WTFWJD? | (on Christian cursing)

"Andrew Murray" by Amy Roberts

More Christians of prominence are being “accused” of profanity from the pulpit.  How do Christians navigate the increasingly clouding waters of holiness in speech?

by Paul Burkhart

_________________

[NOTE: no curse words are used in this article other than some mild "profanity" used in pastor Ed Young's linked video and in one of the linked movie clips]

UPDATE 9/11/09: Patrol Magazine has just posted a great editorial on this topic that I cannot recommend highly enough.

This is a tough topic to write about. I don’t know that I can beat Jon Acuff’s article on Stuff Christians Like, or cause as much of a flurry as pastor Ed Young, but I would like to lend my thoughts to the discussion.  By the way, before we start, in the interest of full disclosure: I curse.  In fact, probably more than most Christians.

First and foremost: God does call us to purity. To holiness. To right living. Sin should not abound because grace is abundant. Christians are supposed to be pure in contrast to the ways the rest of the world is dark. We are called to look different than “non-Christians” in affection, thought, conduct, and speech and I have definitely failed much in this respect. Words are very powerful. They can bring communities together or tear them apart. This is what Colossians 3:8 is talking about. Paul mentions several things that can hurt others in a relational sense and his final thing is “obscene talk”. Coarse, filthy, and inappropriate statements about others can infect an entire group as much as anger, gossip, or slander, whether or not they use “bad” words. Speech is a precious gift God has given to us and it should be used to His glory and His honor. But, what in humans glorifies him the most? As broken, weak sinners, what is it that God calls us to over and over and over again?

This article is not a defense of Christians cursing. I’ve been a Christian for a while now and have heard many arguments around this issue. You have the classic “there’s no list in the Bible of curse words” or the related “curse words are just random arbitrary words that the culture says are wrong” (both arguments are sort of absurd). On the other side you have those that say Christians should never curse because “we are called to a higher standard of holiness”, and this is absolutely true. (It is this idea that has given me the most pause on this topic and originally inspired this article.) I’ve also heard it said that Christians definitely should never say a curse word because we could mess up our “witness”. A quick note on that. While this is true, it needs some nuance. Jesus acted in such a way that religious people looked at him and said “He’s drunkard, a glutton, and a blasphemer.” Under our current idea of a “witness” or “testimony”, we would have to say that Jesus messed up his witness to the Pharisees. Did he? I don’t think so. Is it really the case that if anyone (or any whole group, for that matter) thinks that we aren’t acting how they think “God’s people” should act, we are suddenly in sin?

There was a time from high school to freshman year of college that I could not physically bring myself to curse. This was also when I was at the most legalistic point of my entire life.  But from freshman year through sophomore year I really began to curse more and for some reason, it almost seemed to help my “witness” with “non-Christians”. For some reason they felt more comfortable, less judged, and more open to discussions. This has been a trend I’ve seen. And don’t worry, this isn’t the “we can only relate to cursing people if we curse!” defense. It’s much deeper than that.  More on this later.

I’ve noticed another strange thing as well. Many of the most mature Christians I’m closest to, many of my favorite Christian artists, most of the seminarians I know, many of the seminary professors, and nearly every Presbyterian I know (I say that with love) curses. More than this, though, I’ve heard the cursing of nearly every Christian hero I’ve had-both past and present. Augustine, Calvin, and Luther all have their famous turns of phrases. But not just my dead heroes. Everyone from John Piper to Matt Chandler to many of the pastors I’ve had over the years color their language with words typically thought of as “cursing”, though mostly not from behind the pulpit.

But most interestingly, the Bible itself seems to have a lot of cursing in it. In Philippians, Paul uses the very strong slang curse word for “feces” (our contemporary “s-word”) when referring to the “rubbish” that he counts all things as compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ as Lord. Prophets often say curse-strength statements to God’s people. At the end of Nehemiah, he gathers some sinful fathers together and “he cursed them, beat them, and pulled out their hair.” This isn’t the squeaky clean, cookie-cutter, “holiness” modern American Christianity tries to espouse.

And here we reach my ultimate point. What God calls us to and desires in us, and what is most attractive to “non-Christians, is authenticity as He changes us. A recognition of who we are as needy people that have not yet arrived. He does not call us to be and act like unbroken people in a broken world. He calls us to be the needy, messy people we are as we live in a messy, broken world. I’m realizing more and more the Church has exalted a false distinction between sacred and secular, even in language. God desires truth (honesty/authenticity) in our inmost parts, and sometimes authentically speaking may mean saying “bad” words.

I think this is what made it easier for me to engage “non-Christians” in conversation. It wasn’t the “bad words” that made me relateable, it was the authenticity of expression. It’s talking like a real person in a real world to real people about real issues. I think God is far more pleased with honest expressions that include cursing than exalted attempts at “cleaning up” one’s language at the expense of honest, human, speech. There’s something about rougher, harsher language that’s easier to connect to because we live in an equally rough, harsh world. This is why there will always be an artificiality to “Christian” movies that supposedly talk about “real issues”. Watch the husband/wife argument scenes in the movies  “Fireproof” and then “Revolutionary Road” and tell me which one taps into the core of who you are as a human and affects you more (Very strong language in the second clip by the way, but not much).

The word “profanity” literally means “outside the temple” and the word “obscenity” literally means “off stage”. We shouldn’t use coarse language to try and be “cool” or “provocative”. Those words (“profanity” and “obscenity”) imply that there may be a place for those things – not “in the temple” or “on the public stage”, but in more private conversation and thought and discourse.

There are definitely instances where I mess it up and something in me says oh, I shouldn’t have said that or Paul, you really only said that for shock value, didn’t you? or wrong place, wrong time, Paul or simply: too far. This happens more than I’d like to admit. Maybe that’s the big take away here. It’s not that “cursing” is either wrong or right in and of itself. It overflows from the heart, and we all know that certain actions (or words) are sin when done at the wrong time with the wrong people or with the wrong motives. Once more, this is what Paul is talking about in Colossians 3:8. I don’t think he has in mind specific words as he writes, but rather the motives and spirit of our words- to bring together or tear apart.  The passage is not necessarily about the “naughty words” one uses.  It is about using the right words in the right context to the right people at the right time in the interest of not  tearing others down. Anything that tears anyone down is considered “obscene talk” by Paul.  Now that’s a lesson the church could learn, and under that standard, I know far more fundamentalist Bible-Belt preachers that regularly curse (in the Pauline sense) from behind their pulpits each week than the preachers they regularly chide for “cursing”.

So this is not a call to cursing. Rather, it’s a call to authenticity and freedom, even in our language. To be real people living in a real world. To know, embrace, and rejoice in the fact that God loves that different parts of His Church look very different and have very different ways of wearing their Holiness. We all have the same call to Holiness (this isn’t relativism) but we wear it differently based on our calling, mission, culture, and community. Jesus’ way of wearing holiness made him come across as a drunkard and glutton to many because of the context and mission He was called to. Paul’s way of holiness looked like saying at the Jerusalem council he would abstain from eating meat sacrificed from idols, but then feeling free to do it elsewhere and even telling the Romans that this sort of abstinence was both unnecessary and potentially harmful (though had its place).

As we go through time, drawing nearer to God, our authenticity changes as we grow more into the image of Christ. It’s a long, struggling, hard process, but it is what we should strive for.  Self-control can be a good thing. It flows into other areas of our life as well.  But it’s a process.  As we strive for holiness, can we please reclaim the old truth that holiness is from the inside-out and not the outside-in?  Whatever happened to St. Ausgustine’s famous summary of the Christian life: “Love God and do what you want”.  Is that messy?  Hell, yes.  I hope we Christians can continue to work towards loving our God and each other in our messiness, as we strive towards true authenticity, which is this: finding our broken needy selves in the arms of a strong loving Savior who is slowly making us whole, who would rather us be inwardly honest than externally clean (Matthew 23:27).

Random Posts:

• Unlimited Limited Atonement? | (a discussion)
• The Scarlet Cord
• Decision-Making Non-Answers