Words: Cultural or Scriptural?

I wrote about 3/4 of this blog months ago and only just now returned to finish and publish it. The coworker described quit months ago and I'm finishing the post laying on the couch, not in bed. Just to be clear. 

(I was laying in bed just a minute ago, all ready to drift off to sleep and press on to another day. However, in the time I go over the past day and think of other things that come to mind, I one thought led to another and I got to thinking about language and how we view it.

One of my coworkers, a recent high school graduate, has a bit of a mouth on him. Compared to most that would have that label, he's tame. Most of the time, he'll abbreviate his use of profanity or he'll just mumble it. We'd talked about going fishing sometime and I was thinking about how I would talk with him. I don't keep it a secret that I'm more liberal when it comes to use of profanity words deemed "cuss words." In thinking about how I would talk with my coworker, I figured I would explain my stance on language as thus: I seek to be like Jesus in my life and therefore, I want to model my life after the Bible. Regarding language, there are two main things I've seen in the Bible. The first is one of Ten Commandments and that is #3 "Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain." This is black and white. It is sin to take God's name in vain. I fully believe that. The second instance regarding language is seen in the New Testament. Paul's letter to the Ephesians has a lot to say about language and it can be summed up well in Ephesians 4:29: "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. (NIV)"

Based on all this, I do not think it is necessarily sin to use profanity. It is sin to take God's name in vain, but to say the f-word or the s-word is, in my arrogant opinion, not necessarily sin. I would argue that in some occasional situations, using language that is considered "cussing" can further and argument and emphasize things that need to be emphasized. It's hard to explain what I mean, but the closest example I can think of is in Philippians 3 when Paul says all things are like "rubbish" compared to knowing Christ. From what I've read on this passage, the Greek word Paul used is considered profane. I don't know Paul's reasoning for this but it certainly emphasizes his point in a very strong way.

All this to say, I don't think it's necessarily good to use profanity. To me, it seems to be more of a grey area. However, I think using profanity does become sin when you use it to tear down someone else. So cussing someone out or using profanity around someone who might be hurt or offended by it seems to be sin. That's why I do my best to control my tongue at all times, especially around people I know would be offended or hurt or around unbelievers who might think less of Christ because of something foolish I say. Past that, however, it seems to be more along the lines of a bad habit.

The point of this post is not to try and sway people to my liberal view of language. People have all sorts of views and reasons for believing what they believe regarding language and it's not my place (as if I could even) to say what's right and what's wrong. What I wanted to really focus on is how we as Christians view language. I've noticed a very unsettling trend in the people I know at both my good Christian school and my good Christian church and that is that more people would be offended by someone saying the f-word than by someone taking the name of our Holy God in vain. I don't know much about Tony Campolo, so I can't say whether or not I support the man, but he has a quote that I think is appropriate to this: "I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night." Now, interchange taking God's name in vain in place of the 30,000 kids dying (a horror in its own right that I am not at all discounting) and that's what our stance on language is. Quite a few of the self-proclaiming Christians that I know take God's name in vain regularly in conversation. However, they'll take a few (self-righteous) surprised steps back if I say any one of those awful 4-letter words. I'm not saying that it's right for me to use those words and I'm well aware of the fact that instead of passive-aggressively blogging about the problem I should face-to-face Christians who take God's name in vain, but this is me taking a step in a direction, even if it's not the most right one.

Sure, we're plenty offended when those dirty pagans take our God's name in vain in their music and movies, but does it register nearly as much when the professing believers around us take God's name in vain or when that defamation comes from our own wicked mouths? From my observations, most professing believers I know are more uncomfortable and offended by profanity than by the breaking of the 3rd commandment. So why do we get more offended at someone cussing than we do at someone taking God's name in vain?* Well, I think it's because no matter how much we claim to be following God and his Word, we often live more culturally than we do scripturally. For whatever reasons, our culture has chosen a handful of words and labeled them as taboo. Therefore, we grow up being told by both sides that such and such words are bad and we shouldn't use them.) (parentheses marking the stuff written previously, all that follows was written today)
Now, I'm not saying that because culture sets the standard for something that we shouldn't follow it. I am saying however, we should follow God's standard first and foremost and we ought only to follow the culture's standard when it lines up with God's. Our culture deems certain words as wrong and therefore, some people get offended if others use those words. I personally do not agree with the person being offended because it seems to me that most people are only offended because it's how they were raised. When asked why cussing is wrong, I find that I usually get answers in the same vein as when I would ask my mom "Why?" and she would respond "Because I said so," which for the record always did, has, and will drive me up a wall. To a lot of people, cussing is wrong because people say it is wrong and people say it is wrong because it is wrong. (All that said, I do believe that some point have very valid reasons for not using cuss words and at the end of the day, it's a conscience thing left up to each person and God and therefore, we're all gonna differ).
On the flipside, however, I also don't agree with the offender. I know I'm repeating myself but while I don't think "cuss" words are forbidden in the Bible, saying things that hurt others are very much forbidden. I can call someone a jerk with evil and hateful motives (murderous motives as Jesus said) or I can call someone an asshole with the same motives and I think both are equally sinful. It's quite possible I could be wrong but in my readings and from what I've been taught of the scriptures, it's less about the words we use and so much more about the heart.


I was going to type out a list of points to sum up my argument but I don't think it's as simple as that. To sum up my thoughts on the use (or disuse) of profanity, I think that taking God's name in vain is clearly sin and culture-defined cuss words are not sinful in and of themselves. However, it is sinful to use those words to hurt or attack someone else. Over and over again Jesus told people to love their neighbor. If your neighbor, rightly or wrongly, is uncomfortable and wary of cuss words, don't use them around them. Cuss words may be a grey area to us (I don't think there are any grey areas to God but then again he is omniscient) but the line between loving and hating our neighbors is black and white. You're either loving yourself or you're loving God and others.

*I can't stress enough how awful I think it is that it's become such an accepted practice in our safe Christian circles to throw stones at people who use four letter words and with the next breath take God's name in vain. We're all hypocrites.

A couple passages I would recommend to read and be thinking on are Matthew 12:33-37, Matthew 15:1-20, and Romans 14. I would also recommend this blog post and this one as well, both by the lead singer of a band called The Classic Crime. I read that first post a long time ago and it had a big influence on the way I regarded language and culture. I didn't want to steal the guy's slang argument but I would say I agree with most of what he says.

The last thing I'll say is I think people need to go with their conscience because that is a God-given tool for walking in the shadow of death. My conscience is clean when I use cuss words around people who are not offended or hurt by them. If your conscience is different as most people's seem to be, that's fine. Go with that. To each his or her own. God is the judge, not me.