Ken Ham: ‘You can’t take evolution and add it to the Bible’

Would you be offended if I described you as “uncompromising”?

Within minutes of meeting Ken Ham, I’m confident he’d wear such a label with pride. 

Ham, 72, is arguably the world’s most famous six-day creationist. He founded Answers in Genesis (AiG) in the 90s because he was concerned the Church was compromising on the truth of God’s word. This, more than any other topic, animates him. Biblical authority is something he returns to again and again during our conversation.

AiG is best known for advocating young earth creationism; the idea that God created the world in six literal 24 hour days, and that this happened somewhere between 6,000-12,000 years ago. AiG also strongly argues against Darwinian evolution. But Ham tells me that he dislikes this narrow framing of his organisation. His beliefs about evolution or the age of the earth “have never been primary”, he says. Rather, they’re a consequence of a much more fundamental belief – that the Bible is true from cover to cover. “We’re promoting biblical authority and the saving gospel. That’s what this ministry has always been [about].”

You can’t take man’s ideas and add them into God’s word

AiG has plenty of enthusiastic supporters – their revenues in the US are reported to be close to $70m, which has allowed Ham to fulfil a lifelong dream of opening a Creation Museum in Kentucky, as well as a life-size replica of Noah’s ark – but some evangelicals are embarrassed by Ham and his ministry. “The Bible is not a science book!” they often cry. Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are not intended to be read as literal descriptions of creation, they argue, in which case, nothing would prevent a Christian from accepting the modern scientific consensus that the universe is actually millions of years old, and even that God could have used the process of evolution within creation. Ham hits back at this. Hard. Even to the point of accusing his detractors of “undermining the gospel”. 

Tell me about your childhood

I grew up in a Christian home in Australia, which is a fairly pagan country – probably less than one per cent are really, truly, born-again Christians. But I had parents who stood on the authority of God’s word. 

One of the things that my father saw over and over again was attacks from liberal theology – where they’d try to explain miracles as natural processes rather than supernatural events. He was always teaching us answers to those who would undermine the Bible. My father taught me to smell liberal theology at a million miles!

My father and mother hated compromise. They would never knowingly compromise God’s word. 

What kept you in the faith through your childhood and teenage years?

A big thing for me was seeing my father and mother standing on the authority of the word of God, being so bold about their faith and never wavering in their trust in the Lord. That had a big impact on all of us as children.

When I was a teenager, we moved to a new town and went to the Presbyterian church. In one of the first sermons we heard, the pastor was preaching how you can believe in evolution and add it to the Bible. My father went up to him afterwards and said: “You can’t do that. You can’t take man’s ideas and add them into God’s word. The Bible says Adam was made from dust. Adam wasn’t made from an ape man. You can’t add evolution into the Bible.” My parents said: “We can’t stay at this church. It’s undermining biblical authority.” So we moved to a different church that actually stood on the authority of the word of God. That had a great impact on me. 

I would like to be remembered as someone without compromise

How did AiG begin? 

When I was 13 years old, they changed to new textbooks in school which presented evolution as fact in a blatant way. I remember talking to my father about that. He had biblical answers: “You can’t have millions of years of death and disease before sin”. But we didn’t have any scientific answers. At that stage, we didn’t have the plethora of books we have today, and we hadn’t done the research But he did have God’s word. And that’s an important lesson. 

You’re claiming to have scientific answers now. But the vast majority of scientists still believe in evolution and say the earth is millions of years old. If your position is backed up by science, why do so few scientists agree with you? 

I don’t think we should be at all surprised that most scientists don’t share this perspective. Because the Bible says there’s more on the broad way than the narrow way [Matthew 7:13]. The Bible says men love darkness rather than light [John 3:19]. 

Aren’t those verses about salvation, rather than how you interpret the opening chapters of Genesis? 

It’s a spiritual issue, because people don’t want to believe God’s word. In fact, if you go back to Genesis 3:1, the very first attack ever was on the word of God: “Did God actually say…?” [ESV]. You can be your own god, so our sin nature would rather believe man’s word than God’s word. You cannot avoid or ignore the spiritual aspect of this. 

I would say it comes down to a spiritual blindness. 2 Peter 3:16 says people are willingly ignorant. So, it’s a deliberate choice not to believe creation, not to believe the flood, not to believe the coming judgement by fire. 

I’ve had an atheist tell me: “I don’t care if you find a big ship on the top of Mount Ararat and drag it down the main street, I’m still not going to believe the account of the flood.” 

But surely most scientists are open to evidence that contradicts their position? That’s how science progresses.

Scientists are not neutral. They might claim they’re neutral. But we can’t ignore the spiritual blindness from the god of this world. You look at these people and say: “They’re nice people, they wouldn’t want to be led astray” but that’s not what scripture says. Scripture says: the heart of man is “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9, KJV) and “he who trusts in his own mind is a fool” (Proverbs 28:26, RSV).

There are many evangelical theologians who share your beliefs that Jesus literally lived, died and rose again on the third day. They agree with you that scripture is without error. But they would say it’s possible to both believe the Bible and believe the mainstream scientific position that the earth is millions of years old. What’s your response to them?

First of all, let me make sure people understand salvation is conditioned upon faith in Christ, not what one believes about the age of the earth. So if someone says that they are a born-again Christian and believe in millions of years, I would never question their faith. 

We’ve often been accused of: “If you don’t believe Genesis like Ken Ham does, he’s saying you’re not a Christian, you’re not saved.” That is simply not true. Never, ever have I said that. But I have said that such people are inconsistent. 

I would judge what those people are saying against the absolute authority of the word of God, and I don’t see evolution in the Bible. God can’t use evolution because he can’t go against his nature. Evolution is a process of death, disease, struggle and bloodshed over millions of years. But the Bible says when God made everything, it was very good. You cannot have death, disease, suffering before sin. When you say you can add evolution or millions of years to the Bible, you are blaming God for death, disease and suffering instead of our sin. 

I would say that those theologians can be great men of God. They can go out and preach the gospel, there can be people saved under their ministry. I would never deny that. But I would say, ultimately, they are helping to undermine the authority of scripture.

 

That’s a serious accusation. Evangelical theologians would dispute they are undermining biblical authority. They just interpret Genesis differently to you.

Everyone interprets scripture. When you take Genesis as literal history, that’s an interpretation. But where does the idea of evolution come from? You show me in scripture. You show me where there’s millions of years in scripture. It is not from scripture. It is from outside of scripture. 

Anything that has the dominant position in the secular world, in regard to origins, I’d be immediately suspicious of, simply because men love darkness rather than light. They don’t want to believe in God. They don’t want God’s word. 

The attacks that I get most burdened about are those from Christians 

You’ve been on the receiving end of plenty of criticism over the years. How have you handled that? 

I’m not surprised by the attacks from the secular world. In my heart, I’m saying: These people need the Lord. To me, it’s not personal. They can accuse me of all sorts of things, but I know what I believe, and I know where I stand. I want to be a witness to them; I want to do whatever I can to point them to the truth of God’s word in the saving gospel. So I do my best to answer their arguments. 

But the attacks that I get most burdened about are those from Christians. Because there are many Christians who believe in evolution and millions of years who attack us and make all sorts of statements. It’s sad that the world sees that sort of division among Christians. But at the same time, even Paul talked about how there has to be division at times, to show who’s standing on the truth. You can’t have unity in a fallen world. 

What’s your perception of how your message is received in the UK? Do you think more Christians agree with your position now, or not?

When I was speaking in the 70s and 80s, I said: “If God’s people don’t stand on God’s word, and we don’t start teaching apologetics in our churches, and if we compromise with evolution and millions of years, and we allow generations to be indoctrinated in an anti-God secular education system, and we don’t counteract that and give them the right foundation, we’re going to see increasing moral relativism in the culture and an increasingly weak Church.”

Stand back and look at the Church in England today. Attendance is way down. Look how secular the culture is, look how lukewarm the Church is; there’s something dreadfully wrong. And I believe it’s because such compromise has undermined the authority of the word of God. 

Now we’re reaping the consequences of that.

But regardless of what’s happening in the Church, we need to be about the business of the King until he returns. 

How would you like to be remembered?

I would like to be remembered as someone who stood on the authority of God’s word without compromise and preached the gospel to see people saved and won to the Lord Jesus Christ. 

I mean, that’s what it’s all about. My mother used to drum into us as kids: “It’s only what’s done for Jesus that lasts.”  

To hear the full interview listen to Premier Christian Radio at 8pm on Saturday 17 August, or download The Profile podcast

Ken Ham will be speaking at Answers UK Mega Conference at Bethel Convention Centre, West Bromwich on 31 October-2 November. For more information visit answersingenesis.org/outreach/event/ukmega24