Naming God

Christian Century, July 15, 2008 by Stephen Walach, Carol Zaleski

Carol Zaleski rightly chastises Christians for freely pronouncing the sacred name even though Jewish tradition places stern injunctions against its utterance ("Naming God," April 8).

That said, Zaleski's article concludes with a peculiarly Christian trope, offensive in the extreme to Jews and Muslims. In an attempt to strike a compromise with Christians who might reject her veto against pronouncing or writing the divine name ("Yahweh," I assume), she substitutes one faux pas with a more grievous one. Instead of pronouncing the Tetragrammaton, Zaleski urges, Christians should use an alternative name: "The personal name of Jesus, the incarnate I AM, on whom the divine name in all its glory rests."

Zaleski's final statement is more parting shot than ecumenical bridge, and it completely undoes the good will she gained beforehand. Talk about needing to quit while you're ahead.

To equate a human being--Jesus-with the unfathomable and ineffable "I AM" is as much a logical impossibility and blasphemy to Jews as it is a focal point for Christians. To Jews, God enlivens human flesh but would never be born into it--much less die an ignominious death. In the Jewish tradition God is neither male nor female and is not bound by earthly limitations. For the Jews, God exists by definition beyond body, space and time. For most Christians, though, the divinity of a fully human Jesus is unassailable dogma, and herein Zaleski indelicately regerminates the pernicious seed lying at the root of Judeo-Christian conflict for nearly two millennia.

If Zaleski wishes to build much-needed bridges between Christians and Jews, she'd be better served by positing the adoptionist approaches of the Ebionites and the gnostics--Jesus' mostly Jewish followers, who fully appreciated the wonders Jesus be stowed upon his devotees without equating him with YHWH.

Stephen Walach

Pawtucket, R.I.

Carol Zaleski replies:

I regret that the final statement of my column, affirming that the divine name rests upon Jesus, strikes Stephen Walach as a needless provocation. From my standpoint it is integral to the whole column. Peculiarly Christian? Yes, guilty as charged. Yet I hope Walach will agree that good interfaith relations are fostered by mutual understanding, not by compromise on matters of essential belief.