Seems to me that the badchristian has something important to say about the way we label one another, and ourselves. Meanwhile, dwight has some thoughts about being labeled contextual. Maybe some of the problem is how these terms develop so many meanings as to become difficult, such as ‘evangelical‘.
Along for the Journey, on God's Time...
There’s nothing wrong with labels, so long as they apply. I could say that I am a Christian who believes in churches governed by a group of representatives and in Reformed theology, etc., or I could just say that I am a “Presbyterian” and be a more efficient communicator.
Where labels run amok is where say I take a stand on a particular issue in which I “happen” to agree with the liberals or the conservatives, and then I get labeled as such by others and then others make the false assumption that I agree with liberals or conservatives on most other issues.
Jay Leno said in an interview with “Details”, “Everytime I think I’m a Republican, they go and do something really greedy. And everytime I think I’m a Democrat, they go and do something really stupid.”
I agree that it’s important for us not to be fluid on everything and we should have strong stances, but I would venture to say that as a liberal, there are a lot of “liberal” issues I think are pretty stupid, and there are probably some “conservative” issues that I would probably find myself agreeing with – even though I would be mostly considered pretty liberal or at least moderate.