This weekend Troy and I toured the Creation Museum near Cincinnati. Its official title is Answers in Genesis and the entire exhibit in this very large museum is dedicated to explaining how God created everything in six 24-hour days about 6000 years ago. We went because I wanted to see this and in response, a friend of mine emphatically asked, “Why?” This is my attempt to respond to that question.
I went because the understanding of Creationists does not make sense to me. The museum curators must know that many people feel the way I do, so in the exhibits they took great pains to explain the lens (hermeneutic) they were using. Just as an author of an academic book begins by laying out her context and frame of reference, the exhibits did this as well. I found this refreshingly honest and helpful.
The premise is that God wrote the Bible, that it is inerrant and infallible, and that it is a history book. To me, the Bible is many things, but it is not a complete history book. It is the story of people trying to understand God and God’s activity in their lives and in the world. I believe that our scriptures are written by the hands of men and women who interpret the world through their contexts, not by the hand of God controlling the pen. Knowing this allowed me to set aside my own lens and travel as a visitor in an alien world.
The first few displays contrasted “God’s Word” and “Man’s Word.” (I did the best I could to set aside my equality lens.) The exhibits display black or white thinking, either it is from God or from Man and one is Holy and Good and the other is sinful and evil. Again, I do not agree. The God I know desires relationships, created the world and said it was good, and chose to become incarnate. I do not think we should rely on polarities so strongly, however, the museum is dedicated to proving that God’s word (the Bible) is accurate, correct, logical, and complete. It must be all or nothing.
Mid-way through the museum tour, having felt a wide range of amazement, disbelief, and frustration, I began to pick up on similarities between the stories creationists tell and the stories I tell. Not in the details, but in the substance of the faith we all rely on. In one particular exhibit the description explains that it would have been very difficult for Noah, using the technology of the time, to create a water-tight door for the ark. The display said that we may never know but it is likely that God made the door watertight when God closed the door. Unexplainable things are left up to God. I do the same thing. My friend who asked “why?” does this as well. Ultimately we come to the place of praying, “God I believe, help my unbelief.”
Whatever we try to describe about God, we eventually come to the conclusion that God is bigger than even that. As far fetched as the Creationist understanding is to me, there are people for whom my beliefs seem just as far fetched. If you believe, as I do, that we are all created in the image of God, then our diversity, not just of language, features, and cultures, but also of our beliefs reflect something of God. So I tried to contain my snark while traveling the alien landscape of the Creation Museum.
Why did I want to see this museum? Because behind what I determine to be ridiculousness there are people doing their best to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ. Their way is different than mine. I think it is misguided. But someone also thinks that of me and my beliefs. As the original questioner reminded me just yesterday, in a totally depraved worldview, the only thing we can be sure of is that we are all mistaken.
P.S. The image of Noah sacrificing a dinosaur on an altar to God will not leave my mind any time soon. Neither will I quickly forget the faulty circular logic we encountered. Lastly, as we left I wondered how on earth we had just spent several hours focused entirely on Genesis 1 without ever finding mention of the second creation story from Genesis 2. It is a frustration, but also a warning that when I pick scriptures I do so in a way that reinforces my understandings. I doubt that the authors of the NT books intended their writings to be used as a way to prove the validity of the literal truth of Genesis 1. Context matters!
nikkicooley 
I am less generous about the existance of the Creationist Museum. I wish they had built it in Arkansas, or Mississippi, or Tennessee. KENTUCKIANS already suffer enough of an image problem. The rest of America already think we are uneducated hillbillies, snake handler’s and inbred rednecks. This rediculous tourist trap just reinforces that image.
I’m just upset that you went without me.