With a massive ark and museum, he spreads creationism a century after Scopes trial. He’s not alone

By PETER SMITH Associated Press WILLIAMSTOWN Ky AP As the colossal replica of the biblical Noah s Ark rises incongruously from the countryside of northern Kentucky Ken Ham gives the presentation he s often repeated The ark stretches one and a half football fields long the biggest freestanding timber-frame structure in the world Ham says It holds three massive decks with wooden cages food-storage urns life-size animal models and other exhibits The Ark Encounter is seen in Williamstown Ky Friday March AP Photo Madeleine Hordinski It s all designed to argue that the biblical story was literally true that an ancient Noah really could have built such a sophisticated ship That Noah and a handful of family members really could have sustained thousands of animals for months floating above a global flood that drowned everyone else in the wicked world That s what we wished to do through various of the exhibits to show the feasibility of the ark says Ham the organizer behind the Ark Encounter theme park and related attractions And with that he furthers his goal to assert the entire biblical Book of Genesis should be interpreted as written that humans were created by God s fiat on the sixth day of creation on an Earth that is only years old All this defies the overwhelming consensus of modern scientists that the Earth developed over billions of years in deep time and that humans and other living things evolved over millions of years from earlier species But Ham wants to succeed where he believes William Jennings Bryan failed Bryan a populist politician and fundamentalist champion helped the prosecution in the famous Scopes Monkey Trial which took place years ago this July in Dayton Tennessee Bryan s side won in court gaining the conviction of constituents schoolteacher John Scopes for violating state law against teaching human evolution But Bryan was widely seen as suffering a humiliating defeat in society opinion with his sputtering attempts to explain the Bible s spectacular miracles and enigmas The expert witness infamous missteps For Ham Bryan s difficulty was not that he defended the Bible It s that he didn t defend it well enough interpreting parts of it metaphorically rather than literally It presented people around the world that Christians don t really believe the Bible they can t answer questions to defend the Christian faith Ham says We want you to know that we ve got answers Ham adds speaking in the accent of his native Australia Ham is founder and CEO of Answers in Genesis which opened the Ark Encounter in The Christian theme park includes a zoo zip lines and other attractions surrounding the ark Nearly a decade earlier Answers in Genesis opened a Creation Museum in nearby Petersburg Kentucky where exhibits similarly argue for a literal interpretation of the biblical creation narrative Visitors are greeted with a diorama depicting children and dinosaurs interacting peacefully in the Garden of Eden The group also produces books podcasts videos and homeschooling curricula The main message of both attractions is basically this The history in the Bible is true Ham says That s why the message of the Gospel based on that history is true Creationist belief still common If Ham is the the bulk prominent torchbearer for creationism the present day he s hardly alone Polls generally show that somewhere between in and in Americans hold beliefs consistent with young-Earth creationism depending on how the question is urged A Gallup poll exposed that of U S adults agreed God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last years or so Visitors looks at a display at the Ark Encounter in Williamstown Ky Friday March AP Photo Madeleine Hordinski That percentage is down a little but not dramatically from its mid- s level between the s and Rates are higher among religious and politically conservative respondents Scopes lost but the citizens sense was that the fundamentalists lost and were dwindling away says William Vance Trollinger Jr a professor of history and religious studies at the University of Dayton in Ohio But the reach of Answers in Genesis demonstrates that a critical subset of Americans hold to young-Earth creationism says Trollinger co-author with his wife English professor Susan Trollinger of the book Righting America at the Creation Museum Leading science organizations say it s crucial to teach evolution and old-Earth geology Evolution is one of the the majority securely established of scientific facts says the National Academy of Sciences The Geological Society of America similarly states Evolution and the directly related concept of deep time are essential parts of science curricula The issue has been repeatedly legislated and litigated since the Scopes trial Tennessee repealed its anti-evolution law in The U S Supreme Court ruled in that a similar Arkansas law was an unconstitutional promotion of religion and in it overturned a Louisiana law requiring that creationism be taught alongside evolution A federal court similarly forbade a Pennsylvania school district from presenting intelligent design a different approach to creationism that argues life is too complex to have evolved by chance Science educators alarmed Specific lawmakers have lately revived the issue North Dakota s Senate this year defeated a bill that would have allowed constituents school teaching on intelligent design A new West Virginia law vaguely allows teachers to answer pupil questions about scientific theories of how the universe and or life came to exist The Creation Museum Welcome Center entrance is seen in Petersburg Ky Friday March AP Photo Madeleine Hordinski The Scopes trial set a template for in contemporary times s culture-war battles with efforts to expand vouchers for attendees of private schools including Christian ones teaching creationism and to introduce Bible-infused lessons and Ten Commandments displays in community schools Such efforts alarm science educators like Bill Nye the television Science Guy whose debate with Ham was billed as Scopes II and has generated millions of video views online What you get out of religion as I understand it is this wonderful sense of population Nye says District is very much part of the human experience But the Earth is not years old To teach that idea to children with any backing be it religious or these remarkable ideas that humans are not related to for example chimpanzees or bonobos is breathtaking It s silly And so we fight this fight Nye says evidence is overwhelming ranging from fossils layers to the distribution of species There are trees older than Mr Ham thinks the world is he adds Religious views on origins vary One weekday in March visitors milled about the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum which draw an estimated million visits per year including duplicate visits We are churchgoing Bible-believing Christians says Louise van Niekerk of Ontario Canada who traveled with her family to the Creation Museum She s concerned that her four children are faced with a public-school curriculum permeated with evolution The Sphenacodontid Kind Dimetrodon is displayed at the Ark Encounter in Williamstown Ky Friday March AP Photo Madeleine Hordinski The Creation Museum van Niekerk says is encouraging a robust alternate worldview from what they re being taught she says Multiple religious groups accommodate evolution though Gallup s survey discovered that of Americans who believe in evolution more say it happened with God s guidance than without it Catholic popes have shown openness to evolution while insisting the human soul is a divine creation Multiple liberal Protestants and even particular evangelicals have accepted at least parts of evolutionary theory But among countless evangelicals creationist belief is strong The Southern Baptist Convention the nation s largest evangelical body has promoted creationist beliefs in its publications The Assemblies of God asserts that Adam and Eve were historical people Certain evangelical schools such as Bryan s namesake college in Tennessee affirm creationist beliefs in their doctrinal statements There s a larger issue here critics say Just as Ham says the creation story is essential to defend a larger truth about the Christian Gospel critics say more is at stake than just the human origin story An exhibit of Adam and Eve is seen at the Creation Museum in Petersburg Ky Friday March AP Photo Madeleine Hordinski The Trollingers wrote that the Answers in Genesis enterprise is an arsenal in the beliefs war They say it aligns with Christian nationalism promoting conservative views in theology family and gender roles and casting doubt on other areas of scientific consensus such as human-made conditions change Nye too says the message fits into a more general and ominous anti-science movement Nobody is talking about circumstances change right now he laments Exhibits promote a vengeful and violent God says Susan Trollinger noting the cross on the ark s large door which analogizes that just as the wicked perished in the flood those without Christ face eternal hellfire And there are more parallels to Bryan had declaimed How can teachers tell students that they came from monkeys and not expect them to act like monkeys The Creation Museum which depicts violence drugs and other social ills as resulting from belief in evolution is Bryan s social message on steroids wrote Edward Larson in a afterword to Summer for the Gods a Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Scopes trial More attractions are planned The protests that initially greeted the museum and ark projects from secularist groups who considered them embarrassments to Kentucky have ebbed When the state initially denied a tourism tax rebate for the Ark Encounter because of its religious nature a federal court overturned that ruling Representing Ham s group was a Louisiana lawyer named Mike Johnson now speaker of the U S House of Representatives Despite those blips Ham s massive ministry charges forward Expansion is next with AIG attractions planned for Pigeon Forge Tennessee and Branson Missouri both tourist hubs offering more opportunities to promote creationism to the masses Todd Bigelow visiting the Ark Encounter from Mesa Arizona says the exhibit vividly evoked the safety that Noah and his family must have felt It helped him appreciate the opportunities God gives us to live the life we have and hopefully make good choices and repent when we need to he says I think Bigelow adds God and science can go hand in hand Associated Press writer Dylan Lovan contributed Associated Press religion coverage receives advocacy through the AP s collaboration with The Conversation US with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc The AP is solely responsible for this content