Secular Press Reports on Six-month Museum Anniversary

Tomorrow, Monday November 26, is the six-month anniversary of the opening ceremonies for the Creation Museum. On Monday, May 28 (Memorial Day), the Creation Museum opened its doors to the public for the very first time.

The Cincinnati Enquirer (and its “sister” paper across the Ohio River, The Kentucky Enquirer) today had a very good above-the-fold, lengthy museum story on page 1. The Enquirer is the major paper in the region where our museum and AiG are located. The photo on the front page can be seen on the slide show that accompanies the web-based version of the article (it’s photo #4 of 6—see link marked “Photos” below)—great photos by the way.

Excerpts from the article state:

Creation Museum bigger draw than thought

BY BRENNA R. KELLY

PETERSBURG - Cars stream into the parking lot just after the 10 a.m. opening. License plates show some are from New York, Oklahoma, Kansas, South Carolina, Arkansas and Georgia. All have found their way down the rural Boone County road to the Creation Museum. Inside, visitors will walk through the Garden of Eden, see dinosaur bones, and watch the solar system unfold as “evidence of God's creativity.” All of it supporting the idea that God created Earth in six days, that the planet is just 6,000 years old and those dinosaurs traveled on Noah's Ark to survive the Great Flood that created the Grand Canyon. In the six months since the museum opened, more than 265,000 people have toured the facility built by Answers in Genesis, a nonprofit evangelical ministry. Answers had predicted it might draw 250,000 the first year. [Ed. note: As of yesterday, the visitor count was over 275,000]. The museum will double its parking lot by next summer. “We're starting to find that word of mouth is spreading across the nation,” said Ken Ham, president of the ministry. “We're finding people will drive a whole day or two days to get here.” We had secular skeptics who said people aren't going to come to this; ‘Who's interested in this topic?,’ but we knew all along people are very interested in this topic.”

The article quoted from Ed Kagin, an atheist attorney with the American Atheists. He was part of the group that a few years ago opposed the rezoning of property for the Creation Museum. As a result, AiG lost that piece of property, but ended up with the by FAR superior piece where the Museum is located. Also, as a result of losing the first piece of property, AiG decided to build a much bigger Museum. Ed Kagin was also part of the rather small group that protested the opening of the Museum, standing outside the gates with placards attacking me personally and the Museum. This gave the Creation Museum increased secular press coverage, and brought more people to the Museum. Recently in a blog I reported on a pastor from Moldova (near Romania) who visited because he found out about the Museum from a Press report on the people protesting the Museum opening.

The Cincinnati Enquirer article continued:

“The evidence is overwhelming from all areas of science that the Earth is billions of years old and dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years before humans appeared,” said Kagin, national legal director for the American Atheists, who lives in Union and has visited the museum three times. “It's an extremely well-done display, there's no doubt about that. However, because something is well-done does not make it true.”

The paper also reported on what the Creation Museum is doing for the economy:

No matter who is coming, they are spending money in Northern Kentucky, filling up their gas tanks, eating at restaurants and staying in hotels. That has led to an estimated $10 million influx into the local economy, according to the Northern Kentucky Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The skeptics are reported in this article as saying they expect attendance to decrease after the opening year (or at least they say they hope that is what will happen). But they don’t understand the nature of this Museum and what it is doing in people’s lives across the nation. We will have to wait and see, but my prediction is that numbers will keep up—and even increase.

You can read the entire article and see the photos at the following links:

http://news.nky.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20071125/NEWS0103/711250381

Photos: Creation Museum at six months http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=AB&Dato=20071121&Kategori=NEWS0103&Lopenr=711210807&Ref=PH

Praise the Lord with us on this anniversary and thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying. I also praise the Lord for a secular reporter who wrote this Cincinnati Enquirer article as a news story, not a mocking story as some of the press sadly do. She quoted the opposition and represented them fairly, and reported fairly on the Museum.

Tomorrow, Mark Looy of our staff will--on our home page--recap some other recent media coverage on the museum. So please check back here soon.

Ken