What labels have you taken on? Have any been unwillingly assigned to you?
Do you agree with Nick that labels are necessary?
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Nick Fiedler wrote a wonderful book called The Hopeful Skeptic that you should definitely check out.
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No offense, but I think you’ve got the importance of labels mixed up. Why not expand the definition of being a “Christian” by being yourself, and become a catalyst for others to re-examine their preconceptions?
People need to investigate the Person and the Principles behind the Scripture and work those things out in an authentic relationship themselves. Isn’t that what Christianity is all about?
Patrick,
Why did you begin your comment with the words “No Offense”?
I don’t mind having the label “Christian”, but I think it has the potential to be very misleading (at times). It tends to conjure up the image of an ultra-conservative, right-wing type of person. In fact, I don’t have anything for my “religious views” on facebook….. If I were to label myself as anything, I’d have to say something like: “God Believing, Christ Trusting, Biblical Skeptic”. Now, as far as the question as to whether or not any labels have been unwillingly assigned to me…. I’m not 100% sure.
As far as the necessity of labels, that’s a good question. I’m not really 100% sure if labels are necessary or not. I can say that when I’m assigned a label in a negative sense, then I tend to feel embarrassed, ashamed, ignorant or what-have-you. But, if I’m assigned a positive label, then I’m all for it…. I (unfortunately) am driven a lot by what other people think of me and I can’t stand that about myself.
I feel compelled to say one more thing in regards to this video…. This quote: “Applying the scientific method to anything” is something that I’ve heard and dealt with quite a bit recently. My problem with it is that the scientific method has it’s place, but it simply cannot be applied to anything. It is utterly powerless in it’s application to the things that matter most, like: getting married, changing jobs, having children, leaving your spouse, calling in sick and just about every other thing in daily life. Unfortunately (or quite fortunately), there really is no repeatable “experiment” that one can employ to properly answer these profound types of questions.
Jason
Jason,
Why do you have a feeling of “can’t stand that about myself” with regards to your being driven a lot by what other people think of you?
Hey Ben,
Well, I must say that this does not plague me as much these days as it use to, but it still affects me from time to time (especially in areas where my convictions are weak). It’s difficult for me to articulate, but basically, I am a “people pleaser” and when I’m surrounded by people with different beliefs (how to raise children, belief in God, relationships, etc), I find myself feeling compelled (sometimes) to “keep the peace”. This tends to come out in all of it’s disgust when I’m in the midst of my wife’s family (who are much more fundamentalist than myself). I find myself almost subconsciously “conforming” to what they “think is right” about things, despite how much I may disagree. So, when I say that “I hate this about myself”, what I mean is that I’d like to stand up more to people who attempt to be very assertive with their “truths” (notice the quotes), despite me disagreeing with them….. This especially goes for those areas where I lack confidence, but probably know better than the person I’m speaking with…..
For example, discipline of my children is a big one for me…. When someone try’s to tell me how to do it better (even if that someone is 52 years old and has never had children), I find myself kind-a recoiling and agreeing with them….. The reason I do this is that one of my children is seriously difficult for us and I am therefore, not highly confident that I’m doing things “right”, so I let other’s (even less qualified than myself) influence me…… It’s funny, but even my wife gets pissed at me for listening and being influenced by her more fundamentalist family. I just can’t seem to muster up the courage and say “thanks, but no thanks”…..
Does that make sense?
Jason
Jason,
thank you so much for your open honest response! I’m very curious to know–what do you mean when you say one of your children is particularly difficult for you?
Hey Ben,
No problem’O. Out most “difficult” child is our 7 year old boy. He’s our middle child and has impulse control problems. These problems are (of course) exaggerated when he’s lacking sleep. Many times, when someone teases or bothers him, he’ll simply haul off and hit the other child, versus walking up and telling his teacher (or a nearby adult). He realizes (after the fact) that he shouldn’t have done it, but he simply can’t help himself. Also, in the midst of discipline, he’ll sometimes scream “choice” words at us and attempt to hit us and kick us. We’ve been taking him to a child psychologist for about 1 year now and we continue to work with him and love him. We’ve been doing a lot of constructive play with him (as well) so that he can develop better reasoning skills and start to slow himself down a bit. So, it’s into this intense challenge that some less-equipped relatives and friends try to inject their sage wisdom, in order to let us know how to “do it right”.
Jason
Jason,
I applaud you for being an awesome dad to your little one. Each and every little thing you do to show love to him and help him is, in the story I believe in, astoundingly significant and beautiful. Way to go dad!
Wow… Thanks Ben. I appreciate that!
The next obvious thought is that Jesus didn’t found a community of ‘hopeful skeptics’ but followers – disciples – of Himself.
While I understand the baggage associated with the label “christian’, I can’t afford to be hyper-sensitive to people’s opinions. Wasn’t it John Stott who said “you can’t pander to people’s intellectual arrogance but you must cater to their intellectual integrity.”?
I think labels are totally awesome! They give us a starting point for lots of fascinating questions.
A few labels I’ve taken on: FSM adherent, SonRise Child Facilitator, Lover, Dad, Uber-Curious, Melbournite, Musician, The Wierd One, Totally Accepting, Authentic.
Thanks for asking such a brilliant question, Craig! =)
Benjamin,
“FSM adherent” now I know why I like you! rAmen
Servant Girl–I take it you too have been touched by His Noodly Appendage? Rock on! =)
Why start with “No Offense…” ?
Because I find lots of people these days bristle when anyone disagrees with their sincerity, so the disclaimer was there to head that off at the pass. We good?
Patrick,
What do you mean when you say “disagrees with their sincerity”?
What do I mean? Ummm… just what I said.
Far too many people equate disagreeing with hatred or contempt. They hold sincere beliefs or opinions and when someone engages them with a contradictory belief or opinion, they respond with accusations of hostility rather than examine facts and enter a frank discussion. They hold fast to their position, “sincerity” being their trump card and final refuge, and resent the very notion of correction. It’s the bastard child of Confirmation Bias.
I’m of the opinion that Sincerity is an overrated virtue these days. Nice, but no substitute for Accuracy. But now this is getting waaaaay off topic.
Patrick, you are absolutely correct that there are brave souls that keep their label of ‘Christian’ and push those around them to change their perspectives and understand how robust the label could actually be. I am even finding more and more ‘christians’ that don’t believe in a literal virgin birth or a literal resurrection. When I first started meeting those, ‘christian’s’ it really pushed my perspectives.
But after being accused of not being a Christian, and having to spend the majority of my religious conversations in a defensive mode, I decided to be done with it. I didn’t need it, it wasn’t important to me, and I found something that fit better. I think Craig did a good job with this clip, but I would invite you to check out the book and hear a little bit more about how I came up with the term and why I like it.
Benjamin, labels are awesome, that’s why I invented my own. Your list sounds good too.
I was in a bookstore with some friends about a month ago and one of them picked up a book and said “hey someone’s written a book about you.” The title of the book was “Christian Atheist” so I bought and read it. Sadly it wasn’t my story, but the fact that my Christian friends thought of me as a Christian Atheist was rather amusing. This post made me think about that day and not just the labels we give ourselves, but the ones we get from others. I love labels; however I tend to write them in both pencil and permanent marker. Some are easy to wear like woman, nurse, daughter, sister, volunteer, and obsessive-bibliophile. My personal journey from atheist to Christian had about 10 different labels, and I still own a lot of them. Now that I’ve finally written it in with a Sharpie, I’m not sure if I’m willing to give up on the label Christian like Nick did. So what if others question my faithfulness when I have questions, express my doubts, or point out that there are things in the bible that I’ll probably never believe? Creating a new label for my faith would almost seem like an admission of wrong doing, or giving up to me. What does a Christian really look like anyway?
“What does a Christian really look like anyway?”
Hopefully there’s a strong resemblance to Jesus.
Nick: Fair enough, but I stand by my second point which is the call to imitate and identify with Jesus, as well as the community of believers He founded.
First, I don’t think labels are necessary, just unavoidable. In fact, the idea that labels are necessary can force people, and in my experience has done just this, to narrow their views of someone or thing. None of us can be wrapped into one label or another. Largely because labels are a matter of perspective.
That being said, I don’t think labels are a bad thing. They should be more like museum signs or zoo descriptions. They should give a bit more information about something and cause us to become interested for more information. I don’t mind being labeled Christian, but more importantly, I want people to know my character and integrity. Those things define me, as far as I am concerned. And from my perspective, those attributes are a direct correlation to my faith.
Servant Girl, I love what you say about pencil and sharpie. You have an excellent example there.
There is a bit that I talk about in The Hopeful Skeptic (and I am not trying to go overboard or pretentiously talk about the book but it lends to the story here) where I talk about how labels work in a movie store.
We have all walked through a movie store and seen a movie that we know in a really weird category and said “that’s not a comedy” or “that’s a drama????”, and sometimes the categories are quite misleading, but without a system at all it would be a free for all, if for no other reason labels work because they are efficient, I just wanted to tweak mine. That and I don’t subscribe to a lot of what mainstream christian’s believe, so I bowed out of the title. Thanks for this rich thread of comments.
Nick,
“That and I don’t subscribe to a lot of what mainstream christian’s believe…” is something I can totally relate to. I have a thing going on with Jesus that I’ve only found in a few other christians. I also can relate to your frustration with the questions. I can’t even count the amount of times I’ve had to explain how it is I can believe or not believe certain things and still call myself a christian. I brought this post up to my pastor over coffee yesterday. Without even thinking about it he said his label for me would be “Thinking Believer”. He then pointed out how many churches stop growing because the members never think, challenge, or question anything, not even their pastor’s interpretation of scripture. He loves that you’re still hopeful, even with having to repeatedly defend your position, so we’ve ordered your book.
Servant Girl, I would love to keep this conversation going especially after you take a read of the book. My email is nick[at]thehopefulskeptic[dot]com. Please feel free to hit me up after you have had a chance to give it a read.
I am also podcasting almost weekly at http://thenickandjoshpodcast.com.
When you write, I would love to hear more of your story. And I think the title ‘thinking believer’ is a really good one. We would do well to have as many of those as possible.
Nick, I think there are many of us who are weary of being lumped with a particular ideology if we call ourselves Christian. It’s really too bad that the term (with its limited definition) has been claimed by just a slice of the whole pie, leaving the rest of us to try to figure out how to answer the questions that people (and facebook) ask of us.
Most of us probably have our questions, our skepticism, but don’t have a safe place to discuss it. Thanks for reminding us that having questions may actually demonstrate more hope than not having any questions.
Al, thanks for your encouragement on this. I think you are right about the fact that there is a group of us tired of being lumped with a loud section of the pie, as you say.
Here’s to finding safe places.
I like this guy. I want to sit down with him talk. i’m glad that he’s honest.