Forbes reports on Kent Hovind's Innocence Claims

“24 When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?” 25 He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?” 26 And when he said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free. 27 However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.” (Matthew 17:24-27 ESV)

–––––––––––—

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.” (Romans 13:1-7 ESV)

–––––––––––—

…in contrast, Kent Hovind denies his U.S. citizenship, subverts the legal process, and flouts governing authorities.

How does one proceed from what is contained in Romans 13:1-7 (see post above) to a position of “I deny I’m a U.S. citizen, therefore I’m not subject to U.S. tax laws, and you have no jurisdiction over me” (which is in essence Hovind’s “defense”)?

I am in the kind of cool position of being geographically near AIG (about 40 minutes), and having several of their employees attend our church (Dr. Terry Mortenson being one). I have interacted with Terry about the Billboard thing…completely disagree with what AIG did there. Not even worth a debate. But to critique AIG for being popular level is like criticizing ICR for being too technical. The guys at AIG to my knowledge would consider themselves as partners with groups like ICR, and not in competition. As such, AIG fills a specific role in that they target a popular audience, and they do it for specific reasons. However, to say that is all they did is a disservice. Someone above mentioned the Answers Research Journal, which is a technical journal. Also, to suggest that they don’t have a lot of good scientists is hugely minimalistic. Dr. Mortenson and Dr. Snelling are geology guys, Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Menton are both medical doctors, Dr. Purdom is a geneticist, and I can’t remember Dr. Faulkner’s specialty at this point. They have others as well. I can see how on the face of things they look like they are only for a popular audience, but if you take time to dig a little deeper, you will find that some of these men and women are brilliant (and accomplished) in their fields. Not perfect, and as I mentioned above, I totally dislike the whole billboard thing. But I love their VBS and Sunday School materials.

We are having an AiG conference at our church Feb. 15-16. :)

The current issue with AiG isn’t the popular way in which they promote their views… It has become the directions they have been taking recently. I was subscribed to Ken Ham’s blog for awhile and I stopped because every article I would get would be about some group or organization who said something negative about AiG or is persecuting creationists… That has become the public focus of AiG in a lot of what they do. They push an us against the world mentality. Even in their most recent VBS drama they had a bit of a persecution/politics undertone. All I want to hear from an organization like AiG is science… and even if they do have good work still going on at home base… well that isn’t what they really push. They’ve also branched out into other areas like Sunday School and obviously VBS… Right now they’ve just gotten too big for their breeches.

I can concede that the ministry places too much emphasis in the political sphere at times. However, you have to understand as well that at their core, AIG is not a strictly scientific organization. They would label themselves as an apologetics group that emphasizes creationism. So, anytime they see the authority of scripture some under attack, you are going to see them push back. That being said, there are definitely times when they go a little overboard. When they do, I think it would behoove us to contact them and let them know (as I did with the whole billboard thing). “Branching out into other areas” is really not branching out, is it? I mean, they are simply putting their message of Creation/Apologetics/Authority of scripture into various formats in order to make them more accessible to more people. I don’t subscribe to any of their blogs, for the reasons you stated above, but my overall analysis would be that it is a ministry worth following and using as a resource. Just on a side note….if you’ve never been to the Creation Museum, it is worth the trip….and since we are so close we are happy to house families coming through!

[Jim]

AIG “jumped the shark” with the Ark project

AIG’s “Ark” is in the news just this week:

“The religious organization planning a Noah’s Ark theme park in Grant County filed a federal lawsuit against state officials Thursday for rejecting its application for tax incentives to help finance the park.”

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2015/02/05/ark-developers-sue-tax-incentives/22944035/

–––––––––—

Another recent news story:

“The proposed Noah’s Ark theme park in Northern Kentucky would attract up to 640,000 visitors in its best year, according to a consultant who studied the project’s economic impact for the state. That’s far less than the 1.2 million to 2.2 million visitors estimated by the project’s developers.”

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2015/01/21/ark-park-attendance-projections-reduced-report-finds/22104537/

[For comparison, annual attendance at AIG’s Creation Museum has been around 250,000 in the past couple of years. For further comparison, Chicago’s well-known Museum of Science and Industry has about 1,400,000 visitors annually.]

Rather than the “discrimination” that the suit alleges, Kentucky simply looked at the tax-incentive request (and its wildly over-optimistic revenue projections) and concluded that it was not a prudent use of $18M of state funding authority.

Larry, I tend to agree that you are correct about how things ought to be, but it strikes me that enough people close to the decision have mentioned the religion angle to make it possible that it could go the other way. And if you’re right—and I think, again, you at least ought to be—that is a huge, unforced error by the state of Kentucky.

Also, regarding the comparison with Science & Industry (my third favorite museum in Chicago after the Field and the Adler), it strikes me that most schoolkids in the metro make at least one trip there annually. So comparing numbers is something of a numbers game there.

This is why I made my comments regarding AiG. Its joined the game of political circus.

I completely disagree with what’s being said here about AiG. There have been several errors:

• Kentucky bailed on the tax incentive program because they’re concerned AiG’s will evangelize folks who come. Their letter to AiG said so. AiG has the letter on their website. It was not due to low attendance projections
• AiG was not getting money from Kentucky. They applied for tax breaks. That is quite different. AiG is funding the project; it is not being built with state money.
• The lawsuit is over alleged religious discrimination, because Kentucky, AiG alleges, has no right to deny tax incentives to projects because the state disagrees with the religious stance of an organization. I believe they make a good point. As a Baptist, I wouldn’t even want a group like American Atheists to lose out on similar incentives, if they were so inclined.

Disagree with AiG all you want - at least accurately report the issues. I could hunt around for hyperlinks for my bulletpoints (above), but I don’t have time. If you’re really interested, it won’t take you long to find documentation of what I said.

[Bert Perry]

Also, regarding the comparison with Science & Industry (my third favorite museum in Chicago after the Field and the Adler), it strikes me that most schoolkids in the metro make at least one trip there annually. So comparing numbers is something of a numbers game there.

Yep: that 1.4M includes kids from dozens of schoolbuses that arrive daily throughout the schoolyear.

And yet AIG purports to expect 1.2M - 2.2M attendees annually in rural, northern KY.

BTW, don’t leave out the Art Institute of Chicago!:

http://www.artic.edu/