Is More Interaction a Good Thing?

There are several good reasons AiG does not have open comments on our website. First, many of our articles are viewed by families, and often comments are not family friendly. So we would have to closely and continually moderate any comments, which would require considerable time and personnel. As a donor-supported ministry, we must carefully weigh if such things are good stewardship of the resources God has given us through our donors. AiG’s website (and other publications) has a large audience, and while a large portion of the regular audience is made up of people who use and enjoy our resources, there are always hostile people who want to ruin it for everyone else. In fact, we suspect many of the challenges to allow comments are by such people that want the gates opened to do just that.

Reality Check

While the desire to allow free exchange of ideas is noble, in practice this is not what happens, and there is a time and place for it. In this fallen world where the preaching of the cross is foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:18; John 3:19), what does happen is a continuous stream of hate speech and vulgarity by agnostics/atheists, and we will not allow this on our website. It adds nothing to the debate, and it causes our supporters, and those sympathetic to at least hearing both sides of the issue, to tune out or to be distracted by often spurious comments. In other words, it is counterproductive to promoting our message, and more importantly the message of the gospel. Having monitors on AiG’s outreaches on platforms that are known not to be family friendly (as we do on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, etc.) helps alleviate this problem, but it is not foolproof and costs the ministry time and money. Opening up more avenues of comment would therefore cost the ministry even more and would detract from funds that are needed elsewhere within the ministry.

Also, it is not really our main objective to foster a “two-way” dialogue for just anyone who would like to comment on our platform. The vast majority of media, academia, and popular culture is evolutionary. AiG’s purpose is to counter this constant stream with a defense of biblical authority and particularly what the Bible teaches about how God created the world. Someone who wants to hear the evolutionary view of the subjects we cover can easily go to any number of books, videos, websites, or classes.

If we had unlimited resources and could trust that the opposition would be civil, there might be advantages to having open comments. But at this time, allowing open comments more than we have already would take away too much valuable time and staff resources without providing enough benefit. As Paul commands us to “[make] the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16), we choose rather to put our effort into releasing more God-honoring resources to equip churches and individual Christians. And this is consistent with biblical admonition (Romans 16:17; Titus 3:9–11; Jude 1:18-19).

A Time and Place

All that being said, people who want to interact with our resources can do so through our social media pages and YouTube channel, keeping in mind that we are a family-friendly ministry, so all interaction should be at that level. Those who disagree with our message should be all the more careful to keep comments appropriate for a family site so as not to discredit their position from the outset with vulgarity that has to be censored. If there are true questions or complaints, we would want to address them. After all, Answers in Genesis often points out that Christians should be “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15), and our mission statement clearly indicates that we desire to equip believers to be able to boldly share their faith and have answers, while engaging nonbelievers with sensitivity and love.