One of my children still calls me "Daddy."  The others call me "Dad."  They all know my real name.  They know the ideals and values that I have taught them.  Most importantly, they know the heart of who I am and how much I love them.  I don't care what they call me.  I want them to know me by who I am and how much I love them.

Many people fight in the name of God.  Yhwh,  Allah.  Jehovah.  Jesus.  Condemning torturing and killing each other over names.  I don't understand why we believe that God could be pleased by this.  I regularly drive by a billboard that reads, "Jesus is the ONLY way to God."  I cringe whenever I read it.  That sign communicates, "God only loves Christians."  That's not the message of Jesus.  "I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me."  I find no convincing evidence that, when Jesus said these words, he wanted people to believe in a name, a set of traditions or doctrines, a particular organization or brand of religion.

It seems to me that what Jesus wanted was for us to believe in him.  Not his name.  A name is a sign.  It points to something.  The name "Jesus" points to the human, who, as the essence of God, displayed who God is with perfect clarity.  He called those who believed in him to follow him.  To adopt his heart and his purpose - loving and redeeming the world.  Every day I see people who, in the name of Jesus, worship a God who looks nothing like him.  I can only conclude that it is equally probable that those who worship a God who looks like Jesus, though they know him by a different name, worship him truly.

In saying this, I acknowledge - with no small amount of joy - that my standard for understanding the person of God is Jesus, as revealed in the Christian scriptures,  In this sense, I believe that Jesus truly is the only way to God, that the selflessly loving Father we find in the person of Jesus and his teaching is who God truly is.  If you know Allah as the God of selfless love, forgiveness, mercy and truth, then I must conclude that we worship the same God.  If you worship a Jesus who controls through power and fear, I can conclude nothing other than that we worship wholly different Gods.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that, in your Christianity, you have much to learn of the one true God from my Muslim friend.