Growing up Christian, I was taught the Ten Commandments. One of those commandments was “Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain.” Like many of you, I was taught that taking God’s name in vain meant saying “Oh my God,” exclaiming, “Jesus Christ,” or worst of all uttering the phrase, “Goddammit.” Ten commandments to help shape the life of God’s people and one of them was just don’t use my name when you cuss.
And I can see that. Still now 40 years later, I can see what it means to hold someone’s name in honor – to treat it reverently. You’ve heard someone say your name and it felt like an affirmation, like a hug, like a kindness. And you’ve heard someone say your name and it felt like an insult. There’s so much power there. So much power in a name, and God is no stranger to that truth.
In fact, in the stories from the Hebrew Scriptures, God is famously reticent to actually tell us their name. God isn’t God’s name. We don’t get to know God’s name – because the assumption is that in knowing it, we will inevitably misuse it.
How true we know that to be: Without even knowing God’s name, we misuse the word God all over the place. Hundreds of years later, Christians came to believe that Jesus is God – so now folks like me have a name for God, and boy do we know how to misuse Jesus’ name!
But I don’t just mean we know how to exclaim “Jesus Christ!” I was wrong in thinking that was taking the Lord’s name in vain. I mean, it’s probably not the best way to express oneself – but I have come to believe that this was such a profoundly narrow understanding of God’s command.
See, to take God’s name in vain is the act of attributing to God that which does not belong to God. You may remember, for instance, the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on our country on September 11, 2001, when Christian leaders Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell publicly mused that these attacks were God’s judgment against our nation for becoming what they called too secular. They said God had lifted the veil of protection from over America so that we might be attacked because we as a country had allowed for abortion, feminism, and acceptance of same-sex relationships. That, my friend, is an example of taking the Lord’s name in vain.
But we don’t have to go all the way back to 2001. We can stay right here and now. We can watch video of our own Secretary of Defense citing Scripture at a press briefing on the unnecessary, indefensible war on Iran in which our country is currently the aggressor, and is killing thousands of Iranian civilians we claim to be liberating. “Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle,” he said, quoting the 144th Psalm as he justified what he calls a Holy War.
This is blasphemy. This is taking the Lord’s name in vain.
The people of Iran were made by the same God. The dozens of Tehrani schoolgirls and teachers who were killed by American missiles have just as much claim to have been made in the image of God as Secretary Hegseth or you or I. As James Baldwin once said, “The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.”
To undertake our unjust, unchecked aggression in God’s name is to blaspheme against God. Sadly, in our current context, it is seen as just the way it is. What’s worse, because we are quoting Scriptures while we kill, it feels to many Christians like a very Christian thing to do. To which I say, “Jesus Christ.”
And since I’ve already cussed some in this blog, I’m going to do it a little more – with one of my favorite Christian anecdotes. The recently deceased Tony Campolo, an evangelical Christian writer, teacher, and speaker, became known in his career for often beginning lectures with these words: He’d say, “I have three things I’d like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a shit. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said “shit” than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.”
To many Christians, it doesn’t matter who we kill, so long as we don’t say “Goddamn” while we’re doing it.
The citing of the Ten Commandments, by the way, should not be primarily a tool I use to judge people with whom I disagree. I do not bring up blasphemy simply in order to accuse others of it. I blaspheme God all the time. Every time I dishonor God’s image in my neighbor, I blaspheme. Every time I speak hatefully towards or about one of God’s creations, I take the Lord’s name in vain. As Dorothy Day once said, “I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.”
The Ten Commandments exist as building blocks of a community: God and Moses are working to guide a people into the creation of a society that blesses the world. Whatever else we do with the commandments, we should never forget that – how does a culture that is in direct and explicit relationship with God honor that relationship? That’s why the commandments exist.
This is particularly tricky when you belong to a country that repeatedly states from its inception that no religion should be given privilege or priority over any other religion. As a Christian in America, I hope for my country to structure its common life in a way that honors God, but I do not believe that can, will, or should be done through violence or coercion – nor do I believe at all that all people in this country should be Christians or should be subject to Christian commandments. We will not honor God’s name by coercing anyone into a singular vision of Christianity.
We are living in a dangerous time in this country where the call for Christian Nationalism is loud and strong, and is being made by people in the highest levels of power. The claim that this is – or should be, or ever was – a Christian nation is historically inaccurate, profoundly unamerican, and in this Christian’s estimation, deeply antichristian.
America is not a Christian nation and we are not on a mission from God. If we were, we’d be focusing a lot more on feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, housing the homeless, bringing people in from the margins, and making all people know their utter and intrinsic belonging. We would be focusing on partnerships of mutual aid and care rather than burning diplomatic bridges, cutting aid to those who need it the most, and negotiating with bombs. This country, which is so dear to my heart, so much a part of who I am, we are taking the Lord’s name in vain every day. We are experts at blasphemy. Lord have mercy.
There is an inverse, of course, to “Thou shalt not.” There is the “Thou shalt.” We are capable of taking the Lord’s name in vain, yes we are. We are quite able blasphemers. But that does not take away the fundamental truth of our blessed belonging to the God who made us in their image. You and I are – we all – are made in the image of the God of Love and that will never not be true about us. Which means as much as we are able to sin, that much more has God made us able to bless.
We can take the Lord’s name in vain, yes but, oh, how we can honor God’s name as well. You can honor God’s name. It is not outside your power – it is not beyond you, and it is not a mystery. Every time you love your neighbor, you honor God’s name. Every time you choose love, you honor God’s name. Every time you have the opportunity to dehumanize, denigrate, or just plain hate – and you choose to honor the humanity of the people God has created, you are honoring God’s name.
The thing about breaking the commandments is that it can get you caught up in the trap of thinking there’s no other way. It’s like us trying to bomb our way into peace or hate our way into love. It doesn’t work but we keep trying. But the truth that has never stopped being true is that God is Love and that, in the end, God wins. When we remember that truth, when we let it inform how we live, when we let that truth shape us, we honor God’s name. We keep the commandments. We bless God. You are a blessing. You honor God when you remember it.
