<DIV><P><B>A Note from the Author:</B></P><P>What does it mean to ask a question?</p><P>That's a funny way of putting it, isn't it? The answer seems perfectly obvious: people want information, so they make an inquiry. What else could a question mean, if it's more than that?</P><P>It's pretty popular these days to say that Christians ought to ask the hard questions. And for good reason: it's true. There are challenges that deserve serious attention, questions that we should carefully consider. Faith isn't the sort of thing that will endure as long as our eyes are closed. The opposite, in fact: faith helps us see, and that means not shrinking from the ambiguities and the difficulties that provoke our most profound questions.</P><P>I'm a fan of questioning. My education was built on the notion not only that we need not fear questions, but that by the grace of God we have the safety and security to rush headlong into them and find ourselves better for it on the other side.</P><P>The past decade of my life I have continued that process of inquiry, exploration, and discovery. I can't claim to have always had the right disposition about my inquiries. (And all his friends and his spouse said "Amen!"). But I have never once quit caring about the learning, about the growth that is before us, and the questions that will lead us into it.</P><P>Which is why I want to look at questioning itself, to step back and examine how exploration and inquiry fits within the Christian life.</P><P>In our embrace of questioning, we must learn to question well. In our uncertainty, we must not give up the task of walking worthy of the calling which Christ has placed upon us. For we have not yet reached the end of our exploring.</P><P>What does it mean to question well? That's a good question.</p><P><I>-Matthew Lee Anderson</I></P></div>