Is VP Candidate Tim Walz a “Minnesota Lutheran Dad” or God-Rejecting Socialist?

Is Minnesota governor and now vice presidential candidate Tim Walz a quote, Minnesota Lutheran dad or a God rejecting socialist? That is a topic we'll discuss today right here on the Christian worldview radio program, where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to proclaim the Good New Year. I'm David Wheaton, the host. We are able to reach believers and non-believers with that mission through the radio station, website or podcast platform on which you are listening today because of the support of listeners like you.

So thank you. Our website is thechristianworldview.org and all our contact information will be given throughout the program today. This week, Vice President Kamala Harris picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate for the Democrat presidential ticket. Christian journalist Julie Royce posted an article on her website that characterized Walz as a quote, Minnesota Lutheran dad, as if he's just a moderate Midwestern guy. But is that an accurate description of Tim Walz?

What has he said and what has he done while in office? We will open the program today with a deeper examination of Tim Walz's worldview. Later in the program, we'll hear another interview from our Road Trip to Creation Museum and Arc Encounter this summer. Mark Loy, co-founder with Ken Ham and Chief Communications Officer of Answers in Genesis, will join us to talk about the history and take us behind the scenes of the ministry.

So we hope you can stay with us the entire program today. It's really amazing how Vice President Kamala Harris has become the presumptive nominee on the Democrat side for the presidential race this year. Harris was a U.S. senator from California from 2017 to 2021. Previous to that, she was the attorney general of California. In 2020, she ran for the Democrat nomination for president.

She fared quite poorly in that in the single digits and eventually dropped out. But she would soon be the diversity, equity and inclusion DEI pick for Joe Biden as he won the nomination that year. Here's what he said back then, that he would pick a black woman for the Supreme Court and a woman to be his running mate. I committed that if I'm elected president, have an opportunity to appoint someone to the courts, I'll appoint the first black woman to the courts. It's required that they have representation now.

It's long overdue. Secondly, if I'm elected president, my cabinet, my administration will look like the country. And I commit that I will, in fact, appoint a, I'll pick a woman to be vice president. There are a number of women who are qualified to be president tomorrow.

I would pick a woman to be my vice president. That's what DEI is. When you discriminate against one gender or one ethnic type in favor of another.

Sounds so good to have, quote, representation. But it puts unchangeable characteristics above merit and is not only completely un-American, but commits the sin of partiality. Harris has had an unremarkable vice presidency, particularly as the borders are, as millions of illegal immigrants have come in to our country during this presidential term. And then this year, Joe Biden won the Democrat nomination for president and then just recently dropped out of the race, endorsing Kamala Harris as vice president. Now, keep in mind that she never received one direct vote to become Joe Biden's vice president. He appointed her. And now she hasn't received one direct vote from primary goers to be the president. But here she is, the presumptive nominee on the Democrat side for president of the United States. And just this week, Harris selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate, the same Tim Walz who said just recently that Joe Biden is fit for office. Is he fit for office?

Yes, he's fit for office. President has three and a half, three and a half years of delivering for us, going through what we've all been through. None of us are denying Thursday night was a bad performance.

It was a bad it was a bad hit, if you will, on that. But it doesn't impact what I believe is delivering. Of course, this was a huge lie and cover up going on. Everyone knew that Joe Biden's cognitive abilities were failing. But Tim Walz there said something significant at the end.

He's delivering. And that's because all the people behind Joe Biden are just using him like a puppet to implement their left wing policies. So we'll examine Kamala Harris in her world view more fully in a future program. But today we're going to look at her choice of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who we are very familiar with living here in Minnesota. Walz was born in Nebraska. He became a high school teacher and assistant high school football coach in Mankato, Minnesota, which is one of the larger towns, more in outstate Minnesota.

Not like a big city, but a good sized town. This, according to Wikipedia, after graduating from Chadron State College in Nebraska, Walz accepted a teaching position for a year with World Teach in China. In 1999, Walz agreed to be the faculty advisor of the first Gay-Straight Alliance at Mankato West High School.

So he was an early adopter of the homosexual agenda. He and his wife Gwen also ran Educational Travel Adventures, which organized summer educational trips for high school students to China. Walz has said he has taken 30 trips to Communist China. Tim Walz really loves China because, according to Miranda Devine, a journalist, Walz chose June 4th as his wedding date to commemorate the bloody anniversary of China's brutal crackdown on democracy protesters in China's Tiananmen Square. Quote, according to his wife, he wanted to have a date he will always remember.

Consider that for a moment. Moving on to his political involvement, Walz volunteered for John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. In 2005, and I think this is significant, Walz completed the two-and-a-half day Campaigns and Elections Crash Course at Camp Wellstone, a program run by Wellstone Action, the nonprofit organization Mark and David Wellstone, created to carry on the work of their parents, Paul Wellstone and Sheila Wellstone. Now, if you don't know who Paul Wellstone is, he was a legendary left-wing politician in Minnesota, a U.S. senator. He had the persona of a common working man. He was very liberal for his time. And he and his wife tragically died in a plane crash in 2002.

It was huge news for sure in Minnesota, but even across the country as well. And Tim Walz is actually very similar to Paul Wellstone. He likes to wear a flannel shirt, camo hat, presents as a regular guy, likes to boldly proclaim his liberal beliefs, just like Paul Wellstone. Now, Minnesota is a left-wing state, no doubt. Walter Mondale ran with Jimmy Carter as Carter's vice president. Al Franken of Saturday Night Live and a leftist was a U.S. senator from Minnesota. Jesse Ventura, the wrestler, was our governor.

And you've probably heard of our U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar with her Somali roots and her far-left worldview. No Republican presidential candidate has won Minnesota since Richard Nixon in 1972. And this is why Harris's choice of Tim Walz is rather odd, because the Democrats would very, very likely win this state, Minnesota, anyway, without Walz on the ticket.

So why pick someone like Walz for a state that you've probably already going to win anyway? Minnesota has been mostly dominated by the left for decades, but especially so in recent years with all branches of state government controlled by the left. The current legislative session has garnered national attention for how radically left it's become in this state. MSNBC, of all news outlets, a very left-wing outlet, said this in their caption of an article, how Minnesota is becoming a laboratory in pushing progressive policy, read liberal policy, state Democrats won back control of the legislature in 2022, and they're using that power to achieve long-sought policy goals of the left. And boy, have they done that.

We've talked about this a little bit on the program, but let me read one more paragraph from this article. When Minnesota Democrats won back the majority in the state Senate last fall, they achieved the dream, a trifecta of control across both houses of legislature and the governor's office as well. And this is where Tim Walz has presided over all the left-wing policies going on in this state. So continuing with this article, this occurred in some other states, but it's Minnesota that's attracting attention as a laboratory for how to effectively use that power to achieve progressive policy priorities. We have a lieutenant governor here in Minnesota named Peggy Flanagan right under Walz, who will become our next governor if Harris and Walz win the White House.

She's worn a T-shirt that says, quote, protect trans rights with a knife on it. We have a state rep named Lee Finke. He went to Bethel College, a local Christian college, and he now dresses and calls himself a she and is highly influential in our state legislature. Now, as we discuss this, it's important to understand that this isn't about political left versus political right. What we're talking about is a spiritual, theological, and biblical discussion, as in Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, vice presidential candidate, and the policies he advocates for reject and rebel against God and His word. Psalm 2 says, the kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers, like Tim Walz, counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us.

That's exactly what Tim Walz and Kamala Harris try to do. What God says, no, no, we're going our own way. That's enslavement to follow God. We want, quote, unquote, freedom from God, or Romans chapter 1, verse 28. This is very descriptive of Walz's worldview. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil. And although they know the ordinance of God that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. That describes Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and presumptive Democrat vice presidential nominee to a T. So you want some proof?

Well, I'm glad you asked. What has Tim Walz done as governor? A local pastor, Levi Secord, recently just wrote this. As a Christian in this state, Minnesota, the horrors of Walz's evil agenda are nearly unspeakable. Walz signed into law a bill that allows abortion up to the moment of birth. His crowning achievement is to allow doctors to crush the skulls of children even while they are being born. If such barbarism was not bad enough, he also used his power, Walz did, to allow children who were born alive after a failed abortion to be left to die. Imagine a helpless child just born into the world left utterly alone to die in a hospital room. There is no moral justification for such patent cruelty. While the GOP's mixed language on abortion should be concerning to Christians, it is not in the same vicinity as the evils Walz used his executive power to enact.

If you think that's an overstatement, listen to Tim Walz himself. And my record is so pro-choice Nancy Pelosi asked me if I should tone it down. I stand with Planned Parenthood and we won!

Did you hear that? Celebrating your advocacy for the killing of unborn children. It was a short clip given at some campaign rally.

I'm going to play it again in case you missed it. And my record is so pro-choice Nancy Pelosi asked me if I should tone it down. I stand with Planned Parenthood and we won! This is a very evil, wicked man. He's unashamed to boldly proclaim his wickedness, which of course he thinks is good.

He calls what is evil good and what is good evil. So he's as radical as they come when it comes to abortion. And this according to Alpha News, a conservative media outlet here in the state of Minnesota, he established a fundamental right to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. He passed protections for women who travel to Minnesota for abortions. Minnesota is a sanctuary state for women to come and have an abortion, whereas they couldn't have an abortion in their own state. He repealed protections for babies who survive abortions.

We just talked about that. He stripped funding from pregnancy resource centers who try to help women with alternatives to abortion. He expanded medical assistance to include abortion. That's taxpayer-funded abortion. And he repealed an informed consent law for abortion.

That's for underage girls to be able to get abortions without the knowledge of their parents. So he's as radical as can be on the issue of killing babies in the womb. But he's equally radical when it comes to the issues of gender and sexuality. Governor Tim Walz declared Minnesota a trans refuge for children seeking sex changes. You remember that state representative Lee Finke, who's a man posing as a woman, he sponsored this trans refuge bill. And here's how he described it as a way to attract people in the medical field to come here and practice their, quote, gender-affirming care, which is actually just doing horrific surgeries on children or giving them very powerful drugs. If you promise trans refuge, then we need to increase the number of people who are offering gender-affirming care because we already had a shortage and now more people are coming. So we have some money hopefully we can pass to help entice people to move from those states who also practice gender-affirming care. You live in Missouri and all your clients can no longer access care.

Well, if they're leaving, you might also be interested in coming with your clients, right, and going to a place where you can serve without prosecution. We want to do internship programs and fellowship programs with Children's Minnesota and other places where people can learn gender-affirming care and become more. We need to increase the number of providers. If you think how evil that is, to give children powerful hormonal drugs in the futile attempt to try to change their gender and bring in so-called doctors to perform irreversible surgeries on the private parts of their bodies, to try to further confuse them that they are not the gender, the sex that God created them to be rather than embracing how God made them. We want to take them in a totally different direction away from God.

Evil. I'll just mention one more thing before the break on this issue of gender and sexuality. Governor Tim Walz in 2023, he signed a bill that requires public schools in Minnesota to provide free menstrual products, such as tampons, to put it bluntly, in girls' bathrooms, but also boys' bathrooms. The Republicans put forward an amendment, which failed, to pull the part of the bill about putting menstrual products in boys' bathrooms. And here's what Minnesota State Representative Democrat Sandra Feist had to say why these products should be in boys' bathrooms.

I would encourage the committee to vote no on this amendment for a few reasons. Not all students who menstruate are female. We need to make sure that all students have access to these products. There are obviously less non-female menstruating students, and therefore their usage will be much slower.

And that was actually calculated into the cost of this and how much we decided to fund it. And so we do not expect that the non-female menstruating students will use these products as much as the students using female bathrooms, but it's important to have them there. These students who are not female, who menstruate, face a greater stigma and barrier to asking for these products.

And so providing them in an easily accessible place in all student bathrooms is particularly important for those students. What is she saying here? She's saying that a girl who dresses as a boy and uses the boys' bathroom at school, who this woman considers to be a boy, even though she's a girl, will need menstrual products in the boys' bathroom. This is the bill that Governor Tim Walz signed into law in the state of Minnesota. Our topic today is Minnesota governor and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz. Is he just a Minnesota Lutheran dad, as he's being described?

Or is he a God-rejecting socialist? I think we're getting closer to the answer to that question. Stay tuned.

We have much more coming up. I'm David Wheaton, and you are listening to the Christian worldview radio program. You have a left-wing foundation that realizes it has a problem advancing its political goals because of evangelicals. And so they will think, OK, what we need to do is find some mechanism by which we can change evangelical minds. They will then recruit well-known organizations like the National Association of Evangelicals, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, and denominational organizations. That was recent guest Megan Basham talking about how evangelical leaders traded the truth for a leftist agenda, which is the subtitle of her bestselling book, Shepherds for Sale.

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I'm David Wheaton. Be sure to visit our website, thechristianrealview.org, where you can subscribe to our free weekly email and annual print letter, order resources for adults and children, and support the ministry. Our topic today is, is Minnesota governor and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz a quote, Minnesota Lutheran dad, or is he a God-rejecting socialist? And we've been going over his worldview with regard to abortion and gender and sexuality.

Now let's get on to some other issues. Freedom of speech is one of the first freedoms in our Constitution. You are not free, though, to directly incite violence.

You can't cry fire in a movie theater. You can't incite murder of someone like the president. But you are certainly free in our country to express your beliefs, even if you're wrong about your beliefs. Now, the United Kingdom right now is experiencing riots all over the country after three young girls were stabbed to death by a man of Rwandan descent who was living in England. It's turned into a Muslim versus native Englishman battle in the streets. The English are even being arrested in their homes for posting their views against Muslims on social media.

There's videos of this online. In fact, Stephen Parkinson, who is the UK director of public prosecutions of England and Wales, just had this to say. The offense of incitement to racial hatred involves publishing or distributing material which is insulting or abusive, which is intended to or likely to start racial hatred. So if you retweet that, then you're republishing that and then potentially you're committing that offense. And we do have dedicated police officers who are scouring social media.

Their job is to look for this material and then follow up with identification arrests and so forth. So it's really, really serious. People might think they're not doing anything harmful.

They are. And the consequences will be visited upon them. So if you couldn't make out his accent there, he said the offense to incite to racial hatred involves publishing material which is insulting or abusive, which is intended or likely to start racial hatred. These are all legal terms to give the government maximal flexibility to be able to prosecute those who they deem dangerous.

Now, this is obviously very subjective. Any given person in authority could consider something insulting or abusive. So like Canada, the UK doesn't have the same protections for citizens for their freedom of speech.

But this is what Minnesota Governor Tim Walz would like that situation in the UK. Punishment for non-approved speech. In fact, here's what he had to say about free speech. I think we need to push back on this. There's no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech and especially around our democracy. Walz strongly favors speech controls, which is really just population control, which is what socialists and communists always demand. Not only that, but during COVID in our state, he as the governor established what's called a snitch line where people could report their neighbors for violating COVID lockdown orders.

Listen to this. Hello, you have reached the Department of Public Safety stay at home hotline. The information you leave is considered public information at the tone.

Please leave the following information. Your name, your call back number, how the stay at home order is being violated and where the stay at home order was violated. Thank you. Record your message at the tone when you are finished.

Hang up or press pound for more options. This is a communist favorite to have a snitch line for citizens to turn in each other when they see violations of arbitrary and unscientific policies during COVID. Now, after we experienced the death of George Floyd in this city back in 2020, which was due to drugs in his system, not the police officer's knee restraint on the back of his neck, that led to unprecedented rioting and destruction of our cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul. For days, riots went on and on, looting and burning the city.

A third precinct, police precinct was allowed to be burned down as well. Governor Walz, because he is not following the kind of the first commandment of government is to punish what is evil, refused to call in the National Guard to stop these riots until it was too late. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who is liberal himself, but not to the degree that Tim Walz is, was asking Governor Walz to send in the National Guard, but Walz refused to do so until he did so when it was too late. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has consistently said what he told us on June 2. I will speak the truth. And the truth is that on Wednesday around 6 p.m., I called the governor and asked for the National Guard.

Text messages and emails from the mayor's office for Wednesday, May 27. Back that up. You see, Walz believes the lie that our society is structurally unjust and racist. So he sides with the rioters. He agrees with their cause, which is incredibly troubling when you see how much this city, Minneapolis and St. Paul, has declined in public safety since that time. Now, the final thing we'll discuss about Minnesota governor and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz is his religious side.

The Daily Caller outlet wrote about this. They said Walz, who is the governor of Minnesota, identified Pilgrim Lutheran Church in St. Paul as his parish during a 2020 briefing on the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials published by Pilgrim Lutheran Church in St. Paul instruct parishioners not to refer to God using male pronouns, also instruct congregants to support reparation funds, encourage them to celebrate Ramadan, the Muslim holiday, and include a modified gender-neutral version of the Lord's Prayer, among other liberal practices.

That, according to the Daily Caller. I went to Pilgrim Lutheran Church's website, which is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Every single staff member, the first part of their bio begins with their quote, preferred pronouns, including the lead pastor who is a woman, she, her. This tells you everything you need to know about the kind of church that Minnesota governor Tim Walz would identify with, an extremely left-wing ELCA denomination that non-ironically holds all the same leftist views that Tim Walz does.

So let's try to answer the question we started with today. Is Minnesota governor, vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, a quote, Minnesota Lutheran dad, or is he a God-rejecting socialist? Well, the answer may surprise you, but I think that he is both. He's a very left-wing Lutheran from a liberal denomination, and he's also a God-rejecting socialist. We should believe Tim Walz when he tells us this. Don't ever shy away from our progressive values. One person's socialism is another person's neighborliness.

Just do the d*** work. Well, there you have it. One man's socialism is another man's neighborliness. Tim Walz is basically saying that someone may cast the aspersion at you of being a socialist, but really he thinks he's just being neighborly. And there's a religious connotation to that with love your neighbor from the Bible. So socialism isn't a bad thing according to Tim Walz.

It's a biblical thing. And so when you put Walz and his views all together, one thing I cannot understand is how any professing Christian could vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz when there are other much more moderate options, including Donald Trump or a third party. Of course, the reality of a third party vote in our two-party system is that you are really helping the candidate you really don't want to win. But an example of a professing Christian evangelical voting for Harris and Walz is David French. He's a very prominent professing evangelical journalist. He writes for The New York Times. He said this, quote, I am a conservative never-Trumper.

I would absolutely prefer a more moderate vice presidential pick than Tim Walz, but I also know that I belong to a microscopic constituency, so I just have to content myself with Harris, quote, not being a felon and a sex abuser, not attempting a coup like Trump did, he thinks, and not sacrificing Ukraine to an authoritarian maniac as the main wins of voting for Kamala Harris, unquote. That's from David French, the most prominent Christian journalist. You see, Trump was targeted in a show trial so that he would become a felon so they could just call him a felon. French apparently believes the sexual abuse allegations against Donald Trump from the past, but never emphasizes the allegations against Joe Biden and many others on the left. Trump didn't attempt a coup. Neither did trespassers and rioters on January 6th. There were no guns involved.

They weren't trying to take over the government. Biden was the one who got our country into the war in Ukraine, not Trump. But reason won't convince someone like David French. He, as a professing Christian, is going to vote for, in my estimation, the most God-rejecting candidates for president and vice president in our history. I really don't see how one can be a true born-again Christian and vote that way.

Steve Dace is a radio talk show host for The Blaze. He wrote a post online where he said, this is a terminal election from a worldview perspective. The differences in worldview have never been more stark, not between Trump and the Democrats, he writes, but between the Democrats and us. I have fundamental worldview differences with Trump, he says.

Frankly, I'm not sure how a Bible-believing Christian could not. But the differences in worldview I have with Trump are dimensionally different than what the Harris-Walls ticket represents. And this is why we spent the first half of the program today examining who Tim Walz is, half of the ticket.

We'll get into Kamala Harris in a future program because he and she are being totally beautified, I guess you could say, by the national media right now. And a lot of people, including professing Christians, are going to buy into it. Don't be deceived. We will pause briefly to tell you about some ministry announcements, but stay tuned. Mark Lloyd, co-founder of Answers in Genesis, is coming up next. I'm David Wheaton, and you are listening to the Christian Real View Radio program. This kind of worldview about identity has exploded, where people come along and say, if it's all about you, you need to actually work out who you are. It's actually immunizing a generation against the gospel, because the gospel comes into the picture and says, well, who are you? You're actually a sinner.

It's a negative answer to the question. You need a savior. Look the cross of Jesus Christ. Who did he die for, if you're so good, if you're so worthy, if you have to pursue yourself as a good foundation for how to live? That was recent guest Martin Iles, executive CEO of Answers in Genesis and author of Who Am I?

Solving the Identity Puzzle. Endorsed by Ken Ham, John McArthur, and Ray Comfort, Who Am I? is a 208-page hardcover that retails for $19.99. For a limited time, you can order it for a donation of any amount to the Christian Real View.

Go to thechristianrealview.org, call 1-888-646-2233, or write to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. The Overcomer Foundation Cup is the new name of our annual golf event, and this year's event will be held at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minnesota, Monday, September 16th. Hazeltine hosts many of golf's major championships, such as the Ryder Cup, US Open, and US Amateur. Your registration includes 18 holes with cart, full use of Hazeltine's facilities, three meals and beverages, golfer gift, and more. There are lots of sponsor options, and non-golfers are welcome to attend the post-golf meal and message. From wherever you are in the country, you are invited to bring colleagues or clients to experience a unique day at Hazeltine and discover how the Overcomer Foundation, the non-profit organization that directs the Christian Real View Radio Program, is impacting lives.

Again, the date is Monday, September 16th at Hazeltine in Chaska, Minnesota. To find out more and to register, go to thechristianrealview.org or call 1-888-646-2233. Welcome back to the Christian Real View. I'm David Wheaton. Be sure to visit our website, thechristianrealview.org, where you can subscribe to our free weekly email and annual print letter, order resources for adults and children, and support the ministry. If you've been listening to the program over the summer, you will have heard some interviews from our road trip to the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter in northern Kentucky, both operated by the excellent ministry Answers in Genesis. Well, we had the opportunity to sit down with Mark Loy, co-founder with Ken Ham and chief communications officer, and he had some interesting things to say about the history of Answers in Genesis and the future of the ministry. Tell us some of the things you remember about starting out with Ken in ministry, and you were born actually in Australia, even though you have an American accent.

Tell us about some of your background. That's something I share with Ken Ham, an Australian birth, but the fact that Ken and I are working together almost like 37, 38 years now has nothing to do with the fact that we share an Australian heritage. He came to America on a speaking tour in the early 80s from Queensland, Australia, and I was working at a Christian radio station, finishing my graduate studies at San Diego State University. I would often interview him before he would start on his speaking tour around the United States. So I met Ken in the early 80s. He would go back to Australia, then come back, and he moved to America in 1987, remembered me from those radio interviews, and by then my schooling had been finished, gotten married, and in 1987 he and I started organizing what are called the Back to Genesis apologetics conferences all over the country. That's when Ken and I were with the ministry called ICR, the Institute for Creation Research with Henry Morris, who by the way lived for many years in Minnesota just down the road from you, and also Dr. Duane Gish, who is famous for all the 300 debates he did with evolutionists. So Ken and I have been working together since 1987 and left ICR under good circumstances to start up a layman's apologetics ministry. ICR was predominantly a research think tank, and we wanted to do seminars and radio programs to reach the average layperson in the pew, but also to evangelize the lost. So in 1994, Ken, myself, and Mike Zoveth moved from San Diego, California to, here we are in northern Kentucky, and the most asked question we get now, David, is why did you choose northern Kentucky? And it's simply because we did a little bit of research and discovered that almost two-thirds of America can drive here to our Cincinnati northern Kentucky area in one day. And we knew we wanted to build a creation museum at some point, so we wanted to make it as convenient as possible. This is not quite the Bible Belt in northern Kentucky, but close enough that we've gotten a lot of good church support being right here in this area.

Our major airport just two exits away from the creation museum, and it's been a nice place for us to raise our three sons. So, Mark, tell us about Ken Ham. You know him so well.

You've known him for so many years. What is he like as a leader, a visionary, and just as a person? Give us an insight into what he's like. Well, you use the word visionary, and it's sometimes an overused word, but not for Ken. He's a visionary with a capital V. What you see here at the creation museum and the Ark Encounter are things he's had on his heart and mind for decades. So a lot of the ideas come just from him?

Yeah, he knows what people really should be learning about biblical authority. He just has an uncanny gift of knowing what will work and what may not work, and that's a part, I guess, of being a visionary. But he's got ideas of what will be at the Ark and the creation museum 15 years from now. So the ideas are his, but you've got to make them into three-dimensional reality somehow. That requires a very creative art team. So when you come to the museum and the Ark Encounter, you see Ken Ham's ideas, but an artistic team led by the late Patrick Marsh had to make it a wow experience.

They had the abilities that Ken didn't have, but Ken knew what should be presented, how to present it, but it was up to the artists and the creative people to make it three-dimensional reality. Ken is a person. I mean, he lives and breathes this ministry. You scratch him, and you get biblical authority and the gospel message throughout. He is as genuine as you get.

A reporter with the local Cincinnati paper did a profile on Ken. They asked me, if there's one word you could use to describe Ken, what would it be? It only took a fraction of a second, and I came up with the word integrity with how God's word is handled. Ken just wholeheartedly believes the Bible is much more than a guidebook for living.

It should be in our very fiber of our being. Integrity, too, with his family. He and Mallie have been married for more than 50 years.

They love each other. Integrity with how this ministry is run. We've got a rather robust accounting department to make sure the money is spent wisely, and we are good stewards of the donations that people give to us. So yeah, the word integrity, and Ken has done so much for staff members, helping them out in a variety of ways that they never even know it's Ken. I happen to know some of the things he's done. For all the boldness that he has, and you've heard him speak. You've interviewed him, of course. There's that boldness there, but he's really a teddy bear underneath all that. He's got such a soft heart for people.

Not only Christians who might be suffering, but also a passion to reach the lost. You mentioned Dr. John Morris. You wrote a column on him recently, I think it was.

I'm not sure how long it was ago, but he's now gone to be with the Lord in heaven. Tell us more about his influence on you and Ken. Well, it was his father, Henry Morris, that was even more influential, although John and I were very good friends. In fact, we were ping-pong competitors.

I know about you on the bigger court, but back then we were table tennis competitors. But his father, Henry, was even more influential because of his books, like The Genesis Flood and The Genesis Record. As a teenager, I was struggling with my young Christian faith because I was getting evolutionized in my public schools, watching National Geographic TV specials, and the museums in the area were teaching an evolutionary world view. And I'm wondering, how can I really trust the Bible because of the evolution teaching I was getting? So I got exposed to the teachings of Duane Gish and Henry Morris.

This is about 1972. And I can almost say I was having a crisis of faith because I was wondering, could I really trust the Bible? Because science and all these scientists were telling me otherwise.

I got exposed to their teachings, like on the fossil record, fossil ape men, Neanderthal men, and they were so easily refuted by Henry Morris and Duane Gish. And then Henry Morris' son, John, he's the one who went to Mount Ararat several times trying to find the ark, and he passed away about a year or so ago. He had been struck by lightning on the mountains of Ararat, and there's no proof of it, but his health just went downhill after that lightning strike.

He developed MS. We can't say for sure quite possible that that particular trip to Mount Ararat created physical issues for him that eventually led to his death. And 15 minutes ago, I just learned that a very good friend of mine passed away in Baltimore. And one of the most asked questions we get here at the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter is, if there's a God of love, if he's omnipotent, why do we have suffering, death? You lost your father just over a year ago. I know you were very close to him. And the Book of Genesis has the answer to that question of why there is death and suffering and disease in this world.

So we present the answer here in our Creation Museum as well as the ark, and even Christians are asking that question, why would God allow such things to happen? And Ken Ham has written a couple of books on that. But right now, I'm frankly grieving the loss of this friend and someone who helped open this Creation Museum back in 2007. But I have a piece. I know where he is. I know why he had some health issues.

So sometimes it's hard to understand. But if you believe in the fall of Genesis chapter 3, we live in a cursed, fallen world, these things happen. So pray for this man. His name is Al.

And maybe your nationwide audience would consider praying for Al in Baltimore. Mark Loewy joins us today here on the Christian Real View. He is the chief communications officer and the co-founder of Answers in Genesis along with Ken Ham. Ken spoke just about the impact of this ministry and the museum and the ark, how encouraging it is for Christians to get them grounded in what Scripture says. This isn't necessarily a creation ministry.

It's an authority of God's word ministry. Tell us, Mark, about what the impact of Answers in Genesis, the museum, the ark is on an unbelieving culture around us. And then part two of the question is, what has been some of the opposition like?

Because I know there's been a lot of opposition. Maybe the biggest lie ever told is that there is no God and that we're random. And this ministry basically demolishes that lie based on what Scripture says.

Well, you're right. We are a biblical worldview ministry. We're not just creation versus evolution. We want to share with our visitors here at the museum and at the ark that you can trust the Bible from Genesis onwards. It just so happens the first 11 chapters of Genesis are the most attacked part of the Bible, most ridiculed. And so we do concentrate on Genesis and hence our name, Answers in Genesis. For the non-Christians who come here and with the ark, we get over a million people a year. And our surveys indicate that about a third of our visitors at the ark would not call themselves Christians or born again. And as you will see at the ark when you visit tomorrow, the gospel is everywhere. And it's easy to piggyback off the ark for presenting the gospel because the ark of Noah was a vessel of salvation, if you will, for the family of eight and then, of course, all those animals being preserved. So we're very, very evangelistic, but it just so happens that many of the people who are doubting the validity of the Christian faith, their doubt often is in the book of Genesis. If they don't trust Genesis, they might be wondering, well, when do I begin to believe the Bible? So as we answer those questions about death and suffering, dinosaurs, creation, evolution, the people who come here who are non-Christians are suddenly going to be taking the Bible more seriously.

We had an event that lasted for 40 days last year at the ark. We knew of at least 2,100 professions of faith where people actually told us they had received Christ. And so we're not involved in an intellectual argument of creation versus evolution. We do present the creationist perspective here and we refute evolution. But much more than that, we're biblical authority and the gospel most of all.

For the Christians who visit, we want to equip them to have answers to dinosaurs, Cain's wife, why we have death and suffering in this world. Along the way, yes, there's been some opposition, even just this piece of property we're sitting on right now. A number of atheists in the area and a couple of liberal pastors opposed the rezoning of this property. Twenty years ago, if you went to the county office, you would have seen this property was designated for development.

It was in a certain purple color, which meant that this property was ready for development. But I tell you, the opposition we received was so intense we actually had to go to court. Long story short, we did get this piece of property and this museum is attracting over a half a million people a year. As I said earlier, the ark over a million. The people who kind of opposed us years and years ago now have seen the economic impact and they're not saying much at all.

They're kind of backed off because we have been a quote unquote success in seeing so many new hotels and restaurants opening as people come here from all over the world. Do you think the actual Noah's Ark is discoverable? What are your thoughts on where that is? We have a PhD geologist on our staff who knows geology very well, including the mountains of Ararat. The Bible says it didn't land on the mountain of Ararat, says the mountains of Ararat, so it could be anywhere.

I've been to that region. Our best guess is that, because it's a volcano, that any remnants of that ship were either destroyed by volcanic activity or people went up there to plunder to take the wood to build shelter. Even though some people whose opinions sound valid claim they have seen the ark, every five years you hear something. But no, we don't believe the remnants of the ark are there at all.

John Morris was there many times and he never found it. Final question for you, Mark. What do you see for the future?

It's hard for organizations to stay on the narrow road for the long term. Judas recently brought on Martin Iles, who's from Australia. What do you see for answers in Genesis and these attractions for the future? And specifically for Martin, why is he on board? Ken is now in his 70s.

I just hit 70. And so we're always looking for younger folks who love the Lord and have a biblical worldview and have certain talents. We have a very godly board and these are not men that we've put on the board because they have money to give. They have a certain expertise and a biblical worldview. And they are concerned with succession and what's called mission drift. How many ministries are so different than they were 20, 30, 40 years ago?

It's called mission drift. And a lot of it involves compromise over biblical issues. And so Martin is in his mid-30s, very well-spoken, very good Bible teacher, very high-tech. We were looking for someone to help Ken, to come alongside Ken, who is not only a good Bible teacher, but was forward-thinking, take advantage of the new technologies that are out there to proclaim biblical truths. And a lot of those technologies you'll see in the Creation Museum and the Ark. We have people who come here all the time, David, who say that the wow effect that they get here is equivalent or better to what they would get at Disney World Universal. And so, yes, there's a form of entertainment here at our attractions, but we have some very serious messages.

But we want to package it using some of the best technologies of the day. And that's why Martin was brought here over from Australia to come alongside Ken and help lead this ministry. Thank you for all you're doing to proclaim God and His Word and the Gospel. It's the thread throughout everything with Answers in Genesis and the Museum and the Ark as well. So all of God's best and grace to you, Mark. Well, thank you for this time. Well, thanks to Mark Loy for being so kind and hospitable to our family when we visited the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter this summer. We have a couple more interviews from the trip that will air in future programs. I just want to mention that Answers in Genesis is grieving and rejoicing right now over Buddy Davis.

He was a multi-gifted sculptor, musician, program host, and more for the ministry. He went to be with his Savior this past week after a long health struggle. So be sure to pray for Buddy's wife and those who loved him as well. Thank you for joining us today on the Christian Real View and for your support of this nonprofit radio ministry. Let's anchor ourselves in what scripture says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Until next time, think biblically, live accordingly, and stand firm. The Christian Real View is a listener-supported nonprofit radio ministry furnished by the Overcomer Foundation. To make a donation, become a Christian Real View partner, order resources, subscribe to our free newsletter, or contact us, visit thechristianrealview.org, call 1-888-646-2233, or write to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. That's Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. Thanks for listening to the Christian Real View.