Stereotypical

I go to a church. Now you know something about me, right? I must be religious. Fair enough. I go to a baptist church. Ah! Now you know something more. Likely conservative Christian. I go to a Southern Baptist church. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. You are pretty sure you could lay out most of my doctrinal and even political beliefs at this point. Fairly easy.

You'd think.

I have a friend who often will say things like, "I don't mean to insult your baptist beliefs, but ..." What he says after that might insult some baptists' beliefs, but almost never mine. You see, I'm not a committed Southern Baptist; I'm a Christian. He also knows that I generally fall in the Reformed category, and he'll say it there, too. "I know this goes against your Calvinism, but ..." And it doesn't because he's responding to beliefs in "Calvinism" that I don't have. Because I'm not a committed Calvinist; I'm a Christian. I have people telling me that I'm a Trump supporter because I'm a Christian despite the fact that I didn't vote for him and warned others not to vote for him (and wrote later about the nonsense of "81% of white evangelicals voted for Trump").

What's my point? My point is we're all individuals. My point is it is too easy to stereotype. My point is we all tend to pigeonhole people based on generalizations. And I am pretty sure that it is rare that any individual falls within all of these stereotypes.

So what?

We are commanded to love our neighbors. Jesus said to do to others what you would have them do to you. I would think that we would all like to have people treat us with respect and dignity, to recognize our individuality and the fact that we are not like everyone else. I believe, then, that it is not love that causes us to stereotype people and it is a failure on our part when we assign to individuals a belief structure from the whole.

You see, I think being a Christ-follower is work -- hard work. I think it takes time and effort and care. It takes connection with individuals, the "one anothers" of the Scriptures. I think there is some value in generalizations, of course, but that's in terms of groups -- groups of thinking, groups of beliefs, groups of practices, etc. It is not particularly helpful in terms of individuals.

If we are to love one another, we will find it to be work. Hard work. But since love is part of the definition of what it means to follow Christ and we are to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling," perhaps we ought to be willing and diligent to do that work. I know I need to do it. I know I would appreciate it if others showed me that same love.