Sometime during the first months of my life, that original label was pulled off by my parents and replaced with one “Mennonite.” The old label hadn’t yet stuck hard enough to rip my skin. Any observer would now make some different assumptions about me.

I wore that label in my childhood and teen years with a growing resistance to it. In my family’s world, the church denominational label was the uppermost in the list of identities pasted on my back. And I didn’t like it that way.

Even as a young adult leader, I tried sticking a generic label on my back. But when I wasn’t paying attention, people kept scribbling “Mennonite” on that blank label. It seemed impossible to replace it, given my involvements.

Does it provide critical information for others to know which denomination I belong to? Or, with which political label I would most closely identify?

In my view, our insistent use of labels and categories contributes to our difficulties in working together toward helpful outcomes. We don’t usually benefit much after deciding what label we wear, and it’s even less helpful after we decide what label the other wears.

Labels and categories often breed bias and misunderstandings. Oh yes, I realize that there can be some benefits. I’ve been around for a few years. I’ve heard all the logic behind the necessity for labels and categories.

Just take a bit to consider with me the high costs of what we consider normal in this regard.

• Obsession with preferred labels can get confused with a healthy sense of identity. It’s not the same concept.
• Our loyalty to labels and our allegiance to categories can severely limit our ability to learn new things and to grow beyond where we are.
• Labels make us think we already know what the other thinks, values, and lives.
• Labels are generally ways of organizing people into categories, so that we know how we should rank one another.
• Skin colour is also a type of label. We think we know what “they” are thinking.

Even though some of my hatred of labels was unhealthy, I sometimes just wanted to adopt something new—simply to confuse the predictable image.

Most importantly, I just wished we could actually talk openly about the issues, rather than just assuming that certain viewpoints belonged only to a certain label.

Do you get my frustration? Why are some valid questions and topics out of bounds—simply because they are associated with the wrong label?

In the Church environment, once a debatable issue is labeled “conservative”, “Reformed”, “charismatic”, “liberal”, “Anabaptist”—and the list is endless—we are severely limited, usually, in how we are able to consider the points of strength and the limitations.

It’s just the same with social and political environment: once an issue is labeled “conservative” or “liberal” or “capitalist” or “socialist”, we can’t seem to have any meaningful discussion about the critical points of the issue, or that issue’s effect on society.

We often feel compelled to stay at war with the other label, rather than really consider the critical issues—apart from the label.

Our go-to labels always float to the top: they select our vocabulary, stir our passions, design our memes, and limit our perspectives.

In case you now assume that I’m suggesting a vanilla, free-floating and relativist approach to theology, doctrine, and social issues just re-read the blog post “As We Are One…” You’ll better understand the basis of what I feel about the dangers of labels and categories.

My bottom-line appeal is that we of the Church can grow in our ability to consider discussions and debate and viewpoints on doctrinal and social issues on the merits of that issue’s components—not on the basis of which label that issue wears.

The end. I think. Of this series. But I’ll be thinking and writing something.