Recently at the celebration of Mass in my parish church, we sang a contemporary hymn titled, “Yahweh,” the repeated refrain of which directly used the name, “Yahweh,” to address God. I teach Catholic biblical and doctrinal theology; it is my duty to point out the fundamental error embodied by this seemingly harmless and simple hymn, and to encourage bishops and priests to stop using it. The hymn, “Yahweh,” with its offending refrain, ought not to be used in the Catholic Church for several serious reasons.

Christians do not call the God of Jesus Christ by the Old Testament name of “Yahweh” in worship or prayer. Jesus Christ is the fullness of the revelation of the person of God to us, and Jesus taught his Church by word and example to address God in prayer as “Father.” The primal Church’s experience of Jesus as risen and glorified Lord, in union with the God of Israel who he called Father, led the New Testament Church to develop, almost immediately, the triune name of God that would, after four centuries of development, emerge as the doctrine of the Trinity. The name of God for Christians is the one by which Christian prayer is addressed to God: to the Father, through Jesus the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

This revelation of God’s own self-identity from Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, of course does not displace the Old Testament revelation of the name of God as “Yahweh.” It does, however, expand upon and add so much development to the revelation made to Moses that the name by which God is addressed is changed to fit the personal, relational revelation of God in Jesus Christ. For Christians, God is “Father,” as in the “Father” of Jesus his “Son,” the same Jesus into whose divine and saving life we are baptized. Baptized into Christ, the “Father” to whom Jesus prayed is the same and only “Father” to whom we, his children by baptismal adoption, pray.

Christians do not address themselves to the transcendent Holy Other of the revelation of the name “Yahweh,” the divine mystery of “I Am,” of “He Who Is.” Christians pray to and hope in and have faith in the Father of Jesus our holy Brother. To use the name “Yahweh,” then, is to revert back to a pre-christian state of the revealed knowledge of God. To address God in prayer (and hymns are — or should be — prayers) as “Yahweh” is equivalent to denying the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Through Jesus Christ, God has revealed the fullness of his divine Self to us as “Our Father in Heaven”; that is the Name we are to “hallow,” to “make holy,” in our prayers and in our life of faith.

Using “Yahweh” to address the God who Jesus called Father does not honor God or show respect to the Old Testament revelation. It is rather a violation of the Second Commandment. It is to take the Name of God in vain. For it is our own “vanity,” our own sinfully vain pretense at knowing God better than Jesus, that leads us to ignore Jesus’ revelation of God as “Our Father” and prefer instead some other name, even “Yahweh.”

Just as serious, though, is the other way in which using the Old Testament name of “Yahweh” is a willful act of violating the Second Commandment and taking the Lord’s name in vain. That way is the one which gives grievous offense to our corporate parents in our faith: Judaism.

For religious Judaism, the holy name of God revealed to Moses, written in Hebrew only in its consonants, YHWH, is literally too holy for sinful human lips to pronounce. Judaism never says the holy Name of YHWH, but rather at every instance substitutes “Adonai,” LORD. Translations of the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures have respected this deeply held conviction of Judaism by always rendering YHWH with capitalized “LORD.”

When Christians render the unpronounced, unspoken Name, YHWH, as a common term of address, “Yahweh,” and use it publicly in worship, prayer, hymnody, or other common contexts, Christians, knowingly or not, are engaging in an explicit anti-Jewish slander that strikes at the heart of Jewish faith and piety, at Judaism’s very belief in God. There is no reason for Christians to presume to use the Holy Name as integral to worship, prayer or devotion. Rather, Christians, in deference to and respect for our elders in the faith, Judaism, the religion of Jesus himself, ought not ever to use “Yahweh.”

Moreover, Christians ought to learn from Judaism on this point just what the prohibition of “taking the LORD’s name in vain” really means. To take the LORD’s name in vain is to use it in a way that is disrespectful, insulting, dishonoring to God and to God’s People. For Judaism, that means having the audacity, the “vanity” of “being like gods” (the primal and fundamental sin of all sins), to think that we have the holiness or righteousness to say YHWH, the name of God, as if it were a common name like our own, when we are in the holy Presence of God. To take the name of the LORD in vain is that supreme act of vanity that treats the holy and revealed Name, YHWH, like any other name, like our own name, as if we were on a par with the LORD and so could address him as if he were one of us. To speak the name “Yahweh” as a familiar form of addressing God, knowingly or not, is the sin of making ourselves “to be like gods.”

The only exception, which distinguishes Christianity from Judaism, is the freedom Christians have to use the name “Yahweh” in the confines of catechetical and academic instruction in biblical and doctrinal theology. The event of the Incarnation allows Christians this freedom. The very structure of Christian theology is one of salvation-history, an on-going unfolding of God’s self-revelation and grace of redemption through Israel’s and the Church’s history. This makes it necessary to distinguish and interpret the Old Testament name of “Yahweh” both in terms of the biblical revelation of God and the dogmatic exposition of the Being, Nature and Person of God. But even here, prudence and charity must govern Christian theology. And it must be emphasized that this necessity of catechetical and academic instruction is merely the exception that proves the rule.

God has given us a familiar name that God wants us to use to speak to him in intimate and familiar ways: Abba, “Father.” He gave us this endearing and familiar loving term of address in giving us his only Son, Jesus, to be our brother, to make us the children of our heavenly Father.

Christians call God, “Father.” That is what God wants. That is what God likes. That is the name that names the relationship God wants with us. Jesus has shown us so and told us so. We reject all of this when we think we are so wise and clever, and turn back to calling God by his secret and mysterious name, YHWH. Christians ought to take greater comfort in praying to “Our Father,” than to the mystery of the Great “I Am,” or to the Hidden “He Who Is.”

Dr. Mark E. Chapman teaches theology at Seton Catholic Central High School in Binghampton, N.Y. He earned his Ph.D. in theology at The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. This is his first article in HPR.

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