I say this as someone who used to be a zealous defender of everything that Answers in Genesis stands for. I viewed the Creationism vs. Evolution debate as central and foundational to the Christian life. I would sit for hours on end and listen to guys like Kent Hovind and their defenses of Young Earth Creationism…

…and then I learned more about how to study the Bible.

And now I’m not so sure that people like Ken Ham are really about humbly submitting to what Scripture has to say. Instead, they seem to hold tightly to an anti-intellectual hermeneutic of suspicion and paranoia.It’s all about “us” vs. “them,” about building thick walls and banishing the “crazy liberals” from our midst. And the more I listen to the rhetoric, the more I’m convinced that anyone can become a crazy liberal, so long as they disagree with key figures such as Ken Ham about anything.

Consider the following quote from a review of The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age (by R. Stephens and K. Giberson):

Ken Ham, with no scientific credentials, no credentials in biblical scholarship, no evidence, and no research program, has become the front person, the spokesman for a large segment of evangelicalism. He proves nothing, he asserts what he finds to be truth and tells a story to make it so. He is a charismatic speaker on a mission and has become for many the authority on the evil of evolution and the dishonesty of modern science. Ken Ham and his organization Answers in Genesis have become “powerful shapers of popular opinion in America’s vast evangelical subculture.”

Ken Ham is an anointed and respected authority in much of American evangelicalism and fundamentalism.

One of the premises of Stephens and Giberson is that the broader evangelical culture has become enamored of the charismatic individual who can tell a good story, do it in a flashy and entertaining fashion, and has a message easily reduced to simple black and white points. Ken Ham is such an individual.

Why is Ken Ham believed?

People like Ken Ham and AiG claim to have a high view of Scripture and to hold to a “literal” reading… but in reality, I think that they have a low view of Scripture because they are unwilling to even consider that certain passages were not written to answer the questions we might like them to answer for us! If we don’t even try to approach the text on its own terms, then I would argue that we’re being unfaithful to Scripture.

For those of you still reading who don’t think I’m a crazy liberal yet (I can assure you, I’m not), consider the following resources as first steps in moving beyond Ken Ham, AiG, and the vitriolic debate between Young Earth Creationism and Neo-Darwinism, to what Scripture actually has to say about creation!

Check out my blog post on Biblical Creation Theology.

…and the paper I wrote on how biblical creation theology leads to doxology.

Also, the following are some interesting posts for anyone interested:

The Evangelical Brain Trust (NYT)

Anointed? … Evangelicals and Authority (RJS)

Ken Ham is a Con Artist… (via Patheos)

CREATION AND REDEMPTION: CHRIST AND NEW CREATION

Throughout the New Testament, the main use of creation theology is to link creation with redemption, resulting in the praise of the Creator through the Creator-Redeemer, Jesus the Messiah. However, the linked concepts of creation and redemption have a rich OT history. For example, cited impetuses for keeping the Sabbath are Yahweh’s creative work (Exod 20:11) and his redemptive work (Deut 5:15), revealing a close connection between the two actions.¹ The logic behind this correlation is one of continued creation: Yahweh is personally invested in the success of his creative purposes, the functionality of his temple.² Sin and Death will not have the final word. The Creator will redeem by creating anew through his Son.

The New Testament unites creation and redemption in the person of Jesus the Messiah. Evidence abounds, but consider three poignant examples. In John 1:1-18, Jesus is spoken of as the agent of creation (1:3) and the redemptive agent of grace and truth (1:17).³ In Colossians 1:15-20, Jesus is the “image of God, the firstborn over all creation (1:15),” illustrating his role as the eternal nexus between Creator and creation.⁴ Furthermore, Christ is spoken of, again, as both the agent of creation (1:16) and reconciliatory redemption (1:19-20).⁵ Finally, in Heb 1:1-4, the author of Hebrews takes special care to link the Son’s creative work with his redemptive work through a verbal parallel: through the Son, the universe and redemptive cleansing are both made (poievw).⁶

Doxologically, the link between creation and redemption is hard to overemphasize, for it provides the explanation, impetus, and goal of worship. By creating anew through Jesus the Messiah, the perfect Eikon⁷ or Tselem (image) of God who has defeated Sin and Death, Elohim has begun to renew his holy temple, even as it yearns for full release from its bondage to decay.⁸ This act of re-creation begins in the crucifixion and resurrection of the Messiah, reversing Death itself and displaying Jesus Christ as the pioneer of a new humanity, one untouched by God’s cosmic enemies. It continues in the Church, as the priest-kings are re-created in Christ and his resurrection into a new race of people able to worship their Maker by participating in the renewal of his universe, by once again extending his rule throughout the sacred realm, and by living in right relationship to him, to creation, to each other, and to themselves as they await the return of their Creator, Redeemer, and King, Jesus the Messiah.⁹

CONCLUSION

In light of these things, to relegate the manifold and rich uses of creation theology throughout Scripture to an ongoing origins debate which is thoroughly detached from the biblical text would be a tragedy. At the risk of oversimplification, the myriad creation themes in the Scriptures all lead to one common goal: doxology, as a brief analysis of just three of those themes has shown. Creation as temple provides the parameters for worship of the Creator, setting the foundation for humanity’s relational role as the priest-kings of Elohim. Creation as chaos reorients that worship toward humility and wonder in the midst of a purposefully untamed and sometimes dangerous temple, bringing the wildly complex beauty of Yahweh’s creation to bear on the human experience. Finally, creation as redemption ties the entire story together, explaining the Creator’s refusal to allow Sin and Death to drag his temple back to the watery depths of non-functionality. He has chosen to create anew, to redeem every aspect of his holy temple, from its priest-kings to its wild beauties, through Jesus the Messiah, the eternal intersection of Creator, creation, and redemption. This process of new creation began at the crucifixion and resurrection, continues through the Church, and anticipates the eschaton, when Sin and Death will not only be defeated, but utterly vanquished. The holy temple will again be filled with perfect worship, forever.

It is because of and within this story of creation and new creation that we worship our Maker. Biblical creation theology inescapably leads to doxology.

CREATION, COMPLEXITY, AND CHAOS

Much of the chaos in the universe can be ascribed to the infiltration of Sin and Death as described in Genesis 3. However, an oft-overlooked facet of biblical creation theology is the appropriate place of complexity and chaos within God’s creation. Even when the effects of the Fall are ignored, God’s temple is by no means a tame environment, nor is humanity the sole venue through which Yahweh receives glory. This facet is a crucial one, for it reorients a proper view of worship in an untamed temple, necessitating humility in the worship of the Creator.

Yahweh’s “whirlwind speeches” in Job 38-41 are the longest sustained reflection on creation outside of Gen 1-3, and they depict a radically non-anthropocentric cosmos where the ferocity and freedom of non-human creatures is celebrated.¹ Whereas other passages seem to portray humanity as the center of God’s attention, ² in Job 38-41 Yahweh only mentions humans in passing, choosing instead to focus on the wildest aspects of his creation, such as the Behemoth (40:15-24), the Leviathan (41:1-34), and the Sea (38:8-11).

The Sea, in fact, bears special mention, for it was a symbol of chaos in the ANE, and in several ANE cosmogonies it had to be slain by the gods in the process of creation.³ Most notably, in the Babylonian Enuma Elish, the creator-goddess Tiamat (Sumerian for “salt water, deep, chaos”) is violently defeated by the warrior-god Marduk, who constructs the universe from her bloody corpse.⁴ In the Genesis account, we see the cognate Hebrew term: תְּהוֹם (tehom), the “watery depths” of Gen 1:2. Although there are echoes of the Marduk-Tiamat battle elsewhere in Scripture,⁵ the struggle is not mentioned here.⁶ Furthermore, in Job 38, the Sea is not a chaotic force of evil defeated by God, but a powerful force which is born as God acts as midwife.⁷ Yahweh sets a boundary for the Sea, but he also gives its chaotic waters a place in the created order, revealing that his creation, though orderly, is not a perfectly safe or tame place for humans in its beauty and freedom.⁸

The creation theology of the whirlwind speeches shows that “humanity has a place in God’s creation…not of dominion but of humility and of wonder.”⁹The inherent chaos and complexity of creation necessitate a humble reorientation in the priest-kings’ worship of their Creator. Nevertheless, although God’s temple is wild by design, Sin and Death continue to cut against the grain of Yahweh’s creative purposes, distorting even the intrinsic beauty of creation’s chaotic aspects. All is not as it should be in Elohim’s holy temple. Creation cries out for a Redeemer.

CONTINUE TO PART 3 –>

In many conservative evangelical circles, biblical creation theology has been hijacked and eclipsed by the vitriolic debate between Young Earth Creationism and Neo-Darwinism.¹ It is often difficult to see beyond this morass the beautiful tapestry of creation themes in biblical theology. Waltke summarizes the problem well: “Instead of metaphysical questions that shape culture, questions about dinosaurs, a young earth theory, and such dominate the evangelical landscape. This is unfortunate.”²

Nevertheless, there is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to Scripture’s use of creation themes, whether the evangelical community gives them appropriate attention or not. Unfortunately, a comprehensive analysis of biblical creation theology, a field fertile enough to provide lifetimes of work and study, far exceeds the purview of this essay.³ However, a brief analysis of the motifs of creation as temple, chaos, and redemption will show that the overarching use of creation theology in Scripture is to bring about the praise of the Creator. Biblical creation theology, properly understood, leads to doxology.

CREATION AS GOD’S TEMPLE

A fitting place to begin this study is the creation account of Gen 1:1-2:3, which depicts the cosmos as Elohim’s holy temple.⁴ Although other ancient cosmogonies prominently feature a particular location or building as the nexus for worship of the respective deities, Gen 1 contains no such element. ⁵ Indeed, other creation accounts in the ANE associated the lack of a temple with the “precosmic condition.” That is, creation (the expression of divine authority) was not regarded as complete until the temple (the location for the implementation of divine authority) was constructed.⁶ The cosmogony of Gen 1 thus seems strange when compared to its ANE counterparts, but this anomaly reveals the main emphasis of the passage: the entire universe is the sacred dwelling place of Elohim.

The structure of the narrative lends itself to this “cosmic temple” interpretation. In the first three days of creation (1:1-13), Elohim calls three “spheres” into being, relating to the main “functions” of life: light/darkness (time), water/sky (weather), and land/sea (food).⁷ He then proceeds to create in days four through six (1:14-31), assigning the “functionaries” of creation their respective roles and spheres.⁸ The scene is then set for the climax of the narrative, which is not the creation of humans, but the installation of the Sabbath (2:1-3).

If the connection between this Sabbath rest and creation as temple is not apparent to the modern reader, it is due to a lack of knowledge of where divine rest takes place.⁹ Upon reading that Elohim “rested” (Gen 2:2), the ancient reader would have immediately recognized that this was taking place in a divine temple, the exclusively-appropriate place for any god to rest and proceed to rule his domain from the throne.¹⁰ However, the English “rest” does not fully reflect the meaning of the Hebrew “שָׁבַּת, shabbat,” which refers to “the completion of certain activity with which one had been occupied.”¹¹ After completing the creative transition from non-functional chaotic waters to a stable and functional temple, Elohim “rests,” and the cosmos may now operate normally, with him in control.¹² The clearest Scriptural compilation of all these ideas occurs in Isa 66:1-2a:

This is what the Lord says:

“The heavens are my throne and the earth is my footstool. Where then is the house you will build for me? Where is the place where I will rest? My hand made them; that is how they came to be,” says the Lord.¹³

Doxologically, the creation of the universe as Elohim’s temple provides the impetus and parameters for appropriate worship of the Creator, whose “majestic splendor fills the entire earth” (Isa 6:3). As the only inhabitants of the cosmic temple created in the image (צֶ֫לֶם, tselem) of Elohim, humans were created to function as “priest-kings”, extending his rule and dominion throughout the entire sacred realm of creation (Gen 1:26-28).¹⁴ Through the lens of creation as temple, therefore, worship is relational, designed to be mediated by Elohim’s beloved priest-kings as they live in perfect relationship with him, with each other, and with the rest of creation, a full vision of the divine rest appropriate to Elohim’s cosmic temple.¹⁵

However, there is a tension between creation as it is now experienced and as it has just been described.¹⁶ Genesis 3 gives the tragic explanation: Sin and Death, God’s cosmic enemies, have infected and affected every layer of the cosmic temple,¹⁷ pulling the universe backwards, so to speak, toward the chaotic watery depths from which it was called into being. If the temple is no longer “safe,” is appropriate worship still possible?

CONTINUE TO PART 2 –>

In this section I rely heavily on Walton’s “Proposition 8: The Cosmos is a Temple,” a key piece in his “cosmic temple inauguration” view of Genesis 1. See John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 74-86; 162-168.