 A
creation bookstore at a county fair? Would it work? We didn't know –
but we decided to test the waters.
Recently a friend asked me to help him staff his creation
bookstore booth at the Siskiyou County Fair in northern
California. I had worked with him in his book booth in Christian
venues on several previous occasions but this would be a first for
both of us. We would be offering books promoting creation and the
Creator in a completely secular environment. It was new ground
and we had no idea how we would be received.
My friend, Bob Olsson, is a plumber by
trade (I guess that makes me a plumber’s friend) but he has
long had a ministry selling creation related books. Some time ago Bob
recruited me to help him in his booth. We work together well as a
team. Bob sells most of the books and he sends all the skeptics and
people with tough questions to me. This leaves him free to deal with
customers but I sometimes suspect the real reason is that he likes to
watch me squirm and tap dance. I make no pretense of being able to
answer everybody’s questions but I enjoy the intellectual exchange
with sincere people. I have found that a reasonably informed
layperson can address many of the “usual” scientific or theological
questions people have.
Bob has obtained permission to use the
Institute for Creation Research (ICR) name and hoists a sign
above his booth that reads, “INSTITUTE FOR CREATION RESEARCH
BOOKSTORE.” Many people are familiar with ICR and we sell and/or give
away a lot of ICR’s material and sign people up to receive their Acts
and Facts newsletter or Day’s of Praise daily devotional.
Neither Bob nor I currently live in
Siskiyou County but both of us have roots in the area so we choose the
Siskiyou County fair as a good place to test the secular waters with a
creation book booth. Bob grew up in the Mount Shasta City area and I
grew up on a ranch in the Big Springs community. The Siskiyou County
Fair is located in the town of Yreka - the county seat and a great
country town with a lot of heart and history. If you’re a palindrome
fan, you may know that “Yreka Bakery” is a palindrome but Yreka and
Siskiyou County have much more to offer than palindromes and country
fairs. Growing up in Siskiyou County, I grew to love its mountains,
rivers and lakes and found that a large part of my heart stayed behind
even though the rest of my body has been obliged to live elsewhere.
The Siskiyou County fair, known as the
Siskiyou Golden Fair, ran from August 4th through 8th
and, as commercial exhibitors, we were required to staff the booth
from 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. each day. Even with two of us it was a
test of our endurance to work 12 hours on and 12 hours off for several
days straight.
A short time prior to the fair, while
reading a book by Ken Ham of the Answers In Genesis (AIG)
organization, I came across a list of the 11 most common questions
that creationists are asked. Suspecting we might be hearing some of
these questions at the fair, I drafted a brief one or two page answer
to each question. We like to give away as much free material as we
can at the booth, so I ran off a few hundred copies and stapled them
together to give away. I also put together a handout listing
“Creation Related Web Sites.” I include both Creationist and
Intelligent Design (including Creation Digest) websites on the handout
and usually write a short article to put on the backside. To round
out our give away material I made copies of some of my Creation Digest
articles and Bob obtained book and video catalogues from the
Institute for Creation Research and Answers in Genesis.
Bob also obtained a generous supply of ICR’s Acts and Facts
newsletter and Days of Praise devotionals for handouts.
Both Bob and I
had sent flyers announcing our booth at the fair to some Siskiyou
County pastors we knew. Since we were not sure how our booth would be
received, we asked them to put the word out and to invite people to
drop by and say hello. Several people who came by the booth told us
they had heard about us in their church and one fellow said he came by
because he saw a flyer posted in a laundromat in Mt. Shasta City.
Our booth was in the commercial
building and we were wedged between a booth selling jewelry and a
booth that appeared to be selling training in modeling (or some form
of adolescent narcissism). The jewelry booth attracted a wide
spectrum of people while the modeling booth attracted groups of
starry-eyed teenagers who watched a video of people wearing highly
inadequate high fashion clothing parade back and forth on a runway.
Other booths in our vicinity sold candy, jerky, stoves, tractors,
slice and dice cooking contraptions, or promoted political parties –
the usual fare at a fair.
In order to make the booth interesting
to passers-by we set up a continuously running ICR video of the Mount
Saint Helens catastrophe and borrowed a scale model of Noah’s Ark made
by a mutual friend (Lynn Hofland of Stiffneck Ministries). We
found that both of these visuals helped bring people to the booth.
Bob is friendly-aggressive and set the pace for me by stuffing free
materials into the hands of almost anybody who approached within arm’s
length or hesitated at the booth. Asking the question, “Are you
familiar with the Institute for Creation Research?” was a good way to
engage individuals in a conversation and keep them engaged long enough
to fill their hands with free materials.
The local Grenada Berean Church was
having an AIG creation scientist speaker at their church a week after
the fair so they provided us with a stack of flyers and we promoted
the event and stuffed flyers into the hands of everybody who would
take one. Many people who were unfamiliar with the scientific case
for creation seemed impressed with the idea that we had books written
by “real” scientists and that a “real” scientist would be speaking on
creation. We usually pointed out that we were offering a variety of
creation related books by scientists and scholars as well as
recognized theologians.
As it turned out, our concerns about
placing a creation bookstore in a secular venue were unfounded. On
the whole, we were well received and literally hundreds of people
stopped by or gave us a “thumbs up” as they walked by the booth. I
believe the fact that Siskiyou County is largely a rural community
where agriculture, forestry, hunting and fishing are prevalent was in
our favor. The county is diverse but tends to be conservative when
compared to the San Francisco Bay Area (where Bob and I live) or most
other large urban communities. Most Siskiyou County residents work
with or have a deep appreciation for nature and recognize the futility
of trying to explain it all in the context of the
naturalistic/materialistic paradigm that drives Darwinism.
While we saw people from all walks of
life, we did see a lot of cowboy hats, cowboy boots and big silver
belt buckles in the daily parade that passed by our booth. The people
who spent time at our booth included business people, science
teachers, pastors, priests, housewives, Sunday school teachers,
college students, carnival workers, gnarly looking mountain men,
pretty cowgirls and handsome cowboys – people from all walks of life.
Many people thanked us for being there
but there was the occasional antagonist. A few people snorted and
turned on heel when they saw what we were about. One fellow declared,
“You guys don’t know anything about science” as he walked by. He was
apparently unimpressed with the fact that we were surrounded by books
about creation or intelligent design that were written by scientists
from all disciplines of science. One individual steeped in postmodern
psychobabble tried to persuade me that it was all a waste of time
because it’s not possible to “prove anything is really true.” I asked
him why he was spending so much time trying to persuade me there is no
such thing as truth since, by his own definition, what he was saying
couldn’t be true. It was water off a duck’s back.
In addition to the warm reception by
so many local people, there were other indications that perhaps
providence as much as our own planning had brought us to the fair.
One of our customers at the booth was a family who happened to
be staying overnight in Yreka because their car broke down and they
had to wait for repairs. They came to the fair to pass some time and
were ever so excited and interested to find our booth. Another
excited and turned-on couple ended up at our booth because
unforeseen weather had required them to land their plane at the
local airport. Another customer was there because they happened
to be staying in Yreka while passing through on vacation.
It’s difficult to think that
providence wasn’t at work when I flagged down a passer-by to take a
picture of us in our booth. I planned to write an article on our
experience at the fair and thought it might be nice to have a
photograph to go with it. My camera is a 6.3 megapixel Canon Digital
Rebel and I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of thrusting it into the
hands of an inexperienced passerby. However, on the second day, I saw
a man walking by with my exact camera. Here was my chance to have a
“qualified” someone take our picture. I waved him over and asked him
if he would mind taking our picture with my camera. He agreed and
took a few photographs, then hung around the booth to see what we were
all about. He asked a lot of questions and even took notes - it
turned out that he was familiar with the Institute for Creation
Research. Not only did I manage to get our picture taken by a
“qualified” photographer but the man I picked was a reporter for the
Siskiyou Daily News who subsequently wrote an article for the
local paper that mentioned the booth and carried some solid quotes.
The tone of the article and quotes he used were very favorable
compared to the way creation or design is usually handled in the
media. Picking him to take our picture was not your average
“coincidence.”
When the fair was over Bob and I were
hoarse, exhausted, and unable to look another corndog in the face.
But, we are game to try it again – perhaps next year. We felt that on
the whole we were well received and that we were able to provide
information and resources to many people who were interested or even
excited to find that there is a strong case for creation. It was much
like our experience with the bookstore in a Christian venue, some
people are interested, some aren’t, some are glad we are there and
some aren’t.
One difference between a county fair
and a Christian convention is that at the fair we got the occasional
individual with a beer in hand and/or a few sheets to the wind. On
one occasion an individual with beer in hand and no few sheets in the
wind looked at our material for a while then observed, “OK, so you
guys are for God and stuff like that…that’s good.” Then there
was the bearded and gnarly mountain man - that smelled a bit like the
north end of a southbound horse - who rummaged silently through our
books while ignoring our attempts to initiate a conversation. He
eventually made a purchase and left as quietly as he came.
In retrospect, it was a great
experience and one I would recommend to anyone with a heart for
creation and the Creator. It’s for someone with a taste for a bit of
adventure and one who doesn’t mind working long shifts for several
days straight. The final numbers aren’t in but, after expenses for
books, fees and insurance are paid, I think Bob will come in just
south of breaking even. The plan wasn’t to lose money but the goal
wasn’t necessarily to make money either. There’s nothing wrong with
investing in a good cause. Just think of all those people with new
resources in hand who are finding answers to their questions and are
able to connect the creation around them to the Creator.
*Chuck Nelson,
Christian creationist and former FBI agent and retired law
enforcement officer, contributes regularly to Creation Digest.
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