© By the Rev. Edward Chinn, D.Min.

“Allah Akbar” is a phrase that fundamentalist Islamic terrorists call out while they are committing acts of murder. The phrase means, “God is great.” In a similar way, a 27-year old Jewish law student named Yigal Amir assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. Amir said he had “no regrets” and was acting on the “orders of God.” Rabbi Joseph Telushkin (The Book of Jewish Values) cites these examples as violations of the third commandment” “Do not [misuse] my Name for evil purposes” (Deuteronomy 5:11, TEV).

I see a similar misuse of God’s Name in a series of billboards that supposedly carry “Messages from God.” Each statement is signed with the name “God.” Three years ago there was such a billboard on the Admiral Wilson Boulevard that had God saying grumpily, “Keep using my Name in vain and I’ll make rush hour longer.” Another billboard has God saying sarcastically, “Don’t make me come down there.” I agree with Massimo Pigliucci, columnist for The Daily Beacon (Univ. of Tennessee) who wrote: “To have the gall not only to speak on His behalf, but to actually sign His Name, is as bad as falsifying a signature on a cosmic check drawn at the Bank of Infinite Wisdom” (November 20, 2001).

A Connecticut pastor, Bill Huegel, remembers a television interview with traumatized NYPD firefighters just after the September 11 terrorist bombings. The TV interviewer asked these men what they would like to say to the terrorists. One firefighter replied, “Just don’t say that you did this in the name of God. God doesn’t do this to people.” God’s Name stands for His Character, the kind of Person He is. Rabbi Telushkin wrote, “A person who does a murderous or odious act in God’s Name alienates people from God . . . God suffers from the acts of those who do evil in His Name.” The author of the Fourth Gospel account, writing some sixty years after Jesus’ lifetime, puts these words on Jesus’ lips: “There will even come a time when anyone who kills you will think he’s doing God a favor” (John 16:2, TM).

If Jews and Christians want to love God as their Scriptures say they are to do (Deuteronomy 6:5 and Matthew 22:37), then they should cause God to be loved through the things they do. Jesus of Nazareth stood squarely in his Hebrew tradition when he said, “You should be a light for other people. Live so that they will see the good things you do and will praise your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16, NCV).