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  GINKWORLD: VOICES: position papers  

 

 

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what is "foul language" and can a christian "curse?"

 

with the seemingly over use of profanity in our lives we have been praying over this issue and have been asked to create a position paper concerning this issue.  we have examined this issue on three levels, scriptural, theological and traditional.  our desire was to purely seek the scriptural base for our findings and spend time "striping" away the blinding human traditions.  we firmly believe that a great deal of the church is clouded by "cultural traditions."  know that this is our bias, we strive to find a safe and comfort place in scripture.  it is after a long and studious time we have come to the conclusion echoed in the following quote from the merrill tenney's pictorial bible dictionary (zondervan press, page 191):

 

"the modern western concept of cussing, ie the using of profanity in language, is never referred to in scripture"

 

we have come to the conclusion that words and words, and meanings are assigned to them based on the minds of the persons sending and the person receiving these words in communications.  these meanings change and morph with each different generation.  words only have meaning as assigned by cultural definitions.  as such, they do not carry with them a "good" or "bad" meaning - only a perceived meaning.

 

we used the following to help us in our study:

 

profane:

profane, comes from the middle english word "prophane" which is derived from the latin word "profanum" meaning "before the temple."  

 

in greek, the word used in the nt is "homologen" which means "to own before" and in hebrew "halal" which means "to open."

 

these words, and the corresponding scripture, helped us come to the conclusion that profanity is not what you say, it is what you do.  profanity is giving to God something less then what is expected, or giving to God seconds.  a good example is when you clean out the food pantry in your home to "donate" the food to the church food pantry - what you are doing is giving to God what you do not like, want or desire - you are giving seconds - you are acting in a profane way and that is unacceptable to God.

 

cursing:

the word "curse" comes from the middle english word "curs" meaning "to harm" and is used to "perform a prayer or invocation to harm another." 

 

in the greek it is "katapa" which means "to wish harm" and in the hebrew it is "alah" or "me'erah" or "qe'lalah" all meaning a "reversed blessing."

 

closing:

we have found that when scripture calls us to "not curse" or to "not be profane" is has nothing to do with the language we use, but is connected to our actions with others and our actions with God.  we have come to the conclusion that the use of language is not as important as the reality that God desire us to give our best - to all concerned.

 

we do not believe that scripture calls us to a "purity" of language, because it is totally subjective to the culture and the community.  we do believe we are called to a purity of heart and a desire to give to God everything we have with an open and loving heart. 

 

(c) john o'keefe

 

 

  

  

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