Kent E. Hovind (born 1953) is an American young Earth creationist and tax protestor. His ministry focuses on denial of accepted scientific knowledge in the fields of biology (evolution and abiogenesis), geophysics, and cosmology in favor of a literalist interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative found in the Bible. Hovind's views, which combine elements of creation science and conspiracy theory, are dismissed by the scientific community as fringe theory and pseudo-scholarship. Answers in Genesis, a fundamentalist organization advocating young Earth creationism, openly criticized him for continued use of discredited arguments abandoned by others in the movement.
Hovind established Creation Science Evangelism (CSE) in 1989 and Dinosaur Adventure Land in 2001 in Pensacola, Florida. He frequently spoke on Young Earth creationism in schools, churches, debates, and on radio and television broadcasts. His son Eric Hovind took over operation of CSE after Hovind began serving a ten-year prison sentence in January 2007 for federal convictions for failing to pay taxes, obstructing federal agents, and structuring cash transactions. In September 2021, Hovind was convicted of domestic violence against his estranged wife.
Early life and education Hovind was born in 1953 in East Peoria, Illinois. At the age of 16, Hovind became a born-again Christian within the Independent Fundamental Baptist church."I am, without apology, an independent fundamental Baptist."
In 1971, he graduated from East Peoria Community High School in East Peoria, Illinois. He entered Illinois Central College and then transferred to the unaccredited Midwestern Baptist College in 1972, attaining a Bachelor of Religious Education in 1974.
In 1988 and 1991 respectively, Hovind received a master's degree and doctorate in Christian Education through correspondence from (also unaccredited) Patriot University, then in Colorado Springs, Colorado.now Patriot Bible University in Del Norte, Colorado, which no longer offers this program Patriot University is a diploma mill.
Career Between 1975 and 1988, Hovind served as an assistant pastor and teacher at three private Baptist schools, including one he started."Affidavit of Kent E. Hovind (2005) with Circuit Court of Escambia County August 10, 2005"
In 1998, Hovind created his Dr. Dino web site and began producing articles and selling video tapes, books, and fossil replicas.Jo Delia Hovind v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue ; T.C. Memo. 2012-281; October 3, 2012; also available online at Jo Hovind v Commissioner of Internal Revenue (2012 Order). Prior to his incarceration, Hovind had numerous speaking engagements (around 700 in 2004) at churches, private schools, and other venues each year, in addition to hosting a daily internet radio talk show and establishing Dinosaur Adventure Land in Pensacola, Florida.
Having a website called "Dr. Dino" has provoked some academics to look closely at how Hovind presents his education and credentials. All his known degrees are from unaccredited institutions, and he has no training in paleontology. Barbara Forrest, a professor of philosophy, expert on the history of creationism and activist in the creation–evolution controversy, wrote that Hovind's lack of training makes academic discussion impossible and has said that his understanding of historical and scientific research is deficient. Karen Bartelt, an organic chemistry professor who debated Hovind, examined Hovind's dissertation and found it is incomplete, contains numerous spelling errors, lacks references, shows flawed reasoning, and states that it does not present any original research.
Creation Science Evangelism and Creation Today
Hovind established Creation Science Evangelism in 1989 to evangelize and teach creationism. In May 1999, his son Eric joined Creation Science Evangelism as a speaker, and his daughter Marlissa began training to become Hovind's secretary.Kent Hovind wrote his son, Eric, "joined our CSE staff May 10th. He is taking my seminar to schools and churches and has quite a few meetings scheduled already." That year, CSE merged with Faith Baptist Fellowship of Hawthorne, Florida, beginning a relationship that lasted until 2002. In 2003, with the aid of Glenn Stoll (a promoter of tax-avoidance schemes), Hovind set up a series of entities starting with "an unincorporated association of pure trust" on May 13, under which a corporation sole and several ministerial trusts were established starting on May 23. CSE properties were conveyed to the trusts which operated under business licenses from the "Kingdom of Heaven".
Hovind is associated with the Unregistered Baptist Fellowship (UBF), a loosely affiliated group of roughly 100 churches which share a "theology of Christian resistance" to civil governments. Because the UBF would consider it an acknowledgement of government authority over the church, they reject the highly favorable 501(c)(3) status, which makes donations tax deductible and exempts them from income tax, but not FICA taxes or employee income tax withholding. The UBF holds that governmental authority stops "at the threshold of the church", and Hovind has likened his ministry's status to that of the Vatican City State. When the federal government obtained a search warrant in 2004, an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) criminal investigator made the sworn statement that the organization did not have a business license and did not have tax-exempt status.
Hovind was convicted of 58 felony counts in November 2006 and sentenced to ten years in prison in January 2007; Eric Hovind took over Creation Science Evangelism. In July 2007, God Quest Inc. was incorporated with Eric Hovind as president, and that November, God Quest Inc. filed in Florida to do business under the trade name Creation Science Evangelism.Fictitious Name Detail: Creation Science Evangelism, Registration #G07317900401, November 13, 2007, from State of Florida, Department of State. Retrieved May 15, 2015. In June 2008, Eric announced that the CSE website would incorporate the CSE blog and change format allowing for "only positive comments" about Hovind and CSE, and in late 2011, Creation Science Evangelism's DrDino.com website was redirected to CreationToday.org.Kyle Winkler, The new website announced "Creation Today is a ministry of God Quest, Inc." with focus on "creation, apologetics and evangelism."
Dinosaur Adventure Land
In 2001, Hovind started Dinosaur Adventure Land, a young Earth creationist theme park located behind Hovind's home in Pensacola. With the slogan, "Where Dinosaurs and the Bible meet!", the facility occupied roughly and had an indoor "Science Center" along with an outdoor space which had a variety of simple dinosaur-themed rides and activities, each of which was tied to some religious message. For example, the "Jumpasaurus" was a trampoline next to a basketball hoop; children would have one minute to make as many baskets as they could, and the message was that one has to be coordinated to do more for Jesus. Annual attendance was 38,000. The park depicted humans and dinosaurs co-existing in the last 4,000–6,000 years and also contains a depiction of the Loch Ness Monster. The Southern Poverty Law Center said the park also "claims that a few small dinosaurs still roam the planet". A 2004 Skeptical Inquirer article discussed a visit to Hovind's dinosaur theme park and concluded that the park is "deceptive on many levels". In Reports of the National Center for Science Education, George Allan Alderman described it as "essentially a playground with a few exhibits, several fiberglass dinosaurs, a climbing wall, and a couple of buildings." He summarized it as "shabby".
The venture encountered legal issues when the owners did not get a building permit in 2002 (see below). In April 2006, Escambia County officials closed the building in question. In July 2009, the courts ruled that the properties could be seized and sold to satisfy Hovind's criminal penalties (see below). [ The story can be found in the collection: "The evolution of 'Dr. Dino. Another Florida ministry theme park, the Holy Land Experience, successfully lobbied for a property tax exemption law for parks "used to exhibit, illustrate, and interpret biblical manuscripts" in 2006; Dinosaur Adventure Land, which was not a 501(c)(3) organization, failed to have the law expanded to be included. Eric Hovind kept the park and CSE operating throughout 2008, The story can be found in the collection: "The evolution of 'Dr. Dino. but in July 2009, a judge allowed the government seizure to proceed. In August 2009, Dinosaur Adventure Land's website announced it was closed, and CSE announced its re-opening as the "Creation Store" in November 2010.
In April 2016, Hovind discussed plans for a new Dinosaur Adventure Land, which included an 80-foot-tall model dinosaur that would be the largest in the state, with commissioners in Conecuh County, Alabama. A supporter donated a parcel of land in Lenox, Alabama, a former gravel pit. Volunteers started work by June 2016, and it opened in April 2018. , total attendance had exceeded 1,000, according to Hovind. Dinosaur Adventure Land is operated by a 501(c)(3) organization, Creation Science Evangelism Ministries Inc. Its revenue streams are donations, book and DVD sales, and YouTube advertising. There is no admission charge and it operates without liability insurance. Facilities include a science center, a campground, a four-wheeler park, and church services including baptisms.
On March 15, 2020, a seven-year-old boy drowned at the park.
Personal life He married his wife Jo Delia McGinnis in 1973 and they had three children between 1977 and 1979.
In 1989, the family moved to Pensacola, Florida, where Jo attended (then unaccredited) Pensacola Christian College and earned a bachelor's degree in music and master's degrees in music and sacred music.
In 1999, his son Eric Hovind began traveling to present his arguments and seminars. Kent and Jo divorced in 2016.Judgment dated June 21, 2016, recorded June 24, 2016, Jo D. Hovind v. Kent E. Hovind;
He married his second wife, Mary Tocco, on September 24, 2016 and his third wife Cindi Lincoln on July 20, 2018.
Creationism
The Hovind Theory Hovind presented a version of young Earth creationism he calls the "Hovind Theory" in lectures and in the book Unmasking the False Religion of Evolution. The Hovind Theory is entirely rejected in the scientific community, and its plausibility has even been criticized by other young Earth creationists.
In Hovind's narrative, dinosaurs and humans coexisted and Tyrannosaurus rex was a vegetarian prior to the fall of man. Hovind expands upon the late 19th- and early 20th-century vapor canopy concept of a protective shield that made Earth a relative paradise between the expulsion from Paradise and Noah's flood. The flood is expressed as a function of natural rather than miraculous processes. Noah's family and two of every kind of animal (including dinosaurs, which fit because babies were taken aboard and conditions allowed larger humans, making the ark's size, based on cubits, larger) boarded Noah's Ark before an ice meteor impacted the Earth. Fragments from the meteor caused planetary rings and impact craters on the moon and other solar system bodies. The remainder were drawn to the North and South Poles by the Earth's magnetic field as cataclysmic snowfall which buried the mammoths standing up. The ice on the poles cracked the Earth's crust, releasing the "fountains of the deep". According to Hovind, these events caused an ice age, and made the Earth wobble around, collapsing the vapor canopy that protected it.'The Hovind Theory' - part 6 of his CSE series