On language: profanity, cursing, vulgar language

SolitaryRoad.com

Website owner:  James Miller

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Yesterday a website reader sent me an email containing a link to a YouTube video that he wanted me to listen to. The video consisted of a black man talking to blacks and telling them a whole lot of things (hard truths) that only a black person could say, that a white person would not dare say. From the standpoint of what he was saying, the video was very good. In the very foolish, topsy-turvy society that we live in, a society that has just lost its sense, that just doesn’t think right, that no longer knows right from wrong, he stated a great deal of simple, hard truth. But there was a problem. His language. His language had me in shock. He was saying it all with the most foul, filthy language that one can imagine. He was stringing together four-letter, filthy words like one could hardly believe, one right after another in an amazing way, spitting them out like a machine gun spitting out bullets. I think the filthy-word density of his speech must have been around 80%. I am not accustomed to hearing gutter language. Ordinarily I would have just quickly turned something like this off, refused to listen to it. However, because of the truth in what he was stating, I continued listening. Afterwards, however, I wished I had just turned it off. I just felt dirty, polluted for the rest of the evening.

I am 76 years old and I have never used a curse word, swear word, four-letter type word or low or vulgar word in my life. Not once. Not ever. And I have never been tempted to. To do it would be, for me, like selling my soul to Satan. Language is very important to me. Decency is very important to me. When I was a boy growing up on our farm I never heard any profanity or low type language. And I would not have ever even considered using any myself. Doing so would have been as despicable as something like stealing. I never heard any low language in the little one-room country school I went to. Later when I attended high school in the nearest town I remember hearing some very low, four-letter words from one individual a couple of times. Other than that I don’t remember ever hearing any. I didn’t associate with the kind of people who would use such language. No one used that kind of language around me. To my mind at that time, that kind of language was used only by the very lowest social class. A social class that existed in some places here and there, but not one that I ever encountered. When I went to college, I didn’t hear that kind of language. Perhaps the reason is just the kind of people I associated with. Or perhaps, if they did use that kind of language, they were careful not to use it around me.

Where do my outlooks and attitudes in regard to language come from? Could they come from Christianity? Does the Bible have anything to say about the kind of language that one should and shouldn’t use? Yes, it does. Consider the following:

Col 3:5 Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, 7 in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.8 But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth.

Eph. 5: 3 But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; 4 neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. 5 For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Eph. 4: 29 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, ...

Prov 15:26 The words of the pure are pleasant words.

Titus 1:15 Unto the pure all things are pure.

Prov 22:11 He that loveth pureness of heart, for the grace of his lips the

king shall be his friend.

Uncleanness is the parent of blindness of mind.

Void of purity in morals, faith is but a hypocrite of words.

M. Tupper

In regard to cursing and blasphemy consider the following:

Ex 20:7 You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

Lev 19:12 And you shall not swear by My name falsely, nor shall you profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.

Of all the dark catalogue of sins, there is not one more vile

and execrable than profaneness. It commonly does, and loves

to, cluster with other sins; and he who can look up and insult

his Maker to his face, needs but little improvement in guilt to

make him a finished devil.

S. H. Cox

Profanity is both an unreasonable and an unmanly sin, a

violation alike of good taste and good morals; an offense

against both man and God. Some sins are productive of

temporary profit or pleasure; but profaneness is productive of

nothing unless it be shame on earth, and damnation in hell. It

is the most gratuitous of all kinds of wickedness a sort of

peppercorn acknowledgment of the sovereignty of the devil over

those who indulge it.

Tryon Edwards

The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing

is a vice so mean and low, that every person of sense and

character detests and despises it.

Washington

The devil tempts men through their ambition, their cupidity or

their appetite, until he comes to the profane swearer, whom he

catches without any bait or reward.

Horace Mann

Swearing is properly a superfluity of haughtiness, and can only

be considered as a sort of peppercorn sent, in acknowledgment

of the devil's right of superiority.

Robert Hall

Profaneness is a brutal vice. He who indulges in it is no

gentleman. I care not what his stamp may be in society, or

what clothes he wears, or what culture he boasts. Despite all

his refinement, the light and habitual taking of God's name in

vain, betrays a coarse and brutal will.

E. H. Chapin

The truth is, cursing, profanity and vulgar language are just totally incompatible with Christianity. Christianity is all about goodness, virtue, chastity, purity. It is just not compatible with dirt and filth. God is a good, holy, pure being. He is not tolerant towards indecency and filth. If we have the spirit of Christ in us, we will be chaste and pure.

Low language is the language of the Devil. Vulgar, filthy language tells a lot about a person. It shows a dirty soul. A soul that is far away from God and true Christianity. It is not conceivable to me that a true Christian could use profanity or vulgar language. I think a person who uses it and thinks he is a Christian is deceiving himself.

I don’t watch television. I object to most of what is on it. I live a rather socially isolated life. I talk to my wife and not to many other people. But I know that in the America of today profanity and low, vulgar, filthy language is everywhere. It is the new America. It is on TV, in published material, on the internet, everywhere. In the comments sections on the internet it is almost the rule. It is now the norm for a very large portion of this society, the most of the society. Listen to the rap lyrics of the Blacks. What do you hear? It has been going on for years. The new generations in America are very different from the older generations. There has been a total transformation in this country. The new America has a totally different mind-set with totally different basic assumptions. Christianity is gone. America no longer knows what goodness and decency is. Vulgarity and indecency is universal. That bodes very badly for this country. America has abandoned God. There will be consequences of this.

Oct 2015