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Name-calling can be a rather nasty part of human interaction. Not that all name-calling is negative – it seems it can actually be a sort of bonding tactic, especially among males — who seem to enjoy throwing around names like Dude, Brother, Chief, Stud, Player, Playa, Killer, etc., with their best friends and/or teammates. Names like Lefty, Nose, Big Tuna, Ice Pick Willie, Pistol Pete, and others are also not that uncommon in certain subcultures and are not necessarily meant in a derogatory way at all.

Just a guess, but “insult friendship” bonding probably would not “go over” well in female friendships. “Hey, Big Butt, want to meet for lunch?” Now, even if that friend has the smallest possible derriere, she likely will nevertheless reply, “Um, not with YOU…”  But we digress…

OK, even though we allow that insults can be a sure source of endless entertainment for male friends, we all know that very often, name-calling is not done in fun, but intended to be hurtful and demeaning, and is often used to marginalize and demonize individuals and groups:

In the 1930s, Roman Catholic priest and radio commentator Fr. Charles Coughlin discovered a very effective way of discrediting people he considered political threats. He would appeal to the anti-Semitism and isolationism shared by much of his audience by denouncing various individuals as “atheistic Jews” or “imported radicals.” It mattered little to Coughlin that the sources of his “information” were often untrustworthy. He knew that once he used the power of the broadcast medium to slap labels on people, those people would find it very difficult to remove them from their reputations.¹A Matter of Basic Principles: Bill Gothard and His Cultish Teachings: Veinot, Don, Veinot, Joy, Henzel, Ron, Duggar Vuolo, Jinger: MCOI Publishers, LLC; 2025. Amazon.com. 2025,p. 179

Coughlin wasn’t an oddity in his public anti-Semitism; it seems to have been part of the cultural zeitgeist of that age. “Anti-Semitism in the 1920s and 1930s” points out that in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries, European and Scandinavian Jews began moving to the U.S. in large numbers and were “considered to belong to inferior ‘races.”:

,Anti-Semitism was based on a combination of pervasive and often contradictory Jewish stereotypes. Jews were portrayed as vulgar “money grabbing” capitalists as well as dangerous revolutionaries. Anti-Semitism spread through every aspect of American society: Newspapers and magazines commonly printed anti-Semitic articles and cartoons; anti-Semites held high positions in the federal government, particularly in the State department. Jews were also excluded from social clubs and faced discrimination in employment opportunities, especially in the professions; many towns adopted zoning regulations to prevent the sale of land and houses to Jews. Starting in 1922, following the example of Harvard, many prominent northeastern universities imposed strict quotas on the numbers of Jews they admitted.

During the 1920s, automaker Henry Ford’s weekly newspaper, the Dearborn Independent (with a circulation of 700,000) launched a vicious campaign against what he termed “The International Jew” which he accused of everything from threatening the capitalist system to undermining the moral values of the nation, and finally he even held them responsible for World War I.

Thankfully, we all know that those old nasty prejudices have been wiped from the national slate, never to reappear in our enlightened times, even though some people think we could possibly see a resurgence. No way!

Once universities, media celebrities, and the government unite to demonize a group, or an individual within a group, or someone who can be made to appear to be in a demonized group, any assault, whether verbal, physical, or both, is cheered on and even viewed as “righteous.”  It often seems the less valid arguments that a person can muster, the more likely it is that he or she will use name-calling, or worse, violence, to silence any opposition. This can be a particularly favorite tactic to employ when your argument is weak or non-existent, and history shows that in extreme cases, it has led to ruining or even ending the lives of those who have been demonized.

We find examples of this in Scripture. The religious leaders in Jerusalem were not overly fond of a popular young rabbi by the name of Jesus. They were disastrously unable to stand toe to toe with him in a debate. He was, after all, God Almighty. Therefore, He was accused of being in league with Beelzebub (Matthew 12:14). He was labeled a blasphemer, a liar, and an insurrectionist by the religious authorities, who then called for His execution:

Jesus is arrested because the Jewish authorities accused him of blaspheming God and giving false testimony. The Romans charged Jesus with treason against the empire based on what he said about the destruction of the temple and his identity as a king. As a result, Jesus was sentenced to death.²Why Was Jesus Arrested? (The Charges Against Him)

Why did they hate Him so much? It’s quite simple, really. As He spoke the truth with authority, they were losing their power and authority over the people. Power and authority were big-ticket items to these men, and Pilate was well aware of their reasons as they cried out to crucify Him:

Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. And they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up. (Matthew 27:15-18)

Pilate “knew that the opposition was out of envy.” They couldn’t prove His claims or teachings wrong, and He was turning the people away from hypocritical “leaders” and toward God and His Word. His followers were also demonized, and Jesus had warned them of what was coming:

They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. (John 16:2)

Name-calling may be the most common strategy to use in a dispute, perhaps on both sides of any argument. That was one great “thing” about Charlie Kirk. He ably defended his own views rationally, with evidence and argument, and then welcomed his detractors to simply “Prove Me Wrong.”

We have been raising sticky societal issues now for over thirty years in articles like, “Whose Moral Compass?:

the Federal government has been engaged in aggressively pushing the populace further left and as far away as possible from its foundational religious moorings. In order to effectively accomplish this, the people had to be encouraged to see the government as their “god.” A new god means new rules, and new morals. America’s “old God,” the God of the Bible, with all his old-fashioned morality, had to go.

In an attempt to fulfill their purpose of reshaping ethics and morals, Progressives have resorted to the age-old, tried-and-true method of making false accusations. and engaging in name-calling to “prove their point.” Those they deem as “enemies” are “Nazis,” “Christian Nationalists,” or simply “Fascists,” who are supposedly engaged in “destroying our Democracy,” among other nefarious motives. Evidence? None is provided, and since they are not able to win on the merits of these arguments, quite a number are turning violent. In his article, “Resorting to violence means you’ve lost the debate” Jerry Newcombe tells the story of two men who were engaged in a heated argument:

After watching and listening for several minutes, the tourist remarked that he expected the two men would begin fighting any moment, but his guide replied, “I doubt it, you see, the man who strikes first admits he’s lost the argument.”

We suggest that what we are witnessing currently in our streets is a group that has perhaps “lost the argument” at the ballot box, but hopes to win the argument with violent protest in the street. (Do these mainly young people in the streets have valid arguments to present? Pray tell, how would we know?) As we have often pointed out, we are currently engaged in what is really in many ways a spiritual battle. Newcombe goes back to one of the founders of the nation to make an important point:

For example, in 1777, Thomas Jefferson wrote a very important act on behalf of religious freedom. It was adopted in 1786 when he was in France. It is the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. He basically argues that Jesus, “the holy author of our religion,” has given us the freedom to accept or reject Him. Who then is the government to try and force religious conformity? It simply produces hypocrites.

Jefferson pens, “Almighty God hath created the mind free, and … all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone.”

God’s Word says:

but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, (1 Peter 3:15)

Christians are to make their case with “gentleness and respect.” It may not persuade those who stand violently opposed to biblical ethics and morality. But those who are watching from the sidelines and are seeing, hearing and analyzing what they are observing may very well be persuaded that those who DO resort to violence may not have the best argument.Ω

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