What's in a name?

MSN is reporting that a Catholic Bishop from Amsterdam is suggesting that, in order to ease tensions between Muslims and Christians, we all begin calling God "Allah."

A better idea, I think is to rename God "Frank."

And why not? I've often felt quite a bit of tension with the name Frank. Think about all the television buffoons you know. They're named Frank. Consider Frank Burns, the inept, bumbling surgeon of MASH fame. Although he wasn't hated by his peers, he was incessantly made fun of and mercilessly picked on. Then there is Ray's dad Frank from Everybody Loves Raymond. What a bonehead.

There might be better understanding between Christians and people named Frank, if we renamed God "Frank." Anybody agree?

Then again, we could just stick to calling God "Yahweh." Or "I AM." Now there's an idea. Call God by his own name. Hmmmmmm. That might just work.

Whatever we call God, I suspect the best we can do is to honor His name by the way we live. In Malachi 2:2 God said,

Listen to me and take it to heart. Honor my name," says the LORD Almighty, "or I will bring a terrible curse against you. I will curse even the blessings you receive. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you have not taken my warning seriously.

Someone needs to tell our Dutch Catholic brother that he is out of line - way out of line. But while we're excoriating him for his sacrilege, we'd better make sure we're not profaning God's name by our sin.

Which is worse, after all: to get God's name wrong, or to wrong God's name?