What's your Horsenality?

Mark Honeychurch - 14 April 2025

In Wellington, we’re hoping to take a trip to the Abundant Life church early next month. The church’s pastor, Hamish Thomson, recently took over the running of the quarterly Prayers at Parliament meetings that myself and other skeptics have attended in the past, but this isn’t why we’ll be visiting. On May the 4th, in the evening, the church will be hosting guest speaker Mike Collins (no, not the astronaut who didn’t land on the moon, this one’s a speaker for Creation Ministries International (CMI)) giving a talk titled “How Evolution Hurts Science and People”. With a title like that, I think we’ll be in for a real treat - a fairly major bending of the truth to fit a conservative religious narrative.

Now, I’m not an expert in evolution or creationism, so maybe I’m not fit to speak on this - my tertiary education involved a Masters degree in mechanical engineering. But, then again, according to Mike’s bio on the creation.com website this is pretty much all Mike has as well - but for him it’s not even a degree in engineering, just a certificate:

Mike commenced an apprenticeship with a New Zealand airline in Christchurch in 1981, earned his Private Pilot’s licence in 1983 and qualified three years later as an Aeronautical Engineer. Mike subsequently became a Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineer and earned a Certificate in Mechanical Engineering.

After nearly 40 years maintaining jet engines, he is still passionate about aviation. He chose to shelve his flying to train as a CMI speaker but dreams of being back in the air, especially performing aerobatics.

Mike’s first taste of the creation/evolution debate was hearing a creationist speak about the problems with conventional radiometric dating methods.

Subscribing to Creation magazine was a significant step in strengthening his faith and he became equipped through the many creationist resources which now adorn his library.

Having become convinced of the authority and truth of the Genesis account of creation, Mike wondered “Where to from here?”. He created an 8-week course called “Creation, evolution and the Bible” which he has been running for over 10 years.

He remembers well the excitement of discovering that science had not disproved the Bible and is keen to encourage and inspire others to trust God’s word fully.

As always, I will be hopeful that Mike at least has some decent points to make about evolution, something that causes me to question my beliefs and have to do some serious reading to discern what’s true. But, having been to quite a few creationist talks now given by CMI speakers, I’m starting to get a little jaded, and my expectations are quite a bit lower than my hopes. My presumption is that we’re going to hear a few misguided ideas about how evolution works, some claims that God is all-powerful and we need to trust his Word in the bible (to trust it in a literal sense - or at least in the “literal” way that certain evangelical pastors like to interpret it), and reassurances that the church has the answers, whereas scientists are mistaken and blinded by their materialism.

In this week’s newsletter, I’ve taken action after receiving one too many NZ Post scam messages on my phone. Katrina’s continuing her series on Sovereign Citizens, this time looking into Justices of the Peace and how their work’s made harder by Sovereign Citizen nonsense. Brad has written an article on another piece of horse nonsense, Parelli Natural Horsemanship, and some of the weirdness that comes with it, like a horse personality test. And Bronwyn has found some overpriced rocks that are claimed to have magical properties.