Editors Note: Matt Walsh, who we have written about before in his attacks on a young earth, went after Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis in a very unsporting, angry, arguably arrogant live stream recently. Since we’ve discussed this before, we won’t recover old ground, instead covering the harsh accusations Walsh hurled at Answers in Genesis.
For those who may not remember, we covered Walsh’s original assault on a young earth and the innerancy of the Scripture about a month ago when he first released his views to the public. We also linked to the article that Answers in Genesis posted in response. We have linked to both of Walsh’s live streams, and the Answers in Genesis responses in this article so everyone can judge for themselves that we are covering this issue fairly.
The last time we covered this, we received some feedback from Catholic’s concerned that we were focusing too much on the age of the earth and taking the Bible literally and challenging us to take other verses, such as the verses purported to support the Eucharist literally. While I respect their opinion, I’m Baptist and Rose is non-denominational Protestant so I hope they can understand why we do not hold those views. Also, neither we nor Ken Ham in his blog responding to Walsh claimed to take the Bible literally. We at In His Image take the Bible naturally. We do not, for example, consider parables as literal, but as word pictures conveying a truth.
However, in Genesis 1 we have no reason not to take the text literally. Though Walsh again skimmed over it in his live stream, every single time the word evening, morning, or a number is associated with the word day in Scripture it means a literal 24 hour day. In Genesis 1, all six creative days are associated with evening, morning, and a number, as if God wanted to be triply sure we knew what He meant. Yet Walsh claims that the first three days are ambiguous.
Walsh spent more time in this live stream launching angry rants at Ken Ham from Answers in Genesis than he did anything else, at one point demanding to know if Ham was God. His most frequent comment was to demand a public apology from Ham for lying about him, which Ham certainly did not do. Walsh took issue with Ham’s conclusion which stated that Answers in Genesis existed to provide answers to challenges raised by skeptics and compromised Christians. Walsh inserted himself in the latter category which, honestly, feels warranted given he has compromised on Genesis. But he’s in good company in that category as Andy Stanley and John Piper, among others, are in similar categories. Ham did not specially apply the phrase to Walsh. The entire tone of the live stream was contemptuous and arrogant, which saddened me greatly as I used to have a certain amount of respect for Walsh. Having watched both Nye-Ham debates, and both Walsh live streams, I’m convinced Bill Nye, an atheist, was more respectful than Walsh was.
Walsh also failed to deal in any meaningful way with some of the verses Ham put forth to challenge him in his beliefs, such as Exodus 20:13, where the Bible prescribes a seven day week, just as God made creation. Honestly and sadly, this comes as no surprise. It was fairly obvious he had not really done much research on Answers in Genesis position, and in fact, he admitted he had no reason to read up on the position. The one article, other than Ham’s response blog, that he even mentioned was twelve years old and he completely misunderstood the little bit he read on the air.
The live stream did Walsh no favors. He has hemorrhaged over six thousand facebook page likes since it went up and is still falling. For his part, Ham has handled this fairly graciously, extending Walsh an expenses-paid offer to take a personally guided tour of the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter. It’s an offer I doubt Walsh will take, but according to the article published today, Answers in Genesis says the offer will stand.
What can we take away from this argument? It pays to be prepared. Walsh was not one I would have expected to have taken such a hostile position to a young earth because he writes very socially conservative. As I pointed out in the last article I wrote covering this issue, once you abandon the authority of Genesis, you have no authority to call moral ills wrong. Walsh seems willing to surrender the authority of the Bible because science disagrees with it. One of the biggest ironies I find is that the very next live stream after his original Genesis live stream, Walsh talked about the resurrection of Jesus. Both creation and resurrection are found in the Bible, yet Walsh is willing to dispense with the former. It also pays to study the Bible for yourself and know what you believe, and why, so that when a false teacher or someone simply misled comes along, you are able to adequately defend the truth of Scripture. I’d encourage everyone to study the issues for themselves and ensure they can defend what they believe.
In His Image 
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