It’s Certainly a Lot of Huff and Puff!

Recently, the Huffington Post website—which often unashamedly displays its anti-Christian agenda—posted an article titled “5 Things Kentucky Could Spend $73 Million On Instead Of A Fake Noah’s Ark.”1  Before we move on to the text of the article itself, let’s consider the first part of the HuffPost headline: “5 Things Kentucky Could Spend.” Readers are led to the wrong conclusion that the state of Kentucky is helping to build the Ark Encounter. But no tax monies are being used to construct the Ark. In actual fact, AiG will be spending this money in Kentucky so that our investors will get their money back (with interest) and the economy of Kentucky will be helped (see below).

Most of the money raised for the Ark project is in the form of bonds, and much of this money comes from AiG supporters who are using their investment and retirement accounts. In other words, instead of investing in the stock market (which is certainly not a sure thing), or putting their money into other projects, people have chosen to invest money that they were not going to be spending for the time being to get the first phase of the Ark project finished. And most of all, these people are investing in the Ark Encounter to invest in people’s eternity as we present the gospel!

As you begin to read the HuffPost article, you will notice the same tired argument that the money should be used instead to feed hungry children. The inconsistency here is glaring. I wonder if the writer of this HuffPost article would be prepared not to buy a new car or a house, or not upgrade her cell phone or computer so she could send her money to feed the hungry? AiG has already answered this hackneyed argument in a feedback item titled “Why Build an Ark Instead of Giving the Money to the Poor?”

Further down into the article, we see a mention of the need to “Invest in broke schools.” Actually, the Ark Encounter will bring money into the state (a lot of money, in fact, from tourism, sales tax generated, state income tax collected from the thousands of employees who will be hired both inside and outside the park, etc.) so that more money will be available in the state budget for that possible use. It’s a net gain to the state, not a drain, as the HuffPost is suggesting. Frankly, this is a terrible piece of journalism.

Selective Opposition Shows Bias Against Biblical Christianity

Isn’t it interesting that we often watch TV news programs where reporters list the hundreds of millions of dollars that politicians have wasted on outlandish programs that they tack on to bills. In fact, think of the hundreds of millions of tax dollars spent when a U.S. president takes one vacation! When a city decides to subsidize a new football stadium with tax dollars to build these very expensive arenas—some costing over one billion dollars—how much of an outcry do we hear? And yet highly negative and misleading articles appear against the Ark Encounter—a project that seeks to present a life-changing message? And would this HuffPost writer ever publically chastise any of the HuffPost leadership for going on expensive vacations and purchasing luxury homes and cars?

In our western culture, people who reject the truth of God’s Word in Genesis have had such an influence on the education system and culture as a whole and are deeply entrenched there. So when a group like Answers in Genesis seeks to counter their efforts by doing something to get the truth of God’s Word out to the culture, the opposition can’t stand it! They have become increasingly antagonistic as they show their extreme intolerance of anything that smacks of biblical Christianity. This bias is evident—before you even read the HuffPost article about our Ark Encounter evangelistic outreach—in the headline with the words “Fake Noah’s Ark.”

Five Reasons Behind the Opposition

I could go on and on. It’s what I would call the usual “huff and puff” of hot air from the HuffPost. They continually express an intolerance of those of us who stand on the authority of God’s Word beginning in Genesis, and they don’t tell the truth in the process.

So, here are my five reasons why the Huffington Post writes such terrible articles:

1. “Whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them” (2 Corinthians 4:4).
2. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).
3. “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be” (Romans 8:7).
4. “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).
5. “Who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18).

Oh, and if there is no God and if the Bible is not true (and I don’t know the worldview beliefs of the author Shadee Ashtari), then why in a meaningless and purposeless world would a secularist even bother to feed the hungry or help people who have diseases? After all, the weak need to be eliminated and the strong survive—isn’t that best for evolution? And anyway, if ultimately no one alive today will know they ever existed after they die, why bother doing anything for needy people? The short “joy” they might experience now won’t be remembered!

But when we die, we don’t cease to exist and our eternity is at stake: “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). That’s why we at AiG are burdened to do all we can (including building the Ark Encounter) to reach people with the saving message of the gospel.

You can find out more about the exciting, worthwhile Ark Encounter project at ArkEncounter.com.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken