A "Punditocracy"? What's that?

A PUNDIT in today's western usage  is a person thought to be very well informed; an expert or authority; one who believes that everything can be known and should be pronounced upon . . . and he's the one to do the pronouncing.

We used to scorn such people as "know it alls". "Full of hot air," we said. But now we not only don't seem to mind their pontificating, we look for it. One person writes with all seriousness: "The key to a successful adult life lies in surrounding yourself with experts, a master person for every need."

Some say that we Americans live in a "punditocracy" - described as a society where we no longer have to learn or think, exert ourselves, or take risks. Life is manageable and secure to the extent that we choose the right people to give us answers to our questions. And so we are very much "pundit dependent".

Sadly, Christian workers can also be the same way. Experts and specialists keep telling us that we just can't make it without them; that we really need them if we are going to experience growth, usefulness, effectiveness, or just about anything else. They are ever ready to enlist us in a seminar, conference, or retreat, a CD or DVD series, a radio or TV program, book, journal, web site . . .

J. R. DeWitt writes: One occasionally gets the idea from some who preach and write that the whole of the Christian age awaited the advent of their ministries; that it is with them and the burden of what they have to say that the Christian faith began to make sense and to be understood in all its implications. But such an approach is entirely unacceptable, and those who speak in this way, introducing at the same time their own absurdities as though they were the gospel of our Lord Jesus, are to be reproached and their teaching repudiated.

This sounds to me like the days of the Old Testament prophets. The same kind of scenario. God's spokesmen had relinquished their ordained roles to become instead, "Pundit Prophets". They went about speaking comfortable words . . . their own ideas . . . none of it true but all of it accepted by Good's pundit-dependent people. In seeming amazement and disbelief, God asks: But who has stood in the counsel of the Lord, that he should see and hear His word? Who has given heed to His word and listened? The answer: "No one." Not the prophets. Not the priests. And certainly not the people. A few verses later: But if they had stood in my counsel and had caused my people to hear my words, then they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their deeds" (Jeremiah 23:18,22).

Could it be that sometimes ineffectiveness in our spiritual walk and work is the result of this pundit dependency? Does it not come from the ridiculous expectation that worldly wisdom can produce spiritual fruit . . . Godly achievement . . . holy lives?

And so I ask myself. And I ask you. Where are we looking? To whom are we going for our answers?

The temporal satisfaction and the eternal significance of our lives depends on our answer.