"Christians Shouldn't Use Profanity"

TaPping the claim that some words should not be uttered by baptized lips

This is an apt first post for me for several reasons, all of which will shortly become clear, but for now, let’s just say I’ve spent a lot of time with Catholics, and let me tell you, Catholics do not have the same hangups about profanity as Protestants. I mean, just look at this:

If I have to warn you that this clip contains profanity, you’re already not paying attention. (Padre Pio, 2022)

That’s a priest. Dropping the f-bomb. While hearing a confession. A few decades after this, the Catholic Church canonized this guy.

Now, if you’re the kind of Christian who responds to that with, “Well, yeah, but they’re Catholics, not Christians”, then I welcome you to follow that priest’s instructions, because we don’t do bigotry here. Bigotry is what traps you in Christian cultural echo chambers, and that’s precisely what we’re trying to break out of by “testing and proving”.

So… If some segments of the Church are scandalized by profanity, but others embrace it—or, at least, think it’s not necessarily incompatible with holiness—then someone must be right and someone must be wrong, right?

Mmmm… Maybe.

Testing

Let’s start by asking the obvious question: What’s the Bible say about speech? I made a quick survey of this and there’s a lot about keeping your mouth shut in general—which is advice we should all heed more than we do—but the passages that seem most relevant to Christian claims about profanity are these:

Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Psalm 34:13, 1 Peter 3:10–11

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt… Colossians 4:5–6

A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit. Proverbs 15:4

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 15:1

From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. James 3:10

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. Ephesians 4:29

I notice there’s a lot of contrasting in these—do this, not that—and there may be some significance in that, but I’m going to skip exploring it for now. Moving along briskly: Based on these passages, what should not come out of our mouths?

• Evil

• Deceit

• Perverseness

• Harsh words

• Cursing

• Corrupting talk

…and what should come out of our mouths?

• Graciousness

• Gentleness

• Soft answers

• Blessing

• Speech that builds up

• Speech that fits the occasion

• Speech that gives grace to those who hear

Proponents of the claim, “Christians shouldn’t use profanity” will immediately seize on “harsh words” and “cursing” and probably also “corrupting talk” in the first list and say those apply to “four-letter words”. But there’s a problem with that: It assumes its conclusion. It classes four-letter words as harsh, cursing, and corrupting, then says the Bible tells us to avoid that, and concludes those words are taboo.

To be fair, American English has created ambiguity by applying the term “curse words” to “profane” or “four-letter” words, which, to an unthinking person, may make it seem like the Bible prohibits those words. To be even fairer, those words are often used to curse people (in the biblical sense). Maybe they were even originally used only to curse people, and then we broadened their application over the decades/centuries, but the term “curse words” has stuck. I am not an etymologist, so I’m not going to try to figure that out, but it does raise the question…

Are some words inherently bad?

Given my own background, this question makes me think immediately of Wittgenstein. What Wittgenstein actually said about it is a mystery to everyone but God (which is a joke only people who’ve—tried to—read Wittgenstein will understand), but what philosophers of language interpret Wittgenstein to have said is roughly this: The meaning of language is not objective. It’s determined by the community of people who speak the language.

Much as I hated reading Wittgenstein, that idea has stuck with me, because it explains why:

• In Europe, I knew pastors and missionaries who used the d-, s-, a-, and f-words as indifferently as if they were prepositions.

• In America, some (non-Catholic, Protestant) Christian subcultures do not consider the use of four-letter words to be sinful, and even appear to use them strategically to evangelize.

• In Appalachia (where I’m from), grandmas who are saintly by every biblical standard—serving the poor, defending the weak, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked—pepper their speech with profanity as prolifically as rap artists.

Unless we wanna say all these communities are actually unchristian because they use words we blanket-condemn—which I would not dare to say—it’s worth exploring why and how they use profanity in a way they believe is consistent with the biblical passages above.

Europe

There’s not a lot of depth to explore for this one because the reason many European Christians use profanity is very simple: They don’t consider it “profane”. I’m not sure how, but in some European countries, words like d—, s—, a—, and even f— never got branded any differently than darn, feces, backside, and intercourse. They’re just different words for the same thing—albeit with the subtle differences all synonyms carry—but they’re used just like any other inoffensive words, even by Christians.

If you were paying close attention in that last paragraph, you may have noticed that I did NOT say European Christians use the b-word just like any other word. Why not? Because I never heard them do it. That makes sense to me, because whereas d—, s—, a—, and even f— are often used without malice, b— is usually used to CURSE SOMEONE in the biblical sense. Not always, of course: If someone’s complaining, for example, one might ask, “What’s he b—ing about?” But that throws up an important qualification for EVERYTHING I’m saying here:

Profanity used hatefully is never pleasing to God—but then again, NO LANGUAGE used hatefully is pleasing to God.

So profanity is not special here. I often use ‘b—ing’, but on the occasions I have called someone a b—, I repented of that, because it should not be done. And don’t even get me started on the c— word (which Brits LOVE—although I’m told it’s not nearly as offensive there as in the US), because that is a word that never has and never will cross my lips.

I admit that, when I first heard European pastors and missionaries use profanity, I was shocked. But as someone who’s spent many years studying language, and who agrees with (what we think) Wittgenstein said, I quickly accepted it, because I understood why they were doing it: The non-Christian culture of their country never assigned any offensive connotation to or adopted any kind of broad prohibition on these words, and being members of that larger language community, their own speech conformed, probably totally unconsciously.

That being said, I’ve never heard European media or politicians or other public figures use profanity in a professional context, like in a news report or at a press conference. So there’s probably some sense of propriety about where these words are and are not appropriately used. But slang gets the exact same treatment: It’s ok in informal conversation, but avoided in “stuffy” and “polished” settings. So if there are times and places European Christians would avoid using four-letter words, it wouldn’t be for the same reasons many American Christians would avoid using them in those situations.

American Christian subcultures

These are very different from Europeans in that their use of profanity seems to be anything but natural and unconscious. On the contrary, it seems quite strategic. I’ve noticed two of these in particular, each of which has a different strategy:

1. Church-trauma recovery groups use profanity to signal that they’re not like the churches that hurt you.

2. “Roughneck” evangelization ministries use profanity to signal that they’re just like you—but also love Jesus.

Church-trauma recovery groups: “We’re not like the people who hurt you.”

I prefer not to call out anyone by name, but there are a few very (in)famous Christian figures who cater to people who’ve been hurt by the Church. I’m not talking about just Catholic altar boys who were sexually abused, folks. I know that’s where a lot of people’s minds go when they think of church abuse, but that’s only one form church abuse takes. Think Mars Hill-style, low-grade, long-term manipulation, exploitation, and just general mistreatment stemming from an egotistical leader, terrible theology, or any of a hundred other sources.

Naturally, when people have been abused at church, they want to distance themselves from church, and that often means abandoning Christianity altogether. So there are people—compassionate, loving people that I, at least, would call good Christians—who work to show victims of church abuse that Christ is not an abuser and His Church is not what they experienced.

Traumatized people are skeptical and skittish, though, and that presents an initial hurdle for these recovery groups: If they sound just like the abusers, the wounded sheep are gonna run away. So how do they signal right off the bat that the Christ they’re preaching and the church they’re offering are nothing like the ones that hurt the people they’re trying to reach? Well… Given how prudish many American Christians are about profanity, there’s a good chance the abusers didn’t use profanity (especially since abusers tend to be self-righteous). So by using profanity, these recovery groups signal to the wounded that they’re different and so maybe safe, and that the church they’re offering—and the Jesus of love, mercy, and kindness that they’re preaching—may be worth giving another chance.

I suspect church-trauma recovery groups are also tapping into the second strategic use of profanity, because wounded people (1) need to vent a lot of emotions (which profanity is great for) and (2) may themselves begin using profanity just to signal that they’ve left the church, and because (3) healing itself requires a “safe space” without judgment and arbitrary rules. But the second strategy is much more obvious in “roughneck” evangelization ministries, and therefore much easier to explain using them as my illustration, so…

“Roughneck” evangelization ministries: “When in Rome…”

This strategic use of profanity has a clear biblical basis. The Apostle Paul says:

To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law… that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law… that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. 1 Corinthians 9:20–23

In “roughneck” evangelization ministries, this idea of adapting to your audience to come across as authentic and relatable is critically important. I’m not using a widely employed term for these ministries, by the way. I just made up “roughneck” because it covers all the ministries I’m thinking of: those who evangelize bikers, gang members, prostitutes, criminals, counterculturals—basically, any group whose members often sport face/neck tattoos and disdain WASPy culture and think people who don’t use profanity sound like a bunch of stuck-up b—s.

If you don’t conform to these people’s linguistic norms (and also their appearance, I imagine), you’re not gonna get past the big burly dude with the gun at the door. So if you wanna bring them Christ, you’re gonna have to step “outside the law” of uptight American Christian culture.

Is our commitment to profanity’s unchristianness so serious that we’d condemn them for doing that? I have no such commitment, so the question is irrelevant to me. But if you do make that commitment, what’s your answer? If it’s ‘no’, what does that say about your reasons for condemning Christian use of profanity in the first place?

Appalachia

This one is near and dear to my heart for two reasons. First because, as I said above, I’m Appalachian. Second because, when I was a grad student, I studied “class migration” which, simply put, is when someone migrates from the lower/working class to the middle class, or the middle class to the upper-middle class, or the upper-middle class to the just-plain-upper class—or vice versa all the way down.

Most of the research on class migration has studied working-class individuals who, through education and/or hard work, rose to the middle/upper-middle class. There’s a lot of those people in America, and research has revealed a great deal about their struggles (many of which are captured in the book and film Hillbilly Elegy—please let’s not get sidetracked by whatever you think of J. D. Vance). One of those struggles implicates profanity.

In American working-class culture, saying what you really think isn’t just ok, it’s expected. And by “expected”, I mean required. If you don’t do it, you come across as “uppity” and “full of s—”, people don’t trust you, and you’re socially excluded. That’s a problem for people who migrate from working-class to middle-class (and especially upper-middle and just-plain-upper class) status, because those cultures punish saying what you really think in the name of “positivity”, “diplomacy”, and “pleasantness”.

My Appalachian roots are showing in all the scare quotes in that last sentence, but I can’t bring myself to remove them, cuz I think it’s all a bunch of BS—which is indicative of one of the most persistent problems class migrants tend to have: Even if you acquire the skills needed to succeed in middle-class+ society—like reading between the lines of what people say to figure out what they actually mean, translating your own brutally honest thoughts into something they’ll consider acceptable but also be able to decipher, etc.—you may live the rest of your life feeling like everyone around you is full of s—, you don’t really know anybody intimately, and you can never be truly known yourself. It’s lonely, isolating, and totally sucks.

I could go on and on about class migration, but here’s the point: Part of saying what you really think and being who you really are and fitting in with others in working-class communities is… using profanity. I’m sure there are working-class Christian families who don’t use it, just as there are plenty of upper-class Christian families who do, but in general, profanity is much more central to identity, authenticity, and community cohesion in working-class culture than it is at any higher rung on the American socioeconomic ladder.

Think about what you just read for a second applied to Donald Trump. Why is he so popular with working-class Americans? Why do “elites” tend to hate his guts? And ignoring his net worth for a moment: Whose cultural-linguistic rules does he follow? (Hint you shouldn’t need: Just a week or so ago, he dropped the f-bomb saying something about Putin on live tv.)

For sure, who loves/hates Trump is determined by more than just how he talks. After all, some filthy rich elite Republicans really like him. But still, there’s something worth considering here. Think back to the what-I-signal-off-the-bat point made above in the section on church-trauma recovery groups: The way Trump talks— no, the way we ALL talk plays a big role in determining who’ll continue to listen to us once we’ve opened our mouths, and who’ll tune us out forever; who’ll say “He’s one of us” or “He’s one of them”, even if every OTHER (non-linguistic) piece of evidence suggests the contrary.

I know all this stuff about class migration and working-class culture not just because I’m from Appalachia (where people used to be almost 100% working class, and most still are) and have read the class migration research, but because I am myself a class migrant. And while I’d say that, these days, I’m just plain ol’ middle class, there was a time in my life when all my colleagues were Ivy League MBAs who’d worked at top-tier consulting firms, born with the proverbial silver spoon and destined to die on golden mattresses, and because of all these issues, it was one of the worst times in my life. (Which, incidentally, aligns with the research that shows that, the higher you migrate up the ladder, the worse the punishment for nonconformity gets.)

So… When I hear American Christians condemning our brothers and sisters who use profanity, I tend to look for markers of class. And while, again, I don’t want to embed or paste in here images of any of the people I see doing this, I do often notice one commonality in images they post: Their wardrobe is never from Walmart and their backgrounds frequently include $150,000 kitchens, bedrooms bigger than some houses I’ve lived in, ceilings that aren’t popcorn-finished and carpets that aren’t contractor-grade beige, beautifully hardscaped patios beside perfectly manicured acres of lawn… You get the idea.

All of which makes me wonder: Is the claim that Christians shouldn’t use profanity not just unbiblical, ethnocentric, insensitive, and unstrategic, but also a tool the rich use to patronize—or even persecute—the poor? If it is, I’m sure it’s unconscious and unintentional. But that doesn’t make it any kinder to the poor.

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Proving…

So what have we established? Let’s review:

• According to the Bible, what comes out of your mouth does matter.

• According to universal Christian practice—across both religious denominations and national cultures—specific words are not inherently displeasing to God.

• Drawing on Wittgenstein (purportedly), the meaning a community assigns to a word determines whether, when, and where that word is appropriate to use or not, which explains why:

  • Profanity is offensive in many American Christian communities.

  • Profanity is not at all offensive in some other nations’ Christian communities.

  • Some American church-trauma recovery groups use profanity to help people heal, recover faith, and rebuild Christian community.

  • Some American evangelization ministries use profanity in the spirit of 1 Corinthians 9:20–23 to bring nonbelievers to Christ.

  • In some segments of American culture—Appalachia, working-class communities—the use of profanity is central to identity and group cohesion.

If, accepting all that, we refuse to allow that four-letter words are (using the Bible passages quoted above) intrinsically “evil”, “deceitful”, “perverse”, “harsh”, “cursing”, or “corrupting”, then it follows that it is at least possible for four-letter words to be used “graciously”, “gently”, “softly”, and to “bless”, “build up”, and “give grace”—which, indeed, we’ve seen is precisely the case in church-trauma recovery groups and “roughneck” evangelization ministries, where they “fit the occasion”.

…what pleases the Lord

Is it also possible, then, that profanity—where it “fits the occasion” and therefore “blesses”, “builds up”, and “gives grace” to others—actually pleases God?

I would say it is definitely possible. After all, of all the quotes we can cherry-pick from the Bible to support or oppose this claim, I think the most important one is this:

…out of the abundance of the heart [the] mouth speaks. Luke 6:45

If the disposition of your heart is right, and the people you wish to bless, build up, and give grace to either (1) believe that profanity is an appropriate way to do those things, or (2) won’t let you do those things at all unless you use profanity to prove you’re trustworthy, then why wouldn’t God be pleased for you to make like Paul and “go native”?

That being said, you may have noticed that I took the trouble to hyphenate (s—), abbreviate (BS), or otherwise mask (f-bomb) every single curse word in this post. And in future posts, I will try to avoid using such words at all. Given my own convictions about profanity (not necessarily dis-)pleasing God, and my profane Appalachian blood, why would I do that?

Because of everything we’ve just said: Many American Christians’ language communities have convinced them these words are offensive, so they take offense when they hear them, especially in Christian contexts. TaP doesn’t target people who’ve been wounded by the church, nor do I expect it to appeal to biker gangs or MS13, so I have no strategic reason to disregard majority sentiment and use profanity here. Although I believe what I believe, I’m from where I’m from, I use profanity in my everyday conversations (when not in the presence of people who take offense at it), and I will surely be strongly tempted to use it here, I commit to not using it out of respect for the sensibilities of others—many of whose minds, I hope, this post has changed.

In return, I hope that all my readers will remember these words that the very wise Solomon spoke to the Lord:

You—You only—know the hearts of all the children of mankind. 1 Kings 8:39

…and pay my charity forward by not judging our brothers and sisters who do use profanity. You don’t know their hearts, and provided they’re not using profanity to curse (in the biblical sense) someone else, there are, as we’ve seen, plenty of good—even Christian—reasons to use it.

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If you made it all the way here, you’re committed, so I want your feedback

As I said above, this is my first post. I have a day job (and a night job), so for now, I plan to post to Test and Prove (TaP) once a month. If it takes off, maybe I’ll up that to once a week. But I’ve got a pipeline of 20 post ideas already, and every time I spend more than 5 minutes reading Christians’ posts on social and Substack, I cringe at least once and get another idea. If you tell me what you want, I’ll move it up in the queue. Right now the next 5 posts are (probably/maybe):

• Cults of personality vs anonymous ministry

• For-profit Christian ministries

• Nonprofit Christian ministries

• “Marketing” the Church

• Addiction hypocrisy

I’ve also got “complexes” (multiple posts) queued up for marriage, denominations, social media, evangelization and conversion, and theology/study vs experience/practice.

Tell me in the comments which of these to prioritize and/or add your ideas and I’ll update the pipeline.

Test and prove what pleases the Lord.

Ephesians 5:10