Dr. Jonathan Sarfati to speak at Newton CRC

A Creation Ministries International event featuring speaker Dr. Jonathan Sarfati is planned for 3:30 p.m., Aug. 16 at the Newton Christian Reformed Church, 511 S. Fifth Ave. E.

At the event, Sarfati will explain the bankruptcy of the evolutionary myth and expose the weaknesses in scientific evidence for evolution, he said.

“It is not always obvious that science works at all because science assumes that there are natural laws, that when you do an experiment someone else can repeat the experiment and get the same results,” Sarfati said. “It’s only the belief that God is the divine law maker that we should expect some regulation in nature.”

A native of Ararat, Australia, Sarfati moved to New Zealand as a child and later studied science at Victoria University of Wellington. There he earned his bachelor of science degree in chemistry before getting his Ph.D. in spectroscopy (physical chemistry).

Sarfati has been a Christian since 1984 and has been interested in apologetics, the defense of faith. He was a co-founder of the Wellington Christian Apologetics Society while in New Zealand.

In 1996, he returned to Australia to accept a position as a research scientist and editorial consultant for Creation Ministries International. He was co-editor of the Creation magazine and also wrote articles for the Journal of Creation as well as contributed to its website.

His first book, “Refuting Evolution,” countered a teacher’s guidebook by the “National Academy of Sciences, Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science,” which had been widely circulated and publicized. Later the same year, he co-authored the updated and expanded “Answers Book,” which is now entitled “The Creation Answers Book,” which answered 20 of the most asked questions about creation and evolution.

He followed up “Refuting Evolution” with “Refuting Evolution2,” countering a PBS Evolution series and an anti-creationist article in Scientific American. In 2004, he wrote “Refuting Compromise” defending a straightforward biblical creation time line and a global flood along with answering biblical and scientific objections, concentrating on the teaching of day-age/local flood advocate Hugh Ross.

In 2006, he co-authored “15 Reasons to Take Genesis in History” with Don Batten and two years later he published “By Design: Evidence for Nature’s Intelligent Designer. The Greatest Hoax on Earth?,” refuting Dawkins on evolution that came out in 2010 and was a response to a leading atheopath Richard Dawkins’ book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution.

Also in 2010, Sarfati, along with is wife, moved to the United States to work at the Creation Ministries International office as an author speaker, apologist and heat scientist. Most recently in 2012, he expanded and updated a classic general apologetics book, “Christianity for Skeptics,” by Steve Kumar of New Zealand. In this book he presents a positive case for the existence of God, the inspiration of the Bible and the divinity and resurrection of Christ. It also answer challenges from suffering, atheism, Eastern philosophy and Islam.

Sarfati is also known for another interest, chess. He is a former New Zealand Chess Champion and represented New Zealand in three Chess Olympiads. In 1988, FIDE, the International Chess Federation, awarded him the title of FIDE Master.