Cussing Christians!

I think it depends. Culture, in large part, has determined what constitutes slang, cuss words, etc. There are words and phrases that were unacceptable 50 years ago, yet now they’re accepted. But there are also words and phrases that we deem unacceptable now that were considered acceptable 50 years ago. Also, there are words that we use in the United States that, in other countries have a completely different meaning. I know of a few words that are considered derogatory in America, yet in other parts of the world they are completely acceptable, because they carry a different meaning.

For me, what it all boils down to is that if something offends my brother or sister in Christ, I should avoid using it. However, there are times where nothing else will suffice. Case in point, the standup special “Bill Cosby: Himself”. There is one curse word in the entire show, and had he censored himself, the point he was trying to make (because, while it is a joke, it’s also a very serious point) would not have carried the same weight.

You bring up a very good point. From my own personal experience, I went through a very brief time period where I got careless with my language and would drop a word here or there when I thought no one was listening. Having been raised not to talk or behave in such a way, it would cause a twinge in my spirit; however, after a while I pushed of feelings of guilt aside and grew accustomed to the language. After all, I was an adult and could cuss now, right? While I didn’t resort to using some of the extremities (no need to list them here, as you said, we all know what they are), I began converting my “gosh” to “god”, and it wasn’t until one of my family members confronted me that I even took a look at what I was doing. (Gotta love accountability!!) I think that getting careless with language can easily lead to carelessness in other areas of life, and if not addressed, can dirty our reputation as Christians and cause others to wonder if we’re really all that different. Upon looking back at that time frame when I, personally, was careless, I know that I was not in a place where I was close to God, and I wasn’t really all that concerned with what He wanted for my life.

We are called to affect those around us. We’re always affecting people in one way or another, whether it’s negatively, or positively. The Lord has given us that choice, and I’m blessed because I’ve chosen not to take Christianity lightly. It may feel like a temporary relief to cuss when one stubs their toe, but there are plenty of other words in the English dictionary to shout out when in pain!

I agree with you, Scott. Cuss words while preaching should not happen. I hear guys say it and have this arrogant presentation like they are proud or I don’t care what you think.

I found myself doing the “safe” informal cuss words. I once thought they were appropriate. However, I am not so sure anymore. I hear people say it depends on culture, but I think sometimes that is simply a safety net to provide wiggle room. To fall on one side or the other, I am trying to be more disciplined to not use words like screwed, freakin’, etc. My motives might be pure but the other person does not necessarily know that.

Just a guy on the journey wanting so much to please God.

I don’t think cussing should be gratuitous but I certainly understand when a believer cusses. I can understand when an unbeliever cusses. Years ago, I decided that I wouldn’t judge cussing or the cusser – at least not for cussing or being a cusser. I decided to listen to their spirits and the Spirit. I decided to listen for hurt, pain, anger, frustration, sweetness, kindness, etc. I decided that we as believers spend far too much time looking at (and down at) smokers, drinkers, people who have sex out of marriage, and cussers than we should. We rarely if ever engage people and one another by the Spirit. We can be and are a short-sighted and self-righteous lot. If a Christian or professing follower of Christ cusses, then I would hope two things 1.) they are not judged but rather confronted in love and then convicted by the Holy Spirit and 2.) have the good sense and decency to watch their language in the presence of unbelievers. Frankly, I wonder if He took the time to tell someone “your cussing offends me,” especially among the people who were considered undesirable by the religious. Yes, we are to watch our words, but to me it’s far more careless to say something that wounds deeply or condemns. And as for those words, those who profess Jesus as Lord say them all of the time.

I have to say that I used to cuss like a sailor and call myself a Christian. I would justify it with the “freedom we have in Christ” and thought I was more relatable to the people I was trying to share Christ with. WRONG. Other people looked at me and thought, “What’s so different about your life that I would think it’s better?” Or what was even scarier was they would think, “So I don’t really have to change a whole lot to become a Christian.” We are supposed to stand out from the crowd. If we look like everyone else in the world how are people supposed to see Christ in our lives? Now cussing just bugs me. I do find myself slipping sometimes in my personal life which bugs me even more. I want to be the same person at home that I am out in the real world. It’s so fake when Christians “put on” their Christianity before they head out the door.

I find this debate pretty interesting. Coming from Australia and moving to a small town Arizona, I got in big trouble for dropping (Hell, Damn and Cr@p)…sorry if I just swore. Culturally it is inappropriate for me to use these words here as a pastor, so I have just learned not to use them. I am free to drop them flippantly in Australia but certainly not here.

I have never been a big fan of the big 4-letter swears, they don’t strengthen any arguments, and creatively using them as nouns, verbs, adjectives, participles, adverbs does not help your case.

I think you have to be sensitive to the part of the USA you are in, I remember Ed Young writing on this a little while back….he is in Texas, saying “Rodeo is bad” is a swear word. He then pointed to Driscoll who is in Seattle a far more liberal area. Culturally there will be differences of opinion on what is cussing and what isn’t. I think as a Pastor you have to be sensitive to your area of ministry.

Words have the power to bless and/or curse. People of God, especially pastors, should use them with care.

Lukewarm Christians cuss and say OMG. On fire Christians always ask “Are my words pleasing to God” or “Do my words honor God.”

As a person who used to cuss like a sailor (and call myself a Christian), I now feel it’s a cheap way for insecure people to feel strong or cool. At least that’s why I did it as a teenager. No matter what your culture is, droppin’ the four letter words isn’t appropriate when you are a pastor. Now we all mess up and God forgives us but I don’t think pastor should make cussing their hobby As to the other minor words, I must admit I say them at times. I wish I didn’t because most of the time it just makes me sound crude rather than intelligent. Do I judge people who aren’t Christ followers? Nope. They live like the world so they’re gonna talk like it. So I’m not shocked. But take it from a former potty mouth, when you cuss like that and call yourself a Christian, people don’t see you as any different from the rest of the world.

With regard to cuss words, context is important. Where they are not offensive they are just words. Although, often times they are used in questionable settings (where offense may be taken) in an effort to artificially conjure up street cred. These efforts, like almost all inauthentic attempts to impress, fail to impress anyone but the speaker and the easily influenced.

Now with regard to the James passage, I think you trivialize the concept of cursing which doesn’t require the use of any taboo words. I have witnessed Christians going unchallenged when using perfectly acceptable words to curse other believers, public figures and various other disapproved of groups of people.

I have had a slip of the tongue, and have not always had speech that was pleasing to God, but I strive not to use any foul language, as it’s offensive. The Bible says we have to be careful not to become stumbling blocks. How can we curse, or drink, or do anything that is not pleasing to God and think that it isn’t going to be a stumbling block? When we are saved, we are supposed to become *new* creatures. What’s new if we are always doing what we’ve always done? There is a generation of Christians, my generation, who have this flippant attitude about what it means to be a Christian….and I don’t get it. They are rebelling against legalism and traditionalism, and I agree that those beliefs don’t jive with the ways of the world today, that we need other ways to reach the lost, but to go to the extreme opposite side and declare that we have such freedom to openly sin is a problem. Too many of my generation want to throw foundational beliefs out the window, and live like the world. We are called to be separate. If you are doing the same things the world is doing – how will anyone be able to tell the sheep from the wolves?? Someone mentioned r-rated movies, and what I will simply say is that if you are so strong in your faith that exposing yourself to nudity, language, violence, and other earthly things don’t filter through your life (seeing those images in your mind, twisting the way you view women, tempting you to use those words), then you are perhaps a stronger person than I am, or else you have grown such callouses to the world. I don’t know how anyone can watch a movie with such things and feel that the Holy Spirit is not offended. I know that I cringe at the sound of curse words, particularly the hard core F bomb, and the ones that take my precious Lord’s name in vain. In the end, it doesn’t matter what my opinion is. Ultimately we all will stand before God and have to give an answer for everything we did, for the blood on our hands of other sinners we didn’t witness to, or for ruining our witness with sinners because of making these choices, and we will be judged accordingly.

This some funny $4!7 man. Love it. Great conversation. The comment is a joke of course. I think we ought always to strive to keep our convo pure and wholesome – beneficial to the hearers. Good stuff guys!

Scott:
Funny how it was easy for me to drop the same 4 letter bombs as everyone else and then turn it off like a water faucet when I saw the preacher or my church friends? Finding my way HOME caused me to see the masks I wore. Shedding the masks and getting real with my self so that I could be the man God created me to be was key. Consider it a lack of creativity. 4 letter words? Christians, Is that the best we’ve got to use in explaining our feelings? 4 letter words to express ourselves. Just another facet of our “fastfood” impatient and depraved lifestyles…when we’ve been created for so much more!

This has been, and will probably always be, a tough discussion between Christians. We use words like sucks, screwed, freakin’, but why use those, when you think about what they REALLY mean?

Like you said, it all comes down to context. Sometimes, there really is no replacement for the emotion and passion a cuss word can invoke. I think if it NEEDS to be used, use it. I’ve listened to a lot of Pastors and thought a cuss word could have been thrown in a time or two. Too often, it becomes more of a comma in a sentence. For those times, just leave it out.

We get caught up in too many arguments over little things that don’t really matter. In the end, it’s about loving people and reaching them for Christ. Who’s to say God can’t use a cussing Christian or Pastor to lead people there?

I think the issue isn’t whether Christians get offended by cussing Christians, because – I agree with Anthony – if we are offended by the language we will avoide the people that need God the most. Then it comes to this – what about offending non-Christians, and I’m not sure it would truly offend them as much as it would offend their pre-conceived notions of how Christians should behave. But I believe that if we take the time to create and maintain real relationships with real people, God’s love shining through us and our “realness” will hopefully shatter their pre-conceived notions and allow them to form new ones. What we have to do then is not worry about the language we use and worry about the love that we show. Who cares how what verbal language we use when the things we do, the way we act, the way we treat those in need are louder and more offenseive than any 4 letter word could ever be?

words, smurds. Too many Christians are too lazy to listen to what is behind the words. Can we hear the hurt, anger, frustration, emptiness, callousness? Jesus may not have said the little four-dingers, but I’d bet my eye-teeth he heard more than his share of them! The Jesus of the Gospels I read wasn’t put off by the labels…a glutton, a wine-bibber, a friend of sinners…because He hung out with those who did those things, and loved them. He went to those who were sick, because he offered the cure. Our problem is we have the cure, but we want them to get well enough on their own before we offer it. We used to call that cleaning the fish before we caught them. Being dismissive, like ‘limited vocabulary’ or ‘emotionally stunted’ is simply judgmental and insular.

Sunny, there is a difference between exposing yourself to people you are ministering to and being a friend of sinners. When you are in a real relationship with real people it means choosing to exposing yourself to their life, language and culture on purpose. Trying to be a friend with a ministry agenda isn’t being a friend at all, it’s being a friendly salesperson.

As for WWJD, he dealt with this issue in Matthew 5:22; he used ‘raca’ which was a strong curse of contempt equivalent to our ‘f__ you’. This why using the word would get you called before the religious leaders on morals charges. He doesn’t sanction its use, but goes to the heart of the matter and says that saying “you fool” is a danger to your soul. Our dismissive attitude toward each other and especially non-believers is what’s unacceptable. The purity of our speech isn’t determined solely or even primarily on the absence or presence of cuss words but on the content of what is being communicating.

BTW, have you noticed that most of our cuss words refer to bodily functions, sexual acts or body parts. For example, the English language has no conjugatable verb for sex that isn’t a cuss word. So, on a deeper level, perhaps our issue with certain words point to the prominence of Greek Dualism in our religious thought, specifically that all flesh is bad, all spirit is good. I think the words we choose to make taboo says more about our societal level psychological issues with our bodies and our sexuality than it does about our morality.

I’m not condoning or condemning cussing Christians, but it seems to me this is a white-washing-the-tombs issue.

I don’t have a big issue with your stance, but I do take issue with your defense.

“I will curse those who curse you and bless those who bless you”

Cursing is a state of mind or an act of the will. This text does not boil it down to a single 4 letter word. Cursing, as you stated it, is an act, not a word.

If I get cut off in traffic and say “Damn bad driver” I am not cursing them in the way that you present it.

I’m with you Scott. Exactly how you stated it. It reminds me of Craig Groeschel’s illustration “don’t pet the squirrel.” Our objective in any arena isn’t to see how close we can get to touching sin without it biting us. It’s how close to God can we possibly get, how purely can we love, and how much can we allow him to transform and renew us.

Have to agree with the culture aspect mentioned by Jonathan in 1st reply. What’s offensive language to some, simply is not to others. I remember talking with a Malaysian pastor minutes after he’d preached a great message. “I’ve heard you are a businessman as well as pastor…what do you do?” His reply, “I sell shi#” Say what? 1st of all, I was surprised to hear the word shi# come out of his mouth. Secondly, why in the world was he saying he sells it? Turns out that he has made a fortune selling fertilizer, literally animal excrement turned soil nutrient. And, it turns out that “shi#” in Malaysia is the equivalent of saying “poop” (or possibly “crap”) in Virginia. Culture & evolution of culture often determines what is ‘cussing’ and what is not. And not just between the U.S. and Malaysia. The South/Midwest of the U.S., including Oklahoma, is very conservative. What may be perfectly acceptable in New England/Pacific NW, may be offensive in Tulsa/Oklahmoa City. I had similar thoughts when watching Ed Young’s vlog about “the cussing pastor” a few months back. In addition to the attitude he portrayed in the video, I felt his attempt to clearly define “appropriate” and “inappropriate” words was way over simplifying.

Having said all the above, I agree with the challenge for Christ followers to rise above the speech of those around us. I just think that the content & focus of our speech is a more important issue than individual words.