Pulpit Peeves, pt. 1

Ed Stetzer posted a blog several months ago about things he was tired of hearing said from the pulpit. Of course, being a pastor, church planting guru and traveling to many churches every year, he’s heard a lot. Me, I’m not a pastor, but I’ve been in church my whole life so I decided it’s time to make a list of things I’m sick of hearing, from a lay-person’s view. So over the next several days I’ll be posting different things that I’ve heard pastors, church leaders, evangelists and others say that, in my opinion, just aren’t very smart.

Up first: blaming TV/music/internet/video game/etc. for the condition of our society.

Are there movies that go too far?

Yes.

Same for the internet, music and video games. But I’m tired of hearing people say things like “the entertainment industry is to blame” yet they never once ask “Where are the parents?”. I went to see The Last House On the Left and The Haunting In Connecticut last week. At Last House I saw a woman with a child that was clearly very young; couldn’t have been older than 10. In The Haunting a mother brought her two young sons – the oldest looked about 6 or 7. Now, The Haunting In Connecticut wasn’t that bad (got a PG-13 rating), but it was still too much for two children under the age of 8. On the other hand, The Last House On the Left was too much for some of the adults in the theatre, much less a child. Seriously? A teenage girl is raped, people are brutally murdered and a man’s head is cooked in a microwave. Yeah, that’s a family movie for you. So before you start preaching that Halo 3 is training our children how to kill, maybe you should go after parents, both the ones that allow their children to watch things they shouldn’t and those that don’t pay attention to what their kids are watching and listening to.

I mean, has society been numbed by what is shown in movies, on the nightly news, on various websites and in video games? Sure. And I won’t make any excuses for what I watch or listen to but the difference here is I’m a grown man. I can make my own decisions. However, when I have children there is no way they will be playing video games like GTA or watching movies like Last House.

In my opinion, one of our society’s biggest problems is that too many parents either don’t care what their kids watch/listen to, or else they have a false assumption that their children can handle images and lyrics that are adult in nature. I don’t care if your ten year old is “mature for his age”; he’s still TEN!!!!

Same thing with the internet. I know too many parents who let their kids go in their room, shut the door and get online. First off, if you think your kids aren’t smart enough to work around content filters, think again. Secondly, porn isn’t the only problem; internet predators are just as big of a problem.

Any thoughts on any of this?