The Creation Adventure Team

The Creation/Evolution debate continues to draw attention in many Western nations. The U.S. and Australia have particularly provided some good quality educational materials through young Earth Creationist groups like Answers in Genesis, the Creation Research Society, the Institute for Creation Research, Films for Christ, Master Books, and many others. (It is our belief that groups that hold to a progressive creationist view does more damage to both the cause of Christ and advancement of science.)

Young Earth creationists have for a long time wanted educational materials biblical in content and accurate scientifically to counter Evolutionary indoctrination that the public school system and other governmental and scientific agencies heavily promote. There have been several well regarded film productions for teens and adults: “ORIGINS: How the World Came to Be,” “A Question of Origins,” “The Case for Creation,” and more. But since there is precious little for children, heavyweights Gospel Communications and Answers in Genesis have teamed up to try to bridge that gap. Their answer is the “Creation Adventure Team” series.

The second in the series and video reviewed for this evaluation, “Six Short Days, One Big Adventure” (2002) drives home the point that God created the universe in six literal 24 hour days, then talks about what exactly was created on each day. To do this they use real-life Creationist explorer, dinosaur sculptor, and recording artist Buddy Davis as the main host for the program. His younger sidekick is the wacky Ivan Idea (Andy Hosmer), creator of the “ABC Gum Cam” (yes, that’s “already been chewed” gum for those of you far removed from the elementary school playground). Ivan’s camera-attached wad of gum manages to make its way from the lab onto the bottom of a teen’s shoe and straight into the public school classroom where science presentations are taking place. The student, a firm believer in Creationism, gives everyone in class a pair of “Biblical Reality glasses” which allows them to see the truth about science and exposes Evolutionary theories as just that—theories.

The “Creation Adventure Team” also features Proto, an animated fullsize dinosaur mascot (voiced by Phil Snyder). I’m not really sure why he is in this series, other then to provide some comic relief in his side comments and perhaps grab kids attention a little more. Oh well.

While I certainly appreciate the main message of the “Creation Adventure” series, it is not without its faults in presentation style, and cast member weaknesses. In terms of presentation, I found the Evolutionary scientist (Brad Stine as Dr. Noah Tall) to be a target for ridicule, really damaging the impact this could have had on those who believe in Evolution. The facts were presented so quickly and in scatter-brained fashion that the very teaching mechanism used fails overall. And the marriage of Silliness to Serious Subject may work in shows like “Beakman’s World” but falls flat here. Gospel and AIG may have a good concept here—appealing to adventure, discovery and exploration—but some big changes need to happen before I would feel comfortable showing this to any non-Creationists or even Christian youth groups who would be more eager to make fun of rather then learn from.

That said, the two boys within the target age group (7-12) I showed this to enjoyed it, and had nothing negative to say. (They are homeschooled young-Earth creationists already, so the presentation of such “bizarre” ideas is totally within the norm for them.) But another child, again one who believes in a young-Earth creation, was not interested in ever watching the video again and found it overall much too jumpy, zooming through at an overly frenetic pace. It hurts to say this as the topic is close to my heart, but “The Creation Adventure Team” needs to do some serious repackaging before it will have the kind of impact this type of presentation could have on impressionable young minds.