Re: [asa] dialog with YEC brethern

I agree entirely with Iain's views on this. From time to time I
speak in
very conservative churches, and daily I teach classes with a significant
percentage of YEC students in them. The last thing we ought to do is to
turn folks against us by belittling them for the things in which they
believe. I've done that a few times and immediately regretted it.
Our goal
should always be conversation, not confrontation, on something like
this.

I encourage YEC students and church people to give voice to their
views and
their reasons for believing them. I then do the same for my views.
Plenty
of YECs go away from the conversation believing precisely what they
did at
the start. Quite a few others start to think more deeply about the
issues.
I hope all of them (though this may be a false hope) believe from our
encounter, however, that a fellow Christian believer can accept modern
science without harming their commitment to Christ or to Christian
truth.
If that can be achieved, that's a great start, for it flies in the
face of
what all the YEC organizations are telling them.

Attitudes are often more important than knowledge, and this is a prime
example.

I'll leave this with a thought expt. Imagine that you are listening
to a
standard YEC presentation, by someone like Hovind or Ham or .... Your
overwhelming impression is probably of one-sidedness and
closemindedness,
perhaps also of arrogance. In and of itself, that probably inclines
you not
to be very sympathetic to any points, no matter how valid, that they
may be
making. We can create a similar impression in people's minds, if we
aren't
careful to engage in conversation instead of confrontation.

Ted

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Received on Thu Sep 7 02:17:45 2006