Thank you for your response. It has been a long time since I read the excellent book by Conrad Hyers and I which I still had it. However there are some issues with what you say.
The problem that YEC has with Genesis is that Fundamentalists decided that the Bible is the incarnate Word of God, when it is clear that Jesus Christ is the Incarnate Word (Logos) of God and Jesus is not the Bible. All or almost all of the problems of evangelicalism came from this basic error.
I have recently become aware though Academia.edu that evangelicals have developed an improper understanding the Trinity which subordinates the Son and the Spirit to the Father, which justifies the eternal subordination of women to men. See Wayne Grudem. Are you aware of this?
While Genesis 1 can be “taken and understood on its own terms without harmonizing with science,” the fact is that it does need to be harmonized with science because Genesis and good science and philosophy are all seeking to understand the Beginning of the universe and the Beginning of Reality. They can be and they must be harmonized if humans are to live in One Reality, One world, unlike to fragmented, broken world we find ourselves in today.
Even though Christians did not understand the scientific basis of the Beginning, Augustine understood that the Beginning meant that time was tied to the Creation and because the universe is not e4ternal, it is not God. The Creation and the Beginning provided the cosmogonic foundation for modern science. The Beginning and the Big Bang are harmonized because they are true based on the facts as we know them, not because we want them to be.
The final piece that made the Big Bang possible was Einstein’s theory, which has been well tested and proven over the past 100 years. Even if the Big Bang has some holes and people have some questions as to how E = mc squared interacts with the quantum world which is a whole new kettle of fish, I find no serious reason to doubt the basic soundness of the equation and how it underpins the Big Bang.
This does not mean that I am putting all my eggs in one basket, but it does mean that I am affirming the truth, whether it be scientific truth or spiritual truth as God blesses me to see it. God dives us a brain to use to the best of our ability and we need to use it, even though we know it is not perfect.
1 Cor 13:13 And now these three remain: Faith, Hope and Love. But the greatest of these is Love.
Please forgive the sermon.