Book Review: Already Compromised

Already Compromised by Ken Ham & Greg Hall with Brit Beemer
ISBN: 978-0890516072
Publisher: New Leaf Publishing Group/Master Books
Retail: $13.99

If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.

How do Christian colleges stack up when it comes to teaching Biblical truths? How many actually teach what the Bible says? What impact does this have on those entering and leaving Christian colleges? Ken Ham, Greg Hall and research data from Britt Beemer give the facts in the book Already Compromised.

With the passing of time, I’m getting very close to having a student that will be looking at attending college. I really can’t keep burying my head in the sand. I requested to review this book from New Leaf Publishing and they graciously sent me a copy.

Many know who Ken Ham is (and many may know who Greg Hall is as well- I didn’t) and his affiliation with Answers in Genesis. The philosophy behind AiG is that if you can’t believe, and have faith in, the first book of the Bible (in its entirety- as written) then you will have trouble with the remainder of the Bible as well. That is why when researching Christian colleges many of the questions were dealing with belief and teachings about and from the first book of the Bible. Of course, there are other questions that veer from the book of Genesis (such as “do you believe the Bible is literally true?” and “what does your institution teach about the Bible?”) but it is interspersed throughout the book. Personally, I felt it ‘got old’ that they kept coming back to the “young earth/old earth” debate BUT I understand that it is something that is important to distinguish.

I did like a statement made by Ken Ham on page 129 in chapter 8 (The High Stakes of Good Thinking: The Age of the Earth):

I am sometimes belittled and cut down by professors at “respected” Christian universities because I don’t have the academic credentials that some of these people do. They think that because they have the credentials, they have the truth. They say, “How dare Ken Ham question us, because he is not trained in biblical languages; he didn’t go to Bible college; he didn’t go to seminary; etc.” In some ways I’m glad that I don’t have those credentials, because I might have ended up like some of them: compromising the truth clearly laid forth by Scripture in the midst of a bunch of academic mumble jumble created to accommodate secular scientific ideas.

I agree that it seems that much of the debate about Christianity is because the ‘educated’ are ‘in the know’. And the only ones. He goes on to say:

Or worse than that, they might actually believe that since they teach it, that makes it true—that they are the ones who actually determine the truth.

There is a chapter geared toward college students- chapter 10- that gives many scriptures and advice to help students stay true to their beliefs. The final chapter- chapter 11- calls for unity but not as it has been requested by many:

We are often told we should be concentrating on our unity in Christ alone. The accusations usually sound like this: “Only Christ should matter and those elements of the gospel message essential for salvation—and differing interpretations in Genesis should be acceptable and tolerated.

But this view ignores a larger question—can we separate the centrality of Christ from the authority of [God’s] Word? Surely we should agree that our unity should be centered around Christ. After all, it is only through faith in Jesus Christ that one can be saved…If the Word of God is not an authoritative document, then how can we know that the message of Jesus and the gospel is reliable?

Well, it was a lot to read (not that it is a large book but it is full of numbers and statistics) and take in. But it definitely made me think.

I received this book from New Leaf Publishing in exchange for an honest review. I was not compensated in any other way.