Amen and Church Peer Pressure

I have fallen into a bad habit in church recently, I count Amens, and that includes requests for Amens.  But my real question is, "When did Amen become a question?"  For instance, it is not unusual to hear someone declare "God is good!", and then, when no response from the congregation is forthcoming, adds "Amen???"  You can almost hear those multiple question marks, the inflection of the voice, the prolonging of the final syllable, drawing it out until someone answers.  At that point someone in the congregation usually feels compelled to respond and that ends the issue until the next Amen gauntlet is thrown down.

From what I know of the etymology of the word, Amen means "so be it", and is sometimes translated as "truly".  In this form it is a declaration of assent, as if we were acknowledging something heard to be "the gospel truth" and bringing our own internal response in full agreement with the spoken word of truth.  We might say "Let it be done even as you have declared!", or "From your lips to God's ear."  But if something in a church services does not elicit a response, why do we have the habit of pushing the issue until we get a response?  It is nothing more than a Christian form of peer pressure and I refuse, curmudgeon that I am, to give in to it.

If you want a response from me, say something that reaches down into my soul and grips me there, something that puts eternity in my heart (as the book of Ecclesiastes says).  I am not made of stone, I will respond to such a declaration.  But don't force me by peer pressure or the power of the pulpit to make me say or do something that does not spontaneously move up from within me.  That only hardens me to stone and makes me resent the moment, not embrace it.