Cussing has always been interesting to me. I remember back in third grade, Shea Harden and I built this really cool fort in the woods during recess. It fell down a lot — it was constructed of long sticks — but we built it up every day and sat in there talking and being proud of our accomplishment. Shea was a new girl from the South and she wore dresses with pinafores. She was also incredibly smart and kept me on my toes as a student because I was very competitive back then. We both came from homes where swearing was forbidden so I remember suggesting to Shea that we use our safe fort in the woods as a place to say all the swear words we wanted to. I don’t think this particularly interested her, but it definitely interested me and I think I actually recited lists of cuss words on a few afternoons. I guess I’ve always been fascinated by what happens when you utter forbidden things. I felt tough and bad and definitely masculine.
Later, in sixth grade I hung out with a group of nice boys during summer camp and sprinkled my speech with cuss words to impress them. This was right before I became exclusively devoted to theatre and decided to stop trying to impress ordinary boys, who I actually found quite boring.
I use cuss words with my friends — many of whom are clergy who also freely cuss. So I just want you all to know that THERE ARE MINSTERS WHO SWEAR. YES. Holy People ordained to do work in the name of God! If you’re going to send me hate mail for that, please make sure to make a lot of copies so I can distribute them accordingly.
For all of that, though, I had a vigorous debate with a friend who preached on language and SAID CUSS WORDS IN THE PULPIT. Her argument was that since she was saying those words without any emotional charge, it was okay. I vehemently disagreed. I think that cuss words do not EVER belong in church, and have often rejected poems or other readings I’d like to use because they contain obscenities of the first order, or even just graphic language. Not in church. Never in church. I let slip a “damn” or “how the hell” now and then during a passionate sermon and I’m not going to flagellate myself for it, but I don’t like it and guard against it.
But what about while doing church business? What about the Cussin’ Pastor in general?
I have two personal rules:
The only time to appropriately use cuss words in your ministry is to express outrage on someone else’s behalf that you cannot express any other way. The shock of hearing you use that word will communicate to that person total solidarity, anger and anguish.
I learned this in 1983 when my father died very suddenly and I had to open a show the day of his funeral. I was the leading lady and I felt that the show must go on. Bambi Linn, the famous dancer who was the choreographer for our production, took me by the hands backstage, looked into my eyes and said, “Merde.” Which is s*** in French. It was such an elegant expression, she was so beautiful and so outraged for me, and I never forgot the moment.
Many years later a woman in my church told me that her cancer had returned yet again. I took her by the hands and could not think of one thing to say. And so I said, “S***.” It just slipped out. She let loose a whoop of laughter. I was so confused, I had felt so entirely helpless — it never occurred to me that that was all I needed to say. I later remembered that Bambi Lynn had said the same thing to me at a time of great loss and fear.
So that’s the first rule.
The second is simpler. “Damn” is okay. “Jackass” is fine (as long as it’s never used to describe anyone in your ministry, but behaviors that you and your community mutually condemn). “S***” is okay for special moments. But the f-bomb is not okay, don’t let that word pass your lips in the church. It’s the baddest of all bad boys – if you’re a cussing kid, save that particular word for your private life.
Go forth and speak the truth in love! But watch yer mouth, as my mother used to say!
LOL! My best friend Leslie and I used to go down to the park near our homes and say to each other, “Let’s curse.” “Okay, let’s curse.” Then we would use hell and damn, which were the only curses we ever heard adults use. When I was in college, as we neared the end of our first semester, my roommates and I instituted “The *F* Fund” — in which we had to put a quarter every time we cursed, so that our language would be cleaned up by the time we went home for Christmas.
I agree with your general guidelines, PB. I was VERY happy yesterday, that I had exclaimed “Oh, POOP!” instead of its alternative as a pair of parishoners were walking into the office. I have been known to curse, but I try to avoid it because it’s so easy to make it part of your everyday conversation, which both robs it of its impact, and makes you look, well, I don’t know, limited in terms of your ability to express yourself.(?)
And never, never, never from the pulpit. Even when I’m quoting someone else, I will paraphrase the obscenities.
When I was in seminary, there was a particularly ugly incident where I had sent a family member a gift, and it was returned to me unopened. I collected it from the communal mailbox area, and was carrying this good-sized box out of the building when a classmate exclaimed, ‘You got a package!’ And I explained that it was not a happy occurrence. All he said was, ‘That really sucks.’ Which was the first time he had ever said anything close to human. But it was the EXACTLY RIGHT thing to say, and the moment I knew he would be a good pastor.
Almost a year ago I preached on the raising of Lazarus–have always wanted to do the ‘There will be a stench’ passage. I used as my example of ‘stench’ the fact that I pass by the wastewater treatment plant every day, and some kid on the bus will yell ‘WHO FARTED?’ Except I didn’t say that. I said, ‘Someone whose age has not hit double-digits will infallibly ask who has performed a rather unsociable bodily function?’ It said what needed saying (which is we ALL contribute to the stench), got a laugh, but didn’t put anyone off.
When I introduce myself to people and they find out that I’m a minister, they will sometimes look a bit self-conscious or nervous. Sometimes I say, “Please feel free to cuss.” It breaks the tension. But you’re right, for US, there is a limited allowable repertoire.
I’m also amused by what I call church swearing. It’s like when you hear someone say, “Oh, shhhhugar.” Or “Daggone it” or “Fiddle”. These words are normally too corny for most people (under 70) and are clearly cuss-word substitutes.
Hallelujah and Amen, Sister PeaceBang. I was raised in a cussing household; my mother didn’t manage to hold her tongue enough when we were little and learning to talk, so it just became part of our family vernacular. We were taught appropriate time and place, and that was within the comfort of our family. I absolutely cuss like a truck driver, and will probably continue to do so with my friends and loved ones as I venture into ministry.
I’ve luckily taught myself not to cuss in my professional life (I’m a staff member at a university), which I expect to maintain through graduate school and into ministry. Oddly enough, I haven’t jumped on substitutes (“poop”, “heck”, etc); I have found a way to simply bleep myself out, as it were. I either leave blanks in my sentence structure (“Son of a —” or “Mother —“, being particularly colorful, otherwise) or put in entirely nonsense words. It creates my own space for upset moments (stubbed toes, frustrating office mistakes, etc) without being really blatant or vulgar.
I think part of what makes cussing great is that it IS taboo. Somewhere, some portion of our lives has a place for civility, respect, and decorum, and for a minister, that is CERTAINLY the church and church life. Giving ourselves a space with friends to be crass and crude (if that is our style) opens us up to creativity, to our true and basic human nature, and to a little rebellion.
Gidget–
First, I love that you ask other people to cuss; it breaks that weird tension really well! It makes you more “normal”, too, where people can suddenly clam up like crazy.
SECOND, I loooooove those church swears. I’m 26 and sometimes use really corny & old-fashioned church swears for the novelty and for the added punch. It gives a vintage, fabulous feel. “Sugar” is a particular favorite. 🙂
I once said “bulls***” in the pulpit. I am unrepentant. It was intentional. A kid in our community had just been hit by a train (an accident, not a suicide) the night before, and I scrapped what I had planned to preach to instead talk about how we talk about grief. (And he was the child of a friend, so I was feeling a little personal grief about it.)
IIRC, I counseled against saying, “God must have needed another angel” or “God’s will is mysterious” because I think both of those things are bulls***. It is lazy and lousy theology to claim that God either “needs” someone more than we do, or that God wills the death of children. (I said all that, too.)
The old curmudgeons in the back row almost stood up and cheered. One of them told me after the service that he almost said “Amen” when I said that. (And he repeated the story to all his friends, and their children and grandchildren.) Others told me how much they appreciated my honesty. And there were no kids in the room when I said that, which, frankly, did make a difference to me.
Would I do it again? We’ve had lots of lousy stuff happen in the community and the nation (and the world) since, some worse than this tragedy, and I haven’t cussed in church again. I kind of doubt I’d do it again. I agree it doesn’t really belong in church. But then again, I wouldn’t take it back. [LG, did you see my first personal rule about cussing? If it’s in outrage on someone’s behalf, I’m for it. Still not from the pulpit but I certainly wouldn’t leave a church over that. We do these things very rarely, if at all, and very advisedly. I may have said “bullshit” in my impassioned sermon the Sunday after the Columbine murders myself. I don’t remember. I do remember that people rose and applauded. Sometimes we are called to be the release valve of rage and grief on behalf of the community. We must know our people to understand how that is best accomplished. Calling out bullshit may be one way. – PB]
for a really, really long time, I denied my call, because my growing up pastor wouldn’t have said s*** if he had a mouthful of it. I thought that was how you had to be, in order to be a minsiter. So it was a delight and an opening of teh way for me, to find out other pastors, whom I knew and loved, cussed- just like me– but not in the pulpit
I once knew a minister who was fired after letting a four letter word fly when he hit his thumb with a hammer on a church work day. Of course that church never had any problems coming up with reasons to run their ministers off.
To me, the word “cuss” is really quaint–a term my grandmother’s generation would use. Maybe this is regional, but I grew up with swear words, not cuss words.
I had a great English teacher in 7th grade (Hi Mr. P!) who talked about the d-word and the f-word, and why is the d-word not as offensive as the f-word? Why is it more OK to condemn someone to eternal hell, than to wish a pleasurable experience upon the person.
He had another rant about why we should reserve swear words for the appropriate occasions. Searing all the time makes it seem like you have no vocabulary or that you don’t think about the meaning of words. His favorite example was people who use f-ing in every sentence, such as “can I have the f-ing ketchup?” He would ask why someone thinks that ketchup is engaged in sexual activity. On the other hand, if reserved for appropriate times and places, then it becomes clear that you really mean it when you use certain words.
I am neither arguing nor supporting your point, but if you claim to be a minister of Christ, why don’t you make any reference to what the God that you represent has to say on the topic? [Jesus cursed all the time. It’s right in there. As for the Big Guy, aside from not taking the Lord’s name in vain, I don’t know that there’s any general admonition against cussing. – PB]
It’s not about the minister, but the One who makes ministry worthwhile.
I wrote a murder mystery dinner theater play where a youth was supposed to say “I’m in the damn Mafia” at a heated moment. It came out “I’m in the, um, err, Mafia!” as if she were unsure of her mafia status.
Later, she said she just couldn’t say “damn” in front of the kids in the audience, which I thought was adorable. And the uncertainty worked another red herring into the show.
CC
who generally thinks that something advertised as a MURDER mystery dinner theater is allowed to be PG, but I liked that my youth felt she was watching out for the anklebiters.
We had an evening service a few years ago right around MLK day. My husband & I brought friends with us to the service. Imagine our shock when one of the readings contained the f-word. The reading was done by a lay person and not the minister, but still. Our friends never came back, they were so put off. It was embarrassing. It’s not like I never personally say it – I just don’t want to hear it from the pulpit!
Thank you PB and fellow readers for this discussion. it is a struggle for me. I think cussing (not in church!!) is a way of proving I am still a “regular person”. i walked into the church kitchen one day as a gal said “oh, s**t!” and i, laughing, said “tsk tsk” and then, still laughing, said that word is indeed in my vocabulary!
I am deeply bothered by the amount of cussing in the media. and especially very vulgar language whether “cuss words” or not. We baby boomers adore cussing, it was one of the ways we liked to prove how different we were! vulgarities are so prevalent now. people throw around words with no thought as to meanings. the B-word is so prevalent. I hate that “douche” or “douche-bag” is used as an extreme put down of men. It is degrading to women!!
well ok, i have ranted now. thank you again for bringing this up!
Carol
Thank God for Stanley Hauerwas, that’s what I say. Knowing that a famous theologian like Hauerwas has a potty mouth makes my life bearable as a minister.
Hauerwas started out life working as a bricklayer; I worked in the residential construction industry through my twenties and early thirties. In the construction world, the f-bomb occurs with great frequency, not only as a modifier and interjection, but also in between syllables of other words. I try to police my mouth, but, well, sometimes you’re talking and sh—, er, things happen. I used to beat myself up over it. Self, I’d say to myself, what the fu—, er, what on earth were you thinking?
I have finally realized that, like Stanley Hauerwas, I’m never going to be able to completely eradicate those speech habits drilled into me in young adulthood; this isn’t a “growing edge,” it appears to be a permanent character defect. Now I apologize to whoever it was who overheard my slip, blush, and move on. No excuses — but rather a realization that like all humans I’m a fallible, imperfect, flawed mortal being who sometimes can’t do good even when I try my hardest.
Which I guess is why I’m a Universalist: the only way I’m going to get into heaven is if God can find it within Godsself to forgive all I am doing wrong. God is love, amen.
When I was undergoing the career assessment and psychological profiling as part of the preparation for candidacy, I used some foul language with the counselor. I had mistakenly assumed this was my time to speak from the heart, as I would have done in any other counseling situation. When he wrote his report about me, he included a mention of my bad language as a concern. I requested that he amend that, which he did, but it taught me a good lesson about how people hear such language, in spite of my assumptions.
Because we’re trying to keep our potty mouths closed at home around our 8 yr old, the whole family has made a pact that if we say a bad word, we have to suck on a piece of ice until it melts – no chomping, just letting it melt on your tongue. It’s hard, and very effective!
I know a priest who says that sometimes a cuss word is the only appropriate response to a really bad situation, and it’d be a sin not to use it.
🙂
When I had breast cancer and was getting prepped for my lumpectomy, one of the procedures involved sticking a big fat needle thing where the tumor was, as a marker for the surgeon. When I returned from that to my room, the nurse meeting me there asked how I was, and I said, “okay, except for this giant dart in my chest.” And she just said, so sympathetically, and in a wonderful gravelly whiskey-and-cigarettes voice, “Doesn’t it suck?” In my memory of that ordeal, she is a shining beacon of mercy. I adore her.
One of my favorite RE moments is the OWL lesson where first the parents, and then in another session, the students (middle school age) have to list every synonym they can think of for breasts, penis, vagina, oral sex, and intercourse.
Of course the students all stumble on a few of these words, and I remember saying “okay folks, come on. When else are you ever going to get to say f#*k in church?”
And @ liturgygeek. I love your story. That seems like the perfect setting to say that word–and if it wasn’t so shocking it wouldn’t have had the same impact. Collective voice of a community’s grief indeed.
One of my favorite Religious Education memories is about teaching OWL to middle school students (Our Whole Lives, the UU/UCC sexuality education curriculum). One of the first lessons involves the parents, and in a different session the youth, all listing all the synonyms they can think of for breasts, penis, vagina, oral sex and intercourse.
The students are often a bit reticent, and I remember saying once, “come on folks, when else are you ever going to get to say f*#k in church?”
And, @ liturgygeek, I think that’s exactly the right time to use a word like that– and it wouldn’t have had nearly the power if it wasn’t so shocking. Giving voice to collective grief indeed.
A nice exploration, in your post and the comments, of when to use these most powerful words. I think even a swear from the pulpit has its (limited) place, but WTF is with a reading with F in it? We edit out sexist language all the time, so I’d edit it down to “damn” and note that the reading has been “adapted.” If I’m telling a story where it’s essential to know that the person said a very bad word, I say, “and here he said a very bad word.” (I noticed recently that J. K. Rowling does this quite a lot. We are therefore gently informed that Harry Potter is a normal teenager who says things like s*** and f*** under extreme provocation, without having to hear him do it.)
The moments that bug me most are the ones where I slip. Not a considered use of a cuss from the pulpit, but a slipping into my off-duty language when I’m chatting with a parishioner. I can follow up with “pardon my French,” but the damage is done: they’ve seen past my professional persona and learned something I’d prefer they not know about me. As if I’d invited them over to my house but forgot to pick up the dirty laundry and make the bed first.
And yet, a very smart minister I know recently warned on her blog against “bringing a totally different face and demeanor to our work than we truly own in our private moments” and the bifurcation of public and private” that “sets up a ‘holy person’ at the center of things who carries constant worry about being caught in the act of being themselves (ie human).” At the risk of luring you still further from the topic of Beauty Tips, I’d like to hear your thoughts on where to find the balance.
I’m surprised no one has yet mentioned Rev. Tony Campolo’s famous shocker:
Again, outrage on someone else’s behalf, and at the same time redirecting outrage stirred up by coarse language to something more meaningful in the world. Awesome! [I had not heard this. I think OFTEN of the things that people fixate on that they deem “obscene” vs what really IS obscene…Thank you! – PB]
Once I left a difficult ministry in a congregation the District Executive deemed “malicious.” They had broken every minister since the second world war save myself and one other.
After the service the Sunday after I announced my resignation an elderly English woman came up to me. Imagine yourself after that tumultuous week standing there in your robes at the doorway of this old, white-clapboard New England meeting house trying to be sociable with folks who had been mean. She was wearing a light pink dress and a totally appropriate neat straw hat. She smiled, looked up into my eyes and said (looking for all the world like Queen Elizabeth II and sounding like her too), “I am so glad for your sake that you are leaving us. Now you will not have to deal with our s***.”
I know, I know. It was not from the pulpit but it made me feel much better for someone to name the situation so improperly. I loved her for that moment. Cussin’ sometimes helps. [LOVE HER. ForEVER. – PB]
Great conversation. What is with “suck” as a cuss word? Did it go from sexual taboo to generic? I guess it’s like ass, a word that is fine if you are riding on one and a swear if it’s a bum. One can suck an ice cube or the like, but in “That sucks” or “you suck” or “cocksucker” it’s a swear. I should look this up.
For me, not growing up in a cussing family, the times I have used a cuss word were just for the purpose of “fitting in”. I’m not offended when cuss words are used in my presence, but for me there is nothing beautiful about it.
@Dan — I always love that Stanley Hauerwas says that because of where he grew up he was in graduate school before he learned that some people consider “asshole” to be an insult! But I’ve ben thinking about this thread for a while. I wonder how much of this is related to classism rather than theology. If we were to do literal translations of a lot of OT stuff, and even of Paul, we wouldn’t be able to read it from the pulpit by many of our own standards. We have been encouraged to develop a clerical gentility that has nothing to do with our passion or calling other than allowing us to slip into situations where we might not otherwise be welcomed (not necessarily a bad thing). I’ve known pastors who might have been good pastors but who turned people off by their “roughness” — For me there’s always the balance between being a “real” person (in my dress, in my language)and maintaining an ability to move into pastoral and priestly roles. Perhaps, as Campolo demonstrates, the prophet can use earthy language. Just thinking out loud here.
Here’s Jesus having a good go – I doubt things like ‘snakes’, ‘sons of hell’ and ‘whitewashed tombs’ were polite at the time!
Matt. 23:15″Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.
16″Woe to you, blind guides! 17You blind fools! 19You blind men!
25″Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
27″Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. 28In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
33″You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?
Perhaps just my generation, but the word “sucks” has really passed into “nothing to do with sexuality at all” in a lot of ways – it’s an effort for me to remember that it’s not the case for all.
Then again, when I burned myself with a blowtorch on a camping trip, the f-bomb came out, and we had a discussion about language that i initiated after that with the teenagers..
I once heard a priest use the f-word from the pulpit. It worked. It was definitely an expression of outrage (an unjust situation was “f-ed up”) and it was so uncharacteristic of this person that it really had impact. Coming from someone else, I probably would have rolled my eyes and seen it as a gimmick, but coming from her, it was right.
I’m not ready to use the f word in the pulpit (although I’ve had to otherwise curb my fondness for it)BUT, the thing about clergy being against cussing is a real barrier to ministry in a lot of settings. I work in a hospital and when one first starts as a chaplain the first thing people do is shut up when you walk by or apologize for their cursing (in high stress environments it is the norm as most of you know). It is a sign of real trust when they either quit apologizing or just apologize then say what they need to say.
Like many of you I’m so tired of being mistaken for the “church lady” on SNL just because of a stereotype, and if the occasional colorful word (or fashion statement) helps break that connection then that is truly Gospel work.