It’s become apparent to me that the issue of culturally profane language is being used to discredit the emerging church. Although I doubt my ability to say anything which will be persuasive to persons who have already decided to absolutely condemn persons who do not feel cussing is sin and actually say cuss words, I’m going to try any way.
Here’s a quote from a comment to the post, Foul Mouthed Emergents Beware: “The mouths of the Emergents are vulgar because theirs hearts are rotten.”
The most extreme voices who stand in criticism against the emerging church will never have any meaningful voice with us as long as they continue to use their language to batter us.
Honestly, I must say that we do have a problem with profanity in the emerging church. It’s not because profanity in and of itself is actually wrong. But sometimes being right and doing the right thing are completely different.
The reason cussing is so popular in the emerging church is not because our hearts are rotten. It’s because we’ve seen the disparity between people using good, clean language to rip people apart and their attacks on the use of cultural cuss words. Because they believe they’re right, they can be as mean-spirited and awful as they like. As a part of rejecting the established church, we react most stronlgy to the hypocritical elements of legalism.
So we’ve reacted in an improper manner. For some of us, myself included, I’ve exercised my freedom in Christ just because I can. It’s an abuse of freedom. I’m not talking about dropping something on your foot and letting loose a cuss word. Some of us have adopted it into everyday speech, just because we know we can. I confess that I’ve been guilty of this at times, and I’m going to stop.
The main reason I’m going to stop: Abusing my freedom to do something which in a legalistic sense is NOT sin, I’ve damaged my ability to talk meaningfully about speech exercised frequently in the Church which is sinful. I’ve sat in board meetings where the language flying around, while not culturally profane, surely fit the meaning of the passages in Scripture condemning unwholesome talk. Most recently, I’ve been reading websites where their spirit is so mean and awful, they can’t even see that their language fits these passages much more so than the people they accuse.
Language is primarily about communication. Communication is creating shared meaning. The cultural context surely does rate whether saying a word is in and of itself wrong. However, the higher calling which is the way of Jesus is not to legalistically determine what is right or wrong and then live by the rules. That leads to the mean-spirited attacks on those who are seeking to live out their faith in freedom, those who desire to be free from structures which hinder their growth in Christ. Certainly, we are making mistakes along the way. I hope that at the bottom of our hearts, we will learn from our mistakes and find the freedom which can be exercised in love.
I also think online presence is different from physical presence. Some of us need to distinguish between the cultural environments we walk in daily and the one we have online. If I drop an f-bomb with some friends who don’t care, it’s quite different from using it on a page accessed by many. I know some of you will disagree with me, and think I’m compromising and acquiescing to the legalists. I think that even if you’re right, I’m choosing charity over my right to talk how I want.
Having written what I have, I need to add one very important thing: Refraining from doing something you don’t see as wrong, because you believe refraining is the right thing to do, is rarely (if ever) a black and white issue. For my friends who will disagree with this position I’m taking, I harbor no judgement or condemnation on you. I understand where you’re coming from. But I hope you at least give thoughtful consideration to where I’m coming from. If we want to talk meaningfully about speech that tears down, we cannot use speech which the group we need to communicate with deems profane and sinful.
The emerging church needs to be the group which sacrifices in order to achieve one of her greatest callings… to help the church universal shed traits hindering the spread of the Kingdom of God.
i just read this post . . . i wish more people on both sides of the debate had this kind of charity.
mark
December 19th, 2005