Labels

Like tags on the web, theological labels enable us to sort information more quickly. Once we know what a particular person is, we can make assumptions about what they believe without having to ask lots of questions. At least that is the idea. But a label is only as helpful as whatever shared meaning it carries. I will never forget the student who asked me if I was a "progressive dispensationalist." "Tell me what it is," I said, "and I will let you know."

"I don't know what it is," he responded. "All I know is that it's bad."

Others have a similar reaction to words like "evangelical," "emergent," or "postmodern." Is that what I am? Can I be all those things at once? And if those words do apply to me, in what way do they no longer apply to others? If I am an evangelical, does that make you a fundamentalist? If I am postmodern, does that make you modern? Radically postmodern? Post-postmodern?

At a recent gathering of the Emergent Coordinating Group, we were struck by the wide variety of perception about what constituted "Emergent." There have been attempts at formal description, and there have been more recent responses to critics, but the label has been put on and off so many times that it seems to have lost its stick.

We are friends of Emergent Village, and we like the language of friendship, especially in this context. It takes time to have real conversations about what people believe--conversations that make most of our labels unnecessary and insufficient. The better we know someone, the less we know what to call them. Fortunately, friends come with names.

Bob