Do you have what it takes to take on Bill Nye The Science Guy? Do you have to know everything, about every branch of science?
You would think if the Bible is true, and every Christian is called to defend it, then every Christian should be able to defend it.
I don't believe it is possible to be any more ivory tower than this blog post. Sure, I think there are better people who can take on Bill Nye, cough Sye, cough, but it's not because of their education, or college degrees. It's not because of the height of their ivory tower.
Unfortunately, this ostrich posture is representative of some Christians. They operate with a fatalistic outlook, as if qualifications don't matter. But if you're going to make a scientific case for creation science, or make a scientific case against evolution, then your scientific competence, or lack thereof, is directly germane to the success or failure of your performance. There's no magical efficacy that attaches to a well-meaning, but ignorant performance.
Every Christian isn't called to defend specialized issues which he has no technical competence to defend. To the contrary, he ends up harming the cause. Every Christian doesn't have a duty to get into a national televised debate with Bart Ehrman on the reliability of the NT text. Don't do that if you lack the requisite expertise in textual criticism. Every Christian doesn't have a duty to get into a national televised debate with Israel Finkelstein on the historicity of the OT. Don't do that if you lack the requisite expertise in Biblical archeology.
There's a very common narrative of boys who get their information from someone like Ken Ham, go off to college fired up about how they are going to trounce the Darwinians, only to lose their faith in Biology 101, Geology 101, or Astronomy 101. Enthusiasm is no substitute for know-how.
That's one reason we need to distinguish creationist popularizers like Ken Ham from creation scientists who have real expertise.
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