Ken Ham only wanted to hire creationists for his biblical theme park, now he has an employee shortage

In an article for the Friendly Atheist earlier this month, a clip from creationist firebrand Ken Ham‘s Answers in Genesis show seemed to suggest that he was having trouble filling jobs at his Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky.

As the FA’s Hement Mehta points out, languishing job openings at the Ark Encounter is notable since one of its selling points was that it would give the local community primary access to whatever jobs were available. But the problem was that the jobs were only available to people who shared Ham’s bible-literalistic belief system.

For example, if you want to apply for the full-time job of Master Plumber, you must include in your application your “salvation testimony” (that you’ve been saved by Jesus), your “Creation belief statement” (that evolution as we know it is a lie and the Earth is only a few thousand years old) and “Confirmation of your agreement with the AiG Statement of Faith” (which, among other things, says the “only legitimate marriage” is between opposite sex couples and implies that transgender people don’t really exist).

In sum, Ham’s restrictive hiring policies that favor people with wacky religious beliefs has left him with an employee shortage. Now, Ham it lightening up the restrictions.

In a Facebook Live video posted this Wednesday, Ham announced that the rules wouldn’t be so strict for seasonal employees.

“Now, we are a Christian organization. And as a Christian organization we employ people who are Christians,” Ham says in the video. “We actually, for the [seasonal workers], we actually have a more abridged statement of faith … not our detailed one for all our full-time managers and others.”

So for seasonals, I know there’s a lot of young people who still aren’t necessarily mature in all their thinking in lots of areas,” Ham continued. “But if they can sign the tenets of the fundamentals of the Christian faith, they can… work here.”

What the “abridged” statement of faith actually says isn’t quite clear. But rest assured that if you want to work at the Creation Museum this summer, you aren’t necessarily required to believe that the earth is 10,000 years old.

Featured image via Ark Encounter (Facebook)

Sky Palma

Before launching DeadState back in 2012, Sky Palma has been blogging about politics, social issues and religion for over a decade. He lives in Los Angeles and also enjoys Brazilian jiu jitsu, chess, music and art.