DefendingScience,Scientists,&NonScientists

Ken Ham in Wichita, October 13th

This was easily the most bizarre meeting I’ve been to.

At the last minute, the venue was changed from Sunrise Academy to Immanuel, a truly impressive mega-church in Wichita. I have to admit, the change of venue to a church itself, and the odd way in which the meeting progressed had me raise the bar on my tolerance level before I’d say anything. Honestly, Ham has gotten rich off this for a good reason, he’s really slick about it, and the whole thing was such an odd mess that observing it was a lot to handle.

What was billed as a Christian rally for “reclaiming the culture,” was little more than a live infomercial.

Not only were all sorts of books available for sale in the lobby, which is normal, but so were DVDs, software, and a few other products like lotion made partially out of mud from the Dead Sea – which the president for Sunrise Academy claimed was for charity to benefit Myanmar.

Then, during the presentation, there were pitches for several different promotional offers during Brannon Howse’s presentation, which started with a lot of seemingly bizarre talk about current events in US politics.

As Howse was wrapping up, he introduced someone named Landon who gave a 15-minute sales pitch on Bible software, that he presented on each of the mega-church’s 2 giant screens.

Then Ham took the stage and made a series of juvenile comments, but I have to give credit where credit is due. He’s a bullshit artist like none I’ve seen. He really is funny and charming, and in his misinformation presentations in person, his delivery is of such a nature that he makes it hard to bust him in front of an audience who is there to buy what he’s selling. And I can tell that he’s scientifically literate, he’s just telling people lies that they want to hear.

After about 30-45 minutes, Ham started using the big screens to promote several of his own books and DVDs for sale in the lobby that were for sale at prices well below his claimed value.

Most of the products available had a value versus the night’s sale price. It was an infomercial. A really, really strange informercial for me, because I was actually there.

I could tell that a lot of the audience was uncomfortable as the product assault progressed, and several of them left as Ham went through product after product after product. And really, out of the crowd of, I think, about 2000, it seemed as though many of them were looking at each other puzzled as Ham spoke out against searching for objective historical truths.

This meeting gave me hope. It seemed for being an audience of die hards, they weren’t as lively or even interested as I’ve seen at most of the other meetings.

I have some audio of it which I will post soon.