Welcome! This sounds like a wonderful, positive way to communicate. Thank you for the good example, as well.
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One way to challenge YECs is by looking at the broader picture of Christian Faith. In the early years of the Christian Faith a heresy arose which we nowadays call Gnosticism. Gnosticism had the belief that a demiurge had created the physical world and that salvation consisted in God saving us from the physical world. This heresy was strongly contested by the Church through the assertion that God was not only the redeemer, but the creator of the physical world. Not only so, but God had used the physical world as a means of speaking through the incarnation of the Son of God. Christian theologians have reflected on this down through the ages. Hugh of St Victor put it very concisely: If God is the Creator, then “Nature is a book written by the finger of God”. This gave rise to the theology of the “Two Books” - the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature. Against Gnosticism, the Christian Faith asserted that God was the Creator of the physical world and that we could know God through his Creation.
So, one stance against YECs is to affirm that God is the Creator, and that the physical world can be a means of revelation. This is not to say that Nature supplies enough revelation for salvation, but that it may supply a guiding hand in interpreting the Book of Scripture. Where the two books appear to contradict each other, the answer may lie in a misunderstanding of the genre of literature in particular parts of the Bible.
YECs may counter that they accept this, but that science according to them points to YEC. To make this claim, they know deep down that they are clutching at straws, but they have been intimidated by their upbringing. This brings us to the role of peer pressure in our interpretation of reality.
You may have felt the intimidation of living amongst YECs. What you may not have recognized is the way in which your openness to science intimidates them! So, what are your resources? I think your first resource is confidence in your position. Some of your YEC friends are just waiting to break out of the intimidating intellectual prison they are in, and your confidence may help them to become free. You can find resources for your position on this website. You can also find friends for your new position. If possible, take those friends with you when you meet with your YEC friends.
A single book that would specifically answer all your questions is not likely to exist, because everybody approaches the issues with different questions. But even academics find that as they progress through issues, it is journal articles which take them further than books. This website can provide the equivalent of journal articles. And if you don’t see your question posed on this website, be the one to raise it on this website.
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Sorry, but it only communicates, preaches one way, as does Collins, for those not in the same choir echo chamber.
You’d also run out of paper.
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Yep exactly right. In my experience, their intimidation is obvious. YEC is a simple answer to a complex creation. And they don’t like that simplicity challenged.
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I think I’m tracking you, but if there are consensus science answers to the pseudoscience that certainly would help someone leaving YEC. I learned through books, audiobooks, podcast, articles, YouTube, etc. It was great and I enjoy it. Though, I wouldn’t have complained if there was a more comprehensive book countering specific YEC claims with direct answers. And from a Christian perspective.
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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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I’d love to see @Joel_Duff do a book thoroughly rebutting YEC.
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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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