Pagitt on labels

a label is meant for insiders to know how to understand themselves that those labels are not useful for outsiders to use. Outsiders need to use independent labels and not take the lead from the insider terminology because the insider language is seeking to do something other than categorize, it seeks to include and refine. So insider language is precise in a way that outsider language is not. Imagine a person who knows little about birds seeing a parrot and just calling a bird a parrot, while the insider to bird-world says, "no, that is a Brotogeris". It is important for the insider to have an entire language that help them understand the distinctions. While these distinctions would only confine and confuse the outsider. So in the story they were suggesting that the term evangelical is an insider term and when people try to use it for political purposes it doesn't work well. So there needs to be a different term for politics. Someone suggested - "socially conservative religious people" would be better to describe the right-wing than Evangelical. Any way, that all got me thinking about the term Emergent and how it seems to me a term that was meant for outsider use has been taken as insider validation. And this is a dangerous or more dangerous than a term meant for insider use being coopted by outsiders. When a number of us suggested that use that term Emergent, sometime in early 2001 (I think), it was clearly designed to be helpful to outsiders so they could have categories beyond Generation X and Postmodern when looking at what was going on. But we never intended for it to be insider language. As insiders we have talked about being people who live the dreams of God (or any of 50 other long worded descriptions that take us beyond Christian, which in itself may be a term for the outsider more than the insider). So when outsiders, CT, Christian Century, New York Times, ABC, etc., use the term it helps them to see some distinction in churches or Christians that they would not otherwise know to recognize. And that was it. But as insiders we are trouble when we begin to use those categories to define us, or if we try to use those descriptions to set the kinds of communities we are trying to become. In other words, outsider designed categories are not meant to be prescriptive. I think this sits at the center of the blog gripping about who is emergent and what is it really. The term, coined in a phone conference call originating in my basement, is not useful as definition or prescription for insiders. We need to interact with one another as peers and family who are collectively engaging in the aspirations of God. Not people who are trying to fit into some Emergent categories. I think we would do well to use the term for outsiders who do not have a basic understanding of the conversation, but we ought never use it as a test to determine the validity of our lives or communities. One could easily be "emergent" and not a participant in the life of God. Or a full participant in the hopes of God and not at all "emergent". Being emergent is not the goal. Life in harmony with God is. But for those who are doing web searches or writing articles or deciding on what book to buy, these quick reference labels are helpful.