Margaret Buchanan and John Mackay
In what is a bitter and very public dispute between Creation Ministries International and Answers in Genesis, evidence has emerged that seriously questions John Mackay’s personal integrity.
In November 2006 Creation Ministries International posted on its web site details of why it split with John Mackay in 1987. At that time CMI was known as the Creation Science Foundation (it used the name Answers in Genesis from 1996 to 2006 – the name Answers In Genesis is now only used by the USA and the UK organisations.)
The details are, indeed, very serious charges about Mackay’s conduct, then and since, and are backed up with substantial evidence.
In February 1986 Mackay accused the then personal secretary of Ken Ham, Margaret Buchanan, of necrophilia and involvement in witchcraft. In particular Mackay claimed that Margaret Buchanan had sex with her dead husband’s body.
Mackay attempted, without any agreement or discussion with the rest of the management of Creation Science Foundation, to sack her. No evidence was ever produced about the allegations. Indeed, so serious and unsubstantiated was the matter that Mackay was subsequently excommunicated from his Church (Redlands Baptist Fellowship).
It appears that Mackay never withdrew the allegations. Creation Ministries has also suggested that Mackay continued to smear both Margaret Buchanan and CMI for years afterwards.
Bizarrely, after CMI split from Answers in Genesis in 2006, Mackay publicly came out in support of Answers in Genesis. In November 2006 CMI suggested that Mackay was continuing his smear campaign against CMI through issuing an email to his contacts. However, we are not aware of the contents of that email.
CMI has posted a vast amount of information on its web site of Mackay’s allegations against Margaret Buchanan and their consequences, including personal testimony from her. Buchanan eventually married the current head of Creation Ministries, Carl Wieland. Undoubtedly there must be considerable animosity between CMI and Mackay even to this day.
The author has worked through the material presented by CMI on its web site and concludes that it may not reveal the full circumstances behind the 1987 split with Mackay.
It hints that Mackay was unwilling to accept the loss of power with the organisation after it had been created through a merger between his operation (run jointly with Ken Ham) and that of Carl Wieland.
However, we suspect that it may also have had something to do with money. Ham and Mackay had become established as professional creationists in the late 1970s by (amongst other things) selling creationist material, such as books, to state-funded schools in Queensland. At that time Queensland was widely perceived as corrupt and socially backward and teaching of creationism had been made mandatory in schools there.
However, the ancient regime was coming to an end in 1987 and the legal requirement to teach creationism was thrown out. That left a gap in the income of the relatively recently created CMI which itself had lost a pile of money (Aus$92k) through fraud. Ham himself was increasingly involved in the creationist movement in the USA (presumably partly to earn a living because of the depleted finances of CMI).
Indeed, now nearly two decades later it appears that money is the core issue in the split between AiG and CMI. We hesitate to make full conclusions from the information we have. CMI’s account of the recent split is substantially different from that of Answers in Genesis in the USA.
However, it is almost impossible not to conclude that John Mackay comes out of the affair as a thoroughly sleazy and discredited person. Far from having the jovial Larrikin persona he has managed to put forward in the UK, he has now been shown to be a distinctly nasty piece of work, with limited judgement and as bonkers as his creationist science.
There is no doubt that the wholly unsubstantiated allegations against Margaret Buchanan are horrific. They look like something out of Mediaeval Europe or the Salem Witch Trials. (Indeed, the church that excommunicated him, described his behaviour as “common in the Salem witch trials”.)
The other issue that is still not clear to us is the extent to which the creationist movement world-wide has known about Mackay’s despicable behaviour since 1987. We suspect that much of it has but has deliberately kept quite about it so as not to rock the creationist boat.
Creation Research UK, the British arm of his Creation research ministry, appears to be fairly distant from the other UK creationist organisations such as the Biblical Creation Society, the Creation Science Movement, Answers in Genesis UK, Genesis Agendum and Truth in Science. On the other hand there are numerous chapels and churches, as well as schools such as Blue Coat, that appear to have been unaware about either the horrific allegations against Margaret Buchanan or that he had been excommunicated by his church. (Or, worse, still, they have chosen to ignore it all.)
Indeed, the affair raises serious questions about the judgement of the headteacher of Blue Coat school in allowing Mackay to address pupils at the school. Blue Coat has let it be known to us that Mackay is due to return to the school in 2007. Blue coat has bragged to us recently that it is using creationist material (specifically Intelligent Design material from the creationist Truth in Science organisation) for its science lessons.
Whether this will now happen is a moot point. During November 2006 Creation Research UK announced that Mackay was taking a six-month sabbatical. The organisation, though, claims that it has started work in putting together Mackay’s UK itinerary for 2007. It claimed Mackay would return in September 2007.
Mackay is clearly not a fit and proper person to be teaching any science to children, let alone his creationist hocus pocus. People who behave like a monster from the Salem Witch Trails has no place in state education in the UK.
Jim Lippard goes somewhat further:
“Mackay's charges seem a lot like the fabricated charges of Laurel Willson, a deeply disturbed woman better known as Lauren Stratford (pseudonym), author of Satan's Underground. Her account of being a victim of Satanic ritual abuse was debunked by Gretchen and Bob Passantino and Jon Trott, who were also instrumental in exposing the fake claims of "Satanist turned Christian comedian" Mike Warnke.”
Worse still, for the creationist movement, the affair casts a long shadow over the credibility of the current Answers in Genesis. Ham and Mackay had originally teamed up in the late 1970s forming two organisations - a book ministry called Creation Science Supplies and a teaching ministry called Creation Science Educational Media Services. They then joined forces in 1980 with Carl Wieland’s Creation Science Association to form the Creation Science Foundation.
Whether one likes it or not, Ham has utterly failed to distance himself from his past associate despite the horrific circumstances behind Mackay’s departure from CSF in 1987. Indeed, it is clear from Answers in Genesis’s’s web site that Ham was fully conversant with the Buchanan affair as he played a major role in getting the aftermath sorted out. (Buchanan was his personal secretary and Mackay had been his partner in the 1970s and was involved in CSF right up until 1986).
This is what CMI’s web site (see http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4261) had to say in November 2006 about Answers in Genesis’s “rehabilitation” of Mackay:
“Currently, the issue has surfaced again in the context of the recent tensions between the Australian ministry and AiG-USA, with John Mackay’s newsletter suddenly urging supporters to pray for the ‘attack’ the US ministry is allegedly under.”
“In fact, it appears that new alliances are being forged, and talk of ‘reconciliation’ is being used to rehabilitate Mr Mackay in creationist circles—again the aim appears to be to undermine the Australian ministry, only from a different angle. Reconciliation is a wonderful and most desirable thing, but can never occur except on a biblical basis; the original slander must be withdrawn, and there must be a repentance and forgiveness sought from the main victim, Margaret, for a start.”
CMI has a long memory about the Mackay allegations. It assembled a dossier of information on Mackay’s behaviour in 1986 and 1987. It is this dossier that has now emerged on the CMI web site (see http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4261).
This is how CMI summarises it:
“The pack was originally prepared in response to the aftermath of a horrific attack (February, 1986) on our ministry (then called Creation Science Foundation) by Mr Mackay. The mechanism of attack involved a monstrous series of allegations without evidence—the basis was alleged ‘spiritual discernment’, involving ‘black cats’ and similar. These slanderous allegations concerned Margaret Buchanan, at the time a well-regarded Christian widow working for the ministry as Ken Ham’s personal secretary. John said she had been ‘specially sent by Satan’ to undermine him and the ministry, involved in covens, attending séances, etc.—never was there any eyewitness testimony or other evidence, merely ‘discernment’.”
“When his attempt to sack her and take over the ministry failed, due to the Board’s refusal to violate biblical principle, Mr Mackay resigned. This was followed by a campaign of widespread innuendo and slander, involving actual fabrications which if accepted would tend to bolster his claim of ‘demonic infiltration’ of our ministry and thus would tend to undermine public confidence in our ministry. This included the bizarre and incredibly offensive claim that Margaret had claimed to have had intercourse with the corpse of her late husband (!).”
“Sadly, these horrific sins have never been repented of, nor forgiveness sought, nor restitution offered—despite a Baptist church excommunicating Mr Mackay and urging people to respect this decision in the Lord. When Ken Ham left ICR in about 1996, the rumour mill from this source again swung into action; the story this time was that Margaret was to blame for this ‘split’, somehow using demonic ‘powers’ to damage another creation ministry. Again, the real ‘target’ of the rumours was clearly public confidence in our ministry; if it could be undermined, it would be more likely to leave the Australian ‘creation public’ diverting the support in other directions. It might also be seen as a ‘vindication’ of the original offensive actions.”
The web page links to the full documentation at http://www.creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/other/information_package.pdf and also to Margaret Buchanan’s personal testimony, Salem revisited, at http://www.creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/other/salem_revisited.pdf.
Both the PDF documents make for some very disturbing reading. The first document is described as an information package on John Mackay. It appears to date from at least 1996 when CSF adopted the Answers in Genesis name. It explicitly states that at the time Mackay’s attacks were still ongoing.
That is a damning indictment of Mackay. If correct, it shows that for years he was continuing to make unsubstantiated allegations, even after he was excommunicated from his own Baptist Church.
The document concerns (to quote from it) “a very traumatic and ongoing attack upon this ministry which has not ceased to the day of preparation…”
The documentation states that CMI found that Mackay’s claims against Margaret Buchanan had no substance in a legal or biblical case and he had based them on subjective believe “such as his own claims of divinely provided spiritual discernment.”
It also shows that Margaret Buchanan was cleared of all of the allegations by an outside body, the Salisbury Baptist Church (of which she was a member).
It details the very nasty way in which Mackay personally handle his attempt to dismiss Margaret Buchanan from CSF. It looks as if Mackay took the law into his own hands with a kangaroo court.
Mackay's Kangaroo Court
“On the 18th of February this year [1986] Mr Mackay, without the knowledge of the then directors of the Foundation, (Prof Rendle-Short, Ken Ham and Dr John Osgood), had all the building locks changed, keeping 5 out of the 6 copies of the new key. (the sixth went to a junior staff member with instructions not to let anyone else have it.) Also without the knowledge of the other directors, he had called a staff meeting at 6.30 am the same day, telling them that Margaret Buchanan, our valued ministry co-ordinator, had the spirit of Jezebel, was actively involved in witchcraft, and was demon-possessed. He then rang her at 7am telling her that she was dismissed and was not even t pick up her possessions. [Buchanan was not allowed to attend the kangaroo court or defend herself.] She was not given any reason or right of appeal. He ended giving, in the presence of witnesses, perhaps the most cruel insult one could hurl at a Christian lady – widow – ‘your husband is Lucifer.’ The Chairman of the Foundation’s Executive Committee called an emergency meeting of directors within four hours, and, with the assistance of lawyer Dr Steven Gustafson (a former director), spent nine hours enquiring into all these charges. Any staff member was freely able to testify. They were shocked to discover that the accuser had made these allegations without being in the possession of a single shred of evidence (apart from feelings and claims of divine insight) remotely relating to the central charge of witchcraft.”
Mackay then went on to give the directors an ultimatum “unless she goes, I will go”. He also told them, after they had made their decision that “you’ll regret it”. He appears to have resigned the next day (although the text is unclear on this).
Mackay then appears to have started a systematic campaign of bad mouthing Margaret Buchanan. Indeed, the Church that excommunicated him, seems to have concluded that he had a mouth the size of the Blackwall Tunnel when it came to slandering all that crossed his path in the affair. It suggested that Mackay only got away with what he did because Margaret Buchanan refused to go to the courts and because CSF refused to prosecute him for (unspecified) additional illegalities. It claimed that Mackay repudiated all personal responsibility for his own actions.
The evidence points to the CSF considering Mackay to be a less than competent editor of the organisation's magazine.
It also points to Mackay being a very authoritarian figure. “Mr Mackay seems to believe as founded of Creation Science Foundation he should have the ultimate authority overriding the collective wisdom of the other directors including Ken Ham, the other founder of the ministry whom he has seen fit to ignore through all of this.”
Ham is also quoted as saying that Mackay “had a long battle with the fact that he wanted total control” of CSF. It appears that he had let Ham know this a couple of years earlier. Indeed, Ham suggests that the attack on Buchanan was an attempted coup d’etat to take over the organisation.
The document then goes on to state that the Institute for Creation Research decided to blackball Mackay because of his slander. It also shows that Mackay was blackballed by the Creation Science Association of Ontario.
It also suggests that Mackay stole confidential mailing lists from CSF and refused to hand back other material belonging to CSF.
Ham also points out that Mackay claimed that “God has spoken and still speaks with him audibly on numerous occasions.”
Indeed, Ham also added that Mackay had told him on a number of occasions over the years about demonic influences in his life.
The document also includes a letter from John Mackay which, quite frankly, casts other serious doubts on his judgement. It’s undated but appears to have been written in March 1986. In it he announces that he intends to visit the UK which is “dominated by 500 Muslim mosques” and that he was doing it all free of charge because of the “desperate financial plight of Christian people” in Britain.
Worse still, though are the allegations being made (in November 2006) by Creation Ministries about libel from both Answers in Genesis and John Mackay. The full details of this escapade still are not clear. However, attached as an appendix are details from Creation Ministries’ web site.
Margaret Buchanan’s testimony on Salem Revisited is even more damning of Mackay. This is what Buchanan claims Mackay said about here:
Margaret Buchanan's Testimony
“I [Buchanan] was a closet witch; demon-possessed; an 'angel of the devil' masquerading a an 'angel of light' (every good thing, every Christian act I had ever done was just a cover-up for my real motivation); an evil infiltrator in a number of Churches beforehand, now practising my nastiness in the Christian ministry for which I then worked; the literal incarnation of Jezebel of the Old and New Testaments; a broom-stick riding, cauldron- stirring (yes -- he definitely made such statements); a frequent attender of seances and satanic orgies; a witch with the ability to invade both inanimate objects (wall pictures, office space, gifts of any sort) and animate objects (at least one dog and one cat -- and even John himself) with my own personal demons. Those present at this gathering were encouraged to bring any gifts I had given them so they could be burned. One girl actually went home for hers for just that purpose. John had already followed this procedure with gifts that I had given to him and his family.”
Conclusion: The whole damn lot – Mackay, Creation Ministries and Answers in Genesis are absolutely nuts. None of them should be involved in teaching in British schools or trying to influence public policy on teaching science. The issue raises serious concerns about their ability to run their own affairs and the integrity of both Answers in Genesis and John Mackay and his ministry, Creation Research. It also raises further serious concerns about all those connected with Answers in Genesis including Professor Andy McIntosh of Truth in Science.
However, what is missing from all the information presented by Creation Ministries is why Mackay so viscously attacked Margaret Buchanan in February 1986. The information suggests that it was part of an attempted coup d’etat so he would take control of CSF. If you going for a coup’d’etat you don’t do it by shooting junior staff. That side of the story doesn’t stack up.
Appendix
The following is taken from CMI’s web site (see http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4771); it was posted in November 2006 and specifically refers to the split between AiG in the USA Creation Ministries in Australia. AiG’s chairman is Pastor Don Landis.
Clarification re innuendo about CMI in email/letter from AiG-USA.
Sent 21 November 2006
From: the Board of Creation Ministries International (CMI)-publishers of Creation magazine (still available in the USA) and the Journal of Creation (formerly TJ) in Brisbane, Australia.
Dear colleague in creation outreach
We write this with considerable sadness. You are likely aware that there are some tensions between the ministries of CMI and AiG that go back some two years or so. We had hoped to be able to settle these peacefully, despite our ministry having suffered significant tangible losses at AiG's hands. We have repeatedly but unsuccessfully tried to get AiG to meet openly with all of us, or failing that, to have both our ministries submit to binding Christian arbitration to see things done justly.
We believe we have acted with considerable restraint in our public comments thus far, despite seriously provocative actions. These include substantial commercial ruthlessness against our ministry as part of what increasingly has the hallmarks of some sort of vendetta. Nevertheless, we have kept the details very quiet for a very long time, not wishing to cause harm or escalation, and hoping for 'peace with honour'.
A most unfortunate and unfair email
Unfortunately, a number of people have contacted us just now, saying they have received a brief email from AiG-USA's chairman (which we have seen) that casts serious slurs against our ministry. In effect, it engages in widespread public slander.
The email alleges that we have engaged in 'unbiblical' and 'factious' behaviour (a word applied in the NT to those who introduce doctrines contrary to the Gospel, and translated as 'heretic' in the KJV). This is an immensely serious and damaging allegation against an evangelical ministry and one that has not been substantiated, and is totally without foundation; our ministry's doctrine has not changed one iota, either in word or in practice.
The email also hints darkly at a 'spiritual problem' as a justification for their breaking off discussions with us. It also refers to a letter the AiG-Board sent us on November 1 to that effect, saying that that letter is available to enquirers upon request. That letter was essentially an expansion of their shorter email; it repeatedly affirmed their own righteousness, and that they were breaking off negotiations until we resolved our 'spiritual problems'. These 'problems' are not specified, which darkens the innuendo ('What? Who?').
Dismayed by this turn of events, we prepared a detailed response that was emailed to each of the Directors on AiG-USA's Board, on 15 November 2006. It outlined and clarified the issues in detail. In it we also pleaded for AiG to urgently withdraw from this action, giving them three days to respond-i.e. to contact us, to make some move to draw back from this abyss, to avoid us making our response public. We have received no response or acknowledgement from AiG, even to this date, some six days later.
Worldwide libel distribution
The same AiG email defaming our ministry has also been sent out by an Australian creationist running his own ministry, who had split with Ken Ham in 1986 (this man had been excommunicated by an Australian church, a still unresolved issue-see www.CreationOnTheWeb.com/mackay for Ken Ham's own words about the seriousness of these actions against our ministry and an individual at that time). So this defamation has been sent to a substantial worldwide email mailing list, which would include overlap with many of our own supporters. This AiG email was clearly sent to that 'distribution source' by AiG; the covering comments state that 'Ken Ham advises', and refer to AiG's permission for the recipient to spread it still further.
(The aim appears to be to encourage as many people as possible to lose confidence in our ministry, and of course AiG will have a commercial 'bonus' in that the more that are encouraged to 'enquire', the more email addresses they will have, making it easier to further undermine CMI ministry in this country.)
We deeply regret that AiG/Ken Ham have seen fit to engage in this most serious escalation. Even in the face of this defamation, our overwhelming preference would have been to have had AiG respond to our urgent letter, to continue talks in openness and light as the Scriptures enjoin us to do rather than for us to have to publicly stand against the libel.
In the absence of any evidence of remorse or willingness to undo this most recent and grave public attempt to damage us, we solemnly, before the Lord, believe we now have no choice but to protect the public reputation of the ministry organisation that has been entrusted to us, in as dignified and God-honouring a way as we can.
So we have chosen in the first instance to provide, within this email, a website link (below) to the full text of our formal 15 November response to AiG, which should substantially clarify CMI's position.
Of course, we do not know who all the many folk to whom AiG's defamatory comments have been emailed are, or how many times it has multiplied on the internet. So we are sending this email you are reading to the following:
1) To any who actually enquire of us.
2) To our corporation's members (an outer layer of protection which holds the directors accountable), our staff and our volunteer workers/speakers, local reps, etc.
3) To the management of our four national affiliates (CMI offices in Canada, NZ, US and South Africa, as well as affiliates in the UK) for providing to their staff, so that they will be able to answer these allegations as they inevitably spread. Sadly, some mud always sticks, especially when it comes from a 'big name'.
4) To those we know of who are involved in creation outreach of any sort, since we are aware that at least some of these have been targeted with this AiG email and previous ones.
5) To any (including those within AiG itself) that we have reason to believe have been contacted by AiG with similar intent and have likely received similarly misleading statements and views.
The link
Our letter of response to AiG is reproduced at this link on our site, www.CreationOnTheWeb.com/dispute
If you did not receive the AiG email, we ask for your compassionate understanding of the dilemma we were facing; we know from those who have already contacted us that it went out widely to creationists, but do not know exactly who did and didn’t receive it.
This sorry development will bring shame on the Name of our Lord and Saviour, and give cause for the enemies of God to gloat. Would you please consider committing these matters, which also have the potential to do damage to creation ministry in general (even more than has already occurred), to prayer.
Yours very sincerely in Christ,
The Board of Creation Ministries International Ltd. (Australia)
Mr. Kerry Boettcher (Chairman)
Mrs. Carolyn McPherson (Vice-Chairman)
Dr. Carl Wieland, M.B., B.S. (Managing Director)
Dr. Dave Christie, B.Com, M.Admin, Ph.D., FAICD, FIMC (Director)
Mr. Fang, Chang Sha B.Sc (hons), M.Sc. (Director)
Rev. Dr. Don Hardgrave, B.D, M.A., D.B.S., Dip. Theol, Dip. R.E. (Director)
© Roger Stanyard, 2006 and 2007
