Answers in Genesis vs Institute for Creation Research.

Front page of Ken's recent video: Ken of AiG on the left
 and Ken's antagonist Randy Guliuzza of ICR on the right.

In the following post on Ken Ham's blog I found myself very much in sympathy with Ken.....

Is Natural Selection an Idol? | Answers in Genesis

In a video posted with his blog Ken tells us that within the constraint of his 6000 year time scale he accepts that there is a degree of natural selection taking place. This selection works on resources inherent in an organisms makeup. This, he explains, is one of the God-supplied providences giving animals the flexibility to adapt to changed environments. Leaving aside Ken's young earthism I have no problems with that; Ken is being quite reasonable here in my view. Moreover, I guess Ken's views here are relatively uncontroversial as we know that humans themselves, via selective breeding, can considerably change life forms (*1). So Ken admits to a form of incremental evolution but of course he doesn't accept macroevolution which he scathingly refers to as molecules to man evolution. Fair enough, that is consistent with Ken's young earthist assumptions.

Now, Ken's video goes on to tell us about Christian fundamentalist Randy Guliuzza president of the Institute for Creation Research, (ICR) who regards even Ken's small and quite reasonable concession to evolution as idolatry. My interpretation of Guliuzza is that he makes this accusation on the basis of what I would identify as the old natural forces did it vs God-did it dichotomy, a dichotomy that surfaced during the enlightenment in the form of deism. Guliuzza's views piqued my interest because they run parallel to the evolution-did-it vs God-did-it popularist dichotomy that the North American Intelligent Design (NAID) community have been exploiting (See my Quantum Non-Linearity blog here for example).

According to Guluizza's misconceived theophilosophy any form of natural selection, presumably even to the extent accepted by Ken, amounts to modern idolatry because it "credits natural selection as creator". And yet Ken makes it clear that the biological resources which supply organisms with the flexibility to adapt are obviously the providences of God's creative activity and therefore Guluizza has no basis for accusing Ken (and Answers in Genesis) of idolatry and making evolution a creator.

Guluizza is a modern inquisitor who puts his naive concepts of idolatry and creation into the heads and mouths of his antagonists. Ken, whatever else I might say about him, is not an idolator.

There is irony here, however. I'm not aware that Ken has ever accused those Christians who disagree with his young earthism of being idolators. But he does have a habit of very badly bad mouthing those who disagree with him; in fact to such an extent that one wonders if he really considers old earth Christians to be Christians at all. See these links.

Views, News and Pews: Hell and Hamnation Watch

Views, News and Pews: Calling down Hell and Hamnation on Heretics!

Views, News and Pews: Holy Bad Mouthing

There is therefore a kind of poetic justice in that the head of ICR should make an even more extreme accusation toward the Supremo of AiG, Ken Ham. But this clash of fundamentalists is no new thing.  See these links:

Views, News and Pews: Fundamentalist Gurus Fall Out

Views, News and Pews: Jeepers Creepers II: The John Mackay Affair

Views, News and Pews: Jeepers Creepers I

Footnote:

*1 However Ken might be criticized on the basis that his version of microevolution has to do a lot of heavy lifting in a short time.