Member-only story
“In becoming so available to the world, God is to some degree at the disposal of those who can name the name. God’s name may be misused and abused as well as honored. For God to give the name is to open himself up to hurt.”
- Terence Fretheim
Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see;
Hail, th’ incarnate Deity:
Pleased, as man, with men to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel!
-Charles Wesley, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”
When public figures of the day name their children Apple or Audio Science, one can easily conclude that names serve only for the function of individuality. What matters most to a new life born in a society void of meaning is their singularity — and that’s it.
The leaders of the modern Western, secular world find no connection to the past, or if they do, they find it bloodstained and complicated. After so many have gone before us with common names, committing various sins and crimes, we decide to sever ourselves from the past and begin naming our children after appliances and fruit. Naming a child “John” (in the secular viewpoint) is to attach them to slaveowners and rid them of any individuality because “there are already so many Johns.”
