On February 5, 2014, Bill Nye the Science Guy and Ken Ham from Answers in Genesis debated each other at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky. Dr. Nye took the side of radical Darwinism. Ken Ham predictably defended young earth creationism. At one point in this two-hour parley over 500,000 viewers were watching live on line. Afterward, over 2.2 million people watched via YouTube. The consensus? According to the premier Christian magazine, Christianity Today, 92 percent said Ken Ham lost.
At the obvious risk of playing armchair quarterback, I would like to offer my observation as to why Ham suffered such overwhelming defeat. To put it simply, he didn’t do what Jesus would do … He didn’t ask questions.
Stop and think about it. Jesus was arguably the smartest man to ever walk the face of the earth. As God incarnate he obviously knew “the answers” but in spite of the advantages of such omniscience we see very little evidence of him ever engaging in debate with his adversaries. To the contrary, when confronted by the academic and political elites of his day, Jesus almost always avoided being pigeonholed by their presuppositions and simply turned the tables and asked questions — questions such as: “Whose face is on the coin…?” and “Which one of you is without sin…?”
Is it possible that Ken Ham lost his debate because he failed to follow Christ’s example? Would he have faired better had he simply asked some questions of Nye rather than argue with him? Questions such as:
What are the consequences of ideas that declare human beings to be mere biological products of a primordial soup and nothing but more highly evolved organic material that is essentially without moral value or eternal significance?
What are the consequences of ideas that subjugate human life to the greater good of planetary maintenance?
What are the consequences of ideas that deconstruct self-evident truths that have served since the dawn of time as the foundation for human dignity, the sanctity of life and the basis for inalienable human rights?
What are the likely consequences of ideas that postulate truth to be the mere product of community dialogue, cultural construction and political consensus?
And finally, what are the consequences of ideas that declare people to be no more morally or ethically significant than a dog, a pig, a cat or a cow, with the obvious conclusion that an animal, if more fit, should be allowed to thrive just as much, if not more so, than a human being?
During my 30 years of serving as a leader of multiple academic institutions, I have argued repeatedly that ideas have consequences. I have suggested over and over again that what we believe always guides what we do. I have attempted to demonstrate that you can’t separate the head from the heart, fact from faith, attitudes from actions, virtue from values.
Ideas matter. Companies, churches, families and neighborhoods — people in general — are unavoidably blessed or cursed by their guiding principles — by the import of their ideas. In many ways, we inevitably do practice what we preach.
In his classic work, Ideas Have Consequences, Richard Weaver contended that the cure for the ills of any given culture lies closely at hand in the “renewed acceptance of an absolute reality and in the recognition that ideas (result in consequent behaviors).” In making his point, Weaver went further and quoted Carlyle: “But the thing a man does practically believe … the thing a man does practically lay to heart, and know for certain … is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively determines all the rest.”
Yes, that “thing” that ultimately “determines all the rest” is the power of ideas. Ideas serve as the impetus for all human action. Ideas lead the way to good and evil, love and hatred, beauty and destruction. Ideas fueled the fire of the Renaissance and ultimately stemmed the tide of the Bolshevik Revolution. Ideas have opened Hell’s doors whereby we have seen slavery, prejudice, Auschwitz, and the Killing Fields. Ideas have likewise led us through the grand gate of emancipation, brotherhood, sacrifice, and love. Ideas are never neutral. They always lead somewhere. They always have consequences.
What would have happened if Ken Ham had just asked a question or two? Is it possible we would have seen “the science guy” follow in the footsteps of so many others who have preceded him who, when forced to compare their feeble wisdom and inferior ideas with the eternal wisdom of Christ, simply drop their stones and walk away?