Answers in Genesis
Answers in Genesis is a non-profit young earth creationist organization that is dedicated to "defending the Bible from the very first verse". Its president is Ken Ham, who was a former public school science teacher, and once worked for the Institute for Creation Research before founding Answers in Genesis in the United States.
Answers in Genesis in the United States has a state-of-the-art Creation Museum which opened on May 28, 2007, admitting more than 4,000 visitors on its first day. Answers in Genesis has an award winning website which receives over a hundred thousand visitors each day[1].
Dispute with Creation Ministries International
In late 2005, Answers in Genesis in the United States, with its sister organization in the United Kingdom withdrew from the group of sister AiG organizations. As they had been sharing the one web-site, run by the American ministry, this effectively forced the remaining organizations in Australia (the parent organization), New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa to rebrand, as Creation Ministries International (CMI).
Answers in Genesis in America stopped distributing Creation magazine and the peer-reviewed Journal of Creation (both published by the Australian ministries), switching subscribers to the new Answers magazine published by the American ministry. CMI claims that this was unethical, unlawful, and harmed their ministry. After failing to obtain a satisfactory resolution on the dispute, CMI began legal proceedings against AiG (U.S.) in May 2007.[2] In August 2007 the two parties met in Hawaii in an attempt to resolve the dispute, and reached verbal agreement on a settlement. However, in putting the agreement in writing, CMI claims that AiG subsequently effectively rewrote it, reneging on the verbal agreement. CMI have intimated that they will resume the legal proceedings.[3]
While Answers in Genesis has chosen to not discuss the lawsuit on their website, they do offer a perspective into the decision to create separate organizations and state that while there were philosophical differences in how the organizations were to be run, that both organizations continue to have the same belief in Creationism and the parting was due to how to best present that message. AiG also discusses the discontinuation of Creation magazine in favor of Answers.[4]
As is common in disputes where no resolution has been found, the presentations of CMI and AiG in describing what occurred have a different emphasis on events.
References
External Links
- Answers in Genesis (official site)
- No Answers in Genesis (anti-creationist)
- Breakdown—About the breakdown of the Hawaii agreement between AiG and CMI.
- The Briese committee of inquiry, Mark 2 A third-party investigation of the dispute between AiG and CMI.