If God Had a Name

by Sebastian Faust 

God said to Moses, “Speak thus to the people of Israel, ‘Yahweh, the god of your ancestors, the god of Abraham, the god of Isaac, and the god of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and this is my memorial from generation to generation.”– Exodus 3:15 


If God had a name, what would it be? And would you call it to his face if you were faced with him in all of his glory? – Joan Osborne, One of Us

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In the land where I am from

we worshipped the nameless God. 

We built shrines to honor

and sang songs to praise

the God who had no name, no face, no form.

With fear and with trembling,

with heads bowed low and eyes cast down,

with reverence and awe

we approached our unnamed God.

In the land where I am from, we had names for many things. There was a name for the summer that lingers late into fall, a name for the time between sunset and darkness. Each of my brothers had names, and each of my sisters, and each of the animals we tended. But my God was a nameless god.

I cannot speak for the others of my tribe; I speak only for myself:
I was never able to love
a god I could not name.


In the land where I am from,
when we have no name for a thing,
we call it “thing.”
When I have no name for a god,
I call it “God.”
And so I did.
We all did, in the land where I am from.

Only when I left the land of modernity, when I began to read the ancient texts with ancient eyes, did I meet my God again. But this time, my God spoke his name. Like learning another tribe’s constellations—the same stars but in different shapes—there was a god who walked a beautiful garden in the breeze of the day, and he called himself Yahweh.

This, too, was the god who ate with Abraham beneath the shade of a tree, who spoke with Moses face to face, who was seen by the elders of Israel—they met him upon a mountain, and they rejoiced to look upon him as a table was spread with food. And the god who walked, who spoke, who ate, this god had a name, and it was Yahweh.

But what’s in a name? I cannot say, exactly. I can only tell you that when my nameless God took up his name, a hundred locked doors were suddenly flung open before me. Suddenly, there was something here, someone here, with whom I could interact, with whom I could communicate. When God took a name, there was identity, there was substance, there was being. And the world began to shift, swiftly tilting, moving from the vocabulary of concept and of title into the realm of relationship and affinity.

I had never been able to love God, but Yahweh I can love. It was presumptuous for me, a mere human, to lift my eyes up to God, but I do not fear to seek Yahweh’s face. And there could be no wrestling; no doubting was tolerable with God, but Yahweh asks me to lay myself bare and hears my laments. Yahweh can empathize with me, and I with him… something I had never found possible with God.

When my nameless God took up his name, a hundred new worlds unfolded around me, a hundred new stars bloomed in the night. I stood still, and he passed before me, and he spoke his name aloud.

To speak one’s name is to dispense with titles and to lay aside formality; it is an invitation to become intimates. Yahweh speaks his name that we may begin to know him as we would know one another. He speaks it because he longs for relationship, as messy and as complicated as that may be. Yahweh speaks his name in order to reveal his personality, inviting us in to his interior self.

When Moses stood in the cloven rock, Yahweh passed before him and proclaimed his name aloud. It is a declaration of his personality, of what he means when he says “I.” He proclaimed, "Yahweh, Yahweh, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, showing kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, but who will not leave the merciless unpunished." - Exodus 34:6-7 

What’s in a name? I do not know. But for one such as me, it has made all the difference.
For a larger conversation about God in Exodus, check out the interview Sebastian recorded with Old Testament scholar Terence Fretheim here.

Sebastian Faust makes no claims to the throne and has no designs on small, undefended countries. He takes life by the reins, bulls by the horns, tigers by the tail, and lives a life rather ordinary in Nashville, Tennessee. He currently holds the position of Dauphin at On Pop Theology. You can’t follow Sebastian on Twitter because he doesn’t understand technology, but he appreciates hand-written notes sent by post or well-mannered carrier pigeon. 

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Image Credits:
Image #1 via Sebastian Faust
Image #2 via Eensteen
Image #3 via Tom Paton   
  
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Owning Cougar Town and Christianity's Name Game

by Ben Howard

People have a tendency to laugh at me when I tell them that I not only watch, but love the show Cougar Town. From the outside, I can totally understand this reaction. The title and the early promotions for the show imply that this is going to be a sitcom about women in their 40’s trying to hookup with guys and their 20’s. It probably doesn’t help that the DVD set of Season 1 that I own is bright pink with a picture of Courteney Cox wearing a “40 is the new 20” t-shirt.

I get why people giggle a little and question my manhood when I tell them I’m a fan, and they would have had a point for the first six episodes or so. That is exactly what the show was at the beginning, but it didn’t really work so the show changed into something else, something far more entertaining than a hackneyed title.

Cougar Town evolved into a show about middle-aged friends who drink a lot of wine and have a series of fun and wacky adventures as they stumble their way through life. It became what any good sitcom ultimately becomes, a group of people you like spending time with and who you find entertaining and interesting. The show could have changed it’s name to more accurately reflect the new narrative dynamics of the show, but “Likeable People Who Living Close to Each Other Talking and Having Fun” isn’t particularly catchy or descriptive.

You see the problem Cougar Town has experienced is not an identity problem, it’s a perception problem. The show and those involved know exactly what they’re doing and what they intend to do, but the wider world still thinks the show is about Courteney Cox trying to score young guys and relive her 20’s. The name and the baggage that comes along with the name has restricted the shows ability to bring in new viewers. At the same time, the show runners can’t change the name because it might confuse or alienate the dedicated fan base they’ve already established despite the name.

I think this situation is very similar to the way Christianity is forced to use the word’s “church” and “religion”. These words have a very narrow definition in the minds of outsiders and therefore possess a lot of baggage. A lot of Christians have worked incredibly hard to recover the meaning of these words and explain to the wider world that despite what they may think church and religion are not oppressive and divisive terms, but are intended to be a path towards liberation and community.

Christianity cannot abandon either term because it disconnects the faith from its tradition. The Christian faith has traditionally used these words, even in their inadequacy, and therefore they are themselves part of the Christian tradition, much like the early iteration of Cougar Town is still part of its narrative canon. Christianity should not run from its tradition. Instead, it should embrace this tradition along with its flaws, cracks and failures.

During the second season of Cougar Town, the producers and writers of the show made clear to the audience that they too understood the how ridiculous the title was. Each title sequence included some inside joke about how terrible the title was, while still keeping the shows title.

I think Christians can learn from this as well. Instead of running from the idea of institutional religion, wink at it and acknowledge that we also understand how ridiculous this can look from the outside. Steer into the skid and laugh at the insanity like the everybody else. Yes, we Christians understand that sometimes our tradition and our traditional language can be silly. But it’s still ours. We own it, even when it becomes a burden.

There was a Christian rock station in Columbus that I listened to growing up. They used to always use the tagline, “It’s a relationship not a religion.” That sounds lovely and everything, but it’s not totally true. Christianity is a relationship AND a religion. It doesn’t stop being a religion because you don’t like the word. In the same way, church doesn’t stop being church because you call it a “fellowship” or an “assembly” or a “gathering”. Changing the signifier doesn’t change what you’re signifying, it just makes you seem flaky.

So call it church and own that it’s religion even when people misinterpret what you mean when you say those words. Even when they think that means your oppressive and mean. I promise you’ll be able to convince them if they give you a chance. Also, you should watch Cougar Town because I want to play penny can and none of my friends know what in the world I’m talking about. Get on it!

Peace,

Ben

You can follow Ben on Twitter @BenHoward87 or email him at benjamin.howard87 [at] gmail.com.

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