Creation Science Reviews

Creation Ministries International Daily Feature

CMI-Worldwide - The Untold Story

2 December 2008

In the daily feature for 2 December 2008, Creation Ministries International detailed their structure for their worldwide ministry operations."¹ In the details section, they explain that each national office will have full legal autonomy within their country. The most interesting points come in the third thru fifth detail, quoted below...

It minimizes the chances of oppression of smaller member ministries by larger ones, by way of an appropriately weighted democratic ‘voice’.
It minimizes the risk of some persuasive staff member or leader, for example, influencing their individual boards to drift away from the direction in which a ministry started. This includes having accountability levels and checks and balances beyond even individual boards. (A lot of this is similar to the conceptions of the founding fathers of the USA, with a federation of states and the separation of powers, that acknowledges the fallen nature of man and seeks to minimize the damage that this can do.) Some of this is to ensure not only adherence to the basic tenets of biblical creationism, but our general principle of being politically and denominationally non-aligned within the framework of our Statement of Faith.
It applies mechanisms to protect supporters in the event that a rogue board in one country might, in spite of the above, want to take the ministry off of its original direction. It recognizes that supporters who donate are not so much giving to individuals or organizations as to a cause, in this case young-earth creation outreach as constrained by our Statement of Faith. So if one ministry’s Board were totally determined to head in some compromise direction, for example, it would be far less likely to cause the sorts of painful splits that we have previously experienced and which are common in Christendom.

For those of you who don't know, the final sentence about "painful splits" refers to the division of Answers in Genesis two years ago, when Ken Ham and the US Office hijacked the name and cut off all communication with the Australian office, which eventually became CMI. The US office had outgrown the Australian office (which started the ministry that became Answers in Genesis), hence the third bullet, which hopes to ensure that a larger ministry office will not oppress the smaller offices. The fourth bullet, about the "risk of some persuasive staff member or leader", no doubt refers to Ken Ham. The previous AiG (prior to the split) did not have enough accountability for its leaders, thus Ham was able to essentially cast off the Australian office and head in his own direction. (Take a look at AiG's website, if you doubt the importance of Ham in the ministry. The home page features a prominent column of the left side titled "About Ken Ham." None of the other creation science ministries proclaim accolades upon their leaders on their home page.)

The fifth bullet addresses "rogue boards" who might take the ministry in their country in a direction that is counter to CMI's goals.

These changes are clearly addressed at preventing the catastrophic breakup of the ministry due to rogue individuals and boards, which is exactly what happened to AiG and CMI two years ago. As a bystander, it was easy for me to see who was being honest in the split, and now this new CMI plan makes it even more apparent. AiG's communications at the time with the fragments of AiG that became CMI was non-existent, even though CMI made efforts to communicate (you can read about the split on CMI's website). It was clear that Ham and the US board of directors were uncooperative and did not treat the Australian branch with the integrity you would expect from Christian leaders.

I applaud CMI for making these changes to their ministry, and for making public the un-Christian behavior of AiG. While I believe AiG is sincere about reaching people for Christ, they clearly have issues, having too much pride and too little humility.

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¹ http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/6159

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CMI 2008 Daily Rebuttals

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