Liberal, Conservative, Libertarian, Catholic, Protestant, Emergent, Evangelical, Dunker, Sprinkler, Calvinist, Arminian, etc., etc.

We, as humans, seem to be overly fascinated with labeling ourselves and each other. It’s sort of a mental short-hand that helps us retain information and to categorize people, places and things. We really can’t avoid it.

While this ability has its uses, I’ve seen all too many times recently where the dark side of labels far outweighs the benefits. It is when we use labels to avoid treating other people as something other than what God created them to be that they become an abomination. There are times I find myself doing it just as much as anyone else.

This seems to happen in two key areas:

Objectifying Other People

When we use a lables for the purpose of grouping people – Christian and non-Christian, alike – together for the purpose of treating them as something less than human, we deny that they ALL have been made in the image of God – and how we treat the creation speaks volumes to how we, in our heart of hearts, treat our Creator.

There are some Christians who even go so far as to say that only other Christians are made in God’s image, and therefore we must only treat other Christians as beings created in God’s image. This flatly denies Jesus’ teaching in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and in the second greatest commandment – to love our neighbor as ourself. It is also reminiscent of the rabbinic Parable of the Exceedingly Ugly Man:

A great rabbi was traveling along one day on his donkey. There he chanced to meet an exceedingly ugly man who greeted him, “Peace be upon you, rabbi.” He, however, did not return his greeting but instead said to him, “Racca (empty one or good for nothing) how ugly you are! Is everyone in your town as ugly as you are?” The man replied, “I do not know, but go and tell the craftsman who made me, ‘How ugly is the vessel which you have made.’” When the rabbi realized that he had sinned, he dismounted from the donkey and prostrated himself before the man and said to him, “I submit myself to you, forgive me!”

And so it is, when we label ANYONE else so that we can treat them as something less than human (”She’s a 10″, “It’s the fault of the poor that they’re in the condition they are in”, “He’s a conservative, so I can ignore anything he has to say”, “She’s a lesbian, so I should just avoid even acknowledging her presence.”), we are treating God in a like manner, for they were made in His image.

Tearing Down the Temple

Something just as insidious is when we label other Christians with whom we hold doctrinal differences for the purpose of derision or questioning of their salvation. This has been typified in the Calvinist vs. Arminian debates for centuries, and more recently when anything we might disagree with gets labeled ‘emergent’, solely for the purpose of discounting viewpoints and to separate from fellowship. At best, this is childish arrogance (acting as if we assume that interpretations different from ours must not be of God), and at worst, it is Satanic (treating our opinion as if it is God’s opinion).
As Peter tells us:

you (plural) also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

All Christians make up the temple of the Holy Spirit, and when we exclude others from the God’s house, based on our own prejudices and (often) pride in having all of the “correct” interpretations and answers, and when we denigrate and berate them, we are, in effect, saying that we know better than God how to build His temple.

This not a licence for ignoring discernment, but a call for extension of Christian charity and grace to brothers and sisters in Christ. As Amy noted in another blog today:

I would agree with you that not all emergents/emerging are the same. That must be true of people wearing any label. Both “sides” in this discussion need to learn to look beyond labels.

I agree, Amy.