Australian Take on the Creation Museum

“God’s Word echoes around the hall,” says Australian journalist David Brill as he tours the Creation Museum. His work aired this week on Dateline, a program on Australia’s SBS ONE television, and is available for viewing online (see link above). The thirteen-minute documentary captured sound bites and video footage from many of the museum’s animatronic figures, videos, shows, and displays. Contrasting interviews with founder and president of the Creation Museum, Ken Ham, and atheist “PZ” Myers, a vocal opponent of the ministry of Answers in Genesis, the program revealed Scriptural truth and exposed the anger and strong commitment of one of the Museum’s “atheist critics.”

Some Christians—sadly even some who call themselves creationists (such as “progressive creationists” or “old-earth creationists”)—fail to grasp the essential connection between the twin pillars of biological evolution and billions of years.

Some Christians—sadly even some who call themselves creationists (such as “progressive creationists” or “old-earth creationists”)—fail to grasp the essential connection between the twin pillars of biological evolution and billions of years. (Both defy the authority of God’s Word.) But this documentary zoomed in on the connection. Brill explained, “Darwin’s theory of evolution is under threat. The world didn’t evolve over billions of years. It seems it was created around 6,000 years ago.” A clip from Men in White explaining scientists who claim to see “billions of years into the past” are “making a ton of assumptions” is followed by a museum audio track proclaiming the source of our knowledge about our origins. Our source is “Someone who has seen everything from the beginning. . . . God, who has given us a written account.” As Ken Ham explains, “Scientific methodology cannot prove or disprove the age of the earth. . . . Our ‘proof’ that the universe is not billions of years old is the record of the history book of the universe.”

Ken Ham leads the correspondent to the Wonders Room, “our intelligent design room.” Of course, recognizing the real Intelligent Designer is the God of the Bible, he adds that Romans 1:20 declares, “If you don’t believe in God you are without excuse.” The Wonders Room reveals design in every part of the natural world. The purpose of the room is “all to show it’s obvious there is a Designer behind life.”

The video tour takes viewers through the Garden of Eden, allowing visitors to see that Adam and Eve lived at the same time as dinosaurs—“no contradiction if you’re a creationist,” the TV anchor explains. Summing up the mess the world fell into, an animatronic Methuselah explains, “They forgot all about God”—equally a commentary on much of today’s culture. A peek into the taping of the radio program Answers . . . with Ken Ham catches Ken about to explain why God allows suffering. And a brief stop at the “Dig Site” reminds us that scientific evidence is always interpreted through a scientist’s worldview.

Outspoken atheist “PZ” Myers1 says the Creation Museum “is not a museum . . . not a place for inquiry and exploration of the evidence.” He says it’s “a propaganda place” and ought to be called “Ken Ham’s haunted house” as it tries to scare you “about all the horrible things evolution will do to you.” Brill illustrates with a tour through the “Cave of Sorrows,” graphically illustrating the disastrous societal effects of the breakdown of biblical authority. Myers accuses biblical creationists of “ignoring the mountain of evidence that supports the age of the earth.” He “can’t comprehend the appeal of creationism,” he says, “which flouts all the facts and all the evidence that we have.” But he attributes the astonishing “success of creationism in this country” to proponents’ “excellent job of corrupting public education.”

Ken Ham explains people like Myers, according to Romans chapters 1–3, have the knowledge of God written on their hearts but choose not to believe and therefore suppress that truth as well as all the evidence of God’s design in nature. Myers illustrates the point when he declares he doesn’t believe in God because “Nobody has ever shown me the evidence,” challenging, “If they had evidence they would be trotting it out.”

But Ken Ham—and the book of Romans—are right. God Himself has already “trotted out” the evidence. We are surrounded by it. We even have it inside our minds and hearts through the human conscience and the convicting power of God. We have the written revelation of God in the Bible. And we have the ultimate evidence in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. But what each person chooses to do with that evidence is a personal choice.

The Creation Museum calls attention to what God said He did from Creation to the Cross of Christ, helping people look past evolutionary and atheistic propaganda. Be sure to share the SBS video with others. We pray God will continue to use this museum and the coming Ark Encounter to enable countless children and adults to learn truth that can change their lives—and the lives of those they love—now and for all eternity.