Of gay penguins, the Grand Canyon, the Ark and the Scopes trial

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on September 6, 2024.

As the 100-year anniversary of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial approaches, the scientific community has had an entire century to explore our world and then sharpen and share their discoveries through peer review. But young earth creationists are still stuck using the same tactics they used in 1925.

In an episode last week of  his podcast, “The Briefing,” Al Mohler went off about penguins and parrots, making the case that, “not even penguins are safe from the LGBTQ revolution.” Responding to reports that a gay penguin had died, Mohler argued that “the bigger issue here is how this plays out in moral terms from a Christian worldview.”

King Penguins, Macquarie Island, Australia (123rf.com)

“In a fallen world, weird things happen,” he suggested regarding the existence of gay penguins. “Weird things are found in the animal kingdom. Weirder things, arguably, are found in terms of behavior among human beings. But when you look at the animal kingdom, you know, wires get crossed. Things get messed up. Two male penguins end up, well, at least according to the anthropomorphism, in love.”

To Mohler, articles about the penguin dying and the surviving penguin “grieving the loss of effectively the same-sex penguin marriage” are threatening biblical marriage.

Then he set his sights on a parrot. Responding to the story of a parrot named Alex who took a cognition test and reportedly measured at the same level as a 4-year-old human, Mohler retorted: “The important point for human beings isn’t that it comes down to say, the parrot’s ahead of the baby or the baby’s ahead of the parrot on the scale. It is to say that human beings, regardless of age — infant, toddler, child — is made in the image of God and is by God’s own creative act cognitively and in every other way distinct from the animal kingdom and, let’s just state the obvious, distinct from a parrot.”

Ultimately, Mohler believes these articles about penguins and parrots are proof there is “very deep confusion” in our society.

Like Mohler, apologists for young earth creationism over the last century have claimed to argue in favor of better theology and science. But when their arguments are carefully considered, it becomes clear those who promote biblical inerrancy in matters of science are the ones who are theologically and scientifically confused.

The Ark Encounter at Ken Ham’s creationist museum in Northern Kentucky.

Confusing flood geology with American politics

Perhaps the epicenter of apologetic creationism today is the Ark Encounter, which hails itself as “a full-size Noah’s Ark, built according to the dimensions given in the Bible” in Williamstown, Ky.

April Ajoy, who is a social media influencer and author of Star-Spangled Jesus: Leaving Christian Nationalism and Finding A True Faith, recently attended the Ark Encounter with her partner, Beecher Reuning, and friends Laura Anderson and Andrew Kerbs. The four of them spoke about their encounter on the “Sunday School Dropouts” podcast.

Ken Ham calling Vice President Kamala Harris evil.

During their visit, they attended a presentation by Answers in Genesis founder Ken Ham. “He opened his talk showing videos of Kamala (Harris) to show how ‘evil’ our generation is,” Ajoy recalled.

“Like to see Kamala Harris’ latest embarrassment?” Ham asks in the clip Ajoy shared on Instagram. “It’s with a group of drag queens. And that’s why everything is in pink as well.” Then Ham concluded, “That tells you something about the state of this nation. You should judge that against Scripture. I mean, so evil.”

Then Ham began criticizing Harris for her stance on abortion, claiming, “She’s calling for the murder of many humans.” Whatever your stance on abortion, that’s quite the ironic complaint given how the Ark Encounter commemorates the violent drowning of the entire planet.

Speaking of the flood, Ham showed a picture of a flood with people flailing through the air as a waterspout nears. All around the storm were words such as “transgender,” “gender,” “euthanasia,” “abortion,” “gay marriage,” “LGBTQ,” “infanticide,” “racism,” “male and female restrooms” and “polygamy.”

But floating on a Holy Bible with an anchor on top of the Bible were two T-shirt wearing Americans.

“It was very much about gender and LGBTQ people,” Beecher noted in their podcast conversation. “It got very political and very kind of culture war of today, to the point that he showed graphics of little castles with flags sticking out the top with current issues. And one was like the world view and the other one was like the biblical worldview. And they were shooting cannons at each other.”

“You’re either on the side of truth, which is what I believe, or you’re on the side of Satan.’”

Ajoy added: “Throughout the entire ark and in his presentation, they kept saying that really there’s only two worldviews. There is the secular and the biblical. He totally discounted the fact that even people who do believe the Bible, that there’s a lot of differing opinions just from Christians. And there’s a lot of different worldviews outside of the Bible too. He just summed it all up like, ‘No, there’s two worldviews. You’re either on the side of truth, which is what I believe, or you’re on the side of Satan.’”

The two castles

In a piece for Answers in Genesis, Ken Ham explains what he means by the two castle metaphor. While both castles sit on top of a body of water, the evolution castle where “man decides ‘truth’” is built on sand, and the creation castle where “God’s word is truth” is built on rock.

Continue reading at Baptist News Global.