What's in a Name?

I read with dismay this article at Catholic News Agency: Dutch bishop says Christians should call God ‘Allah’

Now, Anyone who knows me knows that my number one goal in apologetics and ecumenicism is to strive towards unity. I believe we as Christians must strive for the unity that Christ called for in john 17:11 "Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one." (Note the power of the name -- we'll return to that shortly...)

And if I thought that calling God Allah might actually help bring unity to the faithful I might be inclined to entertain the idea (At least until I thought it through). However, what the bishop would accomplish if he were to get his way is to simply disguise dis-unity as unity, where none exists, and that never brings about true unity.

Let's explore exactly why changing what the name by which we call God does not actually cause unity. When a Muslim speaks of Allah, he is not praying to the trinitarian god. If a Christian were to pray to 'Allah' he is praying to the trinitarian God. This may cause the appearance of unity between the Muslim and the Christian, but unless one of the two is deeply misguided about their own religion then the dis-unity is only veiled. The uneducated person would hear this and would become confused, believe there is little difference between the religions and be more apt to dismiss them all or join one on a whim as they are 'all the same anyway'. This is a large cause of apathy in religious sects today and leads to the idea that unity is vague, or only necessary at very high levels such as 'we believe in god so we are in union of belief'. This in turn causes further dis-unity as everyone simply believes whatever they want, no need to search for truth, we have a vague notion of unity and that's good enough. Why work toward greater unity? (it's no wonder why we have 30,000+ christian sects today)

Do we really want to duplicate that with Islam?

Now, I have no problem with stressing those areas that we do agree, but changing the Name by which we call God is about the worst possible way of doing this...

The bishop apparently fails to understand the value of a name. Especially in antiquity and the names of gods. Pagans would use the name of their god -- a secret name, their 'true' name that only the priests knew -- to get at the power of the god. They only had to speak the name because the name was power; the name was the god.

A similar understanding was prevalent in Jewish culture. When Abraham asked God's name He replied, "I AM", because his name is Him. "I AM" describes God's own existance (i.e. it is Him) Later God was referred to as YHWH (transliterated from "יַהְוֶה") which is either unpronounceable or pronounced 'Yahweh' or 'Elohim'. Leviticus 24:16 was understood to mean: “Anyone who pronounces the name of YHWH must be put to death.” The only time one was permitted to pronounce the Name of God "YHWH" was during the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) by the priest while in the Holy of Holies (the inner sanctum of the Temple)

Why are we free to use God's name today? because Jesus has freed the name (His Name!) to be used by all of us! Phil 2:10 "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth" We can call upon the power of God through the Name of Jesus, the name above all names.

Do not underestimate the power of His name and do not believe that the name that we call god by is not important.