Ken Ham responds to critics

[Mark_Smith]

The good thing is you live in Minnesota (correct?), and not in Kentucky! So it doesn’t effect you if the park loses money!

Mark, I seem to remember a lot of nasty comments about Jimmy Bakker and Heritage USA when I was living in Indiana, Michigan, and Colorado(college moves). Yes, a colossal flop of this adventure does affect the church. Romans 2:24, no? I detest TIF in general, and all the more when it’s “my team” taking the taxpayer for a ride.

OK.

Rather than prophesying the failure of this endeavor, you pray that God be glorified in it?

[Mark_Smith]

Rather than prophesying the failure of this endeavor, you pray that God be glorified in it?

I’m figuring that the actual prophets did both. Might as well join them, no? I hope that the numbers are somehow wrong, but as it stands now, you might as well assume the Twins are going to win the Series this year with sellouts every game in Target Field as to assume that the state of Kentucky is going to get serious sales tax revenue out of the deal. They’re predicting that they’ll get 8x the visitors to the Ark Experience as they get to the Creation Museum, and they need 200,000 visitors a year to keep the lights on. Do the math; they could be in Heritage USA territory.

One other place the taxpayer could lose out; if we assume that a great portion of visitors to the Ark split their time between that and the Creation Museum, book sales that would have come from the CM get transferred to the low-tax Ark Encounter. You save an instant 4.5% and get some of that $40 admission back, after all.

I’m praying for a miracle, but bracing for a debacle.

I’ll keep my iron away from “sharpeners” like you two.

…I have never considered a Christian bookstore a ministry any more than I really consider Patch the Pirate, most music producers, book publishers, or any other number of “Christian” outlets pure ministry. They are Christian based businesses that can be very Christ-honoring and useful. I gladly pray for their success like I would pray for the success of any legitimate business (perhaps like Hobby Lobby) founded or operated by a member of the body of Christ for His glory.

Some people with business experience (assuming that’s where they accumulated their wealth) think it will be at least moderately profitable as they have invested significant $$ into it with the apparent goal of receiving profit from their investment.

As I understand it this is a for-profit venture. Some investments succeed; others not so much. I still don’t understand what all the argument is about unless there has been some deceit involved (and no, I do not consider best case scenarios/rose-colored glasses projections to be intrinsically deceitful).

Your reasonable attitude is appreciated by me at least.

on my comment: If TIF financing of the Ark Encounter is public support of religion, then Property Tax exemption for churches is public support of religion. By your logic, both should be done away with.

[Mark_Smith]

on my comment: If TIF financing of the Ark Encounter is public support of religion, then Property Tax exemption for churches is public support of religion. By your logic, both should be done away with.

I’m undecided if “TIF financing of the Ark Encounter is public support of religion”; however I do question the wisdom of using TIF in this specific case, for these reasons:

1. The way it was financed demonstrates its highly speculative nature. It ended up being heavily financed by unrated (aka “junk”) bonds. These are issued essentially as a last resort, when conventional loans can’t be obtained (in other words, no lender would touch it), and when no municipality or governmental agency is willing to back it (in other words, the city or state won’t guarantee the bonds either). To get investors to purchase such bonds (in this case, the minimum investment amount was $50,000), the bonds have to offer higher interest rates than other, more guaranteed/safer bonds. That’s why these bonds were issued @ rates like 5.25% to 6.00%, when U.S. Treasury bonds have been offering much lower rates lately. (Treasury bond buyers are willing to settle for lower interest rates in exchange for greater security & a willing secondary market if they choose to sell them before maturity). Higher interest rates, which is how junk bonds find buyers, are accompanied by greater risk assumed by the buyers. It’s a trade-off. The greater risk means though that if the venture fails, the bondholders stand to lose most, or even all, of their investment.

2. Most TIF projects are shielded from too much fallout because the project can be repurposed if the original venture fails. When TIF is used for a factory or a warehouse, for example, if the original occupant drops out another manufacturer or distributor can virtually always be found to purchase or lease the property. (I can think of some local examples.) In the case of the Ark though, what other tenant would/could be found? (I’m stumped.) I’m thinking resale of it would be next to impossible. In all likelihood, as I wrote a few posts above, it would become the local government’s problem (in terms of maintenance, security, and eventual demolition).

But the local government approved it. Does all of this hand wringing about it really matter? The tax payers of KY agreed to it already. I have yet to hear from a KY resident on this post.

I realize several of the posters here don’t like it. OK. So what. AIG seems to think they can draw a good crowd with it. If they don’t. That is on them. You can’t go around hoping things fail, and predicting it with made up calculations. Pretending we are “iron sharpening iron” just by being disagreeable is ludicrous. There is no iron to sharpen, unless you think a SI poster will some day build a multi-million dollar theme park. If you don’t like the ark there is NOTHING you can do about it now. The thing opens in a few weeks.

As for a failure damaging the body of Christ. Well, no one here has any control over that. Once again, we didn’t make the decisions and had no role in it. Complaining about the potential failure does no good.

Jim, the same thing could be said about seminaries. How much do you and/or your church pour into a seminary?

Great point! And classic for you.

…I would agree is something of a subsidy. No sense in arguing that point. The balance to be found is that historically, I would guess that some towns would do exorbitant valuations of church properties to discriminate against a church, and the solution was found in exempting a certain amount of church property (it’s limited in WI) from taxes. All in all, I would favor at the very least stringent limitations on tax exemptions for all nonprofits—all too often, nonprofit means they make a profit, but don’t need to report it. It can and does distort our economy.

Really, I think a LOT of churches really need to start wrapping their minds around concepts like ROI, reasonable expectations of future ministry, and the like—all too often, as in this case, the attitude seems to be from “Field of Dreams”, build it and they will come. Unfortunately, thousands of churches now used as community centers, schools, mosques, hair salons, and Tae Kwon Do (sp?) studios, along with thousands of former camps and such now used for any number of other purposes, are mute testimony to the fact that this is not true. We need to work our business plans and listen when the green eyeshades guys say it’s not going to work. It’s what is said in Proverbs 21:5 and Luke 14, no?