We are delighted to announce that we have appointed a new speaker to work alongside our existing speaker, Paul Garner. Dr Steve Lloyd will be working with us part-time from the beginning of November. More details about this appointment will appear in due course.
In late March/early April 2008, Biblical Creation Ministries hopes to host a short speaking tour by Dr Todd Wood, the current director of Bryan College’s Center for Origins Research and Education. Todd has a PhD from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the University of Virginia. He also served as director of Bioinformatics for Clemson University. He is the author of a textbook on creation biology, Understanding the Pattern of Life, and a monograph on the Galápagos Islands. If anyone is interested in having Todd speak to their church or group, please let us know. His stay in the UK is likely to be fairly short (a week or two), so we may not be able to accommodate all requests, but indications of interest would be helpful at this stage.
On 7 October 2007 Paul Garner was a telephone guest on Rob Frost’s Sunday morning programme on Premier Radio. In the wake of three major new statements on the teaching of origins in schools, he was invited to speak about whether creation should have a place in school science lessons.
Later that day, the same question was the topic under discussion on BBC1’s The Big Questions. Sylvia Baker of the Biblical Creation Society was a guest in what turned out to be quite a bear-pit! One contributor, Steve Chalke, asserted that Genesis is simply a beautiful poem despite the fact that Hebrew scholarship – see here and here – does not support this claim. In the circumstances, Sylvia was measured and gracious and we hope that registered with viewers of the programme.
On 1 August 2007, Paul Garner debated the Genesis Flood with Anglican clergyman, Michael Roberts, on Premier Radio’s Drive programme. Michael Roberts believes that the Flood was a local event in the Near East which cannot now be pinpointed in the geological or archaeological record. Paul, on the other hand, argued from Scripture that the Genesis Flood was global in extent and gave evidence of its reality from the geological record.
In late May and early June 2007, BCM researcher Paul Garner joined Dr John Whitmore and Ray Strom to explore the Coconino Sandstone, a 300 to 400-foot thick layer of cream-coloured sandstone near the top of the Grand Canyon. The conventional explanation for this geological unit is that it was laid down by wind currents, similar to sand dunes in deserts today. However, the team is currently examining evidence - such as cross-bedding and other features in the rock layer – that lend support to the young-age theory that it was actually laid down by water during the Genesis Flood.
This research is being sponsored by the Institute for Creation Research under its Flood-Activated Sedimentation and Tectonics (FAST) programme. Other related projects on tuff beds (volcanic ash layers) in the Grand Canyon, the emplacement of the Heart Mountain overthrust in Wyoming, and studies of the biblical Hebrew narrative of the Flood also reported progress over the summer.
In June 2007, Paul Garner of BCM made a week-long research visit to the Center for Origins Research and Education (CORE) at Bryan College, Dayton, Tennessee. He was working on a monograph about historical Christian perspectives on the origin of species, from both ’species stasis’ and ‘variationist’ viewpoints. It is hoped that this monograph will be available for the Darwin bicentennial in 2009.
On 9 June 2007, Paul Garner of BCM visited the recently-opened Creation Museum near Cincinnati, home of our friends at Answers in Genesis. The exhibits are of high quality and great care has been taken to get the biblical and scientific content right. Visitors are clearly shown how different presuppositions influence the way evidence is interpreted. A series of panoramas guide the visitor through the Seven Cs of History (Creation, Corruption, Catastrophe, Confusion, Christ, Cross, Consummation) in a stunning presentation of the biblical timeline. The authority of the Scriptural record and its implications are emphasized throughout. We feel sure that a visit to this museum will be a life-changing experience for many.
A report by Paul Garner
The Sixth Conference of the Creation Biology Study Group (BSG) was held between 13-15 June 2007 at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. There was a good mix of plenary and contributed papers, many of which focused upon the conference theme of the origin of natural evil (e.g. death, carnivory) and other forms of biological imperfection. Among the conference highlights were the following papers:
The proceedings of the conference can be downloaded here and a selection of conference photographs can be viewed here.
The First Conference on Creation Geology, hosted by Cedarville University in Ohio, took place between 26-28 July 2007. Two days of the conference were devoted to technical presentations and one day to general presentations open to the public. There were also field excursions to nearby Ordovician and Silurian localities.
Dr Andrew Snelling has written a brief report of the conference here and the abstracts of all the presentations can be found here.
A report by Sylvia Baker
In April this year, Paul Garner and I had the privilege of spending a week in Poznań at the invitation of the newly-formed Biblical Creation Society of Poland. We addressed numerous meetings arranged by the society, including a special evening meeting for teachers and a day conference for church leaders. The latter was particularly encouraging, as some of the forty leaders who attended had travelled long distances, from as far away as Warsaw and Wrocław. We also spoke on separate occasions to the children, teachers and parents of a small Christian school which opened in Poznań last September. For three days of our visit we were joined by Professor Werner Gitt of Germany, who spoke about his research on information theory.
On one occasion, we visited the neighbouring town of Środa to take advantage of a most unusual opportunity. Local believers had organised an evening meeting in the hope of attracting local students. Through the good influence of a well-known former student, we were invited to tour the equivalent of the local sixth form college, going into every class to speak briefly about ourselves and about why we would like the students and their teachers to attend our meeting later that day. We estimated that in this way we were able to address about 200 students and ten or so staff. There was one member of staff in particular, a biology teacher, who challenged us and was obviously troubled by what we had said. When the time for the meeting arrived, we were delighted to see about 100 people there, most of them students from the college. Our biology teacher was there as well and she provided some lively debate during the question time.
The main event of the visit was a conference held over three successive evenings. The society had advertised this very widely putting up well-designed posters all over the city, especially in departments of the local University. On average about 100 people attended each evening, many of them unbelievers. Again, the profile was of a relatively young group, including a number of students. This ability of the local creationists to attract the interest of young people contrasted strongly with our situation in the UK. We were also very impressed with how much was achieved by such a small group of people. The Society, which came into existence formally just three months ago, at present has just 16 members!
One aspect of our visit was a great blessing to me personally. I was aware that a Polish edition of Bone of Contention had been published in about 1990, but I was not prepared for what I heard about how widespread the influence of the book had been. Everywhere I went, believers approached me to say that they had read it. Often they had a well-thumbed copy in their hands which they would ask me to sign. I was told by numerous people that this had been the first, and for a long time virtually the only, creationist literature in Poland after communism fell. Eventually, Paul and I were told a particularly dramatic story. Apparently, the translation and publication of Bone in Polish was organised from the city of Krakow. Scientific consultants were used who worked in the local University, in the Institute of Geology and their names were listed on the title page just inside the front cover. It was not long before their colleagues at the University discovered this and for months attempts were made to force those involved out of their jobs. Fortunately, the persecution was unsuccessful.
A conference is already planned for Poznań in April 2008 and this time the organisers would like to repeat it in Warsaw. Their zeal is a challenge to us!
