The Question Unasked

When NPR's Arun Rath interviewed former Seventh-Day Adventist pastor Ryan Bell on his decision to "live for one year without God," it made for moderately interesting radio. But at the end of the interview, Rath comments that it looks like Bell wasn't going to be going back to his former faith now that the year was drawing to a close.

Why not simply ask Bell the question? "Now that your year is up, do you think that you'll be going back?" That doesn't seem like a particularly fraught question, and so it was conspicuous in its absence, even though the answer seemed as obvious to me as it did to Rath. But given that Bell's original intent had been to leave his faith for a year, rather than forever, specifically taking up the change appeared to be in order.