Designer labels in the church?

We are used to living in a world full of designer labels. Labels serve to summarise a set of characteristics, identity or membership of a particular group. Some labels are useful but within the church, I’m suspicious of the practice of giving ourselves or others labels like reformed, Arminian, Calvinist and so on. Too often they seem to be used as terms of either pride or derision. They divide people and are often poorly understood even by people applying them to themselves. They act as barriers rather than helping fellow Christians to understand and love some difficult doctrines.  To be honest, what other people think about my doctrinal credentials really isn’t important, and God certainly won’t be letting me in heaven on the basis of the theological ‘badge’ I am sporting.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t feel passionately about some of the doctrines underlying these differences, because these labels do touch on issues at the very heart of our Christian faith. One of those has been particularly on my heart recently and I’ll be saying more about that later. I’d just like us all to drop the labels and put aside the pride that goes with them. We all need to get to know the Word of God more thoroughly and to make sure our faith is resting on a secure understanding of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.  Let’s talk to each other lovingly about some of these doctrines, not to engage in esoteric theological disputes but so that we might know what God has written in his word for our comfort, encouragement and loving warning.