What makes young-earth creationists fight so hard against mainstream science? Hard as it is for outsiders like me to understand, it’s not really about evolutionary theory itself, as today’s headlines remind us.

Here’s what we know: This morning, young-earth impresario Ken Ham warned the twittersphere about the dangers of sex-selective abortions. And his warning helps us understand the real issue at stake for most young-earthers.

Ham was referring to a recent article about sex-selective abortions. As Ham fumed,

What a depraved world we live in. Many secularists want kids to decide their gender after birth, but in the meantime many determine biological sex before birth to specially eliminate girls! What a shocking mess when people abandon God’s Word!

As SAGLRROILYBYGTH will notice right off the bat, there’s nothing about evolution involved in these claims. Ham, of course, would likely say that evolutionary theory is lurking in the background of everything, but this morning Ham doesn’t actually talk about evolution. As usual, today the issue for Ham is not specifically the science of evolution, but something else. So if Ham and other YEC pundits aren’t really anxious about evolutionary theory itself, what are they worried about?

As I’m arguing in my new book about American creationism, radical young-earth creationism isn’t actually about evolution. It is about drawing a line.

As Ken Ham often points out, the dangers come from two directions. First, there are lurking “secularists” who are trying to deprive Christians of both their civic rights and their religious beliefs. Second, ever since the days of Bernard Ramm (1956), some conservative evangelical Christians have worried that any open consideration of the theological implications of mainstream evolutionary theory will lead to a galloping retreat from faith.

As they have since the days of The Genesis Flood (the 1961 book, not the event), radical young-earth creationists have argued that the only way to preserve true Christian belief is to draw a hard line against mainstream evolutionary science.

As today’s updates show, most of the arguments in favor of young-earth creationism are not really about evolutionary theory itself. Instead, they warn Christians about the likely results of considering the merits of mainstream science.

Instead of asking, “What are the theological implications of mainstream science?” YEC pundits ask, “Do you want to kill more girl babies?”