The One About The Swearing

I do not wish to apologise in advance for the length of this post. It is all relevant and worthy of reading. Whether you choose to do so is, of course, another matter!

Last week I called something "funky cool" and the person I was talking to immediately assumed I had said "fucking cool". The fact is that to do so hadn't even occurred to me - worrying. It was looking like I may have been giving up my corner on swearing before I have even argued the case for it. But I could not let that happen, so today brings the long promised post on using words that are bloody rude...

I met a friend's mum over Christmas and when she heard my "story from dark to light" she asked me some fabulous questions. (Quite a pentecostal background btw.) They were:
1. Have you received the Holy Spirit yet?
2. Do you speak in tongues yet?
3. Have you stopped swearing yet?
I laughed so hard. I then tried to to explain why I didn't think no. 3 was necessarily a necessity... she told me that I would be convicted in time.

The whole image of being changed when you become a Christian is an interesting one. Of course the point is that you are a new creation, standing in the grace of God. Things about life are going to look pretty different, the darker it was before the starker the change some may say. And I have talked a lot recently about how much I have changed. It's been fucking amazing actually, to look back and gasp in awe at the incredible effect knowing Jesus has had on my life.

But on the other hand, something cool one person said about it all was that I was utterly different yet more me than I had ever been. And one of the things about me was my creative linguistic expression. That and my desire and giftings for shocking other people.

Now. Don't hear that and think that my adamancy to explete stems purely from a willingness to be contentious. This has been something that has affected my interpretation of this issue but it has also been something that has been challenged as time goes by. From an early point of thinking it is hilarious to say that "God is fucking amazing" because I really felt that Christians were "stuck up their own arses" about swearing I have mellowed somewhat. In a way I wish I could still say that classic phrase but I feel more uncomfortable about it. Though I don't think it's the word so much as the capacity to belittle what I really think of God - making a point is not what praise should be about.

So, let me outline to you what I have discovered and pondered on as I make my journey from f'ing and blinding to slipping into alternative lingo without even realising.

Before I begin I must first deny that swearing is for "boring people". I have found it to be very creative and I also think that it does a very good job of emphasising things when it has to. I don't care what you say, there is a reason that they were invented and it wasn't to disempower communication. Most people don't like it because of the strength of the expression and whilst it can be quite sad to use the same vocab every other word the same can be said for people that blandly utter non-swear words and atleast the ones that do it aren't afraid of making an impression.

That said, it has little bearing on my thoughts. I found myself absorbed into a very Christian environment when I starting going to church in Switzerland. I love my pals there dearly and this really isn't about anyone in particular, actually a large part of this is to do with culture or should I say the mix thereof. So many people were shocked by my language. It is fair enough, I sort of cultivated it to shock (mostly my parents!) but at the same time I had never met people who genuinely were taken aback by it. Yet I sometimes felt very strongly that the reasoning behind the discomfort I caused was not because I was offending anyone in a really personal way but more because I was crossing an arbitrary line that they had down. It really depended vastly on the continent of origin of the person who was reacting but I suppose the argument was that it was an unholy way of speaking. And I just saw this as legalistic mumbo jumbo. I really couldn't believe that people gave a shit what words I would say when it was clear my motivation was not ill.

So I have to admit it became a bit of a thing that Kat(i)e did. There were those that really appreciated the "fresh of breath air" that I brought actually, believe it or not! The way I saw it, language is a tool and these words were able to bring comedy, expression, and challenge into situations. I felt that people needed shaking up and it was my job to do it. Like I said, I was always one to stir so why not incorporate that role from before into the Kingdom now?

I was challenged in this of course, sometimes rightly so, and as time went by my usage got whittled down and down and down.
The number one command is to be loving and I didn't want to cause offence to people, particularly strangers or the vulnerable, so doing it in public I felt had to be metered.
As for children, well they probably wouldn't get that I had theologically reasoned why I wasn't in the wrong and so I had to guard the impression that would make.
It goes without saying, though I better had, that it is never right to swear directly at someone in an abusive way.
God loves this world and every body and thing in it and to be disrespectful is not cool.
Phrase like "fucking cool" and "bloody brilliant" are only every meant to add emphasis. When talking about something genuinely bad I could add it there too but negativity in general is not cool so I don't think I condone it then either.
That said, I would sometimes tell Satan to "fuck off" but then I heard that even the angels were polite to him so I figured best not.
One person told me that they witness by not swearing in a swear heavy environment and I can totally dig that. If it shows you are different. I just stuck to my guns that I was showing I was different in a different way. That I was not subject to the arbitrary laws of the church (small 'c') that wanted to put people into a box.
A big thing I realised was the whole "stumbling block" issue in Romans and as I spoke to Christians that said they struggled with swearing and felt bad when they messed up I realised that my "job" wasn't to get them to be OK with it as for them swearing is a big deal and I had no right to lead them into a place of guilt.
All these things added up to a limited context where I could let it rip! I never did adhere to the whole "don't swear in church" thing as God is everywhere and his temple is no longer a building but me and if I can swear at home I can definitely swear in the big old pile of bricks down the road. I did continue to swear, around those who weren't grieved by me but only for me!

You may argue that the loving neighbours and brothers thing means that challenging other Christians to not be legalistic goes out of the window. I know what you mean, but I have to say I don't think it is that black and white. If we accepted people's existing thresholds as the place within which to function then we may never get to the real honesty of life or the stuff that God wants us to do that is truly important, as we are caught up on insignificant details. There is the story of Tony Campollo (sp?) who got up at a conference and talked about how shit it was that people were dying in Africa but that the really shit thing is the fact that people react worse to the swearing than the situation. He got banned and people are still dying in Africa 10 years on... I feel that within loving there is sometimes the need to be cruel to be kind and I refuse to accept that because people find something "unacceptable" that they should be allowed to always not accept it. If we all went at the pace of the slowest runner then progress would be appalling and sometimes the slow ones need motivation forward in order to grow.

That said. Being the lesser of two evils does not make something right. What arguments have I heard against me? (Now is the time to stop if you think this post in long enough!).

Well, the main points were taken straight from the bible, which I must admit is pretty strong. I will try and remember the best ones:

Ephesians 4:29 - 5:7 which talks about unwholesome words and coarse joking being obscene and unholy.
James 3:1-12 which is about taming the tongue and the power of the words that leave your mouth.
Matthew 15 where Jesus himself discusses what comes out of your mouths being the things that make you unclean.
I've probably heard more but I never made a list of them all (feel free to add any you think of) and I already think these are all good points. I also think that my response is not going to be changed by this argument for, as I see it, the way all of these counter mine is if I am swearing in a way that is motivated by cruel or unholy intentions. Which is not at all my point.

For you see, language is a tool. It has evolved over so many years and words have meant so many things that I cannot see how the utterance of one is objective since even the definition is subjective to time and place. Did you know that in Māori the word for coward sounds just like fucker? And when we use the word gay it used to mean happy, then homosexual and now, for many silly "laddish" cultures, rubbish. Surely the context of a word is the thing that gives it meaning and thus power? If I am using "fucking" or "bloody" as qualifiers, or saying "shit" to mean "no way?!" then does that actually proclaim a heart that is coarse or unclean? In this subjective environment, motivation must be the only thing that counts and if a person's motivation not to swear is because they think people will frown upon them, it doesn't mean that God cannot see the secret hate words of frustration that they mumble to themselves. Doesn't cheeky verbalised bant beat hidden and internal angst any day?

Some say that language may be this mutable thing but that, actually, it is defined by how society sees it and not how I want it to be seen. Apart from the fact that many other people in society use it the same way as me (for I didn't just make up "love-swearing" but rather adopted it) and we cannot possible decide who's opinion is more valid, I postuate that perhaps refusing to accept swearing as wrong can instead take the power out of the words and stop them from being able to spread hate.

I sat next to the national director of Agapé at dinner tonight (check me and my name dropping!) and I told his all of this. He came up with the same ol' chestnuts for a while but then he did offer a new gem which I was quite thoughtful on. Right back in the day (when people were still friends with dinosaurs) man was told to name the animals. This dude's idea was that perhaps, in our era of "post-modernism" where we all talk about language as being this mutable thing, maybe this is actually a lie that keeps us from the fact that words have got specific meaning because we give it to them. A lion is a lion, end of. We created this language and we can't just decide willy nilly that "shag", for example, doesn't talk about sex in a degrading way. The meaning is there and is fixed and, as we all know, words have power; maybe by hiding this power from humanity a clever ploy is under way to get us all cursing and bringing negative connotations in secretly. Maybe that is why campness is so stereotypically jovial - because being "gay" spoke of joy before bumming. (That wasn't his example by the way!) Now, I can't fully accept this because of the historic way languages have morphed and evolved and even biblically speaking the first definitions were changed at babel, but I can see what he says about a word's meaning hanging around even when the people present don't intend it to. Still, there must be a cross over point when a connotation is changed? I mean, I have met miserable gay people... plus the word "wicked" used to mean evil and now means great and I'm not convinced that that speaks curses over everything cool to be found in North-East London. Something to think about but by no means a definitive answer. And what, are we supposed to go with the flow and just use words as society intends us to? Letting the world put us in a box?

I actually have a theory, which I will throw in here seeing as the post is already ridiculously long. I have heard the word "shabba" said in tongues (Christian language of the Holy Spirit, kinda like a secret language with God) by quite a few people and apparently a lot them famous charismatic ones all say it, like a popular slogan. Make sense, if you hang out with the same people you use the same lingo. Now, if I get so excited I can't express it sometimes I just want to talk in tongues and you know what, I think that maybe "shabba!" is angel talk for "shit!" When meant in a good way. It is a holy exclamation! Why not, eh? We all need to blurt it out sometimes. After all, aren't tongues for when you run out of human words? Screw society and all it's definitions, I'll use holy words. I don't know what they mean at all, so noone can corrupt them!

Anyway. Back to "swearing". I use "" because I think that the current implicit connotation of "to swear" is negative and my point is that the words aren't necessarily and shouldn't be tarred so. Life in Jesus is meant to be about freedom, not regulation. I do think that I am truly free to do this and the pleasure of taking those words and knowing that I am not condemned to use them is pretty cool! I also think that I am far far far too adamant about it and that, actually, if I deem it so possible that those people who think swearing is objectively wrong are themselves wrong then it is contrapossible that myself deeming swearing to be subjective is also wrong.

I may or may not be right but what I am not is God and I feel, after arguing my corner and taking the anti-legalistic high ground for so long, that I have become legalistic about my right to swear. Also, I may well say it is about the heart and not the actual words, but if my motivation becomes fighting then I am not loving and I am not being cruel to be kind but merely to be right. Which is definitely a load of bollocks.

So, it is now time to surrender. To say that, despite the frustration at falling into the stereotype and the potentially unnecessary softness of Christian life, that I am prepared to do it anyway. Acceptable or not, maybe it is important right now that I don't swear, in the same way that it is important my friend's nan does. Or quite possibly that none of us should in our plight for purity. Whether language is mutable we could discuss till the cows come home... the thing that Jesus wants is for me to be mutable. I don't know that the Holy Spirit has convicted me to stop swearing but He has convicted me to be willing to, to be open to changing even this deep-rooted defining personal feature in order that I may take on the features of Jesus instead. And so, this lent I will be fasting all my fave words and I won't even use "bums" "tits" and "willies" in case they are displacement. I'll have a swear jar too, though the plan is for it to remain empty. I don't know how I'll feel about taking it up again after Easter and so tomorrow, on one final splurge as I leave pasturate, I may well have to bid them C U Next Tuesday! :-O