No Other Name
Minister’s Letter - 19 February 2026
Dear Friends, religion has been much in the news lately. Australia is struggling to know how to accommodate freedom of religious expression, alongside those who don’t like some – or any – religions being expressed.
As Christians we believe in praying for our leaders so that they can provide and defend a society where “we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness” (1 Timothy 2:1-2).
On another occasion, the Christian leader Paul the Apostle, writing by the “humility and gentleness of Christ”, reminds us that “the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world”. That rules out deceit, media manipulation and name-calling, as much as it does abuse, threats and actual violence.
And as far as we know, Jesus was the first person to teach the so-called ‘Golden Rule’ of active love, e.g. Matthew 7:12
“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”
This means not just avoiding harm to others (the ‘Silver Rule’: don’t do to them what you don’t want done to you).
Rather, Jesus commands us to proactively seek the good of others. I don’t think this means forcing stuff on them they don’t want.
So for example, if you want freedom to practise your religion, without restriction or coercion, then you would grant that freedom for others to practise another religion. The limit to this, of course, is what is illegal (for example, it does not include child marriage or polygamy).
Therefore let me say clearly, that much as I disagree with much of Islam as a religion on many fronts, I abhor and repudiate the repeated anonymous threats and abuse reported in the media against a Sydney mosque and the Muslims who gather there.
Bullying and threats and disruption is unacceptable, not just when it is directed to Christians, but also if it is directed to Muslims, Jews, or atheists.
But saying that people of all religions should have their dignity respected is far from saying that all religions are the same. It’s important to grasp this disctinction.
This week I read that a Uniting Church parish in Hobart Tasmania had sold its Lindisfarne church site because of a dwindling and ageing congregation. They sold it to members of Hobart’s Muslim community, who will use it as a mosque to be known as the House of Guidance. (I am indebted to independent Christian journalist John Sandman for making me aware of this story.)
Churches sometimes have to sell properties for a variety of reasons. For example, receivers to the Anglican Diocese of North Queenslands are selling a number of church sites, to meet the redress claims that have been made against them. Tragic though the loss of church buildings will be, it is right that the victims of sexual abuse that occurred in church-related insututions should receive redress.
And freedom of religion means that Muslims, like every other religious group, can purchase and use their places of worship.
But what is tragic to me is that the spokespeople for the Uniting Church in Tasmania appear to consider that it should be of comfort to their congregation members that Islamic worship will now happen in their former church building.
Jan McGrath said: ‘The Lindisfarne members of the Clarence congregation have expressed genuine pleasure that the Lindisfarne site will continue to be a location for worship and services for the community.’
Perhaps that’s sounds like just being polite. But Rosalind Terry, a retired Uniting Church minister, said followers of Christianity, Islam and Judaism were all ‘people of the book’. Reverend Terry added, ‘We give God a different name. But we all worship the same God’.
This is misleading. Jews and Christians do share what we call the Old Testament. But Christians include the New Testament in our completed Scriptures. And Jews generally disagree with us when we say Jesus is the Christ (or Messiah) promised in their Scriptures.
But Muslims have an entirely different book, the Qur’an, and reject the Bible’s authority and integrity, by claiming it is full or errors and transmission mistakes.
It’s a simply matter of fact that Christians and Muslims are not people of the same book.
Furthermore Muslims deny that Jesus is God’s Son. Therefore they disagree with the Apostle Paul who says in Philippians 2:9-11:
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Jesus did not exploit the divine nature he shares equally with God (Phil 2:6). But his name of ‘Lord’ points to Jesus’ divine status – compare vv9-11 with God’s own words about himself, to whom every knee will bow in Isaiah 45:21-25!
And so Christians believe about the risen Lord Jesus that “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
Muhammed did not die for anyone’s sins. And he did not rise from the grave. And neither did Buddha or Karl Marx for that matter. (And Muslims likewise can feel free to reject the idea that Jesus died on the cross for people’s sins, though I have written previously about the evidence for crucifixion historicity.)
I continue to think Muslims should be free to buy and re-purpose a building as a mosque, if they meet normal Council planning rules.
But I also think it is sad that a Christian church building was sold to them. Islamic teaching won’t deliver anyone from sin.
So by the “humility and gentleness of Christ”, I must insist that we do not all worship the same God in different ways. Salvation is at stake, and it would be a failure of Christian leadership to say otherwise.
Warmly in Christ,
Sandy Grant
Dean of Sydney