Creation Science Foundation

Creation Science Foundation Ltd (CSF) was a former name of Creation Ministries International in Australia. It was founded by Ken Ham and John Mackay, and under that name was the main driving force of creation science in Australia throughout the 1980s and the early 1990s. The organization's headquarters until the early 1990s were in a warehouse on the corner of Bradman and Bellrick Streets in Acacia Ridge in Brisbane, Queensland, and then moved to new offices in Overlord Place, Acacia Ridge—another suburb of Brisbane.

Early years

Ken Ham was a public school science teacher in Queensland, Australia, in the 1970s. From 1976 to 1979 he was also a part-time creation science speaker. The church he attended held a special service to bless and prepare him in the lead-up to what became the Creation Science Foundation.

The ministry at first had two roles: A book ministry called Creation Science Supplies, and a teaching ministry called Creation Science Educational Media Services. Ken and his wife Mally originally ran these two outreaches from their home. [1] Ken resigned from school teaching in 1979, and for the first few years of the ministry in Australia he had no salary and relied on personal gifts from family members and friends.

Ministry expands

In 1980, the new ministry joined forces with Dr. Carl Wieland's Creation Science Association, and was then officially named Creation Science Foundation. Dr. Wieland had begun a magazine titled Ex Nihilo (meaning "out of nothing"), and now handed this over to Ken Ham and John Mackay (who took over as editor). They later renamed it Creation Ex Nihilo. John Mackay left the organization in 1987 and began his own creationist organization, called Creation Research. In 2001 the magazine's name was shortened to Creation. Writer and editor Robert Doolan was hired as Assistant Editor in 1986, and took over as Editor after Mackay's departure the following year. Doolan served as editor from 1986 until 1996, which was a time of major growth for the magazine.

Creationist geologist Dr. Andrew Snelling had joined the expanding organization in the early 1980s, and later became a member of the RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth) group. (He later moved to the Institute for Creation Research, San Diego, California, as an Associate Professor of Geology, and now works for Answers in Genesis (United States) as Director of Research.) CSF also managed to secure the services around that time of talented illustrator, designer, and cartoonist, Steve Cardno, who signed on as art director for the magazine, which saw a rising readership and was soon being exported to dozens of countries. Steve Cardno continued to work on Creation magazine until he left in 2007.

U.S.A. connection

In 1987, the year John Mackay left Creation Science Foundation, Ken Ham began spending more time in the United States—eventually moving there permanently—and Dr. Carl Wieland took over running CSF. Ham was initially working with the Institute for Creation Research. Meanwhile, CSF's staff numbers increased rapidly, as did attacks from skeptics. An early newsletter from CSF says that as the skeptics' attacks increased, so did financial support for CSF from concerned Christians.

In 1994, Ham started a new creationist organization in the U.S. Although he was still aligned with Australia's Creation Science Foundation, he had to find a new name because a foundation in the United States usually dispenses money or grants, which is not what the Australian group did. Ham called his new ministry Creation Science Ministries, and in the following year renamed it Answers in Genesis. In 1997, the Creation Science Foundation in Australia changed its name to Answers in Genesis as well.

In March 2006, the Australian and U.S. groups separated. Ken Ham remained president of Answers in Genesis USA, and Carl Wieland became Managing Director of the newly renamed Creation Ministries International in Australia. The dynamic force of the tiny home-run ministry of Creation Science Foundation can now be seen to have multiplied millions of times over in more than 100 countries.

References

• What we are; brief history A brief history of CSF, AiG, and CMI.
• History of AiG The role of Creation Science Foundation in AiG's history
• Creation magazine imprint pages.