In our campus ministry, we play a little game called Stump The Priest, or in ELCA language, Stump The Pastor. It started out as a once-a-semester Tuesday evening game and has morphed into part of the culture and DNA of our particular ministry and the way we make community and teach Christianity.
So I wonder: What question of Christianity do you have that you feel you are not allowed to ask? What question feels too big or too hairy or too high stakes to ask? What question are you worried you will be shamed or punished for asking? What feels too embarrassing to admit you don't know? These are the questions you get to ask of your campus minister.
Potentially not true of the ELCA or of the Episcopal Church, but there are folks who've come from traditions that punished them for asking questions or who acted like asking a question (questioning a pastor, questioning scripture, questioning at all) was itself an act of heresy. There are folks who were taught big harrowing things about God or about scripture and who had no place to go to check or contextualize the answers. And holding big questions with no leeway for wonder can sometimes lead to feelings of doubt or isolation or a feeling of unwelcome.
So when we greet students with big questions, we try hard to make lots and lots of room to ask the unaskable and the unanswerable. God is big enough and the Bible is tough enough to handle it, and it matters to me to be brave enough to answer the questions for real. Sometimes that means saying "I don't know" or "I've never heard of that!!" or "everybody pull out your phones and let's Google it together right now." Sometimes it means giving answers that don't feel correct enough or orthodox enough and sometimes it means saying what I think and asking my students right back "well what do you all think?"
There is lots to wonder about in our Christian tradition. Here are some of the questions from the past year:
Does the church condemn billionaires?
How literally should we take the Book of Revelations?
Why does a loving God allow people to suffer?
Who is actually going to hell? and does it include people of other faiths or no faith?
Do you think God is ever afraid or ashamed of His creation?
What does it mean to talk to God? and my personal fav:
Why do we tell a story of God flooding the entire world and call it good news?
The work of ministry in 2025 is different than it used to be, especially in the world outside of the church, and especially on a college campus. People have big urgent questions and want their questions taken seriously, and answered, or at least given the beginning of an answer. It's hard, hard work but the prize to be won is community with curious big-hearted young people and what a gift it is. So Christ Lutheran, again, I wonder, what question of Christianity do you have that you feel you are not allowed to ask?
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