Saturday, October 17, 1998

Creationist ministry seeks grassroots start

By STEPHEN HUBA

Scripps Howard News Service

FLORENCE, Ky. -- Answers in Genesis, the Northern Kentucky-based creationist ministry, has launched a grass-roots campaign it hopes will change the way science is taught in public schools.

Avoiding the old battleground of textbooks and curriculum, Answers in Genesis is urging formation of "Creation Clubs" in public and non-public schools.

"We've always believed in the grass-roots approach of just getting out information," said executive director Ken Ham, a former public school teacher who founded Answers in Genesis in San Diego, Calif., four years ago and then moved it to Northern Kentucky.

"People change their views, and then it gets into books and curricula."

Already, Answers in Genesis has received "hundreds" of inquiries from U.S. high school students and teachers are interested in starting a Creation Club, Ham said.

About 400 applications for start-up kits have been sent out, including several to Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati schools.

The clubs likely will tap into student-led Bible study and prayer groups that meet before and after school. According to some estimates, one in four U.S. high schools has an extracurricular religious club.

The project, announced recently through the ministry's newsletter and radio program, is part of a push by Answers in Genesis to inform students about their religious rights and encourage them to be outspoken about their faith.

Ham said the Creation Clubs will "help Christian students defend their beliefs" about creation and counter the information they receive about evolution in science classes.

Answers in Genesis will produce a free monthly newsletter -- The X-Nilo Files -- as a resource for clubs.

The title is a play on the popular TV series "The X-Files" and the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo, out of nothing.

Helen Kagin of Boone County, Ky., a retired physician and frequent critic of Answers in Genesis, said the idea is wrongheaded.

"It's fine if they want to talk about that as a creation myth, but to actually say it's science is so misleading," Mrs. Kagin said. "Evolution is a fact. The theory part of it involves how it took place."

Mrs. Kagin said creationists couldn't get their material into science textbooks so now they're trying another tactic.

That belief was echoed by Randy Moore, editor of the American Biology Teacher magazine.

"They have lost every case, with the exception of Scopes," Moore said, referring to the 1925 conviction of Dayton, Tenn., teacher John Scopes for teaching evolution.

Moore said he supports the right of Creation Clubs to meet but called the subject matter "nonsense": "You don't have people saying let's have an after-school club to convince people that the Earth is flat."

Brad Hughes, spokesman for the Kentucky School Boards Association in Frankfort, said such clubs are permitted to meet at schools as long as they are student-led and student-initiated.

(Stephen Huba writes for The Cincinnati Post.)