Labels
Who are you? Who am I? Simple questions that defy easy answers. That’s why we often use labels to describe ourselves and others. But those labels can easily miss the mark. They fail to capture what the mid-20th century psychiatrist Paul Tournier called “the meaning of persons,” who we are in all of our complexity. They even become accusatory (“You’re like “them,” whoever the “them” are). Hence, we judge others by labels and many times, those judgments are harsh.
We’re overwhelmed with labels these days. Political labels. Religious labels. Cultural labels. Even labels designed to describe human sexuality. Trust me, many of those labels are not flattering. As you read, I’m sure you can think of unflattering labels and names all the way back into your childhood. I know I can.
Even in the religiously Christian world I inhabit, we’ve got labels for every imaginable possibility. Catholic or Protestant (or Orthodox, or Mormon, or Pentecostal, or one of dozens of varieties of Protestants). Even among those who identify as “evangelical,” the list is endless: Evangelical Catholic. Social-justice evangelical. Republican evangelical (or RINO evangelical if you’re the wrong kind of Republican). Calvinist evangelical. Arminian evangelical. How about this: “Young, restless, Reformed.” Here is a new one: Evangelical Thomist. I guess we now have labels that identify our favorite folks from church history as the leader of our tribe. And sometimes identification with one or more of these tribes comes complete with its own “enemies list” of those whom we judge to oppose us.
Some labels can be helpful if they are descriptive and not derogatory. My African American friends often identify as “Black Christians,” a designation that distinguishes them from white Christians or white evangelicals. Oftentimes Black Christians share my same Christian faith and belief, but they share a Christian identity framed by 250 years of slavery, Jim Crow, and racism. Even if I wanted to identify as a Black Christian, I couldn’t because my ethnic, social, cultural, and religious experience is far different. No, my European American identity shapes how I receive the gospel message.
That is an example of a label that can be helpful in many contexts. But lots of labels can be judgmental and derogatory. For some Calvinists, the term “Arminian” is a synonym for heresy. (And the favor gets returned.) And, when we disagree with someone, we often trot out labels, so we don’t have to take seriously their point-of-view.
Label’s I’ve used.
I’ve been pondering the labels I’ve used to describe myself over what is now many years of life. I have a contrarian streak so when it comes to political labels, I started as a Republican because I wanted to vote for Pete McCloskey for president in 1972. (Who? Trust me. It’s a California thing.) I shifted to Democrat in 1976 because of Jimmy Carter (who I still think was an outstanding president. So go ahead and judge me.) In 1982, when I moved to North Carolina, I again registered Republican because 90 percent of North Carolinians were Democrats, and I thought the state needed a two-party system. I also liked what the Republicans tried to do a hundred years earlier during Reconstruction when they sought to give Black people the right to vote. Finally, in 1996 I became tired of both major parties and registered as “unaffiliated.” I’ve been happy ever since with that tag because it represents my displeasure with both the D and R parties.
I’ve tried out a few other labels. San Francisco 49ers fan (a label I have been proud of since I was seven years old). Beatles fan. That still fits well as I now own their entire collection on CD. Charlottean, as that speaks of the city I’ve lived in since 1982. I’m also a San Franciscan, a label I still claim because that’s the city of my birth and I still love the place, warts and all. My love of books labels me a “bibliophile,” and “theological librarian” describes well my professional vocation. “Happily married” describes my 45-year marriage to Renee. You get the picture, though I assure you that there is more to me than even those labels can capture. I know it’s the same with you.
There is one other group of labels especially meaningful to me because the Christian faith shapes my identity. Within Christianity, we love our labels. We’re not afraid to identify our faith with them. And often we use them to identify the kind of Christian we are not! My labels have changed quite a bit. My first label was “Advent Christian” given that is the Christian denomination through which God led me to trust Christ as my savior and Lord. I still use that label in a broad sense given that what I learned from Advent Christians shaped my understanding of eschatology in terms of the New Testament teaching regarding the coming new heaven and new earth.
I tried on Pentecostalism for a couple of years in the midst of the Jesus Movement. I liked the sense of God working in tangible ways here and now. But it was far too intense for my more cerebral ways. They were afraid of the larger questions that I was asking and given that so much of Pentecostalism has gone with the “prosperity gospel” (more labels) and the “seven mountain” theory of cultural control, I’m glad I left when I did. The fullness of the Holy Spirit does not necessarily come through specific emotional practices (though I don’t discount that God can work through our emotions as well as our intellect).
“Reformed theology” was the next stop on my label train, and here I landed for quite a long time. I loved the systemic approach to Christian theology articulated by John Calvin and his successors. It was a more intellectual approach that seemed to integrate Christian faith with philosophical and cultural realities in ways that made a lot of sense. Reformed theology understood the value of human culture and tempered it with teaching about sin and the fall of humanity that rested on Holy Scripture and human experience. I especially like the Reformed notion of “common grace,” the idea that science, nature, and academic disciplines like philosophy and the social sciences have great value. “All truth is God’s truth” many Reformed theologians proclaimed. I still think they are right.
As I got older, two things troubled me about Calvinism. The first was the Calvinist concept of “limited atonement,” the idea that Christ’s death atoned only for those whom God had chosen or “elected” before the beginning of time. It seemed to make the death of Christ unnecessary because if God chose some and rejected others, what was the point? The other was how Calvinism minimized, even eliminated human free-will; in other words, we live in a deterministic world with little or no authentic human freedom. Through the work of Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner in his little book Beyond Freedom and Dignity, determinism became popular in mid-20th century academia and the resurgence of neo-Calvinism fit well with deterministic ideologies permeating the biological and social sciences.
To me, both of those ideas seem profoundly unscriptural. The apostle Paul only talked about predestination in corporate terms and the letters where he writes about it are written not to individuals but to congregations. Moreover, the New Testament indicates clearly, I think that salvation is offered to anybody who believes and offers their allegiance to Christ. So, while I consider myself Reformed in the broad sense of that word, Calvinism no longer describes my Christian faith.
There’s one other label I’ve used to describe my Christian faith for much of my adult life, and that is “evangelical.” British Baptist historian David Bebbington offers the classic understanding of the term. Evangelicals are those who believe in the centrality of the cross of Christ. Evangelicals follow the New Testament in teaching that Christian conversion is essential to Christian faith (see John 3). Evangelicals think that Holy Scripture is the essential source of Christian faith and teaching. And evangelicals believe in an active faith that both proclaims the Christian gospel and addresses human need. I still believe and teach those things.
Yet “evangelical” no longer means that in the 21st century. Now it is a term used to describe political allegiances, not a relationship with Christ or connection with a congregation. You are an “evangelical” if you self-identify as one regardless of any biblical or theological meaning. The pollsters tell us that millions of people self-identify as evangelicals. But when you dig deeper, you find that many of them have little biblical understanding of the term.
That is now the dominant use of the label, at least in the United States. (Fortunately, evangelicals in the rest of the world have resisted.) I refuse to use a term bastardized by politicians and the media. So, what am I? Perhaps a “global evangelical”? Maybe a “gospel Christian”? (I like that term.) How about a “Nicene Christian,” since I identify with Nicene Creed’s essential summary of what Holy Scripture teaches concerning Jesus Christ? Perhaps it’s best to put all these labels away and simply call myself a follower of Jesus?
Beyond labels
I’m not as worried about labels as I was 20 or 30 years ago. There is a lot of boundary keeping in evangelicalism and evangelical churches and organizations, and those who work for them often use labels to stay in the good graces of organizational gatekeepers. There is nothing wrong with that, and there is a need to for a congregation or organization to have concrete biblical, theological, and historical principles to shape their work and ministry. Yet when our labels become a litmus test for what it means to be fully human or fully Christian, perhaps it’s time to step back and ponder how we use them.
Labels can never fully capture what it means to be human or be a follower of Jesus. I like how James K.A. Smith puts it. “While we rightly entrust ourselves to a God who is the same today, yesterday, and forever, we mistakenly imagine this translates into a one-size-fits-all approach to what faithfulness looks like. We are blind to our own locatedness, geographically, historically, temporally” (Smith, How to Inhabit Time, 5). The Triune God stays the same. We change through the seasons of life, and no matter how much we resist that it is true. That’s why labels cannot capture the essence of who I am, who you are, and who anybody else is. Labels are not necessarily bad, but they can be used to dismiss others and they can limit our understanding of who we are as created in the image of God.
Here’s a good exercise. Take an hour or so and write down all of the labels that you and others have used to describe yourself. Some of those labels might be painful and bring back bad memories. If that is the case, realize the deep love of the Triune God for you. You have become united with Christ in life and death. Whatever the past, in Christ you are no longer bound by that.
Other labels are ones you’ve used to describe yourself. How have those labels changed over the course of your life? Can those labels help you explore who you are at a deeper level?
Finally, how do you use labels to describe others? Does labeling others allow you to pigeon-hole them so you can dismiss whatever they say or do? He’s so-and-so and we know their kind. She hangs out with that crowd. He’s woke, or she’s a right-winger. He’s a holy-roller, or she’s a fundie.
David Brooks thinks that there are two kinds of people: what he terms diminishers and illuminators. “Diminishers make people feel small and unseen. They see other people as things to be used, not as persons to be befriended. They stereotype and ignore.” But, “illuminators have a persistent curiosity about other people. They have been trained or have trained themselves in the craft of understanding others. They know what to look for and how to ask the right questions at the right time. They share the brightness of their care on other people and make them feel bigger, deeper, respected, lit up” (Brooks, How to Know a Person, 12-13).
Too many times, I’ve been a diminisher. I’m still learning to be an illuminator. It doesn’t come naturally for me. I need the Spirit’s help. I think that is true for all of us, even more so in this contentious age. May Christ help us.
Two books that have helped me think more deeply about labels and their use are the new volume by David Brooks titled, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen (Random House, 2023) and a slightly older volume by James K.A. Smith, How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now (Brazos, 2022). But books are not enough. Learning how to navigate labels and learning to become an illuminator takes work on our part over a period of time, especially because self-centeredness is the default that all of us are born with. Yet with help from the Holy Spirit, we can make progress.
I’ve been away from writing for the past several months, mostly because of fatigue and my inability to concentrate in a focused way. While so much has happened during that time, perhaps it’s best to be quiet and allow the brain to rest. This week, I’ve managed to write two blog posts and I hope that is a sign of improvement. I have a couple of book projects overdue for attention that I want to get to this year and finish up in the next 36 months. Your prayers on my behalf are so appreciated. Thank you for reading.