by William Trollinger
On January 25 the Creation Museum hosted a political event designed to fire up support for anti-abortion legislation in Kentucky. The event featured Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis (AiG) and Jeff Durbin of Apologia Church, Mesa, Arizona.
Durbin sees abortion as analogous to the Nazi slaughter of the Jews, although he thinks such a comparison “is a bit of an insult to Hitler,” given that, “if you take a body count of Hitler’s Germany to what we’ve had since Roe v. Wade, we beat him by the metric ton.” In response, Durbin argues that women who have abortions – and this includes instances of incest or rape – must be punished:
Whether it’s a mother who kills her child in the womb or a mother who kills her five-year-old twins by drowning them in the bathtub, we would want it to be treated as a murder charge, and for that to be applied consistently under the law. I believe that a just answer to murder is the death penalty. Historically that’s the standard we held to for a long time, and ultimately when God has spoken to the issue of justice for murder, he says it’s a life for a life.
In short, Durbin is Ken Ham’s kind of guy.
Our friend Dan Phelps wrote an op-ed for the Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader regarding the political rally at the Creation Museum. While Phelps provides a link to the views of “extremist Jeff Durbin,” the focus of Phelps’ op-ed is that such politicking is problematic, given that AiG’s status as a 501(c)(3) religious non-profit “preclude[s] such activities.” However, as Phelps acknowledges, “the IRS has generally been lax in its enforcement.”
AiG’s CCO, Mark Looy, wrote a response to Phelps’ op-ed (check out the comments section). To say that the response is flimsy is, well, to understate the case. For one thing, Looy never addresses the main point of Phelps’ op-ed, which suggests that Ham and company knew very well that this rally was a violation of AiG’s religious non-profit status.
So what does Looy have to say? For one thing, he points out that
While we teach that abortion is taking the life of a human being and according to the Bible is murder, it is the government’s ordained role to maintain law and order, not the church’s (which the guest columnist omitted).
What? Looy actually thinks that this is a point that needs to be made? He thinks he needs to make clear to Phelps and others that Ham and Durbin are not in charge of determining the state’s specific punishments? While I am confident that Ham and Durbin fantasize about having that kind of power, it is ludicrous that Looy finds it necessary to tell the good people of Lexington that it is “the government that is responsible for determining punishment.”
But there’s more. From Looy:
It is also worth pointing out that our striking “Fearfully and Wonderfully Made”exhibit in our museum stresses God’s mercy and forgiveness for those who have had an abortion.
Let me see if I have this right. As Looy, Ham, and AiG see it, women who have an abortion should be executed. But God will forgive them for their abortion, presumably if they repent while sitting in their cell on Death Row, or strapped onto the gurney in the execution chamber. So is the idea that they will be executed, but they will still have a chance to go to heaven? Is that the mercy and forgiveness that the Creation Museum is referring to?
(Just a note to put this into context. If you visit AiG’s Ark Encounter you will learn that God killed up to 20 billion people in the Genesis Flood. Ok, but he did show mercy and forgiveness to eight individuals who – mercifully – did not hear the screams of the billions of people drowning outside the Ark. The billions who included children, toddlers, infants, and, of course, the unborn.)
Execute the bad women. Lots of them. All of them.
It’s the final fundamentalist pro-life solution.
AiG’s biblical position is not even biblical. Consider the verses cited in Answers Research Journal 12 (2019): 13–40 https://answersresearchjournal.org/volumes/v12/ and what the verses actually say:
Genesis 1:26–27 says that was created in God’s image. But this referred, in a literalist framework, the creation of a fully formed human being and is irrelevant to the seats of the fetus. Exodus 21:22–25 actually clearly distinguishes between causing a miscarriage (a matter to be resolved by compensation), and murder. Psalm 139:13–16 is, we are told, “significant because it shows that the biblical concept of personhood is present at conception.” On the contrary (look it up) God is being praised for the development of the “unformed body” of a fetus into a person who will have a life history.
Thanks much, Paul, for this provocatively enlightening response.
“Not even biblical”; a vein worth mining? Other examples include saying that Noah warned the people of the coming flood, and saying that Mary would have seen a lamb slaughtered as atonement in her village by the local priest (three separate errors that last example).
I’d welcome news of others.
To say nothing of the extended claim throughout Answers in Genesis output that the viewpoint they are putting forward is THE biblical viewpoint, so that if you are disagreeing with it you are disagreeing with the Bible.
Thanks Paul. As regards Noah warning folks of the Flood, AiG falls back on 2 Peter 2:5 (Noah the preacher of righteousness) . . . but of course, they elide the fact that (by their own numbers) Noah would have had to warn up to 20 billion people (maybe he used social media 😂). And you are so right that they understand themselves to have THE truth regarding biblical interpretation. In fact, everything they do hinges on that certainty.
Genesis says nothing of him preaching. I must confess to a low opinion of 2Peter, a late addition to the canon of doubtful authorship, which can be summarised as saying “Behave yourselves. The boss is coming back, and if you upset him, he can be very nasty.” Is this a religion, or an extortion racket?
Apparently, Ham and his ilk are no different than Kent Hovind who allowed a young boy to drown in a baptist pool in his own putrid attraction in 2020 and just simply brushed it off. If a similar event happens at Ham’s own attractions, Ham will do the same thing, make excuses for what happened and just brush it off. Pro-life, my foot!
Wait till you see what other horrible acts have gone on at Hovind’s attraction which serves as a major hotbed for crime and corruption, with Hovind brushing it all off.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/preacher-kent-hovind-accused-of-enabling-a-pedophile-at-his-christian-dinosaur-adventure-land-theme-park
If it happens over at Hovind’s attraction, chances are it will happen at all of Ham’s faculties as well.
Thanks Sherry. I am afraid I did not know the depth of Hovind’s corruption.
Thanks Sherry. To say that Ham has a very narrow understanding of “pro-life” is an understatement. Forced birth, executing those women who do not comply — for Ham and Durbin and their ilk, this seems to be what they think “pro-life” means.
The bill introduced at the Creation Museum rally has finally been introduced as legislation..
Looks like there are no co-sponsors with Rep. Emily Callaway for the bill promoted at the rally at the Creation Museum. From the promotion of the event by Ken Ham, one would have thought the bill had innumerable co-sponsors. In spite of the original rhetoric by Jeff Durbin, the death penalty appears to be off the table. Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis have not publicly mentioned this legislation lately, so I wonder if my op-ed had some effect.
See:
https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/23rs/hb300.html
Thanks, Dan!