A couple of years ago I saw the title of Juanita Bynum’s book “No More Sheets.” I giggled for I felt she wanted us to understand what she meant with the pronouncement of the word sheet.
I want to talk (about) shit. I do not mean fecal matter but matters of cussing. I have two points that I hope to make;
1) Cultural/contextual cussing
2) The vulgarities of cussing
If I was to summarise, I would say, the first one talks of when cussing is okay and the second when it is wrong. I will give my reflection using meditated scriptures
I used to cuss a lot. If you can imagine a thirteen year old boy calling his friends motherf*** then you can get the idea. I never knew it was wrong to cuss. I thought it was a language that my peers and I used. Granted much of my vulgarities I had picked from watching movies like Juice, poetic justice, Friday and a host of other low budget movies with this kind of story line. The music I listened to didn’t help either. I listened to N.W.A when I was around ten years old. Couple this with the whole death row records artists who you might remember if you grew up in the nineties.
The first time I heard that the bible forbids foul jokes and cussing was in High School. I never knew it was a sin and in my heart I felt convicted to stop. I did not struggle to stop. In fact this was one of my markers that I knew I was saved. For a whole week I did not cuss!
Before then, I had always believed the vulgarities I spoke were the language of my generation. Today I listen to teens talk and I don’t get some of the words they use.
I have heard a couple of preachers cuss. It was very shocking after all the sermons I had heard about cussing. I have cussed. As a Christian, I have watched standup comedy where the comedian said a lot of cuss words. I have been involved in various conversations about cussing.
A majority of Christians would not have room in their theology to imagine that cussing would be okay in some contexts.
Here is something I believe, God is not a blonde. He is all knowing. He knows all our possible words even before we speak the actual words that we choose to speak from the infinite possible ones he knows. To me, God understands!
Cultural/contextual cussing
Cultures vary depending on what contexts you are in. There is language that makes sense when you are online or writing or speaking. The same word can have a different meaning when used in a different context.
For example, when Michael Jackson says he is bad he means is really good. When you call an artist a wicked keyboardist, it means he is really good. You are actually praising someone when you call them wicked or bad in this context. The same words “bad” and “wicked” have different meanings which are not praiseworthy.
In Swahili we get as many examples from our sheng language. You can say Mwalimu King’ang’I ni fala sana .A word translation will mean “that guy is very stupid” a meaning translation would mean “that guy is a joker-with a tingle of positivity.” Am sure you could think of others. Words used from greetings to casual conversation words to formal corporate lingo. Words which when used out of context can get you in jail.
With this understanding we then get that Jesus was not being disrespectful when he called his mother “Woman” or Herod “a fox” or the Pharisees “unmarked graves”. Neither was Paul being vulgar when he compared his righteousness to shit. He actually used a cuss word of their time. Taken out of context of course he was cussing. We also understand that Ezekiel was not being vulgar when he said that the women of his day and a time to come would just/just wanted men with dicks that were the size of donkeys, neither was Isaiah being vulgar when he compared our righteous acts before God as used tampons.
Cuss words when used in context are okay
The vulgarities of cussing
If you are a hater and all you think about are impure thoughts, things that dishonor women or guys, and generally things that are not good or disrespectful, naturally you will talk a lot of vulgarities. If you continually feed yourself with music, movies, entertainment or conversations that are vulgar your mind will be full of these things and you will talk them out often.
I think it is great not to cheat yourself, if you have friends who cuss a lot, you will start cussing especially when you are not with them. It doesn’t matter how much a moral person you consider yourself to be. But God does not want us to be vulgar or share foul jokes. He wants us to live in communities that are pure.
Cuss words spoken from an impure heart are wrong.
There are several things I have not talked about but this is an ongoing conversation not final. Things like minced oaths (e.g. when you say crap instead of shit, or heck instead of hell…) which I can just repeat, God is not a blonde. Maybe I should now add, God is not a blonde, neither should we be. To me, therefore, a minced oath is just being religious although it is good to sometimes use minced oaths when in certain audiences.
So Juanita Bynum can use a minced oath for her book cover instead of calling a spade a spade
