Words I Don't Like

Being a lover of language and word usage (as a word artist and technician), I love using words in new ways. However there are some words I dislike as well, and will try to stop using them. Here's a list:

Sinner
Evangelical (and words like it)
Secular
Theological words (Reformed, Calvinist, etc.)
Denominational words (Pentecostal, Anglican, Methodist, Baptist, etc.)
Evangelism
Christian
Homosexual
Heterosexual
Republican (including conservative, traditional, libertarian, etc.)
Democrat (Including liberal, progressive, etc.)
Race Words (Asian, Black, White, etc.)
Religious
Saved

The list goes on, but can you see a theme in these words? They are all labels.

The way we use words reflects the way we think about them, not the other way around. Take a race word for example "Asian". When you use this word you imply that there is a group of people completely separate from others unlike them. But to what kind of person do you actually refer? Someone with a certain culture, ethics, traits, upbringing, and mannerisms associated with a skin color. By this definition my race would be "White", but no one on first meeting me would ever say I was white. I would be Asian and have immediately associated to me the culture, values, and traits of being Asian regardless if I had them or not. I must live in the reality that people will always perceive me as that no matter what I may personally feel.

Let's take another word "Sinner". This word implies that this is a distinct person or group of people. Lets take another word "Christian". This also represents a group separate from other people. Is it surprising then that one could easily come to believe these two groups do not overlap? Let's take a third word "Homosexual". Does this word have a closer association to the word "Sinner" or the word "Christian". Why?

These words allow us to gather information about a person in a top down fashion. If you were asked to remember that Ralph is friendly, talkative, and effeminate among a list of 15 other people and personalities, you wouldn't do so well at remembering. However, if you were also told he is a hairdresser, you have no problem with those things. We all already have a mental image of what each of those three things are "Sinner, "Christian", and "Homosexual", and based on those mental schemata we can associate what is closely related to each other. The danger is this: we forget we are talking about people. An aggregate concept is dehumanizing and is easy to treat as such. The easier it is to put someone in a box, the easier it is to dismiss them entirely.

God's very first task for us was to NAME everything. We are good at giving names to things, at identifying, classifying, and organizing. We now use it to name each other. We know what people are: they are poor, homeless, gay, straight, religious, anarchist, republican, democrat, crazy, old, etc. Rarely do we know who people are. This only comes by a bottom up approach, you learn someone's passions and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, and you get 1 schema for who that person is. Sometimes though, we fall into the trap of going top down after going bottom up (Ralph is talkative and effeminate so he is a hairdresser, which means that he is also gay and friendly.) It's logically inconclusive to assume these things, yet we all do.

All these words I've listed before mean so much to so many people that they mean nothing at all. I refuse to use words that I do not understand:

Personal Anecdote: As I was leading a Bible study, Jill and I decided it was time to change they way we did it. As we brainstormed, I tried to articulate what my vision for it was, using terms like GIG (Group investigating God) and others that seemed to me to mean what I said. Jill just asked me, "Okay so, what does that look like? What is that?" I flustered with my words, and said "Well, you know... a GIG..." Not a very good definition. She then asked that we don't use words that we don't know so we have a clearer picture of what we are doing and communicating.

This is not to be confused with words whose very meanings themselves are so abstract that they require a word, although the word does them no justice (God, love, truth, etc.) These concepts transcend words, but can only be expressed by them (paradox).

Words and communication are of the utmost importance to the person whose utmost concern is spreading the Gospel. When we use words to dehumanize someone, that is what I see as "cursing" (wishing ill upon another). Who likes to be marginalized?

Do you ever wonder why God is referred to as the Word? Because the Word has power! It can destroy, it can heal, it can grow, it can purify, it can satisfy. Our Words do this as well, what we say to each other is of the utmost importance. Do not waste your time on idle banter.