In the good old days when I used to have a seminar on this topic that I used in churches, I had an overhead transparency that showed the age of the earth (along with some of the various geological time periods). This was represented by a line that went the length of the slide. Beside it was the young age, represented by a dot.
The BioLogos Foundation Science and the Sacred blog has something about this today. It’s not a minor difference, explainable by slightly different interpretations. It’s a massive. fundamental difference.
I am in agreement with the statement that arguing about issues that have little to do with God’s plan for mankind is fruitless and unnecessary. As a Christian, we can remain in the faith whether we side with the Christian or scientific age of the earth. I do not believe either contradicts the other. The Bible is not specific on the chronology of mankind, therefore also of the age of the earth. One can justify gaps in the biblcal chronology–I comment much more in detail in my book, “The Messiah and His Kingdom to Come: A Biblical Road Map.”
I would like to emphasize that while the difference is massive and represents some very different readings of the scientific data I do not regard the age of the earth as anything like a fundamental issue of Christianity. Christians can justifiably differ on this point.
Thanks for the link.