The Opinionated Pulpit

I had this thought the other day “Is the pulpit for opinions?” It led me to a couple different conclusions which I will get to eventually. Let’s address the general idea first. An opinion can be shaped from many different events, things read, opinions from other teachers; which brings up a whole other discussion about how one person’s opinion can become truth to you thus your opinion. Point being, opinions are like… just kidding. In all seriousness opinions are pieces of information that we can sometimes portray as truth, without ever clarifying how we came to this conclusion. I believe that it is the teacher’s responsibility to the, for lack of a better term, student; to be forth coming if something is not completely a “truth.”

Let me balance a couple things before I really get into this. First off, I am not pointing out a specific occurrence of this that had a direct affect on me; I just had this thought and wanted to figure it out. Of course I can think of many times when I have heard some pastor somewhere say this or that, and thought I don’t think so. With that said don’t get offended, and if you do we can talk about it.

There is this growing movement of people trying to circumvent many convictions that others have. This movement has been called anything from Postmodern to Emergent to down-right heresy. Whatever you want to call it is it a wrong move for the Church. To that I look to the quote “One generation’s heresy is frequently the next generation’s orthodoxy.” Who said this I am unable to find at the present moment, if you know let me know.

Any how, looking to this quote I have a couple thoughts. I have seen this reign true with areas such as music. Fifty years ago you would not have seen such heresies as electric guitars in the church. Yet today if you don’t have them you are seen as old-fashioned and irrelevant. “You don’t get this generation!” some would shout. The bible, of course, is very explicit when it comes to the use of musical instruments for worship. David himself played the harp, the writer of many of the greatest worship songs ever to come from the lips of humankind. The labeling of certain types of music as un-godly by the previous generations was from a place of ignorance and unwillingness to change their ways. Or so that’s how I see it. Wasn’t that an opinion you might ask, yes it was; but in writing this I don’t believe opinions are wrong. I simply want to get the point across that opinions need to be plainly labeled as such. I’m thinking this will be a very long subject and it will be in two or more parts. So let’s call this part 1.

To conclude part one some food for thought. Where do convictions come from in the first place? When does a conviction become the rule? Is it ok to make others pay for your convictions by getting offended when they don’t have the same ones? Let me know your thoughts.

In part two I will further develop these thoughts and more.