Love Beyond Labels<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You can't really love the Homeless until you love Debbie or Steve . You can't really say you love the LGBTQ community until you love Scott or Hannah or\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/2019\/04\/love-beyond-labels\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Love Beyond Labels\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You can't really love the Homeless until you love Debbie or Steve . You can't really say you love the LGBTQ community until you love Scott or Hannah or\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/2019\/04\/love-beyond-labels\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Keith Giles\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/keithagiles\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-04-18T17:49:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/833\/2019\/04\/photomontage-1514220_640.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"426\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Keith Giles\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@keithgiles\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Keith Giles\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/2019\/04\/love-beyond-labels\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/2019\/04\/love-beyond-labels\/\",\"name\":\"Love Beyond Labels\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-04-18T17:49:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-04-18T17:49:37+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/#\/schema\/person\/c026ed8e596e36501a693dc33b7053be\"},\"description\":\"You can't really love the Homeless until you love Debbie or Steve . You can't really say you love the LGBTQ community until you love Scott or Hannah or\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/2019\/04\/love-beyond-labels\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/2019\/04\/love-beyond-labels\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/2019\/04\/love-beyond-labels\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Love Beyond Labels\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/\",\"name\":\"Keith Giles\",\"description\":\"This former pastor left the pulpit to follow Jesus and started a church where 100% of the offering goes to the poor.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/#\/schema\/person\/c026ed8e596e36501a693dc33b7053be\",\"name\":\"Keith Giles\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e8627889b20205ea8636cd77bad9d415?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e8627889b20205ea8636cd77bad9d415?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Keith Giles\"},\"description\":\"This former pastor left the pulpit to follow Jesus in Orange County, California and started a house church where 100% of the offerings go to help the poor in their community.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/keithagiles\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/keithgiles\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/author\/kgiles\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Love Beyond Labels","description":"You can't really love the Homeless until you love Debbie or Steve . You can't really say you love the LGBTQ community until you love Scott or Hannah or","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/2019\/04\/love-beyond-labels\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Love Beyond Labels","og_description":"You can't really love the Homeless until you love Debbie or Steve . You can't really say you love the LGBTQ community until you love Scott or Hannah or","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/2019\/04\/love-beyond-labels\/","og_site_name":"Keith Giles","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/keithagiles","article_published_time":"2019-04-18T17:49:37+00:00","og_image":[{"width":640,"height":426,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/833\/2019\/04\/photomontage-1514220_640.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Keith Giles","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@keithgiles","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Keith Giles","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/2019\/04\/love-beyond-labels\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/2019\/04\/love-beyond-labels\/","name":"Love Beyond Labels","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/#website"},"datePublished":"2019-04-18T17:49:37+00:00","dateModified":"2019-04-18T17:49:37+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/#\/schema\/person\/c026ed8e596e36501a693dc33b7053be"},"description":"You can't really love the Homeless until you love Debbie or Steve . You can't really say you love the LGBTQ community until you love Scott or Hannah or","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/2019\/04\/love-beyond-labels\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/2019\/04\/love-beyond-labels\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/2019\/04\/love-beyond-labels\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Love Beyond Labels"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/","name":"Keith Giles","description":"This former pastor left the pulpit to follow Jesus and started a church where 100% of the offering goes to the poor.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/#\/schema\/person\/c026ed8e596e36501a693dc33b7053be","name":"Keith Giles","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e8627889b20205ea8636cd77bad9d415?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e8627889b20205ea8636cd77bad9d415?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Keith Giles"},"description":"This former pastor left the pulpit to follow Jesus in Orange County, California and started a house church where 100% of the offerings go to help the poor in their community.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/keithagiles","https:\/\/twitter.com\/keithgiles"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/author\/kgiles\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3089"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":3304,"date":"2019-04-18T17:49:37","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T17:49:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/?p=3304"},"modified":"2019-04-18T17:49:37","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T17:49:37","slug":"love-beyond-labels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/keithgiles\/2019\/04\/love-beyond-labels\/","title":{"rendered":"Love Beyond Labels"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/p>\n

You can\u2019t really love the Homeless until you love Debbie or Steve [who happen to be homeless].<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t really say you love the LGBTQ community until you love Scott or Hannah or Jasmine [who happen to be Gay, Trans and Lesbian].<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t really love Muslims until you love Usha, or Ibrahim [who are Muslims].<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t really love any group of people as long as you only see them as an anonymous collective that sits behind a label.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the point. As long as we relate to Muslims, Lesbians, Homeless, Refugees, etc. as categories, we will never come to see them as human beings who \u2013 like us \u2013 are worthy of love, respect, compassion, dignity and human rights.<\/p>\n

Even once you do know these people intimately, you cannot easily continue to refer to their groups in such broad strokes as \u201cMuslims\u201d or \u201cHomeless\u201d or \u201cTransgender\u201d, or any other label without realizing that all of the people in that group are not the same.<\/p>\n

We usually only notice this when we hear someone refer to our particular group in this way in order to make a broad-brush generalization about us. We bristle instinctively. We are quick to cry foul. We shout at our TVs or curse at our laptops \u2013 \u201cWe\u2019re not all the same!\u201d<\/p>\n

So, whenever we feel tempted to say things like \u201cAll Homeless people are lazy\u201d or \u201cAll Muslims hate our freedoms\u201d or \u201cAll Refugees are dangerous criminals\u201d, etc. we have to stop ourselves and realize that this is only possible to say if you don\u2019t actually know anyone in one of those groups.<\/p>\n

Because once you actually know someone who is Homeless, you cannot ever again agree with the statement \u201cAll Homeless people are lazy\u201d because the one\u2019s you know aren\u2019t all lazy. Many of them work harder than you and I work. They are doing all they can to survive every single day.<\/p>\n

And once you actually know someone who is Muslim, you cannot ever again sit quietly while someone says \u201cAll Muslims hate our freedoms\u201d or suggests that they all want to kill Christians and impose Sharia Law. Because the Muslims you\u2019ve met are kind, sincere, loving and very, very \u201cnormal\u201d people who \u2013 other than their religion \u2013 are exactly like you and me.<\/p>\n

Therefore, let\u2019s try to meet people who are not like us. Let\u2019s try to see them as they are \u2013 human beings who are members of the same human race. Let\u2019s learn to love those who are different, and to see Christ in them, realizing that we are all part of one family, under God our Father; the One in whom we all live and move and have our being.<\/p>\n

Until we can learn to love without labels, we will never learn to love as Christ commanded us to love.<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

Join me this summer at one of these upcoming events:<\/em><\/p>\n

*El Paso, TX \u2013 May 19 \u201cUnited We Stand\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

*Costa Mesa, CA \u2013 June 22\u00a0 \u201cUnited We Stand\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

*Hot Springs, NC \u2013 July 11-14\u00a0 \u201cWild Goose Festival\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Want Keith to come speak at your church or in your home town?<\/strong>\u00a0Learn more\u00a0HERE<\/a><\/p>\n

Keith Giles was formerly a licensed and ordained minister who walked away from organized church 11 years ago, to start a home fellowship that gave away 100% of the offering to the poor in the community.\u00a0<\/em>Today, He and his wife live in Meridian, Idaho, awaiting their next adventure.<\/em><\/p>\n

His\u00a0new book\u00a0\u201cJesus Unbound: Liberating the Word of God from the Bible<\/strong><\/a>\u201d,\u00a0is\u00a0available now on Amazon and features a Foreword by author Brian Zahnd.<\/em><\/p>\n

He is also the author of the Amazon best-seller,\u00a0\u201cJesus\u00a0Untangled: Crucifying Our Politics To Pledge Allegiance To The Lamb<\/strong><\/a>\u201d with a Foreword by Greg Boyd.<\/em><\/p>\n

Keith also co-hosts the\u00a0Heretic Happy Hour Podcast<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0on iTunes and Podbean.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

BONUS<\/em><\/strong>: Want to unlock exclusive content including blog articles, short stories, music, podcasts, videos and more? Visit my\u00a0Patreon page<\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"