It seems what you’re really circling here is not profanity itself, but the way Christians often trade discernment for performance. One group signals holiness by silence, another signals freedom by noise, both using language as costume rather than sacrament. Yet words, as you’ve drawn out, are not costumes at all but thresholds, little sacraments that reveal the depth of our loves and train us toward wisdom or folly. Perhaps the real profanity is not in the syllables we utter, but in the shallowness with which we wield them.
If words can be both mirror and invitation, showing us who we are while summoning us toward who we might become, then isn’t the truer question not whether we should swear, but whether our speech carries the weight of reality, or merely the weight of our performance?
Do you think it’s all right to curse in prayer to describe how you feel? Not to curse at God but to say you feel like an absolute piece of $h!t for example?
Also 'small breastfed biddies' is not the hill I would choose to die on. Why is it always the stupidest, creepiest stuff that Christians get caught up in?
"It’s easier to never swear, easier to always swear, than it is to figure out how to use language." Love this. I always get reverse culture shock coming back to the States (and its cultural Christian norms with swearing) versus New Zealand and England. Loved the Augustine quote too, saving that ASAP.
Nuance and Maturity. The things worth fighting for. To commonly missed or missunderstood. It is like a rubber band pulled taut in two directions. You need both for creating powerful tension. With just one, the other is limp, and there is no power.
May the language of Heaven be on our lips as we become the people of Heaven on earth.
Great article, thanks for helping us think it through.
Your comment about contextualisation is important. How we use words should match our personalities and giftings but also our audiences. We live in a globalised world so it’s easy to point fingers without understanding a context. Four-letter words can mean everything or nothing in different contexts. I come from an immigrant family, and I think swearing never had the same taboo in our subculture as it did in the broader culture - swearing in a foreign language always feels like a joke.
I think as a writer I also struggle with too harsh commands to Just Don’t. You have to be careful to honour God and respect your audience, but you also can’t always preach to the whole world at once, and these words are part of the writer’s whole toolkit.
I’ll remember your comment about standing before God and defending our choice. A great test.
Today my fifth graders got into a tiff because someone called someone else a name. The name-caller defended himself, "But I didn't mean it!" I replied, "Ah, I see. So let's not say things we don't mean." Of course, we'll always have the problem of saying rude and hateful things because they both mean them and fully mean to say them, but more often the problem is that people fail to think before they speak. Frequently, because we as a culture have no liturgy of repentance, we spiral toward more and more spiteful language as we struggle to defend what was originally merely a thoughtless comment. As we tend to insist on our liberties rather than condescending to others' weaknesses, we rush to defend our innocence instead of apologizing for the offense, because we think that if we didn't intend to cause harm then we shouldn't have to deal with the harm that we in fact caused. We can easily go from mild to extreme offenses in this fashion, making it even harder to repent as we dig the hole deeper and deeper for ourselves. (I fear this is probably the position that the Moscow team is in.) I have always found it striking that Christ specifically says that people will account not for every "hateful" word but for every "careless" (or "idle") word they have spoken. Perhaps that's why.
Absolutely love this article & how you articulated this! Really refreshing take to see. Also Doug Wilson is my pastor & so is Joe Rigney haha so I was so surprised when I saw them in this article lol, within context Pastor Wilson is always very kind & tasteful with how & when he uses language too if you check out his work!
*Lost my place*: “Let’s see…where was I…hmmm….OH! ‘In a Tongue-Shell!’” Haha. I’m in a “tongue-shell” all the time, thinking I can never become a saint because I cuss too much. This was helpful and hopeful—and a delight to read. Good job weaving in the comics too. Solid gold.
I hate the common cop-out answer “it’s a heart thing.” You do a great job of expounding on what that actually means.
To be honest, I like when Christians use 4-letter words. It signals to me that they are being a real person. That’s just how it lands on me, like an authentic confession of imperfection (no masking)
Loved these thoughts. I think this is a helpful framework for mlre than just profanity.
I thought of the controversy and pearl-clutching when Kings Kaleidoscope released "A Prayer." He dropped an F-bomb in an inflective way for the purpose of communicating his fear and pain. But too many Christians heard a "bad word" and got outraged.
I have a buddy who was once thinking of using a four letter word in a sermon to communicate how awful something was like children starving. Then juxtapose the congregations outrage at his bad word to make a point that they had little to no outrage at the idea of children starving. In the end he modified it a bit but still tried to serve his point.
Excellent thought man. The placement / timing of “Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” in this essay was almost chiastic. That quote, in the end, is the centerpiece of this whole conversation. Not a prohibition or permission, but a call to soul level reflection and thoughtfulness.
It cuts right to our motivations for action, and less on the actions themselves.
Prudes and hypocrites mark the actions regardless of their motivation or meaning, while the Saint (indeed the man fully alive) lives from the heart, worrying less about how his actions are viewed and more about their impact.
I cursed relentlessly in high school, and when I started attending church I went the complete opposite way.
I find myself most of the time using harsh language too flippantly nowadays, but this is extremely helpful in slicing through the “two sides” view of it all and pointing towards something better.
It seems what you’re really circling here is not profanity itself, but the way Christians often trade discernment for performance. One group signals holiness by silence, another signals freedom by noise, both using language as costume rather than sacrament. Yet words, as you’ve drawn out, are not costumes at all but thresholds, little sacraments that reveal the depth of our loves and train us toward wisdom or folly. Perhaps the real profanity is not in the syllables we utter, but in the shallowness with which we wield them.
If words can be both mirror and invitation, showing us who we are while summoning us toward who we might become, then isn’t the truer question not whether we should swear, but whether our speech carries the weight of reality, or merely the weight of our performance?
BINGO. SHE FOUND THE SUBTEXT
This comment is excellent
Do you think it’s all right to curse in prayer to describe how you feel? Not to curse at God but to say you feel like an absolute piece of $h!t for example?
I hope it’s alright because I may or may not have done that tonight while praying vehemently during a personal emotional crisis….
Knocked this one out of the park my man.
Also 'small breastfed biddies' is not the hill I would choose to die on. Why is it always the stupidest, creepiest stuff that Christians get caught up in?
it is very weird; probably because these weird moments are what brings us to the breaking point.
I guess so. It always feels like intelligent people get tripped up by these silly things though. Like it's a trap laid for them
*breasted
AAAhahgaha
😅
"It’s easier to never swear, easier to always swear, than it is to figure out how to use language." Love this. I always get reverse culture shock coming back to the States (and its cultural Christian norms with swearing) versus New Zealand and England. Loved the Augustine quote too, saving that ASAP.
Nuance and Maturity. The things worth fighting for. To commonly missed or missunderstood. It is like a rubber band pulled taut in two directions. You need both for creating powerful tension. With just one, the other is limp, and there is no power.
May the language of Heaven be on our lips as we become the people of Heaven on earth.
Thanks for sharing man!
Great article, thanks for helping us think it through.
Your comment about contextualisation is important. How we use words should match our personalities and giftings but also our audiences. We live in a globalised world so it’s easy to point fingers without understanding a context. Four-letter words can mean everything or nothing in different contexts. I come from an immigrant family, and I think swearing never had the same taboo in our subculture as it did in the broader culture - swearing in a foreign language always feels like a joke.
I think as a writer I also struggle with too harsh commands to Just Don’t. You have to be careful to honour God and respect your audience, but you also can’t always preach to the whole world at once, and these words are part of the writer’s whole toolkit.
I’ll remember your comment about standing before God and defending our choice. A great test.
Today my fifth graders got into a tiff because someone called someone else a name. The name-caller defended himself, "But I didn't mean it!" I replied, "Ah, I see. So let's not say things we don't mean." Of course, we'll always have the problem of saying rude and hateful things because they both mean them and fully mean to say them, but more often the problem is that people fail to think before they speak. Frequently, because we as a culture have no liturgy of repentance, we spiral toward more and more spiteful language as we struggle to defend what was originally merely a thoughtless comment. As we tend to insist on our liberties rather than condescending to others' weaknesses, we rush to defend our innocence instead of apologizing for the offense, because we think that if we didn't intend to cause harm then we shouldn't have to deal with the harm that we in fact caused. We can easily go from mild to extreme offenses in this fashion, making it even harder to repent as we dig the hole deeper and deeper for ourselves. (I fear this is probably the position that the Moscow team is in.) I have always found it striking that Christ specifically says that people will account not for every "hateful" word but for every "careless" (or "idle") word they have spoken. Perhaps that's why.
Goodness, I loved so much about this. And I used “goodness” intentionally.
Grateful for you, Josh.
Thanks so much, Ben
Excellent reflections on the current state of our collective overflow. Bookended by a laugh and a gut punch.
Absolutely love this article & how you articulated this! Really refreshing take to see. Also Doug Wilson is my pastor & so is Joe Rigney haha so I was so surprised when I saw them in this article lol, within context Pastor Wilson is always very kind & tasteful with how & when he uses language too if you check out his work!
*Lost my place*: “Let’s see…where was I…hmmm….OH! ‘In a Tongue-Shell!’” Haha. I’m in a “tongue-shell” all the time, thinking I can never become a saint because I cuss too much. This was helpful and hopeful—and a delight to read. Good job weaving in the comics too. Solid gold.
I did a *blinking guy meme* for a second at the Maxwell references, because that is a blast from the past.
AHAHAH i know -- but his article is a pretty decent starting point
I hate the common cop-out answer “it’s a heart thing.” You do a great job of expounding on what that actually means.
To be honest, I like when Christians use 4-letter words. It signals to me that they are being a real person. That’s just how it lands on me, like an authentic confession of imperfection (no masking)
Loved these thoughts. I think this is a helpful framework for mlre than just profanity.
I thought of the controversy and pearl-clutching when Kings Kaleidoscope released "A Prayer." He dropped an F-bomb in an inflective way for the purpose of communicating his fear and pain. But too many Christians heard a "bad word" and got outraged.
I have a buddy who was once thinking of using a four letter word in a sermon to communicate how awful something was like children starving. Then juxtapose the congregations outrage at his bad word to make a point that they had little to no outrage at the idea of children starving. In the end he modified it a bit but still tried to serve his point.
Excellent thought man. The placement / timing of “Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” in this essay was almost chiastic. That quote, in the end, is the centerpiece of this whole conversation. Not a prohibition or permission, but a call to soul level reflection and thoughtfulness.
I love this take.
It cuts right to our motivations for action, and less on the actions themselves.
Prudes and hypocrites mark the actions regardless of their motivation or meaning, while the Saint (indeed the man fully alive) lives from the heart, worrying less about how his actions are viewed and more about their impact.
This is very helpful.
I cursed relentlessly in high school, and when I started attending church I went the complete opposite way.
I find myself most of the time using harsh language too flippantly nowadays, but this is extremely helpful in slicing through the “two sides” view of it all and pointing towards something better.
Thanks a ton.