BioLogos Publishing, Inc. “run out of paper”? Try digital format or audiobooks instead.
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There are plenty of websites and youtube channels that counter the claims of YEC.
For instance, you might look at the following:
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You can cut hydra heads, twigs all day long. Slay the beast, cut down the tree once and for all.
We just had an ally of Ken Ham come to our church last week. He asked what we should do if we can’t trust the first part of the Bible. The main argument of course is to shore up trust in the Bible, and I have to admit that’s a difficult question. However, it’s not based on trust in fact, but just a need for certainty and simplicity. It’s very hard to break that. Faith in a way in general gravitates towards that. I have to admit that that is what I gravitate towards as well.
The first book I read with answers to YEC claims was this one. It was encouraging.
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So how do you think the beast could be slayed once and for all?
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He implicitly accuses (in nomine Ken Ham): “you don’t trust the Bible”. And then builds everything on the assumed validity of his accusation. From that point on the rest is noise, and no-one hears each other. Discussing the science merely gets drowned out in that increasing multi-decibel white noise.
Perhaps forget the science. Refute head-on and with confidence his initial accusation. He accuses you of “not trusting the Bible”. His accusation against you is an untruth. (You might, if you choose, go further and call it a lie and slander: but that’s a pastoral call in the moment!) Call out that untruth. Expose it. Refute it. Don’t go a step towards any science at all until he backs off his “you don’t trust the Bible” accusation against you.
I am increasingly convinced that science arguments against YEC pseudoscience are a waste of time… until the YEC at least can at least accept that you “trust the Bible” just as much as he says he does.
For our apologetics, the science is merely secondary and often a distraction. Primary is our defence of our respect for God-breathed scripture up to at least the level of the most “biblical” YEC.
(By the way, I have cast this as “he”, simply and solely because Randy’s visitor is described as “he”!)
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That’s a really interesting point, that I hadn’t thought about this way before. But actually, it’s right there in our faces, isn’t it. Even in some of the arguments around here. The science really is irrelevant, if it’s all about defending a particular view of the Bible. The science (or anything else that comes up in disputes about the Bible, like…say…oh…women…for example) really has nothing to do with the discussion, except that reality doesn’t support the face-value reading of the Bible.
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By taking the axe of the Spirit to it. Pruning won’t do it. The Spirit of truth, of a sound mind. To the evil of apostate Christianity. To the Christianity that completely misses the point. As @David_Lee proposes above. Only talk epistemology.
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Superb David. Speak truth to the power of delusion. I’ve always liked Cromwell’s 1650 plea to the Church of Scotland, “I beseech you in the bowels of Christ think it possible you may be mistaken.”.
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Yeah but.
(And this takes it to more than 11 characters)
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Jemar Tisby recently noted that evangelicals are people without questions. For the most part, I think he’s right. Too many Christians frame every question as a bipolar black or white. Everything has a “yes” or “no” answer, including (dare I say it) heaven or hell.
I agree fact-based arguments won’t sway YEC to change en masse. That’s a fantasy. But is that really the goal of BioLogos and those of us (like @Joel_Duff or @glipsnort or @jammycakes) who spend our personal time and energy countering YEC propaganda? Speaking just for myself, I’m reminded of The Catcher in the Rye. My goal isn’t to turn them all around, but to catch the ones running away from YEC before they go off the cliff.
I also agree that part of that process is showing such folks that leaving YEC behind doesn’t mean leaving orthodoxy behind. The scripture is still inspired and authoritative, even if not inerrant (by the strictest definition).
Addendum: Our faith is in Christ, not in the Bible.
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I’m remembering the time I was talking with a YEC father who mentioned his teenage daughter. I asked him a simple question: If your daughter told you she no longer believed in a young Earth or a literal Adam & Eve, would you prefer she remained a Christian like me or Pete Enns, or would you rather see her become an atheist? He said he’d have to think about it. 
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Yeah but what?
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It’s astonishing the amount of work and time they put into this!
Thanks to them!
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Denis Lamoureux said that a prof asked him if evolution were true, would he reject Christ. That took him aback, too… I think he implied it was one of the reasons he rethought his position. @DOL
Thanks.
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Yes, the fellow quoted Andy Stanley and others saying that they accepted science when it conflicted with the Bible…and said they were basically traitors.
He then said scientists were biased in favor of millions of years, just as YEC were biased.
That’s not the case…as @jammycakes wrote, they are biased in favor of just weights and measures.
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What awful confirmations of the power of peer pressure and tribalism, consistent with Haidt’s writings of how we would rather do evil and be seen as good by our peers than to do good and lose our peer’s approval.
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Well it either errs or it doesn’t. Kind of like whether you exist or you don’t…
I prefer the way Longman and Keener can say it does not err. Keener says it as a matter of faith, and he is one who has claimed to have experienced the presence of Christ.
What happens once Christians admit the inerrancy of Scripture is something that reasonable people can disagree about?
Jay313,
Here is a handout your daughter might find helpful:
https://sites.ualberta.ca/~dlamoure/holamoureuxbeyondbec.pdf
I could even do a Zoom lecture on the handout, if she wishes.
Blessings,
Denis
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