Steven and Betty RV Adventures

CREATION MUSEUM. This morning we attempted to attend a PCA Presbyterian church in downtown Lexington. Our GPS led us to its address in an old church building that has been converted into a dance studio. We thought it interesting that a stately old red brick building with white pillars out front might be returning to its original use as a church. We were running late in the rain (again, more rain) and arrived after the service had started only to find the doors locked. We even tried around back where the cars were parked. No reply to our knocks. I called the phone number on the sign out front and got the pastor's phone mail. (He returned our call later this afternoon, perplexed that we were locked out.) Needless to say, we got back into our car and drove back to the motorhome, a half hour's drive each way. We ate, changed our clothes, and headed north for an hour's drive to the Creation Museum outside Cincinnati.

The museum is the production of the same organization that built the Ark Encounter. The attention to detail was the same, both outside the museum where horticultural specimens were tastefully displayed everywhere, and inside the museum where multimedia exhibits seemed to have no end. As with the Ark, the museum had numerous animated human and animal figures going through the motions of life. The humans spoke, quoting the Old Testament in Hebrew. There is much overlap with the Ark Encounter, since both move beyond Genesis through the remainder of the Bible. The fulfilling of the Old with the New Testament is emphasized, with description of Jesus as the culmination of Biblical history as Savior and Second Adam (they say "Last Adam"). Much evangelistic explanation is provided in several exhibits.

Again a heavy emphasis is placed on their position that dinosaurs lived alongside humans before and after the flood. They teach that dinosaurs were taken onto the ark and thus survived the flood. Dinosaur exhibits are everywhere, inside and outside the building. They even detail all the insects that were taken onto the ark, with glass enclosed exhibits of every conceivable insect on display. I was a bit out of my element, since not only geology but also entomology are of little interest to me. And I was never a great fan of dinosaurs, but the kids were fascinated. (Betty wants you to know that she IS a fan of geology).

The attention to detail is amazing. The detailed inventory of what went onto the ark to account for all living species was emphasized everywhere. Again, much "artistic license" was used. Again, many philosophical questions were addressed in the context of created innocence and peace followed by the tragedy of illness, violence, death, etc. after the fall into sin in the Garden of Eden. These themes were carried into the present day, with the Bible presented as giving answers to these questions. The theory of evolution is portrayed as removing belief in the Creator as the giver of life, meaning, and purpose, since man was created in His image. Instead of looking at creation and seeing the handiwork of God, people today see only the result of a meaningless accident that occurred over millions of years. If we are only just another animal, with no laws of right and wrong behavior given by the Creator, then we can behave like just another animal, with dire consequences.