthy feature of Ark Encounter as a tourist site.
Genesis 7:16 states that, as the flood waters rose, God slammed shut the door into the Ark. Once shut, all the humans and animals on the other side of the door were doomed to drown.
According to a placard displayed at Ark Encounter, there may have been upwards of 20 billion people on Earth at the time of the Genesis flood, a number that would have included children and infants, not to mention the unborn.
Another placard asks, “Was it just for God to judge the whole world?” The answer: “Since He is the one who gave life, He has the right to take life. Secondly, God is perfectly just and must judge sin. Third, all have sinned and deserve death and judgment.”
Remarkably, Ark Encounter has placed a “keepsake photo” placard near the door that, in the Ark’s depiction, sealed the fate of all those on the other side. As we have witnessed every time we have toured Ark Encounter, happy visitors line up to have their photos taken in front of this door.
According to AiG, this ancient divine slaughter prefigures a future divine slaughter. As the Ark Encounter website puts it, “God will judge this wicked world once again, but this time it will be by fire … God always keeps His promises – judgment will come.” According to AiG, we can escape this fate by believing in Christ, but for the billions (past and present) who have not or do not, the result is “everlasting, conscious punishment in the lake of fire (hell).”
As historian Doug Frank makes clear in his 1986 book, “A Gentler God,” this understanding of a wrathful God is alive and well in American evangelicalism. Frank’s argument is supported by a 2014 Pew Research report that revealed that 82% of American evangelicals believe in a literal hell.
Millions of evangelicals visit Ark Encounter for all sorts of reasons, including, perhaps, its sheer immensity. That said, the message they get from Ark Encounter is clear and simple.
The wrathful God has determined that those who do not accept Jesus as savior, those who are resolutely on the wrong side of culture war issues like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, will pay for their sin eternally.
the world created by the designers of the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter satisfies the evangelical longing “for a time and place governed by biblical principles, even if that idealized time and place … never really existed.”
Indeed, what is shown in the photos never really existed. I cannot say this enough: It’s completely clear that Ham and all other young creationists have imagined all of this. Ham and his crew completely made the whole thing up out of thin air, taking everything from all sorts of sci-fi, fantasy, ancient and modern imagery and materials and use them to create a world that never really existed at all. Not even in Ancient and Biblical archeology
One more thing. Here’s another fact about the “enormous structure.”
The ark is actually a facade that conceals a normal metal/concrete building behind it which is proof of the structure NOT being made entirely of wood.
“Instead, they assert that the catastrophic biblical flood created all the geological formations that make the Earth look ancient.”
Which renders God as an angry, wrathful deceiver than a loving, truthful, merciful God. It’s clear that Ham and the other creationists have both created a vengeful, deceptive God and rewritten the Bible in their own image to forcefully dictate and impose their fantasy beliefs down the throats of unsuspecting people. Even Christians.
Hi Sherry –
All comments are submitted for moderation, so it’s not that your comments are disappearing but rather that they are in our queue for approval.
Apologies for the confusion!
Patrick
All right! All my comments I post here are back!! Thank you so much for fixing them, Patrick. I greatly appreciate it.
I admit I got real mad when the comments keep disappearing from your site. I thought they were being removed from this site for no reason. None of them were offensive and I don’t see any reason for them to be removed. I thought I’ll won’t be able to comment again because of all those problems I’m having with all the comments disappearing on me on this comment section, but now I’m happy see they’re all back on your site fully approved and making me feel a whole lot better about commenting about your posts here. 😀
Now I can go back to commenting on this site again. Thanks so much again, Pat! I’ll keep what you said in mind the next time I comment on your articles again. Have a great day!
Here’s another fact about the “enormous structure.”
The ark is really a facade that hides a normal building behind it.
Look at these two links containing lots of photos that prove this.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2f2b5f5e15a101c73653815ecae49feaa331a1fb30cd3549984b88920f207118.jpg
http://www.apatheticagnostic.com/articles/meds3/med58/med1303.html
Use this photo the next time you make another post about Ham’s “ark park.”
Here’s the photo of the concrete, metal building behind the supposed wooden “ark.”
Thanks very much, Sherry!
One question: Does Ham ever care to know that God actually gives out unconditional love along with mercy, grace, and forgiveness to everyone who loves and embrace Him no matter who they are?
Oh, that’s right. If Ham did believe, accept, and embrace the notion of God being a merciful, kind, loving God, his vision of an angry God who’s ready to bring judgment to all those who are gay, transgender, abortionist, and those who refuse to conform to Ham’s toxic ideology will all crumble down like a deck of cards.
The idea of a “wrathful God” is not something invented by Ken Ham. It is an idea found throughout the Holy Bible and is a doctrine accepted as true by those who believe the Bible to be authoritative for over two thousand years. For example:
“Seek ye the LORD, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the LORD’s anger.” (Zephaniah 2:3)
“the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all” (Jude 1:14-15).
Revelation 1:7 says, “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.” And Isaiah 13:11 says, “And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.”
Thanks for your input. Given that Ark Encounter claims that God drowned up to 20 billion people (which includes, of course, children/infants/the unborn), ‘wrathful’ would seem an understatement.
The Bible doesn’t specify how many people perished in the Deluge, so how many drowning deaths do you suppose could be easily accounted for by the word “wrathful?”
Actually, when God’s rationale for the Flood is explained in Genesis 6: 5 -7 the words “wrath” or “anger” are not used. God seems to be more sad than angry. “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.”
I am struggling to understand how it matters if God was wrathful or sad when drowning 20 billion (including children, infants, and the unborn). I know the Bible doesn’t give a number; I am using Ark Encounter’s projections, as that is what the article was about.
The truth always matters. Susan Trollinger and William Trollinger are trying to make the case that “the overwhelming wrath of God is perhaps the most noteworthy feature of Ark Encounter as a tourist site.” But the truth is that (1) the wrath of God as a concept has strong support in Scripture and a long pedigree in church history and is therefore not a concept that Ken Ham pulled out of thin air and (2) the Noahic Flood account in Genesis may not be the best passage to support the authors’ thesis. Even in 2 Peter 3: 9 it is the longsuffering of God that is emphasized when discussing the Flood, not God’s wrath: “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” Your comment was that “‘wrathful’ would seem an understatement” as if the number of those who perished in the Deluge makes a difference as to whether God was expressing his wrath or not.
I repeat myself in saying that the article reports on Ark Encounter’s (not our) portrayal of God and the Flood. In that regard, our statement stands that ‘the overwhelming wrath of God is perhaps the most noteworthy feature of Ark Encounter as a tourist site.’ But I gather that you would prefer that it be said that ‘God was both angry and sad that he had to drown all but eight human beings.’ And if that’s (again referencing Ark Encounter’s projections) the drowning of 20 billion human beings — including children, infants, and the unborn — so be it.
The word translated as “repented” in Genesis 6:6 KJV could also be translated as “be grieved.” If the article is attempting to accurately report on Ark Encounter’s portrayal of God’s emotional response to the Flood, they miss the mark when using the word “wrath.” Yes, the wrath of God is a key Biblical doctrine, but not one that fits well in this particular case. Even though God knew it would come to this, it was still distressing to Him.
I’ve visited the Ark Encounter on a number of occasions and I strongly disagree with the authors that a “wrathful God” is the main message of the attraction. The main message is of a longsuffering God and salvation. Don’t take my word for it, you can read about yourself here: https://arkencounter.com/about/good-news/. Now contrast that with the tone of the article demonstrated in this sentence: “Genesis 7:16 states that, as the flood waters rose, God slammed shut the door into the Ark. Once shut, all the humans and animals on the other side of the door were doomed to drown. ” The use of the word “slammed,” illustrates the bias of the authors. That word is never used in the Biblical text or at the Ark Encounter.
I am at a loss. What changes in this account if God “shut” the door instead of “slammed” the door? Does “shut” better suggest that He was sad about drowning all the humans (save eight) on the planet?
And speaking of this watery genocide, I am curious as to why you have yet to reference the fact that Ark Encounter argues that God may have drowned up to 20 billion people, which would include, of course, children, infants, and the unborn. How does this fit with your understanding of God?
If I have an argument with someone and I slam the door when I leave it means that I am angry. The Bible does not give any indication that God was angry when He shut the door.
We are not told in the Bible how many people were alive at the time of the Flood, but 20 billion seems high to me. If the growth rate in the pre-Flood world was equal to the growth rate in 2000 (0.012), there could have been about 750 million people at the time of the Flood. However, whether there were 20 billion or 750 million, my answer to your question as to my understanding of God would remain the same:
(1) The flood was just because God commanded it (and God is just) Psalm 92:15
(2) The flood was just because mankind was evil. Genesis 6:5
(3) The flood was just because all sin is a capital offense. Romans 6:23
(4) The flood was just because the Creator has the right to do as He pleases with His creation. Psalm 135:6
(5) The flood was accompanied by grace (He saved Noah and his family). “…The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.”(Exodus 34:6–7)
Attacks on the character of God are nothing new. As long as there have been sinners in the world, there have been charges that God is unjust.
Ok, I think we have exhausted this conversation, as it has become repetitive. Thanks much for your comments.
You are very welcome.