Noah’s Ark, the 21st century version

Here’s a spectacular waste of personal resources, human ingenuity and yes, public money: Ark Encounter. This is a planned — The New York Times calls it a “tourist attraction” — literal rebuilding of Noah’s Ark and other biblical sites, such as the Tower of Babel and walled cities, all of which are

designed to be family oriented, historically authentic, and environmentally friendly.

according to the Ark Encounter Website. Or, at least two of three.

Courtesy of Ark Encounter/A rendering of a park centered on Noah’s ark, seen below in a 19th-century woodcut, planned for Grant County, Ky. Besides the ark, it would include a Tower of Babel, a first-century village and a journey through the Old Testament.

The project, which was conjured by Answers in Genesis, has gained the promise of tax incentives by the state of Kentucky to move forward with construction. Public assistance of religiously-themed spectacles seems, by all accounts, unconstitutional.

Let’s not let that inconvenient fact stop Kentucky Gov. Steven L. Beshear, who announced the plan this week that

the arrangement posed no constitutional problem, and brushed off questions about his stand on creationism.

“The people of Kentucky didn’t elect me governor to debate religion,” he said at a news conference. “They elected me governor to create jobs.”

Yes, jobs:

The Lexington Herald-Leader, Kentucky’s second-largest newspaper, criticized Mr. Beshear in an editorial for a plan that it said would result in low-wage jobs and a poor image for the state.

And the price tag? Develops say the project will cost $150 million, provide for 900 jobs and attract 1.6 million people. Of course, 900 jobs is a farthing when looking at the national jobless rate or even the number of unemployed in Kentucky, which was at 208,000 as of October of this year. Further, Answers in Genesis is soliciting donations for some $24.5 million to make the plan a reality. If only that reality were based in reality. According to the site, potential donors can give $100 bucks for a peg, $1,000 for a plank and $5,000 for a beam to construct this supposed biblically accurate (insomuch as that’s possible) ark. And lest anyone doubt it’s going to be a replica of the real thing, replete with animals heaped on animals, here is a portion of the site’s FAQ:

Are you building an actual Ark?

Yes, we are constructing a full-scale, all-wood ark based on the dimensions provided in the Bible (Genesis 6), using the long cubit, and in accordance with sound established nautical engineering practices of the era. It should become the largest timber-frame structure in the USA.

However ludicrous this plan is and while Web surfers find lots of information on the site about the Ark and the park in general, nowhere does one find an answer to this crucial question: How do project organizers justify spending $150 million on a biblical theme park when millions are starving at this moment in hundreds of countries around the world? I wonder how many mouths $150 million could feed? I wonder how many vaccines that might provide to needy folks in Africa and elsewhere? I wonder how many homeless families in America could be given shelter with that $150 million in this difficult economic climate? Where do “the least of these” fit into the plans for this theme park? Every time I see a new church go up or a new megachurch get bigger or an existing church adding an extension to its compound, I wonder: how many people’s live could be made better with those thousands of dollars? How much medical research could that have funded? How closer could we get to curing cancer, AIDS, diabetes, Lou Gehrig’s, Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s?

But no. In spite of it all and no matter the cost, organizers will surely say that they must continue to push their worldview, mislead children, erect their Taj Mahal’s and call them blessings from above. This is the pretentious and contemptible message resonating from folks like Ham, Dobson, Robertson and the purveyors of this ark project. Thus, I get the distinct sense that Ken Ham and the Answers in Genesis crew have no interest in the above questions, for what does it matter if they speak to legitimate needs if peoples’ souls are bound for eternal fire, if people fail to believe in cartoonish tales of a gigantic, species-laden ark and a tower at which God magically “confounded” the world’s one language into many?

2 thoughts on “Noah’s Ark, the 21st century version

  1. I think sometimes that if I lived in Kentucky, I'd always call my government the "gubbermint". It just sounds better that way. Also, this is a quotable quote: "If only that reality were based in reality."

  2. Thanks for reading Gustav. Somehow, leaders in this part of the country seem to think they can just do whatever they want so long as it meets the approval of their constituents. I can't see how this plan is in any way constitutional.

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