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Winnipeg Free Press
17-07-2025
- General
- Winnipeg Free Press
100 years later, the Scopes ‘Monkey Trial' still resonates
Opinion The tiny unincorporated community of Petersburg, Ky., 32 kilometres west of Cincinnati, Ohio, is home to the state-of-the-art Creation Museum, a 75,000 square-foot facility that 'allows families to experience history as God has revealed in the Bible.' Opened in 2007, the museum is the brainchild of Ken Ham, now 74 years old, an Australian Christian fundamentalist and former science teacher. After he relocated to the United States, he established his Christian creationist organization/ministry, Answers in Genesis (AIG) and initially raised about US$35 million towards the museum's development. In 2016, AIG opened Ark Encounter, located in Williamstown, Ky., 64 kilometres from the museum, a theme-park that features a life-sized replica of Noah's Ark — built according to the specifications outlined in the Book of Genesis. Ticket prices to the museum and ark are not inexpensive — nearly US$110 for adults and US$60 for youth ages 11 to 17. Nonetheless, since 2017, there have been an average of 800,000 visitors each year. And since 2007, more than 10 million adults and children have wandered through the exhibits, which postulates among other controversial suppositions, that about 4,300 years ago dinosaurs and humans co-existed and that dinosaurs were washed away in the Great Flood that precipitated Noah constructing his ark. The dinosaur flood theory might sound a bit off the wall, yet creationist beliefs remain somewhat strong in the U.S. Last July, a Gallup poll found that 37 per cent of Americans are convinced that God created humans in their present form within the past 10,000 years (in 2007, it was 42 per cent). About the same number of Americans — 44 per cent in a 2022 poll — think that creationist ideas should be taught in schools. Canadian opinion is no different. According to a 2024 poll conducted by Research Company in Vancouver, 41 per cent of Canadians think creationism should be part of the school curriculum. At the same time, a large number of Americans and Canadians equally believe that the theory of evolution advanced by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the mid-19th century should have a prominent place in education. The most famous debate between creationists and evolutionists occurred a hundred years ago this summer in a courtroom in the sleepy town of Dayton, Tenn. In 1925, the state of Tennessee had passed an anti-evolution statute, which banned teaching 'any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.' (The political alignment was quite different then: the legislation was spearheaded by John W. Butler, a Democratic Party state representative.) Any educator violating the act could be found guilty of a misdemeanour and fined a maximum of US$500 and not less than US$100. The American Civil Liberties Union decided to challenge the act. The organization found a willing volunteer to test the new law in John Scopes, a 24-year-old science teacher and football coach at Dayton's high school. He had used a state-sanctioned biology text in his classroom that included a chapter on Darwin's theory of evolution. He was charged with violating the statute and the matter wound up in court. Over a period of 11 days, from July 10 to 21, the 'Monkey Trial' — so named because of the misinterpreted view that Darwin was supposed to have claimed that humans were directly descended from apes — was the number one news story in North America and beyond. Hundreds of journalists descended upon Dayton including the witty writer and critic H.L. Mencken, who covered every fascinating moment of the proceedings, referring to it as the greatest trial 'since that held before (Pontius) Pilate.' The high drama in the court mainly owed to the participation of Clarence Darrow, at the time the most famous criminal attorney in the U.S., who had been recruited by the ACLU to defend Scopes; and William Jennings Bryan, a celebrated orator and Democratic Party politician, who acted for the prosecution. For years, Bryan had mocked Darwin's theories (Mencken called him a 'fundamentalist Pope'). Darrow and Bryan argued about the history of western civilization, Darwin's writings, and the accuracy of the Bible. The judge even allowed Darrow to call Bryan as a witness and question him about Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel and Noah's Ark. In the end, Scopes was found guilty and fined US$100. It was a hollow victory for the creationists. Still, Tennessee (among other states) did not repeal the 1925 legislation until 1967. The following year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a legal challenge about Arkansas' education laws, that permitting the teaching of creationism while outlawing the teaching of evolution was unconstitutional. Since then, creationists have tried many times to have creationism re-integrated into state curricula — reframing it as 'intelligent design,' which 'proposes that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, rather than an undirected process like natural selection' — but have been unsuccessful. Considering the current volatile and polarized political climate in the U.S. and the fact that the creationism and evolution debate is part of the battle over religion, morality and culture, the odds are good that this dispute about the meaning of life will continue for the foreseeable future. Now & Then is a column in which historian Allan Levine puts the events of today in a historical context.
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ground is broken for multimillion-dollar religious garden, 70-foot cross in Northeastern Kentucky
Jerry and Charlotte Lundergan with the Rev. Augustine Aidoo of Saint Patrick Church between them get help from others in breaking ground June 3, 2025, for a six-acre religious garden and 70-foot cross at the church cemetery in Maysville. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Jack Brammer) Religious garden, giant cross to rise in Maysville: Jerry Lundergan's vision MAYSVILLE — On a sun-splashed Tuesday morning, former Kentucky Democratic Party Chair Jerry Lundergan, along with his wife, Charlotte, and several others, heaved shovelfuls of dirt heavenward to break ground for a multimillion-dollar religious garden and 70-foot cross at Saint Patrick Cemetery. Lundergan, a well-known Lexington entrepreneur who owns several companies in the food services and hospitality industry and emergency disaster services, wants to turn six acres in the front of the historic cemetery in the village of Washington in his hometown of Maysville into a religious site that he thinks may attract tens of thousands of people each year. The project will feature a replication of the Garden of Gethsemane near Jerusalem where the New Testament says Jesus prayed the night before his crucifixion. It will contain life-size bronze statues of Christ and the main characters in the 14 Stations of the Cross. They are representations of events in Jesus' life on his way to his crucifixion. The planned cross will stand seven stories high. Lundergan is aiming at a completion date of early next April for Easter services and envisions tens of thousands of visitors each year. A minimal fee may be charged but nothing like the admission prices at the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter in Northern Kentucky that sometimes go over $100, he said. Lundergan noted that any proceeds would go to maintain the garden and cemetery and support Saint Patrick Church. Lundergan acknowledged Tuesday that the project will cost several million dollars. No tax dollars are to be used, he said, but the state may sell to the church at appraised value 2 ½ acres of surplus land in front of the cemetery — on what is known as old U.S. 68— to be used for parking. The bishop of Covington, the Rev. John Curtis Iffert, has leased land to Lundergan, who plans to give the entire garden to Saint Patrick Church once it is completed. Lundergan unveiled the first Station of the garden at the groundbreaking ceremony that attracted about 120 people. It shows Jesus speaking to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who presided over the trial of Jesus and ultimately ordered his crucifixion. Reto Demetz, an Italian sculptor who designed the statues, was on hand to talk about his work. Other professionals involved in the project are Lexington landscape designer John Carman of the CARMAN firm and Betty Vento of Mentor, Ohio, who is an expert on religious statues. But the day belonged to Lundergan, who thanked his wife and their five daughters for their support and said they were fulfilling a dream. Daughter Alissa Lundergan Tibe moderated the hourlong ceremony. He recalled how he visited the cemetery as a boy with his parents, who attended St. Patrick's Church, and where he was baptized, married and someday will be buried in its cemetery. He spoke of his love for the church and Maysville. His comments received a standing ovation. The Rev. Augustine Aidoo of Saint Patrick Parish prayed that the project becomes 'a beacon of hope' while several public officials touted its potential economic development effects as well as its religious message. Maysville Mayor Debra Cotterill said the project's 'economic implications are enormous' with many visitors. It is to have a welcome center with a gift and snack shop that will be on the site where the groundbreaking was held. Mason County Judge Executive Owen McNeil predicted the project 'will attract visitors from around the globe,' and state Rep. William 'Buddy' Lawrence, R-Maysville, said it will attract national and global attention. David Cartmell, mayor of Maysville for 20 years and now a city commissioner, said the project will become 'iconic' for the region. 'This is a big, big day in Maysville,' he said. Lundergan plans to post a website soon keeping interested people informed of the development of the project. He said it could be reached by searching for Gethsemane Garden Maysville. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Religious garden, giant cross to rise in Maysville: Jerry Lundergan's vision
Jerry and Charlotte Lundergan are developing six acres at the entrance of St. Patrick Cemetery in historic Washington into a religious garden with Italian sculptures and a visitors center, May 29, 2025. (Kentucky Lantern photo by David Stephenson) MAYSVILLE — Jerry Lundergan, a well-known Lexington businessman who once was state Democratic Party chairman, envisions days when thousands of visitors from around the world will walk in a six-acre garden in the historic village of Washington in his hometown of Maysville. Lundegan, who will formally unveil the plans June 3, wants to replicate the Garden of Gethsemane near Jerusalem where the New Testament says Jesus prayed the night before his crucifixion. Lundergan has commissioned a sculptor in Italy to create life-size bronze statues of Christ and the main characters in the 14 Stations of the Cross, representations of events in the Passion of Jesus Christ, from his condemnation to burial. A 70-foot cross, equivalent to a seven-story building, will tower nearby. It will be positioned to reflect sun rays during the Easter season onto Station 12, depicting Jesus dying on the cross. Excavations are underway for the spectacular religious display in front of the Saint Patrick Cemetery in Washington on U.S. 68 about five miles south of the Ohio River. It will include a visitor's center. Asked how much the project will cost, Lundergan said it is privately funded by the Lundergan family and receives no tax dollars. 'This is a way for my family to do something to show our love for the church and community that mean so much to us.' Lundergan said that the price of admission will be minimal if any — in contrast to other religious attractions — the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter — in Northern Kentucky. Visitors may leave donations, which will be used to maintain the garden and support St. Patrick Church and school in Maysville, Lundergan said. Lundergan grew up, was baptized and married in St. Patrick Church. He attended St. Patrick School. He will be buried someday at St. Patrick Cemetery along with his wife, Charlotte Lundergan. Actress and singer Rosemary Clooney, who was born on Front Street in Maysville in 1928 and died in 2002, is buried there. She was the aunt of international movie star George Clooney. The historic cemetery includes the tombstones of early immigrants from Ireland. The bishop of Covington, the Rev. John Curtis Iffert, has leased land to Lundergan, who will give the entire garden to St. Patrick Church once it is completed. Lundergan, 78, owns several companies in Lexington in the food services and hospitality industry and emergency disaster services. Lundy's Catering provided food services at the Woodstock revival, the Kentucky Derby, Indianapolis 500, Pope John Paul II's celebration of mass with 350,000 in San Antonio in 1987, and presidential inaugurations for Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. The Lundergans are close friends to former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. President Joe Biden pardoned Lundergan earlier this year for his conviction on federal campaign finance charges involving unreported donations to the 2014 U.S. Senate campaign of his daughter, Alison Lundergan Grimes. Lundergan served time in prison and a halfway house. Lundergan emphasizes that the garden project is a family venture. Charlotte and he have five daughters and 10 grandchildren. To launch planning for the garden project, Lundergan contacted Betty Vento of Mentor, Ohio, an expert on religious statues. She and her husband run Mosack's, a Christian gifts and book store. 'I think this is a fabulous project, nothing like it, I believe, in the United States with bronze statues,' said Vento. 'I understand there is a Stations of the Cross garden in Puerto Rico but it is circular. This one will be on a pathway.' She said Lundergan called her almost five years ago to pursue the project. 'We have moved forward with it and are very excited about it.' Lundergan commissioned bronze statues by sculptor Reto Demetz. His family business, the Demetz Art Studio, is one of the world's leaders in producing ecclesiastical art. The studio is located in Ortisei, a small village in Val Gardena, nestled in the Dolomites, the famous mountain range in the heart of the Italian Alps. The studio was founded in 1872. During the last decades, it has reached worldwide fame for its modern religious sculptures as well as its traditional artworks. Lexington landscape architect John Carman, of the firm CARMAN, said that when Lundergan first called he was not sure he would have the time to devote to designing the garden. 'But it is such a wonderful project, quite unique, I am Catholic, so I was all in,' he said. He worked a year on the design. Carman said the garden will be a replica of Gethsemane. 'The real garden is in a different part of the world, with olive trees. Olive trees do not grow well here.' But visitors 'will see a beautiful garden with a lot of flowers and shrubs, some trees, that will capture the spirit of Gethsemane.' A public groundbreaking ceremony for the project is scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday, June 3, at the site. Christian ministers in Mason County have been invited to attend. The target date for completion of the project is Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026. A celebration Mass will be held at the church the Thursday before Easter. A Good Friday program will be held at the stations and an Easter sunrise service will offer praise at the garden. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Los Angeles Times
25-05-2025
- General
- Los Angeles Times
A century after Scopes trial, creationism persists. One proponent in Kentucky built a giant ark
WILLIAMSTOWN, Ky. — As a colossal manifestation 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 1½ football fields long — 'the biggest free-standing 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. It's all designed to try to persuade visitors 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 wanted to do through many 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 that the entire 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 6,000 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 secretary of State, congressman, three-time presidential hopeful and fundamentalist champion — helped the prosecution in the famous Scopes monkey trial, which took place 100 years ago this July in Dayton, Tenn. Bryan's side won in court — gaining the conviction of public schoolteacher John Scopes for violating state law against teaching human evolution. But Bryan was widely seen as suffering a humiliating defeat in public opinion, with his sputtering attempts to explain the Bible's fanciful miracles and enigmas. For Ham, Bryan's problem 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 showed 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 chief executive of Answers in Genesis, which opened the Ark Encounter in 2016. 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, Ky., where exhibits similarly try to make the case 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.' If Ham is the most prominent torchbearer for creationism today, he's hardly alone. Polls generally show that somewhere between 1 in 6 and 1 in 3 Americans hold beliefs consistent with young-Earth creationism, depending on how the question is asked. A 2024 Gallup poll found that 37% of U.S. adults agreed that 'God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.' That percentage is down a little, but not dramatically, from its mid-40s level between the 1980s and 2012. Rates are higher among religious and politically conservative respondents. 'Scopes lost, but the public 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 significant subset of Americans hold to young-Earth creationism,' says Trollinger, co-author with his wife, English professor Susan Trollinger, of the 2016 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 most securely established of scientific facts,' says the National Academy of Sciences. The Geological Society of America 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 1967. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1968 that a similar Arkansas law was an unconstitutional promotion of religion, and in 1987 it overturned a Louisiana law requiring that creationism be taught alongside evolution. A federal court in 2005 similarly forbade a Pennsylvania school district to present 'intelligent design,' a different approach to creationism that argues life is too complex to have evolved by chance. Some lawmakers have recently revived the issue. The North Dakota Legislature this year debated a bill that would have allowed public school teaching on intelligent design. A new West Virginia law vaguely allows teachers to answer student questions about 'scientific theories of how the universe and/or life came to exist.' The Scopes trial set a template for today'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 public schools. Such efforts alarm science educators such as Bill Nye, the television 'Science Guy,' whose 2014 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 community,' Nye says. 'Community is very much part of the human experience. But the Earth is not 4,000 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 notes that the evidence is overwhelming, ranging from fossil layers to the distribution of species. 'There are trees older than Mr. Ham thinks the world is,' he adds. One weekday in March, visitors milled about the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum, which draw an estimated 1.5 million visits per year (including duplicate visits). 'We are church-going, 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 Creation Museum, Van Niekerk says, 'is encouraging a robust alternate worldview from what they're being taught.' Many religious groups accommodate evolution, though. Gallup's survey found that among Americans who believe in evolution, more say it happened with God's guidance (34%) than without it (24%). In the Roman Catholic Church, popes have shown openness to evolution while insisting that the human soul is a divine creation. Many liberal Protestants and even some evangelicals have accepted at least parts of evolutionary theory. But among many 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. Some evangelical schools, such as Bryan's namesake college in Tennessee, affirm creationist beliefs in their doctrinal statements. Just as Ham says the creation story is important to defend a larger truth about the Christian Gospel, critics say more is at stake than just the human origin story. The Trollingers wrote that the Answers in Genesis enterprise is an 'arsenal in the culture 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 climate change. Nye, too, says the message fits into a more general and ominous anti-science movement. 'Nobody is talking about climate 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 1925. 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 2020 afterword to 'Summer for the Gods,' a Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Scopes trial. 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. And Ham's massive ministry charges forward. Expansion is next, with Answers in Genesis attractions planned for Pigeon Forge, Tenn., and Branson, Mo. — tourist hubs offering more opportunities to promote creationism to the masses. Todd Bigelow, visiting the Ark Encounter from Mesa, Ariz., says he believes that 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.' Smith writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Dylan Lovan contributed to this report.
San Francisco Chronicle
20-05-2025
- Science
- San Francisco Chronicle
With a massive ark and museum, he spreads creationism a century after Scopes trial. He's not alone
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. 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 wanted to do through many 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 6,000 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 100 years ago this July in Dayton, Tennessee. Bryan's side won in court — gaining the conviction of public schoolteacher John Scopes for violating state law against teaching human evolution. But Bryan was widely seen as suffering a humiliating defeat in public opinion, with his sputtering attempts to explain the Bible's spectacular miracles and enigmas. The expert witness' infamous missteps For Ham, Bryan's problem 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 showed 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 2016. 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 most prominent torchbearer for creationism today, he's hardly alone. Polls generally show that somewhere between 1 in 6 and 1 in 3 Americans hold beliefs consistent with young-Earth creationism, depending on how the question is asked. A 2024 Gallup poll found that 37% of U.S. adults agreed 'God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.' That percentage is down a little, but not dramatically, from its mid-40s level between the 1980s and 2012. Rates are higher among religious and politically conservative respondents. 'Scopes lost, but the public 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 significant subset of Americans hold to young-Earth creationism,' says Trollinger, co-author with his wife, English professor Susan Trollinger, of the 2016 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 most 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 1967. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1968 that a similar Arkansas law was an unconstitutional promotion of religion, and in 1987 it overturned a Louisiana law requiring that creationism be taught alongside evolution. A 2005 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 Some lawmakers have recently revived the issue. North Dakota's Senate this year defeated a bill that would have allowed public school teaching on intelligent design. A new West Virginia law vaguely allows teachers to answer student questions about 'scientific theories of how the universe and/or life came to exist.' The Scopes trial set a template for today'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 public schools. Such efforts alarm science educators like Bill Nye, the television 'Science Guy,' whose 2014 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 community,' Nye says. 'Community is very much part of the human experience. But the Earth is not 4,000 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. One weekday in March, visitors milled about the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum, which draw an estimated 1.5 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 Creation Museum, van Niekerk says, 'is encouraging a robust alternate worldview from what they're being taught,' she says. Many religious groups accommodate evolution, though. Gallup's survey found that of Americans who believe in evolution, more say it happened with God's guidance (34%) than without it (24%). Catholic popes have shown openness to evolution while insisting the human soul is a divine creation. Many liberal Protestants and even some evangelicals have accepted at least parts of evolutionary theory. But among many 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. Some 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 important to defend a larger truth about the Christian Gospel, critics say more is at stake than just the human origin story. The Trollingers wrote that the Answers in Genesis enterprise is an 'arsenal in the culture 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 climate change. Nye, too, says the message fits into a more general and ominous anti-science movement. 'Nobody is talking about climate 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 1925. 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 2020 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 religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
