For a little over five years, I have supported Answers in Genesis through my teaching and sharing their content with others. My family and I visited the Creation Museum in Kentucky a few years ago and I loved it. I thought it was a great museum and served as an alternative to evolutionary teaching. But, things change.
On New Year's Eve, Answers in Genesis paid for a billboard advertisement to promote the message of the cross. You can read about it here: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/slices/heres-controversial-billboard-answers-genesis-displaying-times-square-tonight.
The problem I have with this advertisement and some things that Ken Hamm and Answers in Genesis have done lately is that they are not helping the cause of Christ in a post-Christian world. They talk and act as though we are still living 20-30 years in the past. They paid for a billboard advertisement that didn't promote grace, but promoted picking a fight with the "liberals" of society. Did Jesus ever pick a fight with someone? Pretty sure it was the religious leaders of his day that picked fights with him.
I understand the motivation behind the project, but I don't think it was a good one. They want to defend Christian ideals and beliefs. In a sense they want to defend God, but when did God ever need defending?
The problems we face as Christians are mostly brought on by ourselves. We play the martyr card any chance we get. We think that if the Ten Commandments are taken down, then we are being persecuted. Or, whenever our moral beliefs are questioned or threatened, it is the second coming of Roman persecution. Didn't Jesus tell us in this world we would have trouble (John 16:33)?
We act like we are martyrs, but we are martyrs by our own hand. Things like putting a billboard in Times Square with the kind of message that AIG put on there is not helping the cause of Christ. It's pushing people away and alienating people who may identify themselves as "liberal" with their views and beliefs. We need to spend more time treating people as human beings not as labels. Jesus never labeled anyone. In fact, he said that he was sent into the world to save the world not condemn it (John 3:17).
Now I am not saying that we should not take stands for things that are against God and His word. We should, but not in a way that is going to alienate people from Christ. Our goal should be to bring people to Christ not push them away from him.
In a post-Christian world, we need to use our ears more than we use our mouths (for more insight into that click here: http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/christian-mission-in-a-post-christian-world-interview). We need to listen to people before we start speaking at them because that is what we are doing far too often now, speaking at them rather than to them.
I don't mean to bash AIG because I still love some of the stuff they put out and have on their website. I love the scientific approach they take towards the book of Genesis. What I hope to do is to raise awareness of the harsh tactics that we as Christians have used in the past and are still using that are not working anymore. In fact, I don't know if they ever worked.
It's time to focus on the methods of Jesus. He took time to treat people as people. His first words to people were not condemnation. We are the messengers of Christ not his defenders. He faced trial and conviction without opening his mouth. He died on the cross and rose again from the dead without our help. I think he can handle defending himself now.
