Labels
Greg, our senior pastor, just put out an excellent post about Seacoast and it's identity. I'm not just saying that because he's my dad either. I have been thinking about this very thing for quite some time...especially since the whole emergent vs. evangelical debate has been escalating. It bugs me because I don't even know what category we would fall in if we wanted to fall in to one.
The question I deal with is why??? Why do we love labels so much?
My theory is that we label ourselves when we want to disassociate from another group. If we don't like what the "insert label here" are up to, maybe we should come up with another label so nobody thinks we're like them.
posted by Surratt Family @ Thursday, September 22, 2005
2 Comments:
Why do we love labels? It gives something an identity... it answers a question... it's a security blanket. People now know what to expect. It's something they can manage and in a twisted way, control. (ie. "We could never do that, what would the people think?")
People, by nature, don't like surprises and labels let them know what to expect... and what "not" to expect.
Labels creates boundaries and promote "inside the box" thinking... or "inside the label" thinking. They promote subcultures instead of community. They create division among themselves. They isolate non-labelites.
I'd take being defined by purpose over a label anyday of the week. :)
Good post.
what i don't like about labels is that they don't catch everything - and if one facet falls outside a label, where are you then? we're at seacoast because, in a very real way, love for each other is greater than having to agree and be labelled. that's really cool, by the way.
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