What’s in a Name?

I dislike labels. But I do admit, they are sometimes necessary.

If you call me something other than ‘Jade,’ (as some here do because they have known me from elsewhere for a long time), does it change who I am? No. Being a private person who guards my identity fiercely and who tends to separate my personal life from my internet life, I feel a tiny bit better having a pseudonym to use as a kind of flimsy security blanket.

But a pseudonym doesn’t change who I am. It simply changes what you label you use to identify me. I have a dear friend who I call by her middle name, but others call by her first name. Does it change who she is, or is her name simply the label by which we identify her in our own minds? It is a label, much the same as a sweet carbonated beverage manufactured by the Coca-Cola corporation is alternately called Coke, soda, or pop, depending what part of the United States you happen to be in – it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a sweet, dark, carbonated beverage that’s great for cleaning corrosion off car battery posts and cleaning stains out of toilets.

You put THIS in your body?

In the same way, the word you use to name God…does it change who God is, or is it simply a name by which you identify God?

I ask this because the conversation has come up often lately, both on the internet and in person. One gentleman argued at length, saying that the translations of the Bible had it all wrong; that Jesus was a blasphemous bastardization and not Christ’s real name and so Christians were all worshipping a false God.

What a steaming pile of bull.

I’d like to say that was my response, but I am not known for being so incredibly and vehemently illogical (usually). I explained to our young and angry friend that Jesus is simply an Anglicanized translation from Greek, which was translated from Aramaic…which sent him on a whole other tangent about how the prophets said it should be Immanuel and not Yeshua anyway. After banging my head on the desk and trying to explain that prophecy is not always meant to be literal (Immanuel meaning “God with us,” and not necessarily meaning that the child was to be named Immanuel) because if it was, I really wasn’t sure I wanted to see the things described in Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation, I asked another question, which I will repeat here.

If I go to an Eastern or Middle Eastern country, where God is called Allah (even by many Christians) and I praise God by saying God is great in their language (Allahu [al] Akhbar), have I committed a sin against God or Christ? Is God great or isn’t he? If I say the same thing in Spanish (Dios es grande) or French (Dieu est grand) or German (Gott ist groß) or Chinese (shen shi tai), have I not said the same thing, using a different word or label?

If I go to Israel and I praise God in Hebrew in synagogue or pray at the Wailing Wall in the fashion that the Israelis pray, with my head covered as is Jewish custom and tradition (in some sects, but not all anymore as I am given to understand) in order to not offend, or perhaps I even refuse to call God by name because to the traditions and culture of some sects of Judaism (which I disagree with), to call God by name is to show God great disrespect and dishonor to God, have I done wrongly?

I do not think so at all. In fact, I believe that in so doing, I have honored God by honoring my brother and deliberately choosing not to cause an offense to my brother who I can see. (I believe it is one of John’s epistles that speaks on this topic.) It is not an issue for me to hold back on my freedom should I choose if in so doing, I prevent another from stumbling and perhaps help him to draw closer to God because I have chosen to love him and accept him as he is.

The great paradox of having such freedom in Christ is that I can choose not to walk in the great freedom I have as a demonstration of my love for others.

I have been to many services here in the US with Indonesian Christians. People who love God and Christ with all their hearts and who are more faithful and loving than most American believers I have ever met. They use God, Jehovah, and Allah interchangeably to refer to the God of the Old and New Testaments. They have grown up in a culture that is predominantly Muslim and grew up knowing God under the Arabic name of Allah. Does calling God Allah change who God is? How can it? Does calling God Allah change your heart towards God? If it does, then perhaps it is your heart and not God’s that needs the examination, no?

The same can be said of the word Jesus. It is a name by which we recognize the man born into the world of Mary. Since I wasn’t actually there 2000-ish years ago, I can’t say what his mother named him and to be perfectly honest with you, I don’t care if she named him “spot.” I know what the texts that have been translated into my language say, and I know that the label doesn’t change my heart or beliefs any more than the label one puts on me – be it the label on this blog, the label on my online game avatars, my real name, or my nickname – changes who I am, my nature, or how people feel and believe about me.

Shakespeare once asked the same question. In Act 2, Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet, Juliet points out to Romeo that a name does not define a person; it is simply an artificial label slapped on by which we identify others and ourselves:

It’s only your name that is my enemy;
You are yourself, not even a Montague.
What’s “Montague?” It is not a hand, or a foot,
Or an arm, or a face, or any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
Would smell as sweet if it had any other name.
So Romeo, if he wasn’t called “Romeo,” would
Retain that dear perfection which he has
Without that title. Romeo, throw your name away;
And for that name, which isn’t part of you,
Take all of me.

I love Shakespeare and have since I was a teenager. Even now, it never ceases to amaze me how a man from 400 years or so ago had figured out what many of us have not yet seemed to wrap our heads around.

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