Epithet

The word of the day is "epithet". You will find in your dictionaries that the word means first of all something like "an adjective or descriptive phrase expressing a quality or characteristic of a person or thing". Yeah, something like that. Of course, most of the time we go with the second definition: such a word that is intended as a term of abuse.

Examples of epithets would be the old "Richard the Lion-Hearted" or "Catherine the Great". Jesus is "the Prince of Peace". Excellent epithet. In H.G. Wells's The Time Machine he used nothing but epithets to describe the characters in the present time: "the Very Young Man", "the Psychologist", "the Editor", and so on. In these regards they can be somewhat useful providing not merely a name, but a descriptive identification.

In today's version, however, it's typically not so helpful, first because it's intended as abusive and second because it lacks accuracy. Here, let me give you a prime example. If you are not in favor of aborting babies whenever a woman wishes to do so, you are "anti-choice" or "anti-abortion". Epithets, you see? Accurate? Oh, not at all. Everyone is "anti-choice", for instance. They don't want to allow you the choice not to allow killing babies. In less abrasive context, everyone knows the common maxim, "Your freedom ends where my nose begins." That is, you're free to choose whatever you want until it affects me ... and then you're not. Anti-choice. In a more abrasive context, liberals are "pro-choice" when it comes to women having their babies killed, but not when it comes to you getting a gun, favoring traditional marriage, or buying a soda larger than 16 ounces. So who is "anti-choice"? Not an accurate epithet, so not a helpful descriptive.

Another very popular one today has slid so far down the language trail that it is difficult to extract from its roots. You have to take time to figure it out. If you believe that homosexual behavior is a violation of Scripture, you are "anti-gay". And most (on either side) will nod their heads and say, "Yes, that's accurate." And it's not. First, try to figure out what "gay" means. In common usage today it refers to males that self-identify as having solely homosexual urges. (Trust me; there are enough shades in the "sexual minority" field to encompass everyone else.) "Gay" is not "lesbian" (the female version), you see. But no one ever gets labeled "anti-lesbian", so apparently "gay" means something different in this epithet. Second, note that "gay" has changed meaning. The concept of "homosexuality" (the idea intended in the epithet "anti-gay") did not appear on the historical scene until the late 19th century. Thus, for instance, when the Bible refers to the concept, it does not refer to a sexual identity, but a behavior. No one was either "heterosexual" or "homosexual" (or "bisexual" or "omnisexual" or any other sexual identity you might devise). They had sexual desires and chose to act on them or not. For whom was irrelevant. "Husband and wife" was biblically good; anyone else was not. So the classification "gay" didn't exist in biblical times. Sex was a matter of behavior, not desire. A "sodomite" was someone who practiced the act, not someone whose identity was defined by it. Today, of course, the term "gay" is a component part of the definition of a human being. Thus, "anti-gay" is intended to convey an opposition to the very nature (with its attendant suggestion of being a "necessarily moral and virtuous" character simply because "they're born that way") of a particular segment of society. So if "gay" meant "the sexual behavior of various individuals involving sexual relations with the same gender", then "anti-gay" might be a factual epithet for those who believe that the behavior is a sin. They are opposed to that behavior. But if it means "the person who identifies themselves with such desires" as it does today ... and let me be perfectly clear on this ... it's a lie. Those who oppose the behavior on biblical grounds oppose the behavior, not the person. Opposing behavior is not the same as opposing a person.

Our modern language is full of these types of problems. Communication is tedious at best. So we take shortcuts. One of them is the epithet. But as the epithet takes hold and the meaning is lost, the epithet becomes a false statement and those who bear it are left with a false characterization. Those of us who are in favor of protecting human life are not "anti-choice". Those of us who believe the Bible is abundantly clear that sexual relations with anyone except a husband and a wife are immoral are not "anti-gay". And the epithets just keep coming without regard to accuracy. So we end up buried under a pile of lies and relegated to the trash heap of culture. And this is what is deemed "tolerance", "non-judgmental", and "rational dialog". I have an epithet for people like that: "liar".