Whether an individual believes that a spiritual being created the universe or that it simply evolved over time, organizers of the annual Creation Evidence Expo promise them an engaging series of activities.
The free event, sponsored by Zion Unity Baptist Church and numerous collaborators, will be held from Sept. 21 to Sept. 25 at The Life Center of Southport, 4002 Southport Road.
The expo, which is being promoted with the theme “In search of the truth,” will include interactive displays, books, family entertainment and several exhibits and workshops that discuss the origins and age of the Earth to highlight evidence of the world’s creation by a spiritual being.
Presenters will also offer scientific and archeological “evidence” that they say proves the world was “intelligently designed” by a high spiritual being.
Rev. Frederick Boyd, pastor of Zion Unity and a founder of the Creation Evidence Expo, said its goal is to offer a venue in which educators, pastors and scientists can explore and discuss research that they believe proves that science supports the theory that God created the Earth approximately 6,000 years ago and events recorded in the Bible are historically and scientifically sound.
Topics covered will include:
Scientific evidence supporting a young, created Earth.
Are there really different races?
Into the Lion’s Den: Divine design in the stones of Israel.
Also included this year will be a debate about human evolution and dinosaurs. Prominent speakers include Dr. Jay Wile, a prominent atheist who became a Christian, Dr. Willie Dye, one of the nation’s few African-American biblical archeologists, Dr. A. Charles Ware, president of Crossroads Bible College, and Bruce Malone, scientist, chemist and author.
Within the last quarter century, a movement known as “young Earth creationism” has grown in the Protestant Christian community of the United States.
Indiana is home to many prominent creation activists, including Dr. John Whitcomb, a theologian and author of the book The Genesis Flood, which provides scientific arguments that a universal flood took place as recorded in the Bible.
Supporters of the movement began to mobilize in 1987 after the U.S. Supreme Court declared that teaching creationism; the religious-based belief that the universe was created by a supreme being, in public schools is unconstitutional.
Until that time, creationism had been taught in many public schools as a theory on how the world came into existence right alongside evolution, the scientific belief that humans evolved into our current form over millions of years from earlier versions of humans that were related to animals.
In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the teaching of intelligent design (the science-based belief that the world was designed) as a violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, which upholds separation of church and state.
Since then, creationist Christians have been upset that evolution is essentially the only state-endorsed theory of Earth’s origins taught in public schools. Creation activists in Indiana are working to convince legislators, educators and parents to help bring creation science, or at least intelligent design, back into schools.
“The bottom line is that a lot of things that are incorrect are being taught in our school system, including among our African-American children,” said Boyd. “We encourage people to come out because they will discover that in places of education our children are not getting the true picture when it comes to the origins of life.”
Jonathan Dudley, a Christian who endorses evolution and author of Broken Words: The Abuse of Science and Faith in American Politics, believes creationists are actually abandoning the Christian tradition by rejecting evolution.
“Creationism has failed to provide an alternative explanation for the vast majority of evidence explained by evolution,” Dudley said.
Creationism, he said, has failed to explain why, for example, birds still carry genes to make teeth, whales to make legs, and humans to make tails, or why the fossil record demonstrates a precise order, with simple organisms in deep rocks and more complex ones toward the surface.
On the other hand, Wile, a professor of nuclear chemistry at the University of Rochester, is looking forward to speaking at the expo.
“I was first an atheist, then became a creationist after I realized that nature had to be created,” Wile said. “It took a little longer for me to realize who the creator was, and that was quite a journey that required me to learn a lot more about the scientific evidence that supports the truth of the Bible and a Christian worldview.”
Boyd and other organizers want attendees, whether they have a faith or not, to at least look at materials and review information that they say proves that God specifically designed each individual and humans do not come from animals.
“This is not a religious event, it is a science-based educational event,” Boyd said. “Our goal is to promote truth in education, because you can’t teach something unless it has been proven to be factually true.”
Decide for yourself
What: Creation Evidence Expo
When: Sept. 21-Sept. 25
Where: The Life Center of Southport, 4002 E. Southport Road.
Highlights include
Presenters such as Willie Dye, African-American biblical archeologist; and Bruce Malone, successful chemist and founder of Search For the Truth Ministries.
Anti-violence rally at the Indiana Statehouse, Sept. 16, noon to 3 p.m.
Debate on human evolution and its relationship to the existence of dinosaurs, Sept. 25.
For more information visit creationevidenceexpo.org or call (317) 345-9072.
