The Kentucky Ark – Is it Really Christian?

Last updated on: July 14, 2016 at 8:38 am by Robert Hunt

The Kentucky Ark – Is it Really Christian? 2016-07-14T08:38:43-06:00 Robert Hunt

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In Northwestern Kentucky a new religion has appeared – with its temple a theme park called the “Ark-Encounter.” It claims to be Christian but is essentially a for-profit sect designed to scam money out of local tax payers and whatever suckers can be drawn into the “life sized” replica of Noah’s ark. (For more on the scam see http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/11/11/what-ken-ham-isnt-telling-you-about-ark-encounter-funding/) (If you want to know what the Bible actually teaches read Genesis 6 and onward.)

Now the theme park owners don’t claim that theirs is a new religion. Rather, they claim to be faithfully presenting what Christianity teaches about the Bible and History. But just look at the “Ark.” You will notice that it closely resembles what we know about ancient mediterranean ships such as those used by the Greeks and their rivals. And how is does not at all resemble what the Bible describes.

Yes, they got the dimensions right. But in the Bible Noah’s ark has no means of propulsion and is clearly adrift. So why does the Kentucky Ark need a significant ram below water at its bow? And what is that big structure at the back? I mean it looks cool, but it isn’t in the Bible. Perhaps more precisely, the word “ark” in the Bible means a box, not a ship.

In the Bible Noah was asked to build a box to hold the precious treasure of all the living creatures God had created. Those creatures, including Noah’s family, were the living covenant God made with Adam and Eve in the garden. The next ark would bear God’s covenant with Israel. And yes, it was box, not a ship.

I’m not going waste time on whether the Kentucky Ark and its twin “Creation Science Museum” are science. They aren’t, but that’s only a small problem. The real problem is that they have abandoned even a literal reading of the Bible to create a new scripture written in tourist attractions and faked up narratives of dinosaurs accompanying giraffes. The story of the ark, and its deep Christian meaning, is entirely gone. It has disappeared behind the facade of a fake ark and its inanimate inhabitants.

Make no mistake, the Ark Encounter is the creation of a new American religion that has abandoned the Bible for the fantasies of its promoter-creators. They are far closer to Marcion, the early Greek heretic who wrote his own Bible, than to real Christian fundamentalism. The latter – however much it rejects modern science – is at least attentive to the literal interpretation of the text.

This creates a real problem for inter-religious dialogue. How do Orthodox Christians engage in dialogue with people who claim to be Christian but who are in fact busy creating their own religion based on a scripture written in timber, plaster, and multi-media exhibitions?

We have engaged with new religions whose claims put them outside Christian orthodoxy. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is an example. But at least we speak the common language of some shared texts. Further afield we have learned to engage in dialogue with Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and others with whom we can discuss our various writings and through scholarship understand one another’s teachings.

But what to do with a religion based on spectacle alone, with the sole liturgy beginning with a line at the admission counter and consisting of a tour through a fantasy world of Ken Ham’s imagination? It’s like engaging in inter-religious dialogue with Disney World, except less in touch with reality than the magic kingdom.

And yet . . . well at least the visitors are serious. They have come to believe that spectacle, attractions, theme parks are critical parts of the religious experience, or at least theirs. But where to start?

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