by William Trollinger

We kick off the New Year by heading to Washington, D.C. for the winter meeting of the American Society of Church History. At 1.30pm on Thursday we are participating in a session that is entitled “Christianity in 20th Century American Politics,” and that includes papers on Christian patriotism and fundamentalism in World War II, and Pentecostals, Civil Religion, and the two World Wars.  Our presentation – ok, Sue is staying home to be with our high schoolers as they start spring term, but it is our paper — will be on “Ark Encounter and Creation Museum: Political Enterprises in the Guise of Christian Apologetics.”

This should be an interesting session. One way we are trying to do our part to make it interesting is by making a counter-intuitive argument:

Answers in Genesis (AiG) explains its efforts to fuse evangelical theology and Christian Right politics as necessary to combat the forces of secularism threatening to destroy American civilization. But it seems that institutions such as the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter may actually be accelerating the advance of secularization in the United States.

Wouldn’t it be strange if AiG’s labors were actually benefitting their culture war enemies? Who knows where the discussion goes in DC, but it should be fun!