Trip Pics

These pictures are obviously out of order; however, I will update them as soon as I can, hopefully with captions! -Jos :-)

YCLA Creation Trip Report

Hello friends!

Our group had an awesome time on the Creation Museum adventure this past weekend. There were 21 people who came along, plus one boy who we met at the campground where we stayed.

The ride up took about seven hours, including stops (approx. 9:45 AM to 4:45 PM). The final hour was tense as we drew closer to our destination, and at the same time, to a huge gray cloud system! As we neared the campground, rain was increasingly falling and everyone was dismayed to realize we would have to set up our tents in a watery deluge. However, we prayed and miraculously, as we began to unload, the rain completely stopped.

For supper, we had a luscious meal of hamburgers and hot dogs grilled over the campfire by our pastor, John Griffith. Pastor Griffith is also a former Scoutmaster and a creation geologist, and we are happy to say his cooking "rocks!" (NOT as in "tastes like rocks") :-D

We had a fairly uneventful but relaxing evening. Several of us went for walks around the campground and on the couple of verdant trails. We also had a lot of fun at the small park and playground. At the playground, we met Bobby (an unsaved public school kid), the boy who we were able to bring along to the Museum the next day.

Saturday, I woke up early due to a watch alarm from another tent, which went off at 5:30 in the morning! Pastor Griffith and several others headed off to Wal-Mart at about 6:30, and I whistled Reveille for everyone who was not up yet at 7:00. Breakfast was excellent, with bacon, eggs, grits, and fruit. We got ready to go around 9:15, and left just past 9:30.

We were greeted at the Creation Museum by the helpful and friendly Answers in Genesis staff. While I worked on the admission fees and group paperwork, they handed out schedules for the day and explained information about the museum.

Our trek through the exhibits went well, although we were divided up somewhat when we came out, which was expected. Most people said their favorite part of the museum was the "Men in White" special effects program. This show features two "angels" who depict for the viewer the absurdity of Evolution, as well as providing an overview of the Creationist view of science. Many of our group also said they liked the petting zoo, the Noah's Ark exhibits, and the Planetarium. My favorite part was probably the lecture by Dr. Terry Mortenson on the relevance of Genesis to Christian doctrine and morality.

I was able to give out at least a dozen YCLA business cards to respectable-looking young people at the museum. I even talked to two kids who were volunteering their work there that day (Joshua, a boy of maybe 12 and his sister Kaitlyn?, a girl of maybe 10). They seemed awed by the YCLA concept of bringing together and mobilizing like-minded young people for causes such as that of Creationism. I tried to really thank these kids for what they were doing, and let them know I was very encouraged to see them there!

Back at the campground, we enjoyed the swimming pool with Bobby and several other children from the campground. The water was not bad at all. :-)

We ate burritos for supper. Afterwards, a few of us got together and prayed for Bobby and his family. However, this particular evening was slightly more energetic than the last one; there was a lot of running around and confusion, and even in the middle of the night, a large shout was suddenly heard from inside a tent right next to mine. I got up and investigated, but to this moment, I am not quite sure what caused it.... Oh well. :-D

We left the next morning at 8:30 AM, and arrived back at the church in good time to get freshened up for the Sunday evening service.

We praise God for the wonderful time we had on this trip. Please pray with us for continuing results and impact from it in the lives of those who went, as well as for the salvation of Bobby and those like him. Also, pray that God will direct us as we look towards a similar (2nd annual!) trip to the Museum next year.


-R. Josiah Magnuson
www.YoungChristianLeaders.org



Note: If you would like to still donate to cover some of the expenses of the trip, please send checks to:

Young Christian Leader's Alliance
c/o Faith Independent Baptist Church
4905 Geer Hwy.
Cleveland, SC 29635

August Answers Adventure

My Dad wrote this a few days ago regarding the August Answers Adventure trip and its preparatory meeting on Monday. Please read, and come if you can! -Josiah

Greetings friends. Please forward this "invite" as you feel led. . . .

Would you like to meet and hear Noah and his hard-working kids, life-size, and Adam and Eve eating and working in the Garden, life size, and dinosaurs (of every variety!) eating vegetation and many more rooms of wonderful simple displays and large screen videos that help to understand the complexity and wisdom of our great animal Designer, the Bible and especially the Book of Genesis???

HEH! Josiah Magnuson is at "media camp" this week, so i get to do the honors of sending you an "invite" to our Creationist Rally at the Scriptorium here in Taylors this next Monday night at 6:30 p.m.! (Please RSVP asap)... We will be discussing the Museum adventure in August, and having FREE pizza with special Steffi cookies. We are asking you all to bring drinks and any other "eats" as you feel led. We will be giving away "dino" door prizes and even have a life size dinosaur (model) to give away. Also we will be discussing our SuperSummerSpectacular pilgrimage. All ages and denominations are welcome!

The speaker of the evening is our very own Greenville County Creationist leader Mr. John Orcutt. He is an inspiring speaker, and we trust that the "traditional" Christian sing-along with keyboard and guitars (and maybe a harp!) will equally inspire your souls.

To know and discuss further details for the August Creation Museum pilgrimage but is a key reason for the Rally, Monday! That museum mentioned above is just a couple miles from the Ohio airport, in Kentucky and has to be the world's most amazing museum for numerous reasons! Our Magnuson family visited back when it was under construction, wow! then we visited again last year for its grand opening, double-wow!!

This year we plan to attend again and already have a number of families going along. Some folks from Faith Independent Baptist Church in Cleveland SC, and a few other homeschooling families are very excited. We want to find a few public school children to bring along also! Do you know anyone that you would like to invite?. . . If you know of any honorable, well behaved public school children, (they do not necessarily have to be born again) that go to your church or that you are ministering to and you would like to send along we have about a half a dozen free entrance passes for them and are praying so as to make the trip free for them. To learn more details about the "faith" trip please come Monday! We are also looking for a church that would be willing to consider loaning us their bus and driver for the weekend.

Times Examiner will be having a writeup on Josiah, the YCLA and this new "annual" event of the YCLA, so please check out this weeks Times Examiner for an article and picture, and/or go to the website, youngchristianleaders.org.

Thanks for reading about this rally event, only days away and the subsequent pilgrimage to the Creation Museum. Please, if interested at all, come Monday evening! We will be so excited to see you and show you some video clips and pics of the museum which we took so you can be even more excited and amazed at our wonderful Lord's creation back in the beginning and also here in recent years - the museum that Ken Ham and AIG (Answers In Genesis) has brought about!

By the way, the Scriptorium is on the same road as Channel 16 TV. The address is 3501 Rutherford Rd. Ext. Don't forget the "Extension" as it is just off of Rutherford Rd. Travel north on Wade Hampton past the Kmart and Walmart. Cross over the railroad bridge and turn left at the Hardees onto Rutherford Rd. Immediately turn left again onto Rutherford Rd. Ext. Drive about a quarter mile and around the bend is 3501 Rutherford Rd. Ext, a gray building with beige highlights. It is this years Constitution Party headquarters (since Josiah is a key worker for our party) and the Home of The Scriptorium where God's words are beautifully lettered, researched and displayed.

Please pray for this initial pilgrimage, and pass on this news and email to whomever may have an interest in these types of things, even if the Museum pilgrimage may not be feasible for them next month. AIG, their magazine and the museum have been a tremendous ministry to all of us!


Yours, for our wonderful Creator and Redeemer, (and Soon coming Saviour!), the Lord Jesus,

Roy Magnuson

Atheists want their beliefs enforced by the State

The latest battleground is Florida, where a bill has been passed in the House of Representatives to require schools to teach “critical analysis of evolution.” Additionally, Michigan, Missouri, Louisiana, and Alabama all have similar bills under consideration in state government.

Unsurprisingly, evolutionists claim these bills are merely a “smokescreen” for teaching creation or intelligent design, which would pit these bills against the 2005 Dover ruling that teaching intelligent design in schools was an unconstitutional imposition of religion.

Click to read more here, and scroll to #5.

Maybe we should write State Senator Mike Fair and tell him we will re-elect him on June 10 if he will once again take up the banner of Intelligent Design and not back down like last time. Actually, it is much easier, and from my experience much more effective, to work to influence existing office-holders, than to try to boot them out in favor of "better" candidates.


Thanks! From Josiah

Answers Magazine Sells Out in U.S.

The current issue of the extremely popular Answers magazine has sold out in the United States! No more copies are available except in Europe and other scattered locations. For this reason, Answers In Genesis is now putting the entire content of this issue up for free online!

Here is a link to an especially relevant article. It is entitled "Is It Time for a New Reformation?" The obvious answer is, Yes! The article explains:

Take one look around our world. A need for a new reformation is evident, both for our culture and for the church. We must return to the Bible as our absolute authority.

Another good yet succinct article is, "You Can Make a Difference." The author gives a nice punch in favor of being active for the LORD. We can all be "little Luthers!"

Please check it out!


Thanks From Josiah :-)

Lofton and Ham

John Lofton, editor of Mike Peroutka's site GodFamilyRepublic.com (aka The AmericanView.com) wrote a good article for WorldNetDaily about Ken Ham and the Creation Museum. It regarded green eggs and Ham. Incidently, Ken Ham saw it and posted a link to the article on his blog. Just interesting.

Here's the web address for the Lofton article (the link system hasn't been working here lately): http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56615

Ken Ham's blog is found at http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/aroundtheworld/.

Thanks! From Josiah

In touch with Answers In Genesis

I was on Ken Ham's blog (http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/aroundtheworld/) the other day and realized I should ask him before I posted any more of his articles here. So John Pence, the AiG legal counsel, e-mailed me back and said they wanted a link to check out what this place was! I had included one in my comment online, but now I will be sending it to a real person at AiG. (I wonder if they'll know who I am... Hmm)

More wonderful Providence. :-)

Thanks! From Jos

Dragons: Myth?

(From the Answers In Genesis Weekly E-News)

Q: Were dragons just mythical creatures?

A: We’ve all heard of dragon legends—they’ve been collected for generations from different cultures all around the world. Many have thought these are just mythical stories, but the evidence suggests that dragons were real creatures.

Think about this: why do we find Flood legends from cultures around the world? The secular world claims it’s because people down through the ages have seen floods. But many of these flood legends have several elements similar to the account of Noah’s Flood in the Bible. The flood legends are really changed accounts of the original—the one recorded in the Bible—handed down through the ages.

In a similar way, dragon legends are based on encounters with real animals—most likely dinosaurs (a word that had not been coined yet). The legends have likely been somewhat embellished over generations, but they probably refer to real animals that today we call “dinosaurs.” And according to the Bible, dinosaurs once lived in the Garden of Eden—alongside Adam and Eve.

For more information, see Dinosaurs and dragons: stamping on the legends.


(I will Lord-willing be featuring these articles again here if I can remember :-). -Josiah)

Is Creationism Un-Scientific?

Here is a link for a great article on the nature of science from Answers magazine - to which magazine you should be subscribed if you aren't yet. ~wink~ A sample of the article:

Ever heard one of these claims? Perhaps you’ve even said one yourself. Over the years, we’ve heard them all—but they’re all false, or at least they imply a falsehood.
Common claims by non-Christians:

“Science proves the Bible is wrong.”
“Evolution is science, but the Bible is religion.”
“Evolutionists believe in science, but creationists reject science.”

Common claims by Christians:

“I believe the Bible over science.”
“Creation is religion, but evolution is religion, too.”
“Creationists believe in the Bible and reject science.”

The Bible’s account of beginnings cannot be tested in a laboratory, so secular scientists—and even some Christians—believe it is not science and must be classified as religion.

BUT - click on this link!

Evolution vs. Real Liberty

We as Americans today are in the midst of a worldviews war - a war between two philosophies of what the nature of life is and how things really work. One battle in this war is the struggle over how freedom can best be created and maintained.

The Declaration of Independence tells us, “All men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…. To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Karx Marx in contrast believed in Communism, which, he stated, "abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality."

Another way to express "unalienable rights" or "eternal truths" is absolutes. In the Christian worldview, these absolutes are exemplified in the Ten Commandments. For instance, “Thou shalt not kill” is the right to life, “Thou shalt not steal” is the right to property and “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor” is the right to a fair trial. Everyone possesses these rights, and these rights are unalienable. They are the moral Law of God.

Societies based on the Christianity as the Bible directs - based on the Biblical absolutes and unalienable rights - have historically been free, republican organisms. This is because government under the Biblical model exists only to protect one from harm. Government is not inherently supreme over its citizens, as it must not overreach God's moral boundaries which apply to everyone.

Christ affirmed this idea when he declared, "Render to Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.(Mark 12:17, etc.)" Under the Biblical model, there are some things which positively cannot belong to Caesar.

On the other hand, Evolution teaches that there are no absolutes. Instead, it declares the universe to be one of change and chance, continuously morphing all its inhabitants and their ideals to match the need of the “fittest” race to survive and dominate. Even the idea of fitness eventually becomes ethereal, for Evolution has no prior intention of what fitness should be. “Fitness” is whatever is convenient to the perceived master race.

No individual rights can exist under Evolution. The right to life is contradicted, because Evolution is "each creature for itself." Killing is actually encouraged, because one must destroy rivals if one is to survive. The right to liberty is contradicted, because if enslaving others gives one an Evolutionary advantage, what is to oppose it? The right to property is virtually contradicted, since stealing would arguably give one more resources and energy in the battle for livelihood. The right to a fair trial disappears, as there is no need for justice in a world which knows only randomness and whim.

In short, government as viewed from the Evolutionary perspective creates itself, makes its own rules, and can only exist to dominate. If the State sees fit to grant or loan limited liberty to its weak, scrawny, less-evolved subjects, it is only to make them fall at its feet in gratitude. The State thus empowers itself further. This almighty “fit” State exists not to protect, but to subdue.

The only freedom which the worldview of Evolution grants is a twisted, distorted freedom. It is a freedom for Stalin to drive a sledgehammer into Trotsky’s head. It is a freedom for Hitler to force millions into death camps. It is a freedom for Mao to torture and kill anyone who would even dare to have his hairdo.

Evolutionary naturalism and the relative morality it produces are nothing to be defended. Rather, they should be opposed by anyone appreciating the American heritage of liberty and lawful, composed government.


-R. Josiah Magnuson
Note: The above is a summarization of my research paper which won second runner-up in the 2006 Answers In Genesis "War of the Worldviews" contest. I am re-posting it from January.

Museum Success, Opposition

The Creation Museum experience was wonderful. Wow! My favorite exhibit was the "Last Adam Theater" - a presentation of the gospel message. I also really liked the big colorful "In the Beginning God" room right before the Creation Walk, and the Noah's Ark scenes, and the Design exhibits in the main hall. Of course, the planetarium and the exciting first-class Special Effects Theater were great too. Oh, and we can't forget the bookstore, cafe, or Palm Plaza snack shop!

The lines were long and thick... they went down and around the front lobby area, out the door, back to the other end of the building, up past the doors again and over into the museum entrance lane area. Turned out at the end of the day that more than four thousand people visited!

Nicely, my Dad had gotten a Charter Membership for me and thus we went to the Members' Express Lane. This lane was probably a twentieth the size of the other, but even so took more than half an hour.

The protest situation was interesting. The sheriff, for whatever reason, had apparently told AiG they would not be allowed to stage a counter-protest to the one the atheists were having ("Rally For Reason"). So the security people came by just as we were about to head out there with our Founding Fathers quotes signs and told us we would not be allowed to park on AiG property if we displayed those signs. The next available parking space we were told was "five miles away," and so we could do nothing. We had to stick the signs back in the car and head to the big Museum line instead.

In any case, I have got four free passes to the Creation Museum that one living around the Greenville, SC area may ask to use by e-mailing me at Rjmpilgrim@aol.com.

Thanks!


-R. Josiah Magnuson

Hurrah for AiG donors and volunteers!

Answers in Genesis, a wonderful organization at the forefront of the Creation Science vs. Evolution debate, will be OPENING their new state-of-the-art CREATION MUSEUM on MONDAY!

My family hopes to be there for the big event. I expect there will be several thousand people there when Ken Ham cuts the ribbon.

Please visit the Creation Museum website for a virtual tour, information on the museum, or logistics for the Grand Opening. Thanks!

-R. Josiah Magnuson

Link to Ken Ham's Blog

It seems like hardly a day goes by lately that the Creation Museum is not mentioned in a newspaper, magazine, TV news program etc. Today, The national newspaper USA TODAY, and our local CINCINNATI POST had articles reporting on the Creation Museum:

Read more here! http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/aroundtheworld/

Living In A Bubble

Q: How has the Bible been disconnected?

A: The majority of Christians today look at the Bible as a book of religion only — a book about salvation, but not a book of history that connects to every area of reality.

Christianity, unlike many other religions, is based in real history. If the events of Jesus Christ’s birth, death and resurrection didn’t happen in real history, then how can we be saved? If all people aren’t descended from the real first man in history, Adam, then why are we all accountable for sin?

We need to read the Bible as a history book. When we do, we also find the Bible touches on geology, astronomy, biology and so on. This means we need to make sure that our children understand that the Bible connects to dinosaurs, rocks, trees, dirt, stars, people—in fact, everything.

Because of the influence of evolution and old ages, many Christians have relegated the Bible to just a book of religion—thus disconnecting it from the real world. That’s why so many Christians lack answers to the world’s false teachings.

Most of the church teaches biblical history as just a group of “Bible stories” disconnected from this history. But the majority of students from church homes attend government-run schools where they are taught a history (involving geology, biology, anthropology, astronomy, etc.) that blatantly contradicts biblical history.

What is the consequence? See Living in a bubble.


(Taken from the Answers In Genesis Weekly Update)