The Creation Museum, which opens outside of Cincinnati on Monday, received a surprisingly fair review by the New York Times today. The story, written by Edward Rothstein, claims the museum offers an "alternate world"--one differing with the world of Darwinian "Natural History" to an extent that parallels the difference between the Garden of Eden and life outside. But as he admits, the alternate world turns out to be pretty attractive.

Whether you are willing to grant the premises of this museum almost becomes irrelevant as you are drawn into its mixture of spectacle and narrative. Its 60,000 square feet of exhibits are often stunningly designed by Patrick Marsh, who, like the entire museum staff, declares adherence to the ministry’s views; he evidently also knows the lure of secular sensations, since he designed the “Jaws” and “King Kong” attractions at Universal Studios in Florida.

For the skeptic the wonder is at a strange universe shaped by elaborate arguments, strong convictions and intermittent invocations of scientific principle. For the believer, it seems, this museum provides a kind of relief: Finally the world is being shown as it really is, without the distortions of secularism and natural selection.

And rather than descending to the emotive lambasting that many critics of creationism retreat on, Rothstein asks a rather novel question:

[N]ow that many museums have also become temples to various American ethnic and sociological groups, why not a museum for the millions who believe that the Earth is less than 6,000 years old and was created in six days?

Perhaps the Times has finally become perceptive of the influence of these millions. After all, according to a 2005 Pew Research poll, half of Americans reject evolution as a theory of origins. And with a $27 million-dollar creationist museum constructed debt-free, there's money to had in this too. Money talks, as we all know, whether you're a skeptic or not.

Hopefully the money won't obscure the infinitely more important message the Creation Museum is seeking to spread--namely, the Gospel. The message of salvation is stacked squarely on the foundation of death, law, and sin, along with the bottommost portion, the creation of a perfect universe by an omnipotent God. Naturalism undermines the Gospel by rewriting the history of creation and death, and offering a plastered up perspective of life that seeks to answer all the big questions within an atheistic framework.

In order not to ruffle the more severe opponents of the museum, the Times story ends with with this question:

[O]ne problem is that scientific activity presumes that the material world is organized according to unchanging laws, while biblical fundamentalism presumes that those laws are themselves subject to disruption and miracle. Is not that a slippery slope . . ?

It's a legitimate question to ask, and one I think I'll submit an answer to. Some of this might sound a bit technical, but hang with me and you'll be glad you did.