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CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST

After a Lake City Florida judge refused to allow a local resident to change his name to “God,” Charles Haffey chose instead “I Am Who I am.” The former Haffey said after his first choice was rejected in April, he went back to the Bible to find a backup. He found his second choice in a passage where Moses asks God who He is and God replied, “ I am who I am, or I will be who I will be.” Haffey said the whole thing was kind of wordy, so he went for “ I am Who I am” as his full legal name. His first name would be “I am.” The former Haffey’s reasons for choosing a new name are unique. The 55-year-old said he sought the name change as a way to gain release from feelings of anxiety and rage that have plagued him since he served in Vietnam. Haffey says, “I was fatally wounded in the mind and spirit. I didn’t suffer any bodily injury. Its just what I saw, what I did. I killed myself.” He says he became a Christian and was baptized in April. Shortly after that he decided to change everything including his name. He even bought a tombstone inscribed with his former name. He plans to place it in the tall grass on his property. The stone will read, “ Charles Walter Haffey, born Sept. 23, 1948 and died Oct. 21, 1968, Republic of Vietnam.”

—Associated Press, October 9,2002, Illustration by Jim L. Wilson and Jim Sandell.

As I read the story, I didn’t know whether to take offense at the name change or admire the man’s sincerity. Though it seems a bit sacrilegious to me, I understand his thought pattern. He realizes that his life would not be possible without what Christ has done for him.

Galatians 2:20 NIV “ I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”