Creation Museum’s Ken Ham Denies Relaxing Strict Faith Requirements For Employees
The Creation Museum’s Ken Ham is firing back, denying reports that quote him saying he would relax hiring rules for seasonal employees. Ham tweeted Friday morning to refer to the claim as a “made-up piece of trash” and to assert that it was invented by atheists. All the pieces quote a video that Ham published on Facebook earlier this week, in which he refers to “an abridged statement of faith,” citing younger employees’ lack of maturity in thinking as the reason for the simplified version.
However, what’s never quite clear is exactly what is simpler or different about the statement of faith or how Ham believes it has been misrepresented by blogs and news reports. Employment applications at the Ark Encounter, Creation Museum, and Answers In Genesis websites all include the requirement to sign a statement of faith. For example, an application for housekeeping work at the Creation Museum requires, besides a standard application and resume, submission of salvation testimony, a declaration of belief in creationism, and affirmation that the applicant agrees with AIG’s full Statement of Faith.
That Statement of Faith can be found here and includes affirming the Bible as inerrant, the great flood as historical fact, the existence of Satan, life beginning at conception, only opposite-sex marriage acceptable to God, and a Young Earth, among others.
This has been a matter of controversy before, with complaints that this entails hiring discrimination. However, Raw Story reported this week that Ken Ham had announced summer jobs at the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter would offer a less-stringent faith declaration.
The story cites this video of Ken Ham advertising for employees and describing the available positions.
https://www.facebook.com/aigkenham/videos/1872240419472972/
At about five and a half minutes in, Ham speaks about the abridged statement of faith.
“Now we are a Christian organization and as a Christian organization we employ people who are Christians. We — we actually, for the seasonals, we actually have a more abridged statement of faith, the fundamentals of Christianity, not our detailed one for all of our full-time managers and others, so for seasonal, I know there’s a lot of young people who still aren’t necessarily mature in all their thinking in lots of areas, but if they can sign the tenets of the fundamentals of Christian faith, they can work here.”
However, linking to the Raw Story article (which quotes his video, summarizes the full statement of faith, and notes that Ham previously expressed difficulty filling job positions) on Friday, Ken Ham called the entire thing a lie made up by atheists.
Oh the lies atheist's tell! But then again, they're atheists, so 'truth' is whatever they make up so the end justifies the means! Only reason I link to this piece of made up trash is to remind us how insecure these people are and to pray for them! https://t.co/QOB1qsPszq
— Ken Ham (@aigkenham) April 13, 2018
Ken Ham’s comment that he’s struggling to fill positions at the Creation Museum can be heard in the video below, from April 5.
It remains unclear what the abridged Faith Statement might entail. The Statement of Faith linked on the Ark Encounter site is slightly different from the one on Answers In Genesis and could be read as a simplification, but it still requires affirmation of the Holy Trinity, creationism, two genders, only straight marriage, life at conception, and rejection of pornography. It’s also not marked as being the abridged version and may just be the Ark Encounter version of the same statement.
While Ken Ham has said his Creation Museum and Ark Encounter would offer abridged statements of faith for summer employees, he hasn’t clearly outlined whether that would actually offer more relaxed belief requirements.
