The article didn't reveal anything particularly new. For
those who have been paying even a little bit of attention there have been
stories trickling out over the past several years regarding the nature of Ham's
business dealings. He's manipulated a lot of the bookkeeping surrounding his
'ministries' to his own benefit and has grown quite wealthy. An examination of
his 'ministry' tax forms indicates he's playing all the same nepotistic games
that many of these guys engage in and given the fact that he's apparently worth
tens of millions of dollars, he's found other means to funnel money into his
coffers. And let's just say the tickets to his venues are not cheap – not that
I would ever give him a dime.
And while he and his Christian Right allies rail against
socialism and handouts, they are happy to take tax money (or subsidies) when it
helps them build up their businesses – even while they shirk even basic norms
and expectations of how a large business with a substantial footprint should
contribute to community infrastructure.
Consequently when they present their entrepreneurial
endeavours as expressions of faith one is rightly cynical.
Leaving aside some of the problems with Ham's teaching and
what I consider in some cases to be sacrilege, he's (at the very least) guilty
of avarice and thinking godliness is gain. I've never been impressed with him
and this was only confirmed when I witnessed his ineptitude on display during
his 2014 debate with Bill Nye. Sadly he has not helped the Creationist cause
and his financial machinations make him double the fraud in the world's eyes.
The article was also sad because it was a tale of defection –
the author and critic of Ham has rejected Scripture and replaced revelation
with the epistemology of scientific materialism.
On one level I don't really doubt Ham's sincerity. I'm sure
he thinks he's honouring God and being faithful to Scripture. But he's blind to
many aspects of Scriptural teaching and has absolutised certain points that
lead him in some cases to erroneous deductions. And like many Evangelicals he
has fallen into syncretistic patterns of thought with regard to the world's
thinking about things like money and power. And I'm sorry but there is something
disingenuous about him in that he (and he's not alone) came to the United
States for the big audience. One has to wonder if at the core of things there
wasn't a financial motivation to all of this.
That said, all of these things can be justified by the Evangelical Worldview that on many points has substituted the ethos and even specific doctrines (and certainly the ethics) of the New Testament with what is effectively a hybrid – one that accepts and embraces mammon and power. Under the aegis of this false paradigm, Ham can justify his actions and have a clear conscience. He hammers the Bible but doesn't realize that in fact that very book condemns what he has done. The world will always hate the revelation of Jesus Christ and as such the Holy Writings associated with His name, and yet we believers don't need to give the world additional reasons to hate us nor should we engage in activities in which the way of truth can be evil spoken of by the world.
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