Breaking the Silence

For 4 months I have not written a blog.  That's not to say I haven't had different ideas of what to write.  I've been letting a few things marinate before I jump back into the blog-o-sphere.

There seems to be an issue that is consuming social media these days with my home State's politicians at the forefront.  I'm NOT jumping into that.  There are more intelligent people than I who understand this better than me.  I'll leave that debate to them.  

So, what's this post about?  A deeper level thing.  When I was in Graduate school, I had to learn, sometimes the hard way, that when you wrote a paper you needed to cite your references.  Several times I received a paper back that looked like a homicide happened and my paper was underneath the body.  Among the professor's comments: References Please!  A pretty simple rule.  If what I was writing about was my opinion, then I needed to state it as such and reference it as such, or leave it out.  

Here's my frustration with MUCH of what is going on in the social media world today. Many are writing posing as informed, knowledgable, credible, sources in their own right.  They are merely expressing their opinion.  I'm not saying you shouldn't express your opinion, but let's stop the posing and state things as they are.  Too many bloggers and well intentioned social media posts are simply writing opinion papers without any substance of proof or backing that is substantiated with research or fact.  It's merely opinion.

Here's an example NOT from the political arena. Because I'm a pastor my attention is drawn to posts or articles about the condition of the church today or the future.  There seems to be a vast amount of voices who are trying to expose the underbelly of the church based on personal experience and then attach to it a judgement that appears to be highly documented (the underbelly of the Church is visible and has been for quite some time).  But in reality is simply an opinion not backed by any research.  What happens then is people begin to repeat statements adding "credibility." I am concerned when I see these types of posts because I love the church and am fully aware of the underbelly.  But I also know that what the Church can be and can do is the hope for the world.

One such piece I recently read was why people are leaving the church. http://www.faithit.com/dear-church-heres-why-people-are-really-leaving-you/ A topic that is near and dear to my heart.  The writer stated some compelling reasons and others that were, at best questionable.  The interesting part was, he referenced NO research or sources for the article.  I was left wondering, opinion???  SO, just to be clear, this post is MY Opinion!  Be Careful out there in the cyber world and in the material world to think before you believe someone's posts or talk!  Back to my State's issue, seems like A LOT of opinions to me!

Marty