In 1969, ICR founder Dr. Henry Morris opened a week of meetings in Mexico City to challenge men and women there to uphold the authority of God's Word in the realms of science, education, and the study of origins. Already a prolific creation science speaker and writer, Dr. Morris established the Institute for Creation Research the following year in partnership with Christian Heritage College. In the ensuing four decades, God has uniquely propelled ICR into prominence in both the Christian and secular science communities, using it to influence the founding of nearly every other creation ministry in the United States and around the world.

Honor Thy Creator

Considered by both friend and foe as the father of the modern creation science movement, Dr. Morris had one great passion in his research, speaking, and writing: to honor our Creator.

As the global leader in creation science, research, and education, ICR has stayed true to its mission to represent the words and works of the Creator with integrity and to impact the world with the inerrant and inspired account of God's special creative activities revealed in Genesis.

Inspired by Dr. Morris, other like-minded researchers joined the creation science movement, taking ICR's message to nearly every corner of the world. Just before his passing, Dr. Morris wrote in a May 2006 Back to Genesis article regarding ICR's response to the growing dilution of the Gospel:

All of this surely warrants the present international extension of Biblical creationism. For example, our ICR ministries have included books translated into many languages, meetings held in many countries, and radio broadcasts covering much of the world.

...Out of the 125+ creationist books by ICR writers, at least 50 titles have been translated into at least one non-English language. One or more ICR books have been printed in at least 22 different languages. There are 16 titles in Spanish, 15 in German, 13 in Chinese, 11 in Russian, 9 in Korean....

Three Muslim countries--Turkey, Indonesia, and Arabia--have one or more ICR books in their respective languages. Other languages with two or more ICR book translations include French, Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese, Italian, Czech, Greek, and Hebrew. Finally, there is at least one each in Swedish, Romanian, Bulgarian, Danish, Hungarian, and Thai....Probably the most ambitious project was translation and publication of The Defender's Study Bible in Chinese.

...Altogether, I have spoken in at least 10 other countries. However, Dr. Gish has given creation messages in at least 40 other nations, including Japan, India, South Africa, Brazil (at least three tours), and most all of the nations of South America, Central America, and the Caribbean Islands. Dr. John Morris has had ministries in Communist China, Russia, Turkey, and several others, and each of the ICR science faculty has ministered in one or more other nations.

Educational Diplomacy

In February, ICR zoologist Frank Sherwin addressed members of congress in Lima, Peru, on the subject of science education, the flaws of Darwinian evolutionary philosophy, and the clear evidence of recent, young-earth creation as observed in the animal kingdom, the strata of the Grand Canyon, and genetic mutations. After his address to congress, Frank was invited to lecture at a number of universities, churches, and camps in Lima.

Mentoring Across Cultures

This past May, Dr. John Baumgardner, Associate Professor of Physics, and Dr. John Sanford, Director of ICR's GENE project, traveled to Korea to speak to faculty and students at Korea University, Yonsei University, and other "Ivy League" schools about creation science research and education, delivering the keynote addresses at the annual conference of the Korean Association for Creation Research (KACR). Here they presented the vision of mentoring graduate students and initiating original creation research through a new entity, the Association of Christian Graduate Research (ACGR).

Dr. Baumgardner presented "The ACGR Plan" to encourage students to pursue careers in creation science, as well as to motivate professors to mentor these students. At the KACR conference, he presented a lecture entitled "Catastrophic Plate Tectonics: The Physics Behind the Genesis Flood" to an audience of about 200 students and academics.

The lectures issued a strong challenge for Koreans to conduct original creation science research, with many examples of potential research topics. There is already positive interest in the ICR online masters degree program in science education with a view toward adequately training Korean middle school teachers to present the creation perspective in a clear and coherent way to their students. Participants at KACR also seemed motivated to develop online graduate-level creation courses to help train a wide spectrum of Korean professionals.

Beijing and Beyond

The Lord has provided additional opportunities this year for ICR scientists to present technical papers and the results of ongoing research projects to international scientific conferences and institutes in China and other venues. In fact, Dr. Baumgardner received a warm welcome at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, where he interacted with one of its key research groups and presented a seminar entitled "Unlocking the Secrets of the Rocky Planets"

In this seminar, Dr. Baumgardner described the TERRA program (a 3-D spherical finite element model for the earth's mantle) and how it has been applied to model mantle dynamics in the earth, the moon, Mars, and earth-like planets in general. He demonstrated how TERRA has confirmed the potential for catastrophic avalanching in planets the size of the earth. Dr. Baumgardner presented evidence that just such an event happened recently inside Venus, resulting in a resurfacing of the planet with a thick layer of basaltic magma, along with evidence that the earth experienced a similar largescale catastrophe in the recent past, likely as a result of the same mechanism. Despite the radical nature of these conclusions, the talk was warmly received.

Staying on Message

Since the publication of The Genesis Record in 1961, the Lord has truly confirmed the work of Dr. Morris and ICR with "favor and good repute in the sight of God and man" (Proverbs 3:4, NASB). Pray for God's continued blessing as we persevere to take this life-changing message to a world that largely denies the existence of a Creator. With an unwavering commitment to the authority and veracity of God's Word, ICR will continue to proclaim His truth around the globe and so give honor to our Creator.

* Mr. Ford is Executive Editor.

Cite this article: Ford, L. 2007. Creation Science on a Global Scale. Acts & Facts. 36 (8): 4.