"For a whole year they met with the church and taught large numbers. The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch." - Acts 11:26b
"Look at those little Christs!" they used to say, laughing their heads off at a rag-tag cult of poor refugees from Judea that worshipped a dead savior with the belief that he had actually come back from the dead.
Followers of "the Way" were nobodies. Led by apostate fishermen, they had little education, no military training, and few followers to boot. They were an annoyance to the Jews and a vague-yet-unimportant enigma to the rest of the Roman world.
Giving derogatory nicknames to other groups of people is a favorite human past time, so it was inevitable that the Christians were going to get a label of their own. Instead of leaning out of it though, insisting on being called a certain thing (looking at you, Mormons), they leaned into it. They understood a simple lesson that many a school kid has learned when dealing with playground bullies:
If someone is going to mock you with a stupid nickname, make it your own.
In high school, there were a group of rich guys who called me "Dizzy." I have no idea where that name came from, but is stuck. These were the guys who had doctors and engineers for dads and drove brand-new lifted trucks, but couldn't tell you the time of day because they were always stoned out of their minds.
I could have fought the name. But why? I could laugh at myself. They wanted to call me Dizzy? Alright then. Sure.
In my professional life, this attitude has helped me deal with the insufferable miserable lot known as wokies. Their god, the least fun of any of the bunch stretching back into antiquity, is grumpy and mad. Xe/Xer can't take a joke - won't take a joke. Xe/Xer's high priests will destroy you if you do not prostrate yourself before that great genderqueer queen of heaven.
Every ritual, sacrament, and creed must be followed exactly. Failure to simply use a personal pronoun...
Sorry, I meant a 👇
...results in total destruction of a person's life. You could be a 4.0 student who serves as a volunteer firefighter that adopts lost puppies and donated a kidney to a total stranger, but if you don't call Richard Levine "Rachel" or refer to him as "her," then the great wrath of the Xe/Xer god will melt your face off.
There have always been weirdos like this who have served false gods that can't handle comedy because comedy is always based in truth. Those who have built their lives on lies have to stuff their ears with cotton balls and shout at the top of their lungs to keep the charade going. They don't get to relax and laugh like normal people. They can't let their guard down for a single moment. Their god won't let them.
Which is why they want to kill you.
No really. They want you dead. Did you think Jesus was joking when he said "a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering service to God"?
It used to be that they wanted to kill you only if you insulted the biggest of their sacred cows. But now, if you get a pronoun wrong, it's off with your head. No one walks around worrying about adverbs or gerunds or possessives, but pronouns? Better not mess up!
And heaven help you if you "misgender" someone ... or say "rest in power" about a white guy or think white people aren't evil or that capitalism isn't all bad or that cops aren't actually prejudiced against black people or that boys shouldn't use the girls' bathroom.
All of this is odd, because growing up, it was totally fine to disrespect me. I was a white Christian guy, AKA the punching bag of society. Any time I mentioned God, I was labelled a "Bible thumper." I was called racist for all sorts of stupid things, sexist for all sorts of other stupid things, and "phobic" of everything under the sun. I was told that I couldn't push my religion on people when I simply expressed the briefest, simplest beliefs possible.
I watched TV shows mock Jesus, heard the name of Jesus be taken in vain dozens of times a day, and watched activists tear up Bibles just for fun.
And yes, this bothered me. It bothered me because the attacks weren't just directed at me, but at my God, and like the wokies, I am jealous for my God.
The difference is, my God knows how to laugh, and he knows how to mock the mockers.
God picked a childless old guy (Abram) whose name meant "exalted father" and then added the suffix "of many" before the guy even had a kid. Abraham's son was named "He laughs" (Isaac) because his mother laughed at God when he said she'd have a child in her old age. Then God renamed Isaac's son Jacob to "He Struggles With God" (Israel). My God loves naming, and he uses humor when He does.
When God answered Job, there was some sarcasm coming out of that whirlwind.
Where were you when I established the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who fixed its dimensions? Certainly you know!
When God sent prophets, they regularly laughed at other gods and mocked those who so seriously worshipped them.
At noon Elijah mocked them. He said, "Shout loudly, for he's a god! Maybe he's thinking it over; maybe he has wandered away; or maybe he's on the road. Perhaps he's sleeping and will wake up!" They shouted loudly, and cut themselves with knives and spears, according to their custom, until blood gushed over them. All afternoon they kept on raving until the offering of the evening sacrifice, but there was no sound; no one answered, no one paid attention.
Jesus employed sarcasm and mockery too.
Or did you think all those times he asked the Pharisees "Have you not read?" he was genuinely confused and wondering if they'd read the Law of Moses?
At times, he would low-key mock them. Consider passages like Luke 15:7, where he is responding to the Pharisees that think they are righteous:
I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who don't need repentance.
See, the original audience would have responded like this:
But in our modern world where y'all need 84 emojis just to pay attention, I have to explain that THEY are the "ninety-nine righteous people who don't need repentance." Not only is Jesus saying the Pharisees aren't as important as they think they are, but he's saying they aren't actually righteous. A double insult!
Other times, well...
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to make one convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a child of hell as you are!
Jesus Christ, God-made-human, was not a stranger to strong language. He used it creatively. He used it righteously.
And if He's willing to call people, quote, "a child of hell," we would do well to follow his example.
As Christians, our knee-jerk reaction is to lean away from name-calling. This is a noble impulse, because we are to not let unwholesome talk come from our mouths.
But sometimes calling someone a "child of hell" is wholesome.
If you never learn how to appropriately and righteously know the difference, then you'll recoil at the idea of labeling people or being labeled yourself. This is why, for many decades, the worst thing a Christian could be called is "bigoted" or "unloving." It's why so many decided that they needed to be "winsome" to try to convince people that the mean old God upstairs isn't actually that bad.
"Come inside! We've got laser-light shows with fog machines and Disney-themed messages!"
After a few generations of being herded like sheep by the woke shepherds, Christians have learned to recoil whenever new labels are given to them. The newest one, the greatest fear of both boomer Christians and woke Christians alike, is the title "Christian nationalist."
Oh man!
And what does "Christian nationalist" mean?
Oh, you know, basic stuff in the Declaration of Independence!
But never mind that the woke have been attempting to replace the War of Independence with the Civil Rights movement, the Constitution with civil rights laws and the national anthem with the black national anthem. Never mind that they want to call men women and call women "chestfeeders."
The real problem is you noticing.
And for the crime of noticing and thinking that America was founded by Christians who wanted to make Christian children and spread the Gospel to win new Christians, you get called a "nationalist" in an attempt to tie you to that guy with the weird mustache from 1933 Germany.
After all, the Great Commission - that urgent command from Christ to His followers - goes something like this, right?
"Therefore go and make disciples random individuals of all nations as long as you don't get labeled a colonialist, asking them to do an altar call in the name of whatever pronouns they think God uses, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you as long as it conforms to diversity, equity, and inclusion practices."
Nah, he said to "make disciples of all NATIONS."
(The King James Version just say "teach all nations.")
If Jesus is the dividing line of all things - if there is no other way but Him - then a nation will either follow Him or it will follow false gods. There is no example where a secular state that safeguards all the beliefs and inherent rights of its citizens, because the idea of safeguarding beliefs and inherent rights is a uniquely Christian idea.
But you don't need to believe all this in order for them to call you a Christian nationalist. You don't need to worry about the dangers of pluralism and the counter-dangers of straight theocracy without the safeguards our founding fathers created to separate powers (those Reformed rebels were very concerned about a national Anglican church, I tell ya what).
No, the name calling has gone far beyond that.
All you need to do is like the Declaration as much as Nick Cage in "National Treasure" and have a generic respect for Jesus and you're in the CN club!
And if that's the case, you might as well embrace it. Follow the early believers who were called "Little Christs." Laugh at the nicknames they give us. Lean into them and make them your own, no matter how they play out in the future.
It is important that we are not hateful, that we aren't racists - that the slander against us not be true. But we should turn the worst of their labels for glory.
