Opus 2021-168: What Did You Call Me?

Have you noticed how some labels are diluted because so many people race to claim them.  Others are anathema.  One term I hear that has lost its meaning is “evangelical”.  At one point in our history it meant someone who was serious about their Christian faith and wanted to share it, evangelize, thus evangelical.  That cannot be counted on any more.  Now it is often a term to attract the unwary who were raised thinking it was a good thing.  It is like “gluten free” on a package of hard candy.  It doesn’t mean what you think it does.  For that matter the label of Christian has gone the same way.

Sometimes the point in history also makes a difference.  There was a time when people wanted to be called “liberals.”  We have been forced to modify that to “classic liberal” because today they would be labeled “right wing”.  Liberals used to believe in the rule of law and free market economics.  No more, so today people avoid the term “liberal”.  They know it is poison to the Americans who still think.  They have gone back to “Progressive” which they stopped using a hundred years ago because people began to understand what it meant.

Then there are words that have a specific meaning, which is ignored.  Fundamentalist is one.  Science is another.  Racist has joined the club.  Democracy is often praised when the Founders made sure that we did not have a democracy.  Bipartisan is anything but.  Education has become brainwashing and anti-excellence.  

And don’t forget the words that are being redefined by the deconstructionalists.  Tolerance now means “conforming to leftist paradigms.”  Respect now means “treat me like gold even if I am trash.”  Love has come to me “do it my way to prove you care.”  

I like labels.  I make them up all the time.  Two girls in my youth group as a teenager will always be Smirk and Snort to me.  The group of men I meet with on Zoom I think of as The Baby Zoomers.  Labels are helpful.  They can also be deceptive.  Labels should be aids in discernment not blocks to understanding.  That requires us to think.

I know, “Don’t go there.”

homo unius libri