Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham and Bill Nye “The Science Guy” have squared off again. After having publicly debated in 2014, the two met again on July 8 at Ham’s newly-opened Ark Encounter, a $100 million Kentucky theme park built upon a literalistic interpretation of the biblical story of Noah’s Ark. The results were predictable, and were covered by a variety of media outlets including The Washington Post and, from quite a different angle, the Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Readers of Sightings will not likely need to be reminded of the long tussle in America between fundamentalist Christians and proponents of science and evolutionary theory, which is the central historical context in which to view the Ham-Nye “clash” (as Ham himself termed their encounter at the theme park). They will perhaps be interested to consider, however, how this latest skirmish between the Literalist and the Scientist reminds us of another significant division, one within American Christianity itself.
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