June 11, 2007
On Monday, May 28, the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky opened to more than 4,000 guests. The privately funded, $27 million facility is dedicated to representing a literal six-day creation account of Earth's history. The media coverage surrounding the grand opening was global in nature: approximately 130 media credentials were issued representing news outlets in the United States, Switzerland, Britain, France and Russia. As swarms of people descended on this small town 20 miles southwest of Cincinnati and with emotions running high among admirers and detractors alike, one reporter could only conclude: “a circus like atmosphere surrounded the grand opening.”
According to press reports, most people, like Faith Grosz, commended the museum for its unashamed portrayal of a literal, biblical six-day understanding of creation: “It’s exciting to go to a museum that actually does hold to the theory of creation … It gives honor to the Creator, who we believe in.”
Not surprisingly, however, many people protested against the museum, arguing that it is subversive to science at best and dangerous at worst. For example, dozens of people rallied outside the museum on opening day. Some held signs, at least one of which asked mockingly, “Do you deny gravity 2?” while another stated, “Religion is the root cause of all terrorism.” Overhead, an airplane flew pulling a banner that read, “Thou Shall Not Lie.” And Lawrence Krauss, an author and physicist at Case Western Reserve University, when asked how he would rank the museum on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the best, stated, “I’d give it a 4 for technology, 5 for propaganda. As for content, I’d give it a negative 5.”
The irony of the protests coming from secularist free-thinkers was not lost on opening day attendee and Dean of the School of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Russell Moore:
One would think the secularist free-thinkers would want everyone to see the creationist account of origins, for the very sake of the contrast with what they would see as a more viable model. I can even understand Darwinist ridicule of a narrative that is so strikingly at odds with the current scientific consensus. What I cannot understand is the attempt to suppress the debate itself, whether through attempted zoning regulation mischief or through noisy planes overhead on opening day. Whatever happened to postmodernism?
In contrast to the vocal protestors, co-founder of the museum Mark Looy welcomed the dissent: “The guests were very happy with the museum experience. Of course, we had some naysayers come through and engage us in conversation, and that’s fine—we want them.”
This is the heart of the matter. Whereas the secularist free-thinkers want to suppress debate on the issue of origins, the “crazy fundamentalists” actually welcome the conversation. The most important story in the opening of the Creation Museum is not whether one is an “old-earth creationist” or a “young-earth creationist”—Christians will continue to debate this issue. (And, thankfully, the signs point to a conversation filled with more light and less heat.) The most important story here is the secular paranoia that results when Christians unashamedly, with fairness to opposing views, tell their story. And this is exactly what the Creation Museum does.
For example, Moore observed that at the museum “Darwinism … was everywhere, and fairly presented. In virtually every exhibit, on the ‘Lucy’ fossil or the carbon-14 dating or on the fossil record or on the Big Bang, the information included both the Darwinist-materialist explanation for the scientific data along with how the same data are interpreted by the Museum’s biblical creationist grid.” Clearly the founders of the Creation Museum are not afraid of Darwinism or angry at Darwinists—they do, however, offer a competing story.
