By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector
First TBC apologetics conference explores intelligent design found in God’s creation
Danny Faulkner, a Christian astronomer for the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., near Cincinnati, Ohio, speaks Sept. 29 during the first apologetics conference sponsored by the Tennessee Baptist Convention.
NASHVILLE — An understanding of apologetics creates a sense of amazement and wonder, says David Evans, evangelism specialist for the Tennessee Baptist Convention.
“Apologetics is the art and discipline of defending our hope. It gives us the reason for the hope that is within us,” he continued.
Evans planned the first apologetics conference sponsored by the Tennessee Baptist Convention. The sold out event which attracted about 160 participants from 88 churches was held Sept. 29 in the planetarium of the Adventure Science Center in Nashville.
Danny Faulkner, a Christian astronomer for the Creation Museum and a contributor to the Answers in Genesis website, led the session entitled “Giving Amazing Reason to Your Hope.”
The Creation Museum is “a state-of-the-art 75,000-square-foot museum that brings the pages of the Bible to life,” according to its website. The museum is located in Petersburg, Ky., about seven miles west of the airport in Cincinnati, Ohio.
With a backdrop of a poster of the Five Objectives of the Tennessee Baptist Convention, Evans explained what the conference had to do with the goal of seeing at least 50,000 Tennesseans annually saved, baptized, and set on the road to discipleship by 2024.
“Do you remember the last time you were on fire about your faith?” he asked.
“Maybe it was because of your amazement at His great mercy. Amazement is a key component of evangelism,” Evans observed.
“The purpose of the conference is to remind us of the amazing reason for the hope within us,” he said.
Faulkner presented a film “The Created Cosmos” which demonstrated creation from the perspective of astronomy. As Scripture says, “the heavens do proclaim God’s glory,” Faulkner said.
Faulkner is an advocate of “creation evangelism.”
“We need to have resources for young people in our schools today,” he said. What they hear in school “does not jive” with what is taught at home and in churches, he added.
Faulkner noted there are two basic thoughts to explain life on earth: evolution and creation.
Evolutionists believe life just happened and that God is unnecessary, Faulkner said.
Creationists believe someone (God) made life.
Faulkner referred to a news report Sept. 28 about the discovery of evidence of liquid water on Mars.
He noted evolutionists want to find evidence that life exists elsewhere. The key is liquid water, Faulkner said. “If you don’t have liquid water, life is impossible.
He acknowledged water is readily found throughout the universe (including Mars), but it is in solid (ice) or gaseous forms.
“Earth is the only place in the universe where liquid water exists,” Faulkner stressed.
Faulkner noted that he wrote a blog on the issue entitled “Mars Water: Much Ado About Very Little” on the Answers in Genesis website.
Acknowledging that liquid water once was abundant on Mars, he wrote that “it should be no surprise” that there could be pockets of water oozing out on the surface.
He noted that concept is conceivable with a worldview that believes Mars is only thousands of years old as opposed to the evolutionist view that it is billions of years old. He added in his blog that planetary scientists even think Mars has been dry for two billion years. “The question is, could significant liquid water have survived since this time?” he wrote.
But Faulkner assured conference attendees, that even if the discovery of liquid water is true, it does not mean that life once existed on Mars or exists today.
Though the Bible does not say directly there is no life elsewhere, Scripture suggests that “life is unique to this planet,” he said.
