Naming is an important feature of human life and the mission to which God has called man. When we name people or things, we create a way to understand them and deal with them. The unknown—the unnamed—creates tension and anxiety. If someone is prowling through your house in the middle of the night, you want to know “Who’s there?” When you are waiting on test results from the doctor, you want a diagnosis so that you can know how to proceed with any treatment. One of the first steps in understanding a person, situation, or an animal is to name it.
This started in the beginning just after God created man. God brought the animals to him to see what he would name them. God gave the man the responsibility to take dominion over all of the animals, to subdue them for the good of the created order. The first step was naming them. When awakened Adam from his death-sleep after creating the woman, the first thing Adam did was name the woman. He then gave her the name “Eve” after God pronounced all the judgments upon him, her, and the serpent.
The names that are given to us, whether willingly or unwillingly, shape our lives. Jesus is named “Jesus” because “he will save his people from their sins” (Matt 1.21). The name given to him by his Father ultimately wasn’t merely descriptive, a tag to say something about him, but it was also something that formed Jesus’ understanding of himself and his mission in life. He would relate to other and others would relate to him in terms of his name.
When we have the authority to name, we need to do so with care; whether we are naming someone or something else, or we are adopting a name for ourselves. Sometimes people without authority over our lives name us and, for whatever reason, we adopt that name and allow it to shape our lives. “Loser.” “Victim.” “Worthless.” These are all names that are sometimes given to us, and, at times, we adopt them for ourselves. Consequently, we begin “living up” to our names. They shape our understanding of ourselves and how we relate to the world around us.
Lately there has been a movement within certain segments of the church to adopt names that tag along with our name “Christian.” I’m not talking about surnames or ethnic identities (though, if they become primary, they can also be problematic). I’m talking about names such as “gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender Christian.” Some will try to make light of it. It is only a way to identify with others who are having the same struggles with same-sex attraction. These names, they say, are to help people who share the common temptations to form a Christian sub-culture to help fight these temptations.
While the pull to sexual sin is strong and enslaving and we must fight against it with all of our might, naming ourselves—hyphenating our name “Christian”—is not a good strategy for the fight. Just as adopting the names “loser,” “victim,” or “worthless” shapes the way we think about ourselves and how we relate to others, so these LGBTQ+ names shape the way we think about ourselves and how we relate to others. I am perpetually trapped in this sinful identity; everything in my life is defined now by my sinful proclivities. I will never be free. My desires can’t be reshaped, and I am not able to have a male-female relationship the way God designed. Hyphenating our name “Christian” is not harmless. It has deleterious effects.
You are “Christian.” Your life is defined by your union with Christ. You have been told who you are. You are remade in the image and likeness of God, re-created as male and female, transformed to live as God designed male and female relationships. Yes, you have struggles with your desires. But your sinful desires don’t define you. God’s word concerning you, his name given to you, defines you. That is how you need to think about yourself.
This is not an identity or purpose that is unstable, shifting with my changing emotions or desires to sin. This is an identity that is unchanging, mooring my life to the Unshakeable.
Adopting this name without sinful hyphenations is the exercise of faith. It is believing about myself what God has said about me and not what the surrounding culture or even I say about myself. It is believing the word of the Creator-Redeemer over the creature. Anything less is idolatry.
Believe God and be free.
