Building a Biblical Defense of Creation

by Terri Kammerzell

Truth of Genesis Ministry Partner

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In 2009, God started me on two new paths in my life: homeschooling my fifth-grade son and working for a large retailer. In regard to the first, right from the start I made the choice to not only forego public charter funding, but to pay tuition and out-of-pocket expenses for curriculum so that we could be part of a Christian homeschool advisory program. To me, it was a no-brainer. I didn’t want to just add a Bible class to teach my son about the Lord. I knew, having been a Christian since I was four years old, that God is not only our Savior but also the author of logic and the source of all reason. To truly give my son a Christian education, I wanted him to study curricula that pointed to God’s role in every aspect of learning: the providential guidance of the forming of the United States, the literary devices woven through the Bible, the fact that math is the way God thinks about numbers, and—especially—the science that supports the truths found in the Bible.

I grew up in a church that taught biblical Creation. On multiple occasions I attended conferences with Ken Ham, Dr. Gish, and Dr. Morris.  I learned about Creation. I took notes about the importance of Genesis. And I submitted those notes to my Christian schoolteachers for extra credit. I knew Whom I had believed: I believed in the Creator of the World. He was my Savior, and someday I would spend eternity with Him.

Throughout my adult life, trials and temptations have come and gone, and I’ve had periods of time when my relationship with the Lord and my commitment to Him have struggled, but I’ve never wavered from my faith in His saving grace.

When I worked for the large retailer, my coworkers knew I was a Christian. My coworkers knew I homeschooled my son. My coworkers knew my faith was strong. But the only questions I ever fielded about any of those was why I would homeschool, and boy, was I armed with answers to those questions!

Over the five years working there, I watched the company and my store slide down a scale of trading traditional biblical values for socially acceptable, but very immoral, ideals. I knew it was not just my company, but the country and the world in general. The longer I kept working there, the more I felt my convictions contradicting with those of the company for which I was driving profitable sales. And the longer I had to reconcile this internal conflict, the more unsettled I was, and the less satisfaction I received from any “job well done” remarks I heard from my bosses.

Finally, in 2014, I felt the Lord calling me away from there, to focus on homeschooling my own son more hands-on, and to ministering to other homeschool families through tutoring and teaching co-op classes.

In my last days at the retail store while training my female replacement, I had a rude awakening. She was very outspoken about her disbelief in God and her acceptance of the company’s unbiblical ideals. One day she challenged my faith. She started asking me questions about why I could believe in the Genesis story as truth, when so much “evidence” that contradicted it existed. She had studied her public-school textbooks. She had learned evolution from her public-school textbooks. She believed her public-school textbooks.

And me? A Christian for some three decades? I had no logical answer to give her. And I had attended Creation conferences. I had learned from Ken Ham, Dr. Gish, and Dr. Morris. But I was totally unarmed in this battle. Because even though I studied, learned, and believed, I never took it to the next level. I never comprehended 1 Peter 3:15—to “always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks [me] a reason for the hope that is in [me], with meekness and fear” (NKJV).

And there lay the challenge. What good were my convictions if I couldn’t defend my belief? How was I bringing glory to God or advancing His kingdom if I couldn’t even answer her questions to defend the Word of God and the science that supports it?

Thus, I’ve made it my mission these past six years to study Creation apologetics. And not only to study, but to teach. It’s my desire to make sure my son and the other homeschool students I am entrusted with learn answers to the questions they will encounter like I did.

If you’ve spent some time studying Creation apologetics, you will understand this next truth. There is a lot to learn, and no way to remember it all!

And so, in 2015 I came up with an idea to help my students remember at least some of the key points of design and biblical Creation: 49 Fundamental Facts. Or, for short- “Fun Facts!” I created seven facts for seven categories. They are simple question-answer building blocks that lay a foundation for being able to give a defense for design.
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Those Fun Facts are now displayed on my website, YouFormedMe.com, and presented with clickable links to resources that expound on the truths. Over the next year, it will be my privilege to share them with you, one per week, and to give you a little insight about how we can know they are true.