Creationist Cucks

During the many years when I was a Christian I subscribed to what is known as “Young Earth Creationism” or YEC. This school of hermeneutics holds to an approximately 6,000 year age for the Earth in keeping with the timeline provided in the Bible through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Not because it made sense, it doesn’t given the fossil record and stuff like the Appalachian mountains that have been slowly worn down over the course of millions of years, but rather because I agreed with a central premise of the YEC school: if you start out by not taking the Bible literally in the first few chapters, it makes it much harder to take the rest literally.

My point here isn’t to start a theological discussion, feel free to argue in the comments but I won’t join in as I spent far too many years of my life arguing about YEC, baptism, church government, Calvinism, etc. and believe me I have heard all the arguments from every side of those issues to death.

The point is to set the stage for what I do want to talk about. When evangelicals talk about creationism, one name comes up: Answers In Genesis. AIG is headed by Ken Hamm and is the foremost apologist for YEC. I have been to a conference they put on and their material is slick and compelling if you are coming to it from that perspective and looking for validation. They also have a heavily visited Creation Museum in northern Kentucky and a scale model of Noah’s ark using the dimensions from the Bible, the Ark Encounter, that is visible on satellite imagery

The point of all that is to affirm the Answers in Genesis is a very influential group in conservative evangelical circles. That is what makes this tweet so grating and bizarre:

The replies range from sober rebuttals to….um, less charitable. This was one of my favorites…

There are other examples of course like sub-Saharan Africans having different genes from other races (emphasis mine)…

Human evolution was not a simple linear or branched progression but involved interbreeding between related species. Genomic research has shown that hybridization between substantially diverged lineages was common in human evolution. DNA evidence suggests that several genes of Neanderthal origin are present among all non sub-Saharan-African populations, and Neanderthals and other hominins, such as Denisovans, may have contributed up to 6% of their genome to present-day non sub-Saharan-African humans.

…as well as genetic diseases like Sickle cell disease that mostly impact blacks.

In one way the tweet makes sense. Answers in Genesis would affirm that every human being is descended from the original couple, Adam and Eve. This is critical to every form of orthodox Christian theology as shown prominently in a couple of passages (from the English Standard Version):

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. (Romans 5:12–14 ESV)

For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:21–23 ESV)

Adam and Jesus are the two polar opposites in Christian theology. When Adam fell, all men subsequently were born in sin, doomed to die and condemned to hell. In Christ death is defeated and all will be resurrected, some to glory and others (most of humanity) to judgment and hell.

Showing that some groups have different genetic make-up and don’t share common ancestors, as is the case with sub-Saharan Africans and their descendants versus the rest of humanity, raises troubling questions. Again, I am not looking to get down in the weeds too much here on these issues.

What I would like to focus on is the photo Answers in Genesis chose. They could have picked a photo of a group of people of different races having a picnic or kids of different races smiling at the camera in a group shot. They didn’t. Instead they intentionally chose a photo of a black man in a suit or tux with a wedding ring prominently on his hand with a White woman in what is obviously a wedding dress, also with a wedding band.

This isn’t about racial harmony or some kumbaya bullshit about “one race” and how that should inform how we think of each other.

It is miscegenation propaganda.

A highly respected, at least in evangelical circles, organization is pushing a narrative that says to young White evangelical women: “It is OK to marry outside of your race” and thereby further dilute the White race.

Does Answers in Genesis advocate for a race-less world where everyone is some sort variation of a bland dark beige color, some with a little more cream in the coffee and others with a little less?

A more pointed question: does Answers in Genesis believe God erred when he created the different races and all throughout the Old Testament where he condemned intermarriage between Hebrews and other ethnic groups?

It sure sounds that way.

A religion that is badly struggling to retain current members and to attract new members really isn’t helped by prominent para-church groups pushing miscegenation.