True Discernment

Ken Ham is RIGHT to speak out against BioLogos.

The following quote is from the BioLogos website:

Theistic Evolution, therefore, is the belief that evolution is how God created life. Because the term evolution is sometimes associated with atheism, a better term for the belief in a God who chose to create the world by way of evolution is BioLogos.

from Worldview Weekend:

Answers in Genesis, recognized as one of the strongest advocates for homeschooling in America, has been kicked out of two homeschool conventions where AiG President Ken Ham had been scheduled to speak. In addition, AiG as an exhibitor has also been expelled. One of the conferences is being held in our “backyard”: at the Cincinnati Convention Center.

So why has AiG been disinvited from the “Great Homeschool Conventions” (March 31–April 2 in Cincinnati) and also near Philadelphia (June 23–25)? Have the organizers accused AiG of promoting anti-biblical teaching and thus have voided its contract with us?

In an email to Ken Ham, the leader of this homeschool group wrote to us (just after midnight last night) to announce its decision. Sadly, the leader of this group did not personally call Ken or anyone at AiG first, nor did anyone on his board, to make sure they got the full background. Just as a common courtesy, not to speak of biblical guidelines (such as Proverbs 18:13; Matthew 18:15–17; etc.), one would expect that one of its leaders would at least have spoken to us before rescinding our agreement.

We are quoting the entire email so we don’t misrepresent in any way the group’s claimed motivations:

After much prayer and deliberation over the weekend, Great Homeschool Convention’s Advisory Board has unanimously decided to disinvite Ken and AIG from all future conventions, including the Cincinnati convention next week. The Board believes this to be the Lord’s will for our convention and searched the Scriptures for the mind of the Lord and the leadership of the Holy Spirit before arriving at this decision. The Board believes that Ken’s public criticism of the convention itself and other speakers at our convention require him to surrender the spiritual privilege of addressing our homeschool audience.Please know that our Board is 100% young earth and we largely share AIG’s perspective from a scientific standpoint. That is why Ken was originally invited and treated so graciously and extremely generously in Memphis and Greenville (far beyond what we do for other speakers or their ministries). Our expression of sacrifice and extraordinary kindness towards Ken and AIG has been returned to us and our attendees with Ken publicly attacking our conventions and other speakers. Our Board believes Ken’s comments to be unnecessary, ungodly, and mean-spirited statements that are divisive at best and defamatory at worst.

One of the core values of our convention is that we believe that good people can disagree and still be good people. We believe that Christians do not need to personally question the integrity, the intelligence, or the salvation of other Christians when debating Biblical issues. Ken has obviously felt led to publicly attack our conventions and a number of our speakers. We believe that what Ken has said and done is unChristian and sinful. A number of attendees are demanding explanations from our board and we must respond to them.

We believe that Dr. Ham is very intelligent and deliberate and that he decided that publicly slandering our conventions and defaming a number of our speakers is what he wanted to do. Whereas Ken chooses to conduct himself in a way that we believe to be unscriptural, we cannot countenance that spirit as we believe it would not honor the Savior whom we serve.

A public statement will be prepared for distribution at the convention explaining our Board’s decision. Anyone who inquires regarding Dr. Ham or AIG will be referred to that statement. We have no intention to defame or publicly slander Dr. Ham, the Creation Museum, or the work of AIG. Our Board would respectfully request that Dr. Ham and AIG prayerfully consider doing the same. Our Board takes seriously the admonition of Jesus in John 13:35, “By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

Sincerely,

Brennan Dean
Great Homeschool Conventions, Inc.

These are serious accusations. Are we really guilty of “public criticism of the convention itself and other speakers at our convention” that require Ken Ham “to surrender the spiritual privilege of addressing [their] homeschool audience”?

While Ken was highly critical of the compromises and teachings of one of the presenters at a previous convention that was organized by Mr. Dean, he certainly did not question anyone’s intelligence or salvation.

We won’t dwell much into the fact that another speaker, Dr. Jay Wile, made personal attacks on Ken on his blog before the convention, and his attack was supported by two other speakers, John Stonestreet and Susan Wise Bauer. Maybe Mr. Dean has talked with them already.

Ken did write Facebook and blog items sharing his concerns about the teaching of one of the speakers at the homeschool convention-Dr. Peter Enns. For a long time now, Ken has been alerting audiences to what Dr. Enns believes and teaches. Since he was there at the convention to promote a Bible curriculum to homeschoolers, Ken could not in good conscience speak without warning people about him. Also, the conference organizers were aware back in November that we would be talking about the beliefs of BioLogos at upcoming conventions. Because Dr. Enns of BioLogos was speaking at Mr. Dean’s conventions to promote a Bible curriculum to homeschoolers, which we consider very dangerous to the spiritual upbringing of kids, we wanted to make sure that people knew what he believed. . . .

read the full article here.