![]() ![]() ![]() Frank’s argument is supported by a 2014 Pew Research report that revealed that 82% of American evangelicals believe in a literal hell. As the Ark Encounter website puts it, “God will judge this wicked world once again, but this time it will be by fire … God always keeps His promises – judgment will come.” According to AiG, we can escape this fate by believing in Christ, but for the billions (past and present) who have not or do not, the result is “ everlasting, conscious punishment in the lake of fire (hell).”Īs historian Doug Frank makes clear in his 2010 book, “ A Gentler God,” this understanding of a wrathful God is alive and well in American evangelicalism. As we have witnessed every time we have toured Ark Encounter, happy visitors line up to have their photos taken in front of this door.Īccording to AiG, this ancient divine slaughter prefigures a future divine slaughter. Remarkably, Ark Encounter has placed a “keepsake photo” placard near the door that, in the Ark’s depiction, sealed the fate of all those on the other side. This emphasis on the overwhelming wrath of God is perhaps the most noteworthy feature of Ark Encounter as a tourist site. They must agree, for example, that “gender and biological sex are equivalent and cannot be separated,” modern understandings of “social justice” are “anti-biblical,” and all humans “are sinners” and “are therefore subject to God’s wrath and condemnation.” As religion scholar Paul Thomas observes in his new book, “ Storytelling the Bible at the Creation Museum, Ark Encounter, and the Museum of the Bible,” the world created by the designers of the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter satisfies the evangelical longing “for a time and place governed by biblical principles, even if that idealized time and place … never really existed.” A very angry GodĪiG requires all Ark Encounter employees to affirm a 46-point faith statement. Notwithstanding the occasional placard acknowledging that designers have taken “artistic license” with these dioramas, we couldn’t help but notice how much of what is in the Ark is not actually found in the Bible.īut visitors to the Ark seem to embrace these dramatic additions to the biblical text. Nevertheless, the Ark gives them names, different ethnic complexions, biographies and even hobbies. The Bible never identifies these women by name, much less describes them. They also learn about Noah’s wife and his sons’ wives. Visitors also walk through a life-size diorama of the plush living quarters of Noah’s family, where they learn about the skills, gifts and interests of Noah’s sons – details not included in Genesis. The living quarters of Japheth (Noah’s son) and his wife, Rayneh, aboard the Ark. The same creativity applies to the various displays explaining how eight human beings on the Ark fed, watered and managed the waste of 7,000 or so creatures. They observe over 100 bays featuring placards and digital animations that, among other things, go far beyond the Bible to explain Noah’s training in shipbuilding, carpentry and blacksmithing. Inside the Ark, visitors walk through three enormous decks, encountering rows of clay food storage containers, burlap sacks and animal cages. Getting off the bus, we walked to the Ark, keenly aware of how small we were in relation to this ginormous structure. ![]() Measuring 510 feet (155 metres) long, 85 feet (25 metres) wide, and 51 feet (15 metres) high, the Ark Encounter is, to quote one visitor we overheard, “so huge!”Īfter purchasing tickets that cost US$54.95 per adult, we and other visitors boarded buses and made the ascent up a long hill. We most recently visited the Ark Encounter on March 15, 2022. Over the past few decades, this argument has become a doctrinal touchstone for many American evangelicals. Instead, they assert that the catastrophic biblical flood created all the geological formations that make the Earth look ancient. While scientists have estimated the Earth to be about 4.5 billion years old, AiG counters by claiming that radiometric dating is not reliable. And all of this means that, according to AiG, the Earth is “ about 6,000 years old.” Similarly, when the Bible says Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day and gives details about their descendants and how long they lived, this is interpreted as recounting real history. So, according to AiG, when Genesis 1 says God created the Earth in six days, it literally means six 24-hour days. What is Ark Encounter’s argument?Īccording to Answers in Genesis, the fundamentalist organization that launched Ark Encounter, and its CEO, Ken Ham, Ark Encounter is a centerpiece of AiG’s mission to “ expose the bankruptcy of evolutionary ideas and bedfellow: a ‘millions of years old’ earth (and even older universe).” What we find particularly striking about Ark Encounter is that it is a tourist site devoted to emphasizing – with great specificity – the wrathful nature of God and the eternal damnation that awaits unrepentant sinners. ![]()
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