“Prepare to Believe”: The Creation Museum as Embodied Conversion Narrative

Abstract

Abstract The Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, offers a “spatial sermon” to convince visitors to reject the theory of evolution in favor of Young Earth Creationism, a literal reading of the biblical creation story. The museum combines strategies from the journalistic discussion of the debate with the form of a conversion narrative. The goal of this embodied conversion narrative is to convince visitors that the evidence for creationism and evolution is equivalent and insufficient for deciding the issue, and the only way to adjudicate the issue is to accept what the museum's creators believe to be the transparent wisdom of the Bible.