Today marks the opening of the Creation Museum, a $27 million facility built with private donations by the Answers in Genesis Ministry. The Museum, located just an hour and a half from Louisville, and within a six-hour drive of two-thirds of the US population, promises “a walk through history… A fully engaging, sensory experience for guests. Murals and realistic scenery, computer-generated visual effects, over fifty exotic animals, life-sized people and dinosaur animatronics, and a special-effects theater complete with misty sea breezes and rumbling seats.”
In the mission statement, the Museum promises to
- Exalt Jesus Christ as Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer through a safe, wholesome, family-friendly center for learning and discovery that clearly presents major biblical themes from Genesis to Revelation.
- This center will equip Christians to better evangelize the lost with a sense of urgency, through a combination of exhibits, research and educational presentations that uphold the inerrancy of the Bible.
- This center will also challenge visitors to receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and to accept the authority of the Bible by providing culturally relevant biblical and scientific answers from a biblical worldview.
The controversial museum has been designed under the direction of Patrick Marsh, who designed the Jaws and King Kong exhibits at Universal Studios, Florida. In a November, 2006 interview with the Guardian, Marsh was asked about the preponderance of remains of early, human-like creatures. Marsh responds:
"There are no such things. Humans are basically as you see them today. Those skeletons they've found, what's the word? ... they could have been deformed,
diseased or something. I've seen people like that running round the streets of New York."
And apparently, the Creation Museum features replicas of those skeletons with exactly that defense.
As a former New Yorker, I can’t think of a better place to take my first out-of-the-Ville roadtrip for Loueyville than to go and visit some of my peeps. Not the Creationists, of course, but the deformed, diseased (or something) quasi-New Yorkers.
It just so happens that one of the benefits of living in Louisville is the relative proximity to Erlanger, KY, specifically the Marydale Retreat Center, site of the annual Writers Retreat Workshop, of which I am a 2002 and 2003 graduate. I'd already planned to swing by for a day to visit some of my nearest and dearest (alas, I cannot stay due to real-world job responsibilities), so now I'm only 15 minutes away from the Creation Museum.
Stay tuned for a first-hand account of a visit to the Creation Museum on opening day.
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