2. Ar-Raheem, The Most Merciful

Although this word comes from the same three letter root as Ar-Rahman, traditionally this is understood to refer to the love, mercy and compassion that is reserved for the believer. "Ibn Jarir said; As-Surri bin Yahya At-Tamimi narrated to me that `Uthman bin Zufar related that Al-`Azrami said about Ar-Rahman and Ar-Rahim, "He is Ar-Rahman with all creation and Ar-Rahim with the believers.''

 This concept that there is a way in which God is merciful to believers which God does not extend to unbelievers is something that is very familiar to traditional Muslims and Christians alike. But it is very disconcerting to the modern mind. Why should God care who believes or what it is that people believe?

There are a number of answers to this question, but I think that an important piece of the answer is that for all of the Abrahamic traditions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, belief is not just a matter of intellectual assent, but a matter of trust, and a matter of being willing to come to God. "Taste and see that the Lord is good," says the psalmist, "blessed is the man who takes refuge in him" Psalm 34:8. There is an aspect of God's mercy that you cannot experience without drawing close enough to God to fling yourself upon that mercy.

Christians and Muslims alike have tended to check whether the believers have all the concepts in their creed correctly lined up.  And Muslims and Christians are in sharp disagreement about some of the most important aspects of the content of faith.

  When Jesus answered the questions of one legal expert,  he told the familiar story of the Good Samaritan.  A man who was beaten up by thieves and left for dead is passed by two religious leaders, and then rescued by a good Samaritan. Nobody listening to the story would have thought that the Samaritans had their theology right. They didn't have their blood-lines right either, for those who thought that this what mattered to be accepted by God. The Samaritans were the descendants of people that the Babylonians had moved into the area after they moved the Jews out of the area. The man whom Jesus held up as an example (from the form of the story, probably not a real person but a type) held extremely questionable doctrines by almost anyone's standards, but his actions showed him to be a lover of his neighbors.

I do not mean to imply that God does not care about the content of our faith.  But I do think that it matters a great deal more whether or not we are drawing near to God in love and trust than whether we have all the details right. Ultimately it is God who will judge all hearts. Will we trust in our own ability to have gotten things right, or in the greatness of God's mercy?

Another aggressively Christian moment, read at your own discretion:

As a Christian, I put my trust in the greatness of God's mercy as it was revealed in Jesus' death on the cross, followed by his resurrection. In the New Testament it is very clear that " if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation" (Romans 10:9-10) and "Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God" (1 John 4:15). But I also believe that God will reveal what is true to those who are looking to follow him (John 7:14).

For this name, I did not write a song, but instead played with making a calligraphy picture.