Martyn Iles, the former Managing Director at the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL), has left Answer In Genesis, the US-based creationist ministry he joined after leaving ACL. After six weeks of social media silence, he has announced he is “in transistion”.
“Some have noticed I’ve been quiet for a while. It’s because I am in a transition to something new,” Iles has posted on Facebook.
“In conjunction with some wise counsel and Christian colleagues, we are in the process of prayerfully discerning what’s next now that I am no longer at Answers in Genesis.
“We do have a fantastic project which appears to be coming together well… but we are just taking it a day at a time to confirm that it is of God and we’re meant to do it.
“There is plenty going on behind the scenes. I am in the USA talking to donors, partners, and suppliers. Back in Australia for Easter.
“The project (should the Lord enable it) has a purpose to evangelise, educate and entertain children and young people. It’s a technologically revolutionary, integrated, accessible, and high quality Christian education platform.
“I’ll post updates. See where this goes.”
Iles, who joined Answers in Genesis in May 2023, still lists an “Executive CEO” position there on his Facebook Profile. The latest article by Martyn Iles on the Answers in Genesis website dates from July 2024, but he is no longer listed in the “bios” menu of contributors.
Vision Radio’s Neil Johnson interviewed Dann Flynn and Mike Foster from Answers in Genesis, the headline describing Iles’ leaving as an “amicable parting.”
“Well, as we know, Martyn Isles has for a couple of years been in a leadership role, a senior leadership role in the US and very supportive of Ken [Ham, Founder CEO of Answers in Genesis] and also Martyn has been our managing director here in Australia,” Dan Flynn said. “So he’s had those kind of dual roles and what’s, I suppose the news today, exciting news is that Martyn is going to launch a new ministry. And so Ken has blessed him and encouraged him in that and very much released him to this new opportunity. So people obviously love Martyn, he’s one of Australia’s greatest young preachers and he’ll be doing this new ministry probably partly from the US and partly from Australia. Probably the only sad part of that is that he’ll be sort of leaving a IG to do that. But that’s understandable. The gospel continues to move forward and both ministries are blessing each other on the way forward.”
Johnson asked about the succession plan at Answers in Genesis : “Because we’ve been monitoring the developments there. And Martyn, who took on a chief ministry’s role and then elevated to the sort of executive role in the CEO sense, and there was a designation of you may well be the successor for Ken Ham as things develop, Ken took more an emeritus role, the founding CEO, and I guess now that’s going to continue as founding CEO because there might be a search on for a new leader and no doubt there’s probably a lineup of people who might actually be possibilities for that.”
Flynn responded “Well, I expect so and I think that Ken has still got plenty of fuel in the tank and he’s a young man who’s might be chronologically older than some but still full of energy. And I think that he’s realised and Martyn’s realised, look, they’re probably better off doing two ministries rather than one and trying to subdue Martyn’s ministry within AIG. So Martyn’s been very much sort of blessed and released to do a new ministry. We dunno what the details of that are yet, but we certainly look forward to hearing that from Martyn.”
Answer in Genesis’ founder CEO, Ken Ham, is 73 years old.
Image: Martyn Iles at his Babylon event in Sydney for ACL