Bnei Noah

[sixtynine seventy]

In the Time, some rabbis found the "noahide movement" 

In Christianity there is something called "separated brethren" that seems similar. Say a Protestant is married to a Catholic; but stays Protestant--he or she is accepted as a "separated brethren". There various meetups and even some congregations oriented to such people. But the separated brethren is always a second class to the Catholic. You don't need to obey all of the Catholic rules, but you'll need to accept your second place. You are a guest; be polite and all that.

This term, along with "ecclesial communities", was supposed to be a conciliatory measure back when the Catholics originally adopted it, and a better title for Protestants than heretics. Yet the leadership from at least one large state Protestant church in Europe openly denounced the term "ecclesial communities" as a religious slur.

All of this seems off because there is value in self-definition--both individual self-definition and collective self-definition. Separated brethren is just a label and effectively a dead end unless one converts. It never originates from self-definition.

What are some self-defined collective labels for groups similar to Noahides. I've heard of some from time to time, they are out there. For example, I asked another Christian why she wore a tasteful golden colored Star-of-David necklace. And she gave a good response to me but I forget the label she chose to employ. It was new to me.

Maybe all labels for race and religion are problematic, but for some reason it is the newer ones that seem most wanting. I'm not sure why. Maybe it is that we have a rational fear against giving offenses against the long-standing and wildly adopted labels, while the newer and weaker labels are more vulnerable so we don't feel the need to fear them. I have a hard time saying that claiming to an old and established identity label is automatically more or less sincere. Yet the old and established labels are more likely to be due to family ties and that makes sense.