Repost from 2015. Edited, updated, and corrected.
At one time, Christians seemed to all agree that saying swear words was a sin, especially uttering blasphemous phrases like God dammit or go to hell. These days, in many corners of the Christian ghetto, swearing is now accepted. Even preachers are known to show their coolness and hipster cred by using choice words, not only in their conversations with others, but also in their sermons.
I came of age in the late 1960s and 1970s. In the Baptist churches I attended, saying swear words was definitely considered a sin against the thrice-holy God. Most of the preachers of my youth would quote Exodus 20:7: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, as justification for their prohibitions against cursing. These preachers never did explain how saying “shit” was “taking God’s name in vain.” I later came to see that this commandment had little to do with saying certain words. According to 17th Century Presbyterian theologian and pastor Matthew Henry, taking God’s name in vain meant:
We take God’s name in vain, [1.] By hypocrisy, making a profession of God’s name, but not living up to that profession. Those that name the name of Christ, but do not depart from iniquity, as that name binds them to do, name it in vain; their worship is vain (Mat_15:7-9), their oblations are vain (Isa_1:11, Isa_1:13), their religion is vain, Jam_1:26. [2.] By covenant-breaking; if we make promises to God, binding our souls with those bonds to that which is good, and yet perform not to the Lord our vows, we take his name in vain (Mat_5:33), it is folly, and God has no pleasure in fools (Ecc_5:4), nor will he be mocked, Gal_6:7. [3.] By rash swearing, mentioning the name of God, or any of his attributes, in the form of an oath, without any just occasion for it, or due application of mind to it, but as a by-word, to no purpose at all, or to no good purpose. [4.] By false swearing, which, some think, is chiefly intended in the letter of the commandment; so it was expounded by those of old time. Thou shalt not forswear thyself, Mat_5:33. One part of the religious regard the Jews were taught to pay to their God was to swear by his name, Deu_10:20. But they affronted him, instead of doing him honour, if they called him to be witness to a lie. [5.] By using the name of God lightly and carelessly, and without any regard to its awful significancy. The profanation of the forms of devotion is forbidden, as well as the profanation of the forms of swearing; as also the profanation of any of those things whereby God makes himself known, his word, or any of his institutions; when they are either turned into charms and spells, or into jest and sport, the name of God is taken in vain.
Sure, in point number five, Henry mentions swearing, but what about points one through four: being a hypocrite, breaking a vow, rashly making an oath, and lying? On Sunday, each of the churches I pastored gave parishioners and visitors an opportunity to come forward during the public invitation and get right with God, either by getting saved or confessing sin. I witnessed plenty of weeping and gnashing of teeth as people covered the altar rail with their tears (and snot). Oh God, I’m so sorry I lusted after Sister Susie this week, please forgive me. Dear Jesus, please forgive me for looking at porn. I promise to never, never look at a naked woman who is not my wife again. Dear God, I know that YOU know that I really didn’t stop smoking like I told the preacher I did. I’m so sorry for lying. I plead the blood of Jesus over my life and I promise to never, ever smoke another Marlboro. And, in a matter of hours, days, or weeks, the penitent church members would return to their “sin,” thus requiring a new round of weeping and wailing. Their vows to not sin were, according to Matthew Henry, taking God’s name in vain.
Many of us who use curse words use them when we are angry or upset. Sometimes, we use swear words to ameliorate a serious pain that we are having. I’ve learned that, after hitting my finger with a hammer, saying “God dammit!” really loud tends to lessen the pain. According to research presented to the British Psychological Society, swearing is an emotional language, and using it can make a person feel better. Perhaps the use of 506 expletives in 179 minutes as actors did in the movie Wolf of Wall Street is a tad bit excessive, but I know firsthand that cursing can, and does, have a cathartic effect on a person. While certainly those who swear must be aware of proper social conventions, swearing at the referee on TV who just hosed your favorite football team can be emotionally satisfying, and I highly recommend it.
A dear friend of mine from back in the days when we both were part of the Trinity Baptist Church youth group, laughs every time she hears me utter a swear word. She often replies, “I never thought I’d see the day when Bruce Gerencser said a swear word.” From the time I was saved at the age of 15 until I left the ministry, I never uttered one swear word, outwardly anyhow. I thought plenty of swear words but never verbalized them. To do so would have branded me as a sinner and as a man who didn’t have his emotions under control.
Evangelicals are every bit as emotional and angry as their counterparts in the world. Knowing that telling someone to “fuck off” would bring them rebuke and shame, Evangelicals have developed what I call Christian swear words. Christian swear words are expressions such has:
- Shucks
- Shoot
- Darn
- Dangit
- Freaking
- Crap
- Gosh darn it
- Son of a gun
- Frigging
- Shucky darn
As you can easily see, these words are meant to be replacements for the real swear words. This way, angry or emotionally upset Evangelicals can express themselves without running afoul of God’s FCC.
Years ago, a preacher who considered himself totally sanctified (without sin), was known for using the phrase, taking it to the hilt. He and I were quite good friends, and one day when he repeated his favorite phrase, I told him, you know that taking it to the hilt can be used as a sexual reference for sticking the penis all the way into its base (hilt). He was indignant that I would dare to suggest such a thing. He later learned I was right and apologized (Do you suppose it ever dawned on him that he had sinned by using this phrase after he said he no longer was a sinner?)
Swear words are just that: words. Social conventions dictate their use. I am a card-carrying member of the Swearers Club. I make liberal use of curse words, especially when speaking to officials from afar on a televised sporting event. Even Polly, sweet, sweet Polly, my wife, has devolved to my level. While I am careful when using swear words in public or around those who are easily offended, I refuse to be bullied into submission by the word police. I rarely use swear words in my writing, but I do so on occasion. It’s up to the individual readers to decide if a well-placed malediction is offensive enough to stop them from reading.
Sometimes, when responding to the emails persnickety Evangelicals love to send me, I deliberately use swear words that I know will euphemistically cause urine to flow from their genitals. They will respond with outrage as did fundamentalist Baptist preacher Jeff Setzer during a “discussion” on the post, The Legacy of Jack Hyles. When Jeff first commented on the Jack Hyles post, he was polite and respectful. However, during his last round of comments he decided to get more aggressive — a common ploy used by Evangelical zealots. When I determined that Setzer hadn’t taken the time to actually read my story, I responded to him by writing, “I encourage you to take the time to read my writing. The answers you seek can be found there.” And here’s the dialog that followed:
Setzer, in response to Brian, a former IFB pastor’s son: You can be wrong too, right along with all of the molesters. And like the victims of physical abuse, you are a victim of spiritual and intellectual abuse…that which is many times more difficult to overcome than mere physical abuse. Since the physical realm regularly confirms the Bible to be true, as well as other realms of evidence, I KNOW the Bible is truth. There is NO doubt whatsoever.
Bruce: Ah, now there’s the Christian asshole that every Fundamentalist eventually morphs into. This is your last comment.
Setzer: Do you know what profanity is? How about what kindness means? Or intolerance? “Last comment”? Can you not reason and share where your supposed point of rejection was, or perhaps you have built a wall, making a skin of a reason based upon woefully fallible men who set up themselves as authoritative? I’ll look up the posts to which you refer, but I haven’t seen any logic on here yet but rather emotion. You’ve come to a conclusion out of emotion and not logic. I’d be glad to communicate further with you if you’re open to logic and evidence and not being outright dismissive. Thanks for being willing to dialogue.
Bruce: After your first comment you were taken to a page that had the comment rules. You have violated the commenting rules and this is why I will not approve any further comments by you. My asshole comment is in response to your last approved comment. If you don’t like being called an asshole, don’t act like one.
You can read the rest of the sphincter-muscle stimulating comments here.
I am of the opinion that if a person doesn’t want to be called an asshole then he shouldn’t act like one. Setzer, ever the clueless Fundamentalist, was more concerned over me using profanity than he was how his words were being perceived by myself and others. Instead of becoming outraged over a word, perhaps God’s anointed ones should pay attention to how their own words and behaviors reflect on the good news they purportedly want everyone to believe.
As Setzer surely would have known had he bothered to spend time reading my writing, I rarely use curse words, and in the comment section I reserve their use for when Fundamentalists — and it is ALWAYS Fundamentalists — are showing how little fruit is growing on their spiritual trees. You know, the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Sometimes, preachers I mention by name in one of my articles write asking me to remove their names from my post. They don’t like being called out by name. My thinking on this goes something like: if you didn’t want to be cast in a poor light you should have treated me better. After all, the Bible does say, you reap what you sow, right? One offended preacher was upset that I mentioned that he impregnated and married his first wife when she was 13. Here’s a man who travels the countryside telling others how to live, yet he had, and may still have, a thing for young girls (and pastors who are still having him come to their church to preach need to know this).
Well, I think I’ve run out of words to type on the computer screen. I’ll see if I can refrain from offending Fundamentalists with my salty language. Nah, fuck that . . .
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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I have a potty mouth, no question. But generally reserve it for at-home. It’s amazing how people can be shocked at “bad” words, while all kinds of awful things elicit no response.
I used to be one of those people. Then, fairly late in life, I decided not to let words have that kind of power over me. I loosened up considerably and started paying attention to what people were actually saying to me, not how they were saying it. It’s better this way.
Shit, Bruce,I didn’t know you were a Packers’ fan. Cool!
That you use the word, ‘friggin’ proves that you were never really really really (triunity) saved. As a true Christian knows after being properly churched (and I leave it to Susan-Anne the Brave to support this God-truth) the word ‘friggin’ means,
verb (used without object), frigged, frigging.
4.
to copulate.
5.
to masturbate.
Verb phrases
6.
frig around /about, to fool around; waste time.
Origin Expand
1425-75; earlier, to move about restlessly, rub; late Middle English friggen to quiver
Clearly clearly clearly of the Devil and not fit for the heavenly list! Just how you can claim to have ever been a believer and then reveal this kind of utter depravity is beyond me!
And freaking is fucking too! Den of iniquity! Susan-Anne, flee!
Well, Bruce, you know we disagree about the more negative curse words such as saying “Fuck you” to another person. In my view the “fuck” word is dehumanizing and a personal verbal attack, as well as an empty bucket since it is also used to she “fucked me great.”
Plus, it seems to show a lack of imagination. A much over-used word.
That’s my view not only from the point of view as a humanist, but also as a literature teacher.
But (here’s a funny, one day my students started kidding me when I said, “But, let’s look at the other view.”–“Wow, Wilcox said “butt.”)
But, my main reason for posting here is to ask you if you ever saw the fundamentalist tract, “Minced Oaths”?
I still have it somewhere in the garage. It emphasized not using “Gee,” or “heck,” not even “Geeminie.”
Of course, it didn’t speak to the fact, that as a teen when I was emotional I usually said, “Shoot!”
I wonder what that could mean.;-)
Most of the people I know who use the word fuck use it the same way they use other curse words. No one, when saying that’s fucking awesome, is saying, I want to have sexual inter course with you, awesome. It is a word that is used by this generation in the same way our generation used damn, shit, and hell. That you and I will fucking disagree about this is as certain as the sun coming up in the morning . 🙂
I have not seen the “Minced Oaths” tract. We used to hand out a Mennonite tract that was anti-cursing.
I disagree with those who believe the use of swear words is a sign of a limited vocabulary. I use them to release anger, and they work fairly well. Unfortunately, like Forrest Gump saying that sometimes there aren’t enough rocks, sometimes I wish there were more swear words. Like Becky said, people can be shocked by bad language all out of proportion to other affronts. Years ago a neighbor’s child was regularly hitting my child on the bus. I lost my cool and cussed the child out. The mother acted as if I had conjured up some sort of voodoo spell to cast on them becaused I used bad words.
It seems like there always needs to be some bad words that are “taboo” so that when you stub your toe you have the tools you need for relief.
I remember finding out what dork really means and I thought, well that wasn’t what I *thought* I was referring to, ha ha.
I’m a Christian…
Why is CRAP OK, but not HELL or DAMN, to some people??
For the same reason the your bottom, your butt, and your ass have three different levels of social propriety, despite referring to exactly the same body part. It’s because English is weird. And English is weird because people are weird.
How is crap not a swear word? It means the exact same thing as sh*t.
For fuck sake, read some poetry! A couple of lines of Neruda is much more dangerous (than most imagine) to Christianity © than the fuck shit piss that draws so much bent attention from them. That has not changed in Christianity: They fool with surface compliance because the ‘other’ eludes them and threatens painful insight.
Obey! Think not! And even some who do think still follow the rigid paths of self-harm with regard to controlling language. Language usage has no final arbiter; it is local and sings its meanings where it belongs. If it is voiced elsewhere, all the critics appear to control (their own feelings.)
Try this Larkin on:
‘This be the verse’
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
Philip Larkin
See? Still think fuck shit piss is worth speaking of?
I saw someone on Twitter who would say “cheese and rice” instead of Jesus Christ. She said she didn’t want to take the Lord’s name in vain. Cheesus, if you’re that sensitive, then don’t say it in the first place.
Yep. As a pastor, I preached against using bywords. I didn’t swear — outwardly, anyway. 🙂 Mentally, now that’s a whole different story. 🙂
I used to attend a writing workshop that is a running class offered by my city’s adult education program. One day I shared a few pages of a novel I’m working on, introducing a female character with a strong personality. She is a computer scientist chasing a difficult bug in some code, and I introduced her signature swear word when she’s REALLY frustrated: godFUCKINGdammit. (Most of my characters aren’t quite so quick to use swear words.)
So my classmates give me verbal and written comments, most liked the writing, but one older man was very offended that I would share such filth with the class.
You are so filthy, girl 🙂
One point: dude you tangled with mentioned above sure sounds like a sea lion. Wants you to do all the work of answering his questions while he’s being an asshole. And then gets offended when called out.
My grandma became so convinced that any exclamation was a swear or substitute swear that she banned all exclamations in her presence. When I was little, her substitute swear had been “I’ll swanee!” but somehow Jesus laid it on her heart that he found that too offensive so she dropped that.
There were 2 girls who attended both my church and fundamentalist Christian school who were very influential in what the other girls should and shouldn’t do. Their substitute swear words were “fudge” and “fiddle”.
I swear liberally and freely and refuse to be subject to the Word Police, though I do demand proper grammar and spelling.
My now departed preacher dad used to almost pop his own eyes out with internal compression when he was frustrated until finally he would say ‘Fiddle’ but do it such a way that he word stretched out over several seconds as he decompressed. Poor pops never swore properly and never tasted a beer. He used to do the same kind of angry blowout with mom, building his internal compression until it blew and he kind of shoutingly exhaled my mom’s name, three long syllables over a longgggg time that would put an end to most of her complaints…
I used to work with a young, disturbed fellow who was given some time in a provincial psych hospital where I was working as a child care worker. He had the most interesting swears! Shit’nyer ass shit’nyerass!
As a youngster, I learned some ‘bad’ words from my older brother. (This long pre-dates social media or any swearing or hint of it on TV or radio.) He delighted in sharing the word fuck and damn and shit because he knew like the rest of us Christians, the power of the words and how it was all using God’s name in vain even if God wasn’t mentioned!
I’m reminded of the MAS*H episode where Col. Potter’s horse is ill, he’s away so Radar asks Hawkeye and BJ to help. They were helping, to a point, and making stupid joke as they went. Radar gets impatient with their tomfoolery and is finally driven to say “Oh Hell!” Startled and amused Hawkeye asks “Did you just say hell?” Radar responds “that’s right, I said hell, H E double toothpicks!”
One of our deacons used the words : “ahh spit!”
And another lady said, “tutti-fruitie!”
I’m thinking…just cuss!
Read this after reading your post about the broken finger today and thought of this song from several years ago.
https://youtu.be/oJmrgicMLQA?si=i8jKploATk7ogSVv
when you see censored cuss words written in comic books — #$?!# and such like — they are referred to as “jarns”, “nittles”, “grawlix”, and “quimp”.
Well — golly, geez, heck and fooey — does this bring back and old memory.
Decades ago (late 1980s), I attended one of those 3-4 day extended Christian music festivals which had an afternoon speaker (a nobody named Mike something) who queried the devout audience during his 45 minutes on stage: (Paraphrasing) “Have you EVER noticed, when people swear, they swear by invoking various versions of our Lord’s name?!?!? They NEVER say ‘Buddha be damned’ or ‘Vishnu be damned’. When they swear, they consistently swear while invoking the name of ‘Jesus’ or ‘God’ when they cuss! You all ever wondered why that is??? It’s because they definitively HATE OUR GOD, because they ALSO know that our God is the ONE TRUE GOD! DEEP DOWN THEY KNOW IT! And the BIBLE backs me up on this!” (Followed by cherry-picked bible verses to prove the point).
And, then, the festival audience would collectively respond with various: “Ooooos!” And “Oh, yeahs!” And “I never thought of it that way before, but that makes total sense!!!”
And then, finally, the gratuitous “Have-you-ever-taken-Jesus’s-name-in-vain-but-now-you-want-to-repent” altar call.
Bit OT, but re: Matthew Henry. We lived in his city of Chester for one year in 1990. His church had moved to a very rough estate and hubby and I ‘felt led’ to join it and give it all our support. It was an ugly 1960s building, looked like a shed but it had Henry’s original 17thC pulpit and organ in it, which looked so incongruous. Henry-worshippers and historians would come to pay homage to them sometimes. The funny thing was that it was a new church plant, the premises had been purchased from the Unitarians and, preach hard though he did, the IFB-style pastor never managed to get at least 2 elderly ladies to understand the difference between his 3-god theology and the previous one-god type, they just came every week anyway out of habit and doctrine just washed over them. Henry must have been turning in his grave..
And swearing, the church suffered a lot of vandalism and we arrived one day to see youths kicking in the glass door. My 5yo daughter said ‘Those…..those….naughty….naughty….then she found the word….PULLOVERS. They were wearing sweaters. This became our x-tian swear word of choice for a long time after that!
I’ve also just remembered that the ancient parish church inside the walled city of Chester was called ‘St Andrew’s Within The Walls.’ They set up a daughter church on the same rough estate and named it, ‘St Andrew’s Without The Walls.’ So we referred to our Matthew Henry Chapel as ‘Matthew Henry Without The Windows’, as, not infrequently it was!
My brother-in-law says to his 11-year-old son “they’re just words” in regard to “curse” words. He says it’s more important to be kind to people than to be concerned with someone saying “shit” or “hell”.
Another brother-in-law had a rule in his house that “stupid” and “shut up” were bad words. My kids are still angry that their uncle would try to punish them for saying those words when we (their parents) did not consider that a rule. (Meanwhile, that particular brother-in-law cheated on his 1st wife, has been divorced 3 times, had a kid with another woman and is currently barred from custody of that kid because he just served time for stalking and domestic violence against wife #3……but he’s super into Jesus now so…..).