I remember learning not to call people names on the playground as a child. A nickname may be okay if your friend likes it or chooses it, but you must stop if they don’t like it. I remember my parents and teachers emphasizing a respect for people’s names.

Did you learn this lesson too? Name-calling has always been a problem, but it seems to be growing – even among adults who should know better.

The leaders in our highest offices regularly model name-calling as a form of discourse. Whether it’s the President calling a U.S. Senator “Pocahontas” or a Senator calling the President “Cadet Bone Spurs,” these are names that are meant to hurt and not to bless. The same is true on a more local level and within our own hearts too. When I scroll through my News Feed, for example, I see names filled with contempt for the “other side” or for “those people.” I even catch myself wanting to call people names.

We often resort to name-calling when our position or argument is logically or morally weak. A clever name may score us some points in the short term, but it always drags us downward in the long run. How can we begin to work toward the common good if we don’t speak one another’s names with care?

Name-calling is also used as a form of domination. Arden Mahlberg and Craig Nessan write in their book The Integrity of the Body of Christ: “Conquering cultures routinely rename those they have come to dominate, instead of using the native’s own names for themselves. Cult leaders often rename their members as part of asserting their control. Bullies engage in name-calling to intimidate their victims.” This kind of name-calling often leads to dehumanization and violence.

I want to place our growing carelessness with names in opposition to the One who calls us by our true names.

In contrast to our carelessness, the God we meet in the Bible takes names seriously. In the first chapter of Genesis, God creates and names at the same time. God names day and night, sun and moon, and land and sea. Timothy Radcliffe puts it this way: “Everything exists because God called it into being by name.”

Often in the Bible a person will be given a new name after a transformative experience. For example, Jacob is renamed Israel after wresting with God on the shores of the Jabbok (Genesis 32:22-32). Or Saul is renamed Paul after encountering the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus (Acts 9). After these experiences, it’s as if these people are so different that they need a new name to tell the truth of their reality. Just as God called the world into being by name so to these people were renamed when they were recreated by God.

In contrast to the false names we make up for each other, God calls us by our true names. In the time of the exile, God spoke through the prophet Isaiah, saying: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name. You are mine” (Isaiah 43:1). After the resurrection, Mary Magdalene does not recognize Jesus until he speaks her name (John 20:11-18).

When a person is baptized, we don’t use a generic label like “man” or “woman” or “child.” Instead, we use the specific name of the individual, because we believe God continues to call us by our true names.

When our true names are spoken in love, we flourish. Timothy Radcliffe writes, “Our names are called with love or with contempt. In all the loving ways in which we are addressed – by our parents, our friends, our spouses – there is an echo of God’s address to us.”

Name-calling is not only disrespectful and rationally dubious. It is also sinful. It is in opposition to the God who calls us by our true names. We have a choice whether to name one another with contempt or with love. May we choose to echo the God who loves us!

Written for the Brodhead Free Press and the Independent Register as part of their weekly “Pastor’s Corner” column.