So which way does it really go?
I detest labels. Typically, labels are used to place other people in boxes for our convenience; or so we can avoid actually understanding one another; or so we can demonstrate how wrong they are, by association; so we can use things against them they don’t even believe.
For example: You say you’re in favor of health-care for all Americans? That makes you a liberal. I won’t listen to you because you don’t support our troops and you want to bring Marxism to America. …
Here’s another one: So you think it’s OK to pray in school? You must be one of those conservatives. You people want to keep health-care out of reach for minorities and you want the economy to collapse because you’re scared Obama will look good if there’s a recovery. …
And so it goes.
I was told recently that it’s a misnomer to call my Sunday School class “Practical Christianity.” If I really taught the Bible, they said, I’d teach in a way that used Scripture to prop up conservative ideology. But, because I don’t do that, the class title is misleading.
I get the same thing in response to newspaper columns. Typically, readers who have issues with my balanced perspective borrow most of their opinions from someone else. They simply parrot — or “ditto” — ideas that sound compelling and feed their need for a tidy more clearly defined worldview.
Labeling, stereotyping, demonizing, assuming, litmus-testing, fear-mongering … I could go on. All these come with the package once we try to apply ideological presumptions and preconceptions and pre-conclusions to people interested in actual dialogue.
The fact is I don’t advance either “liberal” or “conservative” viewpoints in Sunday School or anywhere else. I find both ideologies too often at odds with the Gospel. Such generalizations seldom help us understand one another, and they tend to confuse our take on Scripture.
I’ll admit that my teaching could come with more consistency, deeper Bible, and better scholarship. But I am faithfully committed to God’s Word, and to finding out how it best guides us from day to day.
The Bible I read teaches me to follow Jesus — sometimes that’s the same direction conservatives are taking, sometimes that’s the direction liberals are going. But more typically it’s another way altogether. My category is that of “disciple.” And, more often than not, that’s a counter-cultural designation.
Derek Maul is an author and freelance writer living in the Tampa, Fla., area.
His Web site is www.Derekmaul.net and his daily blog is www.derekmaulonthehalfshell.blogspot.com.
