God, Religion And What's In A Name?

I must say that I didn't know that there are Christians who use the name "Allah" in their worship.

I am not a Christian, but I had read through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation several times in the past.

I was intrigued by the human stories therein - of love, lust, betrayals, violence, conquests and subjugation, saints and sinners, prophets and Beelzebubs, heroics and heroism and of course the Judaic and Christian (?) God Yahweh.

Much like the scriptures of some other religions.

Unless I missed out, there was no mention of "Allah" in the Bible - at least not the King James version I had been reading.

That might account for my surprise that there are Christians who use the name "Allah" in their worship.

Well, it was just my ignorance that some Christians do refer to their God as "Allah"

What a person calls his God is between him and the divine.

But there are parties in Bolehland who would claim exclusivity to God's name and proscribe others from using it for fear of their being confused or their own faith being subverted.by others who are not supposed to be using the name 'Allah"

That excuse is utterly difficult to comprehend in any intelligent or persuasive sense, if not actually confounding!

How is one's faith being subverted or how is one being confused by others calling their God by the same name as one's own if one is clear as to the God one worships? Unless, of course, one isn't sure, in the first place, about which God one worships.

I guess there will always be zealots who, for whatever reason or reasons, will want to project themselves as champions and defenders of their faith, without thinking that a Supreme One does not, and will certainly not, need puny men to champion His cause and add to the confusion.

The "Allah" issue here has taken on a life of its own and it does not look pretty or encouraging.

We have become the laughing stock of the world, with even Muslim experts and clerics around the world smirking at our attempts to copyright God's name in defence of one's faith.

The latest to join the chorus of criticisms says that the attempts to proscribe the use of the name "Allah" for Malaysian Christians is a tragic mistake.

But the issue is not going to end any time soon because the political will to do so is not forthcoming for reasons that you and I can guess at, and the powers that be know best but won't be saying.