I'm getting tired of labels.The attraction is easy to understand. Labels make it easy to understand something. As soon as I say "I'm white," for instance, anyone who hears me can see a picture of me in their head. Or as soon as I say "I'm a Christian," or "I'm an evangelical," or "I'm a pastor," you can flip through the catalogue of clip art in your head and select an image to associate with me.
I'm saved. I'm emergent. I'm a calvinist.
What does any of it really mean?
The problem is that our facility for communication is so faulty. Every transmission is corrupted by the time it reaches its audience. Or perhaps it's not corrupted; perhaps it is simply reinterpreted and we should embrace and accept that idea. I think this is one of the main concepts that contributes to our postmodern understanding of the world.
The point is, each of us has a picture in our head when we hear any generalized label. And that picture never fully expresses the truth about a person or a group or a concept. So although perfect communication may not be possible, we should at least seek to be specific in our communications, to understand the whole truth about people, groups, ideas.
[emergent]
[calvinism]
[stereotypes]
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