The Noah Conference Will Bring Together Ken Ham, Kevin Swanson, and the Benhams

Noah Conference Official Trailer from Kevin Swanson on Vimeo.



Ken Ham, creator of the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter theme park, will be taking part in a conference that likens modern "ungodliness" to the Great Flood.

The Noah Conference will take place on August 19-20 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Registration includes admission into the Ark Encounter theme park nearby. The Noah Conference website describes the event as an opportunity to disciple children in the midst of an "enticing me-centered, entertainment-saturated, and peer-dominated culture".

"You, like Noah, are competing against a thousand corrupt voices," the website tells visitors. "Like Noah’s sons, your children must also follow you into an ark to be saved – the ark that is Jesus Christ."

"You and your family might feel like you’re swimming upstream. But have you ever tried swimming against a flood?

4,000 years ago, the earth was covered by the greatest flood of all time. Every man, woman and child was swept away...except for one man and his family. But that wasn’t all. Another flood was raging which posed even greater danger to Noah and his family - a worldwide flood of ungodliness.

What did Noah do?

By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.” (Heb 11:7)

What can you do?

Join families from across the country for the Noah Conference in Cincinnati on August 19 & 20 - just minutes away from the new life-size Ark Encounter and Creation Museum. Based on lessons from the life of Noah, the Noah Conference will prepare you to engage your kids, disciple them in an ungodly generation, and launch them into life as ambassadors of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

The all-white, all-male list of conference speakers includes Ken Ham, the Benham Brothers, anti-abortion activist Flip Benham, and the ever-colorful Kevin Swanson. (Let's hope that Swanson refrains from screaming, gesticulating, and making references to manure and pus-filled sores this time.) The workshop schedule features the typical right-wing fare about how the Christian family is supposedly under attack from a wicked world, and how families must batten down the hatches under male headship.

• Lot vs. Noah: Combating the Influence of the World on Your Home
   
• Children, Obey Your Parents


• Why Every Family Needs an Ark


• Discipleship 101: Bringing Your Children into the Ark


• It’s Time to Build an Ark in the Secular Age


• Living Among Lions: How to Thrive like Daniel in Today's Babylon


• Getting Your Kids on Board: How Dad Passes a Vision to His Children

The Noah Conference brims with Christian myths, and not just the Great Flood myth. Fundamentalist Christians are not living in an era of incomparable evil. Some monolithic, wicked "world" is not out to taint their families and persecute them for their faith. Adopting a siege mentality and shunning the outside world will not keep them safe or sanctified. Heaven's floodgates have not opened, and there is no need for a metaphorical ark.

Commentary Tidbits

Talk to Action: Say You Want A Christian Nation? Let's Try This One

The Guardian: Jehovah's Witnesses silencing techniques: As terrifying as child abuse

Think Progress: Faith Groups Are Trying To Block Emergency Contraception For Raped Migrant Children

News One: Uganda’s “Kill The Gays” Bill Is Back, & The World Is Watching

Love, Joy, Feminism: Bob Jones University Rejects Key Recommendations of the GRACE Report

Political Research Associates: The Myth of Christian Persecution

Sydney Morning Herald: Abuse inside Christian marriages: A personal story

Rhymes with Religion: “Righteous” reputations of churches that don’t care

Wonkette: Performance Artist Flip Benham Solves Transgender Bathrooms Problem By Yelling ‘Pervert!’ At It

Mother Jones: Tea Party Darling Ben Carson Says Prisoners Prove That Homosexuality Is A Choice

News Tidbits

Charlotte Observer: Minister Flip Benham charged with violating noise ordinance at gay pride fest

Orlando Sentinel: GOP hopeful Michele Bachmann gives personal, Christian testimonial in Orlando

The Advocate: Santorum: Gays Have "Gone Out on a Jihad" Against Me

American Independent: Catholic Church, NOM register PACs in Minn. ahead of same-sex marriage amendment campaign

American Independent: Former manager of defunded Planned Parenthood clinic now giving speeches on her ‘pro-life conversion’

The Abortion Matrix

The Forerunner, a conservative Christian media group, released an anti-abortion film this fall entitled The Abortion Matrix: Defeating Child Sacrifice and the Culture of Death. Featuring commentary from Biblical patriarchy supporter R.C. Sproul Jr., Operation Save America leader Flip Benham, anti-abortion advocate Rusty Thomas, and New Apostolic Reformation speaker Lou Engle, The Abortion Matrix demonizes abortion with inflammatory rhetoric. After watching several excerpts on YouTube, I found that the film not only relies on fear of paganism, but unwittingly reveals the politics behind the radical anti-abortion movement.

Rather than offer reasoned arguments about why they believe abortion to be unethical, the creators of The Abortion Matrix resort to fear and horror. The film dubiously correlates abortion with pagan child sacrifice and witchcraft, as evidenced in commentary at the Forerunner about Wiccan cooperation with women's health clinics. In one video excerpt from The Abortion Matrix, the narrator refers to the 15th century treatise Malleus Maleficarum as evidence of the concern over supposedly widespread witchcraft and child sacrifice in medieval times. (Interestingly, I didn't hear much commentary on the Malleus Maleficarum's misogyny, advocacy of torture for alleged "witches", and strong role in the brutal European witch craze.) It is telling that the film glances back at the European witch craze, which was rooted in hatred of women and sexual anxieties. Perhaps the same pathologies drive the present-day radical anti-abortion movement?