Tuesday, July 14, 2015

An Observation About Labels

Luther once noted that he didn't want translations changing all the time - it just confuses folks and makes it hard to understand things.

Today in the LCMS, we seem to be cycling through not translations, but labels.  Some organizations or groups seem like they are constantly rebranding themselves, coming out with the same, tired theology but under a new banner (meet the new boss, same as the old boss).  That's somewhat annoying, but at least they are doing it to themselves.

There's also be the trend where folks will label their opponents - tar them with an epithet... and it doesn't fit.  So toss out another one.  And when it fails to stick, out comes another one.

If you constantly have to change your own label to appear fresh and new - it's bad theology.

If you constantly have to change the label you call your opponent, you're either fishing for a straw man that works... or you're just wrong.

Labels are short cuts -- and if we don't know what we are short cutting to, they are pretty useless.

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