Bring on the questions

A seventeen year old with a future ahead of him, and lots of questions to live out.

What might have happened if Martin Luther's 95 questions had be cordially received and discussed in the months that followed All Saints Eve in 1517? We will never know because the authorities inside the church refused to look critically at their faith and practice. They hunkered down and acted all self righteous about this young monk who dared to question. He ran for his life, but his questions demanded answers.

Any government that squelches civil dissent and even civil disobedience is in trouble, and probably hiding something. Any church that becomes so convinced it speaks for God without error is in trouble of becoming something other than the helping institution it was founded to be.

Not all questions are respectful, and destructive attacks are not building bridges, but legitimate questions and discussion will help us to hold true to that which is true, and perhaps reconsider that which is weak.

If religion becomes obsolete in our time, it will be because it refused the dialogue that would bring growth, and the change necessary to meet the need of changing culture. And this is coming not from an angry college student but a man at the end of his career and maybe his life. There are lots of really good questions being discussed and I say....bring them on.