The numbers are building.  People are dying and coming back to life with a story to tell.  Near-death experiences (NDEs) are increasingly being reported as an identifiable physiological and psychological reality of clinical significance.

 

Yet many Christian pastors hold the topic of NDEs at arm's length – and for understandable reasons.  Called a pseudo-science by some, the field is riddled with a panoply of confusing, conflicting, and many anti-Biblical accounts.  For some secular scientists, NDEs are dismissed as a mere chemical reaction in the brain – an unknown mechanism of the body that engages during clinical death or grievous injury or shock.

 

Why the Christian Clergy push-back?  NDE witnesses report a wide range of experiences - from full-on encounters with Jesus Christ - to ethereal experiences where the witness feels joined with an enveloping non-personal light that emanates an unconditional love.  The Near-Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF) website has posted thousands of reported incidents that run the gamut from simple experiences of a person leaving their body and hovering near an operating room ceiling to blissful visits to heaven and horrific descents into hell.

 

Since some reports do not square with the content of the Bible, some Christian pastors tend to dismiss all of them with a single broad brushstroke.  They believe they are the product of demonic encounters or the work of fabricators who hope to profit from their claims.  Still, others believe NDE witnesses are simply mentally disturbed or deluded. I contend that ignoring NDEs and the people who report them is a mistake. I also recommend that a term other than NDE should be used to allow for a fuller understanding of the phenomenon within Christian circles.

 

But why should Christians be talking about them at all? 

 

1.  They’re happening whether we believe it or not. 

 

Regardless of what you call them, roughly 5% of the American population, or roughly 13 million people, report experiencing an NDE every year according to a poll taken by Gallup in 1992.  More recently, an article published in the Journal of Near-Death Studies cited a survey of 2,000 people in Germany in 2011 that found 4 percent had experienced an NDE. 

 

In June 2019, a new study by European researchers found one in 10 people has undergone a near-death experience. The findings were presented at the fifth European Academy of Neurology Congress.

 

The study analyzed 1,034 people from 35 countries and found that 289 people reported a near-death experience with varying spiritual and physical symptoms.

 

Of those 289 people, 106 of them reached the threshold for a “true” near-death experience as quantified by the 16 points in the Greyson NDE Scale which "measures the depth of an individuals' near-death experience." An experience reaching 7 on the scale is considered "true."

 

The Greyson NDE Scale is the most widely used standardized tool to “identify, confirm and characterize” near-death experiences.

 

2.  NDE is an inaccurate term for an actual event that is a reflection of a person’s combined physical and supernatural structure as described in the Bible. 

 

The event, not the term, needs to be taken seriously.

 

Better term?  The Bible teaches that man is composed of a physical body, a soul, and a spirit. Several verses, such as 1 Thessalonians 5:23, which states, "Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again," make clear that man has a triune structure. Recognition of those components is vitally important when considering what is termed an NDE.  One of the common occurrences reported by NDE witnesses cited in peer-reviewed studies is that they distinctly experience being "out-of-body." As Christians, we should take the wisdom of the Bible as a cue to devise a new term that more accurately describes what is taking place in our physical world daily.

 

When does dead mean dead?  Near-death experience is a term that was created to label an unknown phenomenon.  The expression “Near-Death Experience” (NDE) was introduced into the modern medical lexicon by Raymond Moody, a philosopher, psychologist, physician and author, most known for his book Life After Life, that popularized the term NDE in 1975.  While the term has stuck, it's inaccurate, as many of the witnesses' experiences result from being clinically dead. In other words, they had no vital signs – no pulse or respiration.  That's not near-dead, that's dead. 

 

Since NDE has become a label that is used and misused regularly, I suggest a better term for the Christian community would be a spirit/soul separation event, or SSE.  For reasons only God knows, certain circumstances trigger the soul and spirit to separate from the physical body – our earth suit.  Sometimes, the soul/spirit hovers above the person's body, and in other cases, they travel together through a tunnel or vortex.  In some cases, the person's soul and spirit arrive in an otherworldly location almost instantly. SSEs vary significantly in content and intensity. 

 

In some reported cases, a person has had no pulse or respiration for more than an hour before “self-resuscitating.”  In his fascinating book, My Time In Heaven, the late Richard Sigmund reported being dead for more than eight hours and finding himself being wheeled to a hospital morgue when he re-entered his body.  He displayed no signs of brain damage after he came back to life, and his fatal injuries healed spontaneously. Clearly, he went beyond being “near death.”

 

3. The Bible documents events that mirror NDEs or SSEs.

 

In Isaiah 6, the prophet Isaiah describes being in the presence of the Lord sitting on a throne in heaven and hearing seraphim calling "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts."  Some may attribute Isaiah's description to a vision, but since the passage does not specifically describe it as a vision but does describe Isaiah talking, seeing, and touching, one could make the case that Isaiah underwent an SSE and traveled to heaven. 

 

In Ezekiel 8 through 11, Ezekiel describes a vision in which a supernatural being lifted him between heaven and earth and brought him to the entrance of the gateway of an inner court that faced north in Jerusalem.  Unlike Isaiah 6, Ezekiel used the term "vision," although one could make the case that his vision was an out-of-body experience or SSE.

 

In 2 Corinthians 12:2, the Apostle Paul describes a man who was “caught up in the third heaven – “whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know, God knows. And I know this man was caught up in paradise.”  Most Christian scholars agree that Paul was describing his own experience, and although Paul equivocates whether he had an out-of-body experience or a vision, he presents the out-of-body experience as a distinct possibility.  For Christian teachers who say that the Bible does not mention NDEs or SSEs, I humbly disagree.  Paul's testimony confirms that he visited heaven in some capacity while he still had a physical body on earth that was alive. 

 

Finally, in Revelation 1:10, John describes being in the spirit on the Lord's day and being in the presence of Jesus Christ, who directs John to record what he observed.  The faculty of sight is associated with the physical and the spiritual body. 

 

4. Members of the New Age movement and witchcraft practice induced SSEs. 

 

While some in the body of Christ reject the concept of NDEs/SSEs, members of the occult and the New Age movement have practiced a form of an induced SSE - astral projection – for many years.  Practitioners of astral projection report their out-of-body experiences on websites such as The Astral Pulse, which is devoted to guest posts and articles about out-of-body experiences and astral projection experiences.   New Age movement adherents seem to understand the concept of the detachable conscious element of the human body, i.e., three-part construction of man - better than most Christian clergy.  Christian pastors, teachers, and researchers who are self-avowed former witches, warlocks, Satanists or New Age movement practitioners have acknowledged either personally engaging in astral projection or being aware of others who have.

 

5. NDEs or SSEs help our understanding of what’s written in the Bible. 

 

Accurately and honestly reported NDEs/SSEs could confirm God's inspired Word, not replace it.  They do not add or take away from the Bible any more than the archeological discovery of a specific artifact never mentioned in the Bible, such as a coin or piece of pottery that bears the name of a particular person revealed in the Bible - but contains some new detail not described in any Bible verse - in any way conflicts with the scriptures.  They simply add detail that amplifies and clarifies what is written in God's inspired Word.

 

Put another way, SSEs are events that allow individuals to observe and to experience details about the supernatural properties of heaven and hell.  NDEs/SSEs shouldn't be the basis for our faith, but they can reinforce our faith.

 

I’ll be the first to admit that one does not need to study a single NDE/SSE to learn about God.  The Bible is truly fully sufficient. However, the eyewitness testimony of honest and careful NDE/SSE witnesses can aid the Christian in better understanding parts of scripture. 

 

For example, the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all document the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  Although none provide any specific details about how Jesus was nailed to the cross, the readers of the Gospel have a general understanding of what happened to Jesus on Golgotha. However, a popular misconception memorialized in countless paintings and graphic depictions is that the Roman soldiers drove spikes through the palms of Jesus' hands into the wooden cross.

 

In his book, The Case For Christ, Lee Strobel documents an interview with Alexander Metherell, MD, and Ph.D., a man with the medical and scientific credentials to explain the crucifixion.  As explained by Dr. Metherell, when the Romans conducted a crucifixion, they used 5 to 7-inch metal spikes that were driven through the wrists and feet of the victim.  The wrists had to be used because the flesh and small bones of the hands could not support the weight of the victim.  As explained by Dr. Metherell, the wrist was considered part of the hand in the language of the day of Jesus' time.

 

Why is this important?  In B.W. Melvin’s book, A Land Unknown: Hell’s Dominion – an account of an extensive NDE/SSE that landed Melvin in hell – Melvin describes on page 67 standing in the presence of Christ, who reached toward Melvin to wipe his tears with the hem of Christ’s robe and “revealing an ugly gnashed scar near His wrist displaying that the very joints had been ripped from their place.”  He describes later in his book observing the same wounds on Christ.  At the time of his NDE/SSE that had been precipitated by cholera, Melvin was an avowed militant atheist. Like any careful witness, he simply recorded what he saw.

 

In Jim Woodford’s book, Heaven, an unexpected journey, he documents an NDE/SSE in which he travels to an entrance of hell and then is escorted to heaven by three angles after dying of an accidental medication overdose.  He writes about being escorted into Jesus' presence, and on page 127, he documents, “But when Jesus held out his hand, I saw the radiant light of his garment shining through a hole in his wrist – the wrist that had been nailed to the cross for me. For all of us.  It was not a bloody or jagged hole, but clearly an odd-shaped scar."

 

Did Jim Woodford learn about the use of wrists in crucifixions from others and attempt to mislead his readers with a false account?  Possibly, but highly improbable. 

 

Another part of the Bible that is supported by NDEs/SSEs is the book of Genesis, which describes God's creation of man.  NDEs/SSEs confirm the existence of the soul and spirit and demonstrate that they are separate and distinct components that make up our total being.  They further confirm that our soul/spirit contains all of our senses and that our body is simply a biological interface organism that allows the soul and spirit to function in the earth's time/space continuum.  They help refute the notion that we have all evolved from pond scum and developed into prescient beings capable of abstract thought. 

 

6. NDEs or SSEs have become a legitimate field of scientific study that has amassed large quantities of data and numerous peer-reviewed studies. 

 

Since Raymond Moody wrote his pioneering book in 1975, the field of study of NDEs/SSEs has grown dramatically.  Dr. Jeff Long, a radiation oncologist who is a scientist and medical researcher, created the Near-Death Research Foundation (NDERF) and its corresponding website, NDERF.org in 1998.  Today, the foundation has a library of more than 4,000 self-reported NDEs/SSEs accounts posted on the website.  Each account is information inputted, anonymously, into a scientifically designed questionnaire that is structured to weed out fabricators and fakes. While the NDERF is a neutral secular foundation, Dr. Long wrote God and the Afterlife in 2016, which affirms NDE/SSE witnesses have had encounters with a spiritual being that they knew, intuitively, was God.

 

Over 900 articles on NDEs have been published in scholarly literature before 2005, and since then, many more.  In the 30 years after Moody published Life After Life, 55 researchers or teams published at least 65 studies of over 3500 NDEs.

 

Dr. Pim van Lommel et al. have conducted excellent longitudinal NDE studies that have been reported in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet. Dr.  Kenneth Ring has conducted studies on near-death experiences, along with a later study of near-death experiences of the blind, where those with no sight reported observing activities during their NDE/SSE.  Dr. Melvin Morse’s study of near-death experiences of children (reported in two articles in the American Medical Association’s American Journal of Diseases of Children) reports that children who were too young to have known of the term NDE reported having the experience.

 

When one peruses the extensive archives of the NDERF, one cannot help but notice that many NDE/SSEs have a well-defined structure that fits a specific pattern.  Dreams and hallucinations are composed of random and almost chaotic mental experiences that rarely have any clearly-defined content with vivid detail and a linear quality to them.  Very few individuals remember dreams for any length of time, while the experiences of NDE/SSE witnesses seem to be permanently etched into their minds, and in some cases, have transformative effects on their lives.

 

What about the contradictory experiences that cause witnesses to proclaim that hell doesn’t exist or we’re just all one with the universe?  The perceptions of NDE/SSE witnesses are colored by their age, life experiences, culture and general frame of reference.  For a Buddhist, the glowing figure of an approaching Jesus Christ could be misidentified as Buddha.  For the New Age movement practitioner, a short NDE/SSE that exposes the witness to sensations of light and love could confirm their belief that we’re all part of a collective and impersonal field of universal loving energy.

 

With the foregoing said, I believe some NDE/SSE witnesses are deceived by demons and evil spirits. Bryan Melvin documents in this book witnessing human soul/spirits arriving in hell and being met by demons who changed their shape to appear to be benign beings or one of the person’s family or circle of friends.  Those who were resuscitated before their residency in hell became permanent would understandably be deceived into believing they had visited heaven. 

 

Individuals who have engaged in astral projection also report meeting and being deceived by demons during their out-of-body experiences.

 

As scripture tells us in 2 Corinthians 11:14, And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an “angel of light.”  Without question, Satan and his minions can and do deceive man, and NDEs/SSEs, as well as encounters with astral projection practitioners, allows them to do so.  Skillful and patient interviews of NDE/SSE witnesses may help unmask deceptive experiences or help dispel confusion.

 

7.  NDEs are legitimate eyewitness accounts that include, in some cases, verified veridical perceptions.

 

Veridical means truthful or coinciding with reality. Some studies have reported corroborative veridical out-of-body experiences that have been categorized as NDEs/SSEs. The experiences enabled the patients to have sensorial knowledge that they would not have been able to have through their physical bodies.

 

In Dr. Van Lommel's studies, he has referenced a Dutch study that has documented that a man who had been in a deep coma later told a nurse that he recognized her and saw where she had placed his dentures during resuscitation efforts.  He even described the cart into which she had placed them.

 

In another case, researchers report that a woman who left her body during a cardiac arrest found herself floating out of the building, up three stories, and over to the north side of the building, where she spotted a tennis shoe on a ledge of the third floor of the building. She described the shoe as a worn dark blue tennis shoe on a window ledge that had one of its laces stuck underneath the heel. The shoe’s location was not visible from the ground and not near the room where the patient had been resuscitated. Psychologist Kim Clark managed to locate the shoe and verify the claim – down to the details about the position of the lace and the location of the wear marks. 

 

Raymond Moody also reported similar veridical out-of-body experiences of subjects he studied. 

 

If we are only cells, then we cannot see or hear and move around when our bodies are unconscious and technically dead. 

 

But it happens.  We do have a soul and a spirit, and now we have eyewitnesses who can tell us how our spiritual bodies function. It’s a truth that can be verified.  A truth that was also written into the scriptures centuries ago.

 

 

8.  A select number of NDE or SSE witnesses claim they have been sent back to tell others about heaven or hell. 

 

Several NDE/SSE witnesses report being told specifically by Jesus Christ or angels to "tell others about what you have seen."

 

My first exposure to an account of an out-of-body trip to hell was Bill Wiese’s 23 Minutes in Hell.  On page 34, he describes being lifted out of hell by Jesus Christ. He writes, "Jesus said to me, 'Go and tell them about this place. It is not my desire that any should go there.'"

 

In his book, Beyond the Gate of Hell, Martin Telezing, Ph.D., writes about an unsolicited out-of-body trip to hell that included an angel escort.  On page 91 he writes, "One of the final instructions that my guiding angel gave me before departing from me was to write a book later to testify to the existence of hell in order to warn humans against lifestyles that would lead them here and to encourage them to choose the path that leads to heaven." 

 

In I Met God In Hell, Tim Ehmann describes his struggle with drugs and his descent into hell after injecting his fifth "speedball of the day."  On page 82 of his book, he describes being rescued by Jesus Christ, who told him, "I'm going to send you places where no else can go." 

 

Howard Pittman, a retired law enforcement officer and current pastor, documents in his book, Placebo, his near-death experience in 1979 and his subsequent angelically-escorted journeys to the Second Heaven and ultimately to the Third Heaven, where he pleaded with God to be returned to his physical body. He reports on page 44, "God gave me the command to repeat to the world my experience and this entire message."  Pittman went on to write other books related to his NDE/SSE.

 

In his incredible account of one of most extensive visits to heaven and also hell, the late Richard Sigmund writes in his book, My Time in Heaven, about being taken by Jesus from heaven down into hell at the direction of God. Sigmund, who had been dead for eight hours, describes on page 1266 of the Kindle version that “Jesus urged me to tell people what I saw (in hell).  ‘I want you to tell others of this place and warn them that unless they are washed in my blood, unless they are born again, this is where they will spend eternity.’ ”

 

Did the authors concoct their stories to sell books?  Possibly, but one has to ask, why would they go to all of the trouble to fabricate a story that would cause them to be ostracized? Other than Bill Wiese, the many witnesses who have come forward and documented their experiences do not appear to have become best-selling authors.  Yet each author reports being commanded by the Lord to go tell the world about the horrors of hell and the joys of heaven.  For those who reject and deride the authors, I ask one simple question.  What if the writers are telling the truth? 

 

Bottom line.

 

A book about an out-of-body trip to hell brought me to Christ.  If a written account of an NDE/SSE can open my eyes and heart, it can do the same for others.

 

The late astronomer Carl Sagan once stated, “I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.”  Perhaps had he studied NDEs/SSEs, Sagan might have opened his mind and heart to God’s message and the evidence of his creation.

 

For a more comprehensive version of this article, visit www.evidenceforeternity.com and select the evidence tab.

 

 

 

The current state of public discourse. Every day, we witness people verbally attacking each other with a barrage of disparaging labels.  One politician labels the other a racist in an angry rant captured on the evening news.  A guest on a cable TV show labels a current government official a bigot.  A letter to the editor of a major newspaper calls the president a white supremacist. Newspapers now dutifully put labels in their one-line editorials that they disguise as headlines. 

 

Labels injure a person professionally and personally. They've always been around, but why do they seem more prevalent now and what are they?

 

Labels have become the bane of human discourse for two reasons:  Social media and cable news – both media have provided the amateur and professional alike the method of delivery for any smear, slam, or insult. 

 

Want to pre-empt a debate when you can’t defend your point?  Call a person a name and shut them down.  Signal that they’re not worthy of an honest exchange of ideas because they’re morally, socially and intellectually flawed.  Brand them so they’re excluded from future conversations.

 

We see and hear the use of labels more often because of the growing number of delivery methods from Twitter to Facebook to 24/7 cable news. Your smartphone has become a digital weapon that can launch countless stultifying labels.

 

What are labels in today’s wired world?  Modern labels are a linguistic tool borne of today’s sound-bite culture that craves instant gratification and suffers from a digitally-induced limited attention span.  Labels have become a crutch and a substitute for meaningful adult conversations or exchanges of earnest ideas on social media.  Labeling an opponent in the political arena has now become both an art and a science as well as a business.

 

At the heart of many labels are actual terms that are appropriated by the user and then charged with a much wider meaning – primarily to demean or besmirch.

Terms become labels when their meanings are oversimplified and misapplied.  The purveyors of pernicious labels take complex events or issues with many variables and attempt to fit all of the variables into a convenient one-size-fits-all category.

 

For example, when the president makes a pronouncement about the much-needed enforcement of a particular law, those who are affected reflexively call him a fascist for doing his job.  The term fascist is often hurled in reaction to a disliked legitimate action and never supported by examples of acts that a true fascist would do – using dictatorial power to crush the political opposition and implement extreme authoritarian policies that exceed any norm of democratic governance. Enforcing laws passed by congress is not dictatorial.

 

Another example is one of the most widely used labels today – racist.  According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a racist is a person who believes “that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.”

 

The term racist would apply to someone who consistently demeaned or attacked, verbally or physically, members of a particular race.  Members of the Klu Klux Klan could be considered racists by the virtue of their past actions.  Their beliefs motivated them to burn crosses in front yards to intimidate blacks, to precipitate the lynching of blacks and to firebomb black churches.

 

Yet today, anyone who says or does anything unpopular and disliked by a member of a particular racial group is immediately labeled a racist. The differences between a racist and non-racist are manifold, yet in the mind of a label user, important distinctions are irrelevant and trivial.  As columnist Peggy Noonan recently opined, not liking a person’s policy or political positions does not mean you don’t like the person’s color.  In most cases, the person throwing out the label is neither challenged nor admonished when they have misused a term.  The smear is allowed to stand to the detriment of all.

 

Recent phenomenon. A recently created label of intimidation is islamophobe.  Anyone who in any way questions actions by anyone who is a member of the Islamic faith is automatically labeled an islamophobe.  For example, if a person advocates tightening immigration policies for countries with a history of radical Islamic terrorism and a concomitant lack of internal record-keeping institutions for visa vetting purposes, the person is automatically labeled an islamophobe, regardless of whether they’re motivated purely by national security concerns.  No room for debate because a label automatically declares that a person’s malign intentions are self-evident and non-negotiable.  The goal of the islamophobe label is to make the recipient a social leper who must be avoided and shunned at all cost, less the unprotected public becomes infected by their social malice toward members of the Muslim faith. 

 

The accomplices in all of these acts of moral cowardice are the cable TV hosts and pundits who offer no push back, who demand no clarification or retraction and allow the smears to be repeated to the point that they are accepted as fact.

 

Newest Label.  The newest label that has coopted a rarely used legitimate term and turned it into a political weapon is the term “collusion.”  If you’ve read any newspaper or watched any news programs over the past two years, you’ll have been constantly reminded that someone who engages in “collusion” is the lowest form of social vermin who places personal ambition above the security of our nation.  According to an endless parade of talking heads, a “colluder” is someone who would knowingly and willfully “cooperates” with a hostile country –particularly Russia – for crass personal gain. 

 

Speaking as someone who spent three decades in counterintelligence and national security work, I can state unequivocally that I never heard or read the term “collusion” once during my entire career.  Neither NCIS nor any other federal law enforcement agency chartered to conduct espionage investigations, such as the FBI, have ever had a case category of “collusion” in their counterintelligence or national security directorates.  The term has never been used because it doesn’t apply to counterintelligence cases.

 

Black’s Law Dictionary defines collusion as “A deceitful agreement or compact between two or more persons, for the one party to bring an action against the other for some evil purpose, as to defraud a third party of his right.”  Collusion is a term most commonly associated with anti-trust cases, or white-collar crime. 

 

Yet, some politician or pundit who was seeking a pernicious label to attach to President Trump’s presidential campaign had an epiphany.  Their internal label maker searched their databanks and found a term that sounded opaquely ominous and vaguely similar to a real national security offense - conspiracy – a term that would apply if a person conspired with others to provide US defense information to a hostile foreign power or worse, to give aid and comfort to the enemy. “Collusion” sounds downright menacing while still being sufficiently vague so that it can be misused with impunity.

 

And so it began.  Collusion!  That vile label was soon hurled daily and usually hourly as enemies of President Trump found their word-weapon of choice.

 

Sadly, no push back from the opposition, and those in the law enforcement, counterintelligence, and legal communities continued to use the label for nearly two years. Today, the public is misinformed, and the multiple congressional and federal investigations that were charged with finding evidence of “collusion” by President Trump or his staff have failed to produce any concrete evidence for a crime that doesn’t technically exist.

 

A word of advice about real conspiracy with a hostile foreign power: When Russian intelligence  has successfully recruited a high-value target such as a presidential candidate or a senior member of their staff, they’ll move mountains to keep it a secret.

 

Implications of labels for Christians:  Members of the Christian faith are far from immune from the scourge of labelization.  On the contrary, since open season has been declared on anything Christian, pejorative labels have become a regular staple in the arsenal of weapons used by secular activists against followers of Christ.

 

One of the more common labels is a hater or one who spews hate.  Christians who strive to obey God and His commands are smeared for acknowledging that His inspired word does spell out certain actions that are prohibited.  While the pressure to conform to today’s secular progressive world is great, I urge you to gently and respectfully push back.

 

Why do people use labels?  The short answer is because they can and it’s easy.  The longer explanation is that our society is devolving into a culture where humility is considered a weakness – no longer a strength.  The days of carefully listening to an opponent and acknowledging their valid points and diplomatically countering any misstatement of facts are essentially over.  People no longer seem to be able to agree to disagree amicably.  The opponent is simply shut down with a searing label, and if that doesn't work, a verbal filibuster is launched. 

 

What to do?  When a person attempts to smear or defame you with a label, you can remain calm and attempt to illuminate the issue and elevate the level of discussion.  If that fails and you find yourself the victim of a labelization attack, you can declare your personal space a “no label” zone.  Don’t respond with labels in conversations and challenge those who do.  If someone calls you a racist or an islamophobe or bigot or whatever, ask them to define the term and cite specific evidence to support their smear.  When challenged enough, some people might think twice before slinging out another label.   

 

We can fight back to discourage the use of labels if we’re strong and consistent.  We may not always succeed, but we can try.  Will you do your part?