Open...what?

Open Forum, Open Feud, Open Fire...
It's either the blight of the lectureship that makes one determine to never return or the highlight of the day but few people are ambivalent on the forum who have been to it. For the uninitiated a brief description and history. The Open Forum has gone on for many, many years. I'm figuring perhaps 50 years - I've been able to trace it back to at least 1969 (http://www.therestorationmovement.com/audio/index.htm). For a number of years I understand that Gus Nichols of Alabama conducted the forum but it was made most famous by Guy N. Woods who people seemed to revere greatly or revile. He was encyclopedic and unemotional in his answers. He could be a tad temperamental if he thought he had already dealt with a question sufficiently or the seeker had not studied for the answer on their own. Alan Highers followed Brother Woods and then for a few years the "forum" was "passed around" until Ralph Gilmore took it over about 10 years ago.
The forum is quite simple in it's approach. At 3:30 each afternoon Monday-Thursday the moderator answers all questions on any subject of a biblical nature. Questions are submitted throughout the year or handed to Ralph or some other lectureship committee member during the week. That's the easy part. The OPEN part is where it gets complicated. There are several microphones scattered throughout the auditorium and anyone can go to a mic at any point and be recognized to ask a question. This is often where the fireworks are set off. In roughly 30 years of attending the forum I've learned you never know what to expect. This year one brother called upon Brother Gilmore to repent...that happened last year too. That when someone disagreed with an answer the Ralph gave. Now, Ralph is very funny and that is a tad disarming since some don't realize the intellect of this scholar (one friend says he could bend the universe with his mind). Some think they are dealing with a "lightweight" but they mistake his youthful and fun spirit as simple, not as a deep and studied Bible student.
Most often the aforementioned "fireworks" are the result of one of two things. Either a misunderstanding of what the forum is. It is not a place where brotherhood positions are established - we have no such place in a brotherhood that would commit to autonomy between us and a commitment to the scriptures as our guide. Many folks have a hard time understanding that and believe that the forum moderator is giving either the church's official view or the school's. They also fail to remember that Ralph reserves the right to be human (therefore, wrong at times). The second item that leads to "fireworks" is when we take ourselves too seriously. While we can never take the scriptures too seriously, we can take our opinion or even our own private interpretation of them as such. Hey, you could be wrong - ever considered that?
At times the forum has been bad. Very bad. 1985 was a bad and sad year in which many misbehaved and deeper damage was done than can be expressed in this column. I've seen years when some it seemed tried to break fellowship or divide the church of the Lord over the forum - isn't that a little radical. Go home, take your Prozac, pray, reload and come back next year with a gentler spirit and love. We be brethren. The forum, love it or hate it, it's hard to ignore.