@nobodyyouknow, I appreciate your post!
I’m late to this thread and have not tried to read all of it, but I’ve enjoyed the early exchanges here. They challenged me to think back over my experiences with YECs and to consider which of various approaches have worked most productively for me when dealing with the average American conservative in discussing the Bible. As I thought about my experiences, my fingers started recording the following notes. I don’t know if they are worth anybody’s time but, for anybody who decides to endure them, I’m curious if they at all fit your experiences.
I would say that I got off to the best start with the average Young Earth Creationist when I asked them what they thought was the best way to go about properly interpreting difficult Bible passages in general. I just keep asking them questions and agreeing with them as often as I can. Indeed, there is usually much that we can agree on. I usually cite my own background in an IFCA church and tell of memorizing scripture from the KJV Bible. I may even tell them that John Whitcomb spoke at my church and I got very interested in “creation science” and Genesis topics. (I don’t tell them that I eventually changed my position on Young Earth Creationism.)
Once the person decides I’m “safe” and not some “dangerous liberal”, I can usually nudge them a little bit with questions like “But don’t you think we often have to admit that we don’t necessarily know the exact meaning of a statement in the Bible?” and “Is this an area where knowledge can puff up but love for others can be much more important?” This usually builds trust.
Despite the aforementioned questions, the conservative Christian who agrees that we don’t always have the answers will nevertheless usually have a bias towards the idea that the Bible can be always be understood by a True Christian™ who sincerely asks God for knowledge and who has the assumption that the best interpretation of a Bible verse is the “plain and natural reading” that a ten-year-old would understand. They will often insist that if anyone claims that understanding a Bible passage requires special skills and training, then that person must be tainted by “man-made ideas”. Yet, the conservative Christian will also moments later tell me how knowledgeable their beloved pastor is, even telling me that he knows Greek and Hebrew! So this often gives me opportunity to ask for clarification, because I will tell them that I’m confused at whether they think special training is needed in understanding the Bible or whether the meaning of a Bible verse simply requires consulting the nearest ten-year-old. I will ask them, "If understanding the Bible is just a matter of being sincere, praying for God’s “right answer”, and focusing only on “the plain and natural reading of the Bible verse”, why did God give the Church people with special gifts, including those teaching gifts which help us understand the Bible? I’m surprised how often such “conservative Christians” will genuinely pause to reflect and try to sort out how much Bible training and expertise is a good thing and how much is too “liberal” and is “man-made ideas.”
It has been my experience that if I spend time helping the individual to reflect upon their own uncertainties in these areas, they are much less dogmatic and rigid as our dialogue continues and we get down to specific issues like “How do we know if Noah’s Flood was global?” and “How important is it that all Christians agree on the geographical extent of the flood?” I also try to be Socratic about getting the person to agree that TRADITION can play a big role in how we understand the Biblical text. Most will agree that if we have been told all of our lives that some “Biblical idea” is true, it can be difficult for us to change our minds when confronted with new information. (I sometimes use the example of Christians being absolutely certain that “Mt. Ararat” was where Noah’s ark came to rest. Then we look at what the Genesis passage actually says. More abundant misleading traditions come with the Bethlehem story where even many Christians think The Wise Men were three in number and that they visited the newborn king right along with the shepherds, and that this all took place in a stable (even though the Bible only speaks of a manger.)
My point is that getting acquainted with a cordial discussion of these types of matters can go a very long way in encouraging open minds. There are so many non-inflammatory questions surrounding the Adam & Eve chapters of Genesis and asking conservative Christians how they approach them–even while casually walking them through some of the tough questions (e.g., How do you think that Genesis 2 relates to Genesis 1?)–can set the stage for eventually grappling with what the author of Genesis 1 wanted to communicate to his audience and what kinds of things did the people in that ancient culture care about. Did they want a detailed chronology of creation?
I have usually found that if I build those bridges slowly and keep reassuring the person that I’m “on their side” in terms of caring about what the Bible teaches us, they allow me to provide some of the same kinds of “expertise” that their trusted pastor provides them. Yet, to do that I have to tactfully cover a lot of Hermeneutics 101 before we are at all prepared to broach anything about evolution or age of the earth topics.
My main point here is that I don’t think there is any possible shortcut. Someone like Ken Ham usually takes the easy route of using simplistic mantras and playing the “us versus them” game. He also has the huge advantage of false dichotomies. I think we also have to be content with small victories, meaning a lot of one-at-a-time successes in opening minds, not winning over big audiences in a short time by appealing to their prejudices and to science-illiteracy and Bible-illiteracy as so many origins ministry entrepreneurs love to do. Right-thinking is harder to teach than wrong-thinking—and much like the responses to the Gospel, “few there be who find it.”
I’ve found nobodyyouknow’s OP very interesting and it definitely got me thinking. But as much as I think we can do better, and that we must very carefully strategize to reach more Christians with these Biologos concepts, I don’t think we should adopt the tactics of the other side or overly “dumb down” various essentials. There will always be those who insist on a Kruger-Dunning arrogance and they will equate knowledge with being “liberal”. I don’t think that there is all that much that we can do to solve that problem.
That’s some of my rambling thoughts on this topic, nobodyyouknow. Thanks for getting us thinking about an important topic.