Over the years, Ham has created book studies and Bible curriculum, forming Answers in Genesis

Leah Anaya 
for Clark County Today

Apologetics and science expert Ken Ham visited Clark County over the weekend in partnership with Heidi St. John and Firmly Planted Action. On Friday (Jan. 5), St. John hosted a meet and greet event with Ham for members of the Firmly Planted Homeschool Resource Center (FPHRC), followed on Saturday by a lecture for anyone to attend held at Word of Grace Church in Battle Ground. St. John shared on Friday that Ham was a big part of the reason that FPHRC was able to purchase the new building in Vancouver thanks to all his prayer, wisdom, and encouragement.

Over the years, Ham, originally from Australia, has created book studies and Bible curriculum, forming Answers in Genesis. The books teach Christian apologetics, specifically from the Bible book of Genesis. Apologetics, from the Greek word apologia, meaning “answer” or “defense” as a lawyer gives in court, is the intellectual defense of one’s faith. Aside from the books, Answers in Genesis has branched to other platforms, including a streaming service (Answers.tv), a podcast (Creation Answers), and, of course, the popular Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter, both located in Williamstown, Kentucky.

Ham attributed his desire to build a life-sized replica of Noah’s Ark to the beginning of his teaching career in the 1970’s. Students knew his Christian faith and challenged him often, saying that Noah could not have possibly fit all the animals on the ark. Ham said he would retort by asking them how big the ark was. When the student couldn’t give an answer, he would say, “Then how do you know he couldn’t fit them all?” He shared that years later, some of those same students found him and said they were now also Christian believers, their faith budding during his teaching. “Science and the Bible can both be true,” Ham said.

When the Answers in Genesis ministry first began, it was simply importing books out of his home in Australia. “We wanted to get families filled with biblical truths,” Ham said. Now, Answers in Genesis has also led to Answers Academy, a Christian school in Kentucky. “Less than six percent of so-called Christian schools actually teach a Christian worldview based on the entire Bible, starting in Genesis.” Ham said. He added that Australia now has school choice, which offers vouchers to families for the school they choose for their kids, which can include Christian schools. But, he said, “they end up getting a lot of money with strings attached. Good Christian teachers in those schools want to leave since they can’t teach what they want to teach. Schools are getting farther away from God. Even the Christian schools, [since with voucher money] they can’t teach certain things, or they have to teach certain things, like LGBTQ, because they’ve taken government money.”

St. John warned that the same is true here in the US, citing a recent change to school vouchers in Ohio as an example. In 2023, Ohio expanded its voucher program to include private schools. “With shekels comes shackles,” St. John said. “I’ve always said that. When the government gives you money, the government can then tell you what to do with that money. That’s why we have never taken money from the government here at Firmly Planted. Even during Covid when they called us and said, ‘Hey, we have all this money for you! Come get it!’ and we said, ‘No thank you.’”

She spoke with Ham several times during the acquisition of the new building. “I said, ‘Ken, I’m trying to get a $16.4 million building.’ He said, ‘Well, how much do you have?’ I said, ‘$4,000,’ and he told me, ‘God can do that!’” At one point, she thought the deal had fallen through and she and her husband, Jay, would have to start back at square one for a different building. Ham told her, “Until the Lord says no, the answer is not no.” After speaking with him, St. John decided to call the building owner one more time. She did that, and the owner said, “It’s so funny that you’re calling me. Just this morning I was thinking that maybe we should revisit the sale with you.”

“With God, you have to just keep pushing until the door is totally shut,” Ham said. “Scripture tells us he expects us to have faith. You can’t just pray and sit back and wait. You have to push ahead; you have to do something. That’s your responsibility. Over the years, I’ve had many ‘Red Sea’ moments. I’ve seen God open the Red Sea so many times in ways I never thought possible. With the Ark Encounter, for example. The atheists and the liberals opposed us so much in Kentucky for the original land we tried to get for the ark. So, we lost it. But we ended up getting even better land. And, even when we found that piece of property, we had no money. The cost was $500,000. I asked the guy, will you let us buy it for $100,000 per year interest free? And…he said yes. I can’t believe we even asked him that, but we did. We did and he said yes. Because…God.”

The replica ark mimics the dimensions given in the Bible at 510 feet long, 85 feet wide, and 51 feet high; it is the largest free standing timber frame structure in the world. Opening in 2016, it features over 100 exhibits. There is a virtual reality ride, a carousel, a zoo, and a large restaurant on site as well. The largest portion of the ark cost $120 million to build. Today, Ham said, it would be close to $400 million.

Answers Academy was started because Ham’s daughter, Renee, wanted to have a place where she could teach her kids the Christian worldview. It started small, but now is for K-12 and includes drama and athletic programs for volleyball, cross country, and basketball. The website states, “the philosophy of a biblical-worldview education is rooted in the conviction that God is the omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient Creator. All things exist by the Word of His power and are sustained by Him (Colossians 1:17). We cannot make sense of the universe without God!”

“What’s interesting,” Ham said, “is that many people who are quick to claim the Bible isn’t true or is ‘full of contradictions’ haven’t even read it. People say that the Bible is ‘only’ a religious text, not a science text. Well, what do you mean ‘science’ book? Science means knowledge. Science books in schools change all the time. The Bible doesn’t. But they don’t know what to say. What they say is so illogical; all they do is regurgitate what they’ve been told in public schools.

“God cares about what’s happening in our public schools, he cares about all of that. And He is doing something special here at the center, that’s for sure. Secularists hate when we do things like this. They oppose us all the way, but they can’t stop God.”

On Saturday, Ham’s topic was Raising Godly Generations. He said that for a Christian worldview, we have to each look at what the Bible says. “Not what you’ve heard or even what a pastor has told you, but what God says,” he taught. Further, he emphasized that based on the Bible, our children are ours to raise. “Psalm 127:3 tells us that our children are a gift from the Lord. That’s a gift to the child’s parents, not to Joe Biden, although he has told teachers that the kids belong to ‘all of them.’ Nope, sorry, they belong to God, who has gifted them to their parents.” Ham was referring to a speech Biden gave during a teacher appreciation event in April 2023 where he said, “There’s no such thing as someone else’s child…Our nation’s children are all our children.”

According to Ham, some parents justify putting their children in public schools by saying their children will be the “salt” in the schools. This is referring to the New Testament, where Jesus calls his disciples “salt of the earth,” indicating that believers in Jesus should have a life-preserving effect on those around them by testifying about Him, just as salt is a preservative. “They can’t be the salt until they have the salt,” Ham said. “Our job as parents is to put that salt in them. This involves thinking foundationally with apologetics. Genesis is the foundation for everything- we have to pour the salt of biblical truth into our

children before they’re ready to go out and witness.” What’s more, Ham said that the “world view” is more likely to influence children who don’t have a solid “salt” foundation than the other way around. “Mark 9:50 says, ‘Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again?’” Ham argued that it is infinitely more difficult to bring children back from that influence rather than properly preparing them with a biblical foundation before sending them out into that mindset to have a positive influence.

The most important thing to remember, according to Ham, is that “we aren’t going to have answers for everything. We are not God. There are some things that we just will not know, but that’s where faith comes in. Believers have to get to that point, and stand on their faith.”