The story of how the Creation Museum was planned and conceived begins, not in kentuky USA, but in Queensland, Australia. Towards the later part of the 1970s a growing number of evangelical christians believed that the established church's teaching of the Bible was being compromised in the face of ever-increasing attacks by secularists and felt they needed to reverse this trend.
Amongst this concerned congregation were two public school science teachers Ken Ham and John Mackay both of whome felt strongly enough about this erosion of biblical truth to form a miinistry with the aims of offering creationist litriture and teaching resources concerning biblical science. Thus Creation Science Educational Media Services (CSEM) was created.
Australia, and in particular Queensland, in the late 1970s was a hotbed of creationist activity - at one point the lobbying of State governments was so successful that Queensland allowed the teaching of creationism as science to school children. In 1977, the first official creationist organisation in Australia - The Creation Science Association (CSA) - had been formed. It was based in Adelaide, and was headed by Dr Carl Wieland. By 1979 it had begun to publish the popular magazine Ex Nihilo, and had branches in all states except Queensland.
In 1980 the converging paths of these two creationist ministries met and resulted in a new organisation called Creation Science Supplies later to be named Creation Science Foundation (CSF). This was just the beggining. With its potential for spreading the written word Ken Ham's CSF team took over production of Ex Nihilo, and later renamed it Creation Ex Nihilo and eventually simply Creation. In 1984 CSF's goal of increased media penetration came a step nearer with the launch of a new publication called the Ex Nihilo Technical Journal. Its aim was for more in-depth analysis of creation issues. It was later renamed Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal then simply TJ.
The following years proved highly succesful and in In 1986, the Australian board of CSF seconded Ken Ham to join Dr. Henry Morris’s Institute for Creation Research (ICR) in California to help popularize ICR’s creation message around America. Many of the books the Hams had sold in those early days came from the San Diego-based Institute for Creation Research.
Ken Ham moved to the U.S. on January 22, 1987, but remained a director of the CSF ministry in Australia. On February 18, 1987, Ken received a phone call informing him of a major leadership problem back home. John MacKay had been heading the CSF in Australia; but a very ugly and weird dispute occured. In brief, MacKay started accusing a CSF staffer, Margarent Buchanan, of witchcraft, Satanism, and necrophilia with her dead husband. There was never the slightest basis for these accusations; but MacKay made an ultimatum that either Margarent Buchanan left, or he did. In the end MacKay resigned and went his own way. He was also excommunicated from his own Baptist church for the whole affair. Ken Ham, still based in the USA, played an important role in fixing up the matter, and strongly condemned MacKay at that time as Buchanan was his personal secretary.
The damage caused by Mr Mackays departure was kept to a minimum by a re-shuffling of staff. Dr. Andrew Snelling (who started and produced the TJ magazine) was appointed as temporary manager. Dr Snelling held the reins for a few months and then, in September 1987, Dr. Carl Wieland (who was recovering from a car accident) was persuaded to take over from Dr. Snelling and lead the organization on a permanent basis.
Meanwhile, back at ICR in California, Ken was persuaded by CSF’s founding chairman, Professor John Rendle-Short, to travel with him to the United Kingdom. Professor Rendle-Short believed a creation ministry could help equip the church in the UK to defend the Christian faith and Ken Ham seemed to be the man for the job. After a speaking tour of the UK and seeing the great need for the creation/gospel message. Professor Rendle-Short, together with Ken Ham, began to discuss the idea of building an affiliated creation ministry in the UK. Ken and the other CSF–Australia leaders agreed to produce newsletters, keep a database of names/addresses, and oversee Creation magazine subscriptions for the UK ministry. However the real market that was not being utilised was the American public. Ken Ham had, for some years been trying to persuade the ICR, and others to distribute the magazine. The revenue stream from this would be enough to propell CSF to the forefront of the battle and get its creationist message across to the masses. However due to various reasons the opportunity was never grasped.
At the start of the 1990s recognising the untapped potential of reaching this huge readership Ken Ham together with his wife Mally began a US company that could begin to organise a distribution for the magazine. This was opperated from the Ham family home until 1993, when, after being “on loan” to ICR for seven years Ken made the decision to resign and, together with Two ICR colleagues, Mark Looy and Mike Zovath, start a new ministry that would be more layperson-oriented than ICR and affiliated to CSF. The Australian CSF ministry gave much assistance, including substantial financial advances, in order to ensure this fledgling organisation was able to grow and prosper. The assets of the corporation set up in the early 90s for distributing Creation magazine, were transferred to the new ministry and a mailing list with over 100,000 names was given by Master Books to CSM for the mailing of introductory brochures and for requesting start-up donations.
Through seminars and fundraising the U.S. ministry was launched in good financial shape in early 1994 and was initially called Creation Science Ministries because a foundation in the United States usually dispenses money or grants, which is not what the Australian group did. However It was felt after a while that this name caused occasional confusion with concepts like 'Christian Science' and 'Scientology'. So in due course, the ministry in the US was renamed Answers in Genesis (AiG).
The scene was now set for a AiG's message to go global and help push the creationist cause. The use of printed media as a vehicle for getting the bibles message across had proven effective and the ministries campaign fund had grown considerably as a result. New methods for communicating the gospel were available via the world wide web and AiG lost no time in appropriating this new way to speak to a global audience. Throughout the mid-1990s, AiG had been searching for land in northern Kentucky upon which to build new headquarters for its rapidly growing speaking ministry, radio program, and web outreach. They established operation in rented offices in Florence, Kentucky. The location was chosen because almost 2/3 of America’s population lives within 650 miles and there were plans to build a museum dedicated to biblical truths.
The idea for a creation museum was not a new idea as ICR had been running a meseum in San Diego since September 1992. That museum was designed and built over a period of two years and attracted more than 2,700 visitors when it first opened. The museum took visitors on a tour through history beginning with the six days of creation as described in the book of Genesis and presented evidence that the Bible's account of creation is reliable and that the theory of evolution is scientifically bankrupt.
In 1995 the AiG website was designed and launched from the new headquarters. Soon, the sister groups in the UK and Australia wanted to have home pages on the U.S.-managed website, so the U.S. site became the website for all sister ministries. AiG–U.S. hired the necessary staff to oversee all aspects of the website, including maintaining the home pages of the other ministries.
The website was largely dependent for its intellectual content on the scientists and thinkers from CSF, in particular Dr Don Batten, Dr Jonathan Sarfati and Dr Carl Wieland. These and other writers were heavily contributing to the site, as well as writing some of the best-selling books sold by all ministries at the time such as The Creation Answers Book, Refuting Evolution and One Blood. CSF also provided web articles from Creation magazine, as well as “feedback” articles written by its staff and articles on “hot” topics. In turn, CSF used articles from the newsletters and other writings of the U.S. ministry, as well as thousands of resource descriptions and video/audio streams created by the U.S. ministry.
In 1997 CSF had changed its name to AiG-Australia. A close association continued within the AiG family Some board members on the Australian ministry continued to be appointed to the U.S. board, and some U.S. board members continued to be appointed to the Australian ministry.
By the end of 1998 AiG was involved in court battles with Boone County Planning Commision concerning the denial of a zone change application to build the museum and offices on 25 acres off I-275 in Northern Kentucky and near Cincinnati, Ohio. The planning of the museum began regardless and the experince gained by Ken Ham during his period at ICR must have proved valuable in the planning and construction of the new museum. By January 99 AiG was announcing the purchase of $5 million worth of exhibits and equipment for only $19,000 at a liquidation auction.
By March 1999 the planning application was approved and AiG was able break the news to its followers. After 2 years of attempting to get approval to rezone AiG saw the county’s Fiscal Court vote 3-1 in favor of AiG’s application. Now, at last AiG could get on with building a Bible-honoring museum and new headquarters.
In 1996, AiG had been denied rezoning on a different piece of property and was encouraged to find a less rural site. AiG eventually found 47 acres facing busy I-275 and abutting commercially zoned property. What should have been a straightforward process of rezoning turned into a time of controversy. Rumors first circulated by secular humanists in 1996 that AiG was a cult and a “big business helped to lead to front-page headlines in the Cincinnati metropolitan area and some major secular newspapers in England and Australia.
The final months of the 20th century saw numerous appeals by Boone County, and AiG countered. Planning continued with project engineers and architects working on the layout of the museum and the grounds. The final go-ahead came in February 2000
By March 2000 the museum was on the drawing board with and the process of choosing the final design and construction team underway. The purchase of the land was finalised in May and with the lawsuits behind them it seemed that AiG was set to build its museum. June saw the announcement that the award-winning architectural firm of A.M. Kinney Associates would be the lead architect for the 95,000-square-foot museum, closely followed by a ceremony dedicating the site. Joining Ken Ham and guests at the land dedication was Dr. John Whitcomb, co-author of the monumental work The Genesis Flood. AiG was confident that it could maintain the construction timetable and have the first phase of the museum open in the summer of 2002.
January 2001 saw a significant donation of $1 million given by a A Cincinnati, Ohio family and a construction firm in Michigan informed AiG that it would be donate all of its services to grade the land, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars. AiG had enough money in the bank to hire contractors, order materials such as steel, and prepare for a tentative groundbreaking date in March. All went to plan and in the freezing rain, on march 17th, a groundbreaking ceremony was held. Ken Ham addressed the crowd and expressed his hopes that the first phase of the museum would be open in late 2002.
However this proved to be optimistic after The Cumberland chapter of the national environmental activist group The Sierra Club argued in a September 6 hearing that a proposed ‘wastewater treatment facility’ would lower the water quality of a nearby creek.
Because of the Club’s protest Boone County officials were not able to issue the final construction permit and the construction of the museum ground to a halt. There was a considerable amount of concer as The Club’s charges could actually delay work for many more months and, if the issue went through the courts could put the project back two years.
Through the machinations of the legal system AiG were able to receive approval 'on a variance' to allow the installation of the storm water detention system to begin and so by November 2001 The Creation museum news column on their website was able to report
In 2004 At a time when museum construction was well into the final stages of creation rumblings and signs of a schism began to appear in the ministry's structure.
By 2004, AiG had grown to nearly 100 staff working out of four rented offices in northern Kentucky. In September, the entire staff was thankful to move into one building (next to the Creation Museum under construction), on 50 beautiful acres along I-275, just west of the Cincinnati Airport (in a building that AiG now owned).
