Lord Winston and Dr. Gish at AiG

Monday started out with a "bang." Mark Looy drove me to the station of WLW (the largest secular radio station in Cincinnati). The BBC film crew had set up in one of their studios to film a "debate" between Professor Lord Robert Winston (see the entry from May 13th) and me on the creation/evolution issue. Mike McConnell was the host of the program.

Robert Winston obviously did not want to deal with details concerning evidence etc. His main argument was to accuse me of "bizarre," "ridiculous" and "ludicrous" beliefs! He spoke a lot in generalities. He kept saying he was a Hebrew expert and I only read the English texts (as if we don't have access to Hebrew experts or Hebrew dictionaries etc!!). He came across somewhat pious in way he spoke to me.

I tried to be as gentle but forthright as I could. A couple of highlights:

• I asked him to give the best evidence he could to convince people of evolution. He said the fossil record. He then went to go on with other arguments, but I stopped him and asked him to be specific about the fossil record, not just speak in generalities. The radio host also said he wanted specifics. He then went on to talk about the human brain and mentioned Australopithecines, Homo erectus and Neanderthal man---again he just spoke in generalities---nothing really specific and certainly nothing convincing.
• He said we have to use our "God-given intelligence" to interpret Scripture correctly---and what he meant by that was to interpret Genesis as allegorical (he said it was allegorical). I replied that I recognized I had a God-given intelligence, but I was a fallible being who knew nothing compared to God and so I wanted to let God tell me what He meant through His Word by taking Him at His Word.
• Lord Winston kept saying we can't be certain about anything and he was worried about people (like me) who were certain about their beliefs (he later implied I was to be compared to the Ayatollah)---I then stopped him and said something like "if you say you can't be certain about your beliefs yet you are saying you are certain I'm wrong?" I don't think he liked me pointing out a logical inconsistency in what he was saying.
• At one stage he looked at me and said, "well, are you circumcised?"---that shocked the radio host! I told him I knew what he was trying to do---he was trying to say if I believed the Bible as I did I should therefore obey all the laws given to the Jews (which shows his totally misunderstanding of Scripture). I told him we needed to get back to talking about Genesis/creation etc. The radio host said something like "what has that question got to do with anything?"
• I had already spoken to Lord Winston the day before about speciation, and had mentioned it on the radio program. He then started saying I didn't believe in speciation---I had to call him on it and tell him not to misquote me---of course we believe in speciation---just look on our web site! Evolutionists either don't hear us or don't want to hear us.

Well, a lot of other things were said. I mentioned Carbon-14, big bang, speciation/natural selection. Robert Winston just seemed to keep waffling in generalities about my "ridiculous," "ludicrous" beliefs.

At 6:00 pm I went to the airport to pick up Dr. Duane Gish and his wife Lolly who are special guests of AiG for Tuesday. Dr. Gish will speak at our staff meeting in the morning, then we will tour the AiG facility. Dr. Gish will be interviewed by CDR radio who are coming from Cedarville (this will be at 4pm---they are also interviewing me about the Wollemi Pine tree from Australia). We have a special dinner for Dr. and Mrs. Gish in our café with guests and staff. Then we will move to our theatre where Dr. Gish will give us a talk about his life's work. What a privilege to have one of my heroes of the faith at AiG! I really wanted the younger staff who did not grow up with Dr. Gish as I and many others did to have the opportunity to meet and hear him. Dr. Gish doesn't know it, but we are presenting him with a special plaque to commemorate 40 years of Creation ministry. Dr. Gish just "retired" (he is over 80 years old!) from active ministry.

The warehouse today were working on getting six pallets of books ready to go to Chicago for the Home School Conference I will be speaking at Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I get excited knowing that most of these six pallets of books/videos will end up out in the community reaching people with the truth. See the attached photograph---it gives you an idea of the scale of what we do when sending books to seminars.

The rest of my day consisted of answering the phone and at 10:30pm beginning to answer more than 50 emails the came in to my inbox today! Yes, life is busy---but isn't it great to know that AiG is such a busy place---the creation/gospel message is getting out.

And while I'm doing the things above, Mike Riddle is out speaking; Jason Lisle is speaking with Buddy at a church; Carl Kerby is out speaking; Terry Mortenson is speaking and so on---yes, God is using AiG to influence lives and the culture.

Thanks for stopping by and keep praying!

Ken