Say His name

At Dunkin’ Donuts I bought a coffee and looked for a seat to read my book. I chose a small table behind a booth at which a thirtysomething man was talking with a thirtysomething woman. They were close enough that I involuntarily picked up a few words.

The two spoke at a normal decibel level. One was evidently a seminarian and youth pastor, and the other his protégé. Then I noticed something interesting. When they said the name “Jesus,” or anything that was pointedly Christian, they would speak softly—not out of reverence but so that they would not be heard. It was like Airstrip One of Oceania in 1984, where people who did not agree with the government had to lower their voices in a café because they never knew if a spy from the Thought Police was at the next table.

You may think I judged them, but in fact I judged myself. How often have I done the same in a restaurant or some other public place? How odd it must seem to the other patrons when I hush up to conceal the fact that I am a Christian. The people of this world, for their part, do not lower their voices when talking about the world’s things and voicing the world’s opinions.

Jim Gaffigan, a comedian with his own show, is an actual half-hearted Catholic portraying himself as a Catholic on TV. In the episode “The Bible Story,” he is photographed at a club with a Bible in hand, and the photo finds it way to The Huffington Post. He freaks out because now people will think he’s a Christian. When his wife reminds him that he is, in fact, a Christian, he says, “Yeah, but that’s my private business. Besides, the perception is that people who believe in God are stupid.”

I would modify that observation a bit. I believe you can still get away with the mention of the word “God” tolerably well, and people will not think you’re stupid. It’s when you get down to the name “Jesus” that things get iffy. Interestingly, the Bible doesn’t say that people will hate us for the name “God”; it says they will hate us for the name “Jesus”:

“… you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake” (Matthew 24:9).

“We strictly charged you not to teach in this name …” (Acts 5:28).

In The Wizard of Oz, when the Wicked Witch of the West tries to take the ruby slippers Dorothy is wearing, Glinda the Good Witch of the North says to the young girl, “Keep tight inside them. Their magic must be very powerful or she wouldn’t want them so badly.”

The same with the name “Jesus.” I’m thinking that it must be very powerful, or else people wouldn’t act so odd around it—unbelievers wouldn’t become livid at the sound, and Christians wouldn’t become cowardly about pronouncing it too loud. Little do we know what the utterance of Jesus’ name effects in the unseen realms, if it has this strange a power in the visible sphere.

For me, the takeaway is to make a point of saying Jesus’ name in a normal voice in public from now on. How strong the deception of the devil must be that Christians are embarrassed by the name while the ungodly announce their follies unabashedly. “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). That power alone should make us bold. But if it is not enough incentive, let us consider this warning from Jesus’ own mouth:

“For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels” (Mark 8:38).