On Libel About Labels

3 November, 2025

Right before this past Sunday’s sermon, I made mention that Friday was Reformation Day. And, as no theses of any length had been nailed to our church door, I felt I was free to address a topic of my own choosing.

Labels was the quick point made as everyone was finding the day’s passage in their Bibles.

At Christ Covenant Church, we are Protestant, Evangelical, Confessional, Reformed, and Baptist. Generally speaking, those labels are like Russian nesting dolls. Protestant is the big one, the Reformed stream of Baptist is the little one that doesn’t come apart. Now, each one of those labels does merit definition. That is for another day. There are other labels, too: even smaller nesting dolls you’ll find if you take a hacksaw to the aforementioned little one. But today’s area of emphasis is the peculiar aversion within contemporary Evangelicalism to labels.

One common objection is “I’m just a Christian.”

Mormons say they’re Christians, too. Why are you not that kind of Christian? Might it be a label?

Another retort is “doctrine divides.”

A growing number of Mainline Protestant churches deny the bodily resurrection of Christ. Should we not divide on that kind of doctrine? Could doctrinal labels help distinguish what you believe from what they believe?

A third, quite pious sounding one, is “no creed but Christ!”

Yes. You may not subscribe to a particular confession or creed. Hopefully Christ is at the center of your convictions. But you believe things about the Bible, salvation, and the church. How about end times, women in leadership, the age of the earth, the relationship between Israel and the church, spiritual gifts… Say you were to write that all down on a piece of paper. What would you call that?

As a brief aside, I want to make it clear that one does not need to have a dissertation-length position on each of the areas of theology mentioned above to be a diligent, faithful, God-honoring Christian. But one must be careful to never allow I don’t quite know to really mean I don’t really care. Unity on the basis of I don’t really care is a recipe for people caring real fast once a disagreement arises.

“I thought you didn’t care!”

“I didn’t, because I assumed all Christians agreed in a pre-trib, pre-wrath, half-caf eschatology.”

I digress.

I would assume that the next objection would be an appeal to the classic anti-label proof text:

Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

1st Corinthians 1:12-13

This is a great passage. It directly combats a problem in the fledgling Corinthian church, in the early church as a whole, and the church across time. This, of course, includes us. What is Paul saying? Is he saying that the idea of Baptists and Presbyterians meeting in separate buildings is a travesty? Is he saying that attending FaithVibe Community Chapel means that you’re putting your trust in whatever a FaithVibe might be?

Context certainly brings some clarity. Before this well-known passage, he writes:

Now I exhort you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. For I have been informed concerning you, my brothers, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you.

1st Corinthians 1:10-11

The problem was quarrels. The solution was (and is) unity in Christ. The particular manifestation of the struggle in Corinth was that some gravitated to Paul, some Apollos, some Peter, and some Christ. Those who said Christ were the pious sounding ones, mind you.

This text, along with the passage in chapter 3 where the theme is picked back up, is not necessarily a critique of two solid churches who have differing convictions on the subject of baptism. It is more like an argument within a church because a third of the congregation thinks that the Sunday School curriculum should come from Publisher A, a third thinks it should come from Publisher B, and a third thinks the youth pastor should be writing it himself because what are we paying him for anyway?

Of course, there are principles of this text that can be applicable to how we associate, how we fellowship, and how we gauge the significance of differences. Personally, I have a lot more in common with Conservative Presbyterians than I do with most Evangelical Baptists who fall outside the Reformed camp. But they are still brothers in Christ and I would gladly worship alongside them, Confessional Lutherans, Conservative Anglicans, and Reformed Charismatics… even Evangelical Non-denominational types (who are Baptists who don’t like the label Baptist). I fully expect to be singing, working, and resting with them for eternity. Why create an unbridgeable chasm now? Moreover, what grounds do I have for questioning their Biblical integrity?

Still, cooperating to save the unborn and scheduling campfire praise-sings doesn’t mean that there aren’t differences. I want to worship where my babies grow up in a covenant community, hear the gospel, believe, repent, and then are baptized. My friends want to worship where they baptize their babies, have them grow up in a covenant community, hear the gospel, repent, and believe. In our present culture, this different conviction is a legitimate reason for separate congregations. They love Jesus and I love them. But I think people should believe and then be baptized (Matt 28:19; Acts 2:38, 8:12-13, 18:8, etc.). We could say all of that, or we could use labels like Baptist/Presbyterian, 1689/Westminster, right/wrong. I kid, I kid.

A unity that allows for iron sharpening iron and gentle ribbing doesn’t deny labels, because it rejoices in the unity of the Spirit of the resurrected and reigning Christ.

There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

Ephesians 4:4-6

In those verses Paul gives some explicit doctrinal, confessional bounds for what it means to be in God’s gracious covenant. That is the label that matters most. And as long as a church confesses that divinely-granted label, everything else is secondary.