Tonight, I was talking to a young friend for whom I have a lot of respect, and during the conversation, I used a word that he did not like. Not at all. I thought it was OK to use, especially given the fact that we were discussing ad-hominem arguments and name-calling in general. He simply did not think this word needed to be said. He referred to Romans 14, saying that I should not give another believer reason to stumble. +1 for tying his opinion to scripture.
My immediate thought was that living by rules (such as what words are and are not OK to say) is a bigger cause of stumbling than any word I know of. I also referred several times to my opinion that living by a list of rules seemed more antithetical to Christianity than using a “swear word” could be (other than using God’s name in vain). He kept saying “there’s no list.”
Like I said, I respect this guy a lot. Still, the conversation left me with the following puzzlers.
Hard Ice Cream Sucks
What is it about word choice that might cause another person to “stumble,” in the sense used in Romans 14? Why do many believers believe that there are “bad words” and that they know what words those are? This is puzzling to me even though (and maybe because) I used to think I knew what those bad words were myself. It just doesn’t make sense to me anymore. One incident that changed my views happened when I was in high school. I was at Me-Too (a grocery store) with my Mom and was being picky about what particular box of ice cream we bought. I did not like scooping ice cream that was really hard, and I told her “hard ice cream sucks.” She took strong offense at this. Later, she discussed it with my Dad, and they agreed that “sucks” was “just a substitute for another word.” To this day, I’m not sure what the “other word” was, because there isn’t any “bad word” I know of that makes sense in the sentence “hard ice cream __________ .”
At the time, I was just confused by this whole series of conversations. Later on, I realized that there was a generational aspect to it, and that the word sucks, or at least the way I used it, was probably much more offensive to my parents generation than it was to mine. I still don’t understand why, but I respect the difference. Which is a good reason to take my friends’ advice and not use offensive language … except that it begs the question: how do I know what words will cause someone else to stumble? Is there an RSS feed I should subscribe to or something?
List? What List?
Just to re-iterate the obvious, how can there be no list? My friend has to have a list of words he doesn’t want me to utter, right? It’s not like there are a set of words that are self-evidently bad. I have one adult friend who shared with me some words he finds offensive (though he did not say that hearing them caused any problems for him – he just didn’t like those words). I was surprised by some of what he shared. I have another friend who is on the board of a large church, and in the course of his work I have heard him use words that I’m sure would be on my young friend’s list. Same for another prominent Christian at my place of work. Without a list, there’s no way to avoid offending people. With a list, there’s no way to avoid legalistic wrangling over which words belong on that list.
The Real Problem
It’s interesting to me that the intent of the Romans 14 passage includes getting us to not pass judgment on each other. In other words, while we aren’t to do things we know will make someone stumble, we can’t know what all of those things are, so it’s more important to put the spotlight on ourselves and make sure we’re trying to not judge each other (or trip each other up). So I shouldn’t judge my friend for wanting me to not use words he does not approve of, and I should try to accommodate his beliefs. But how? This person had the integrity to tell me what he wanted. But how in the world can you keep from causing people to stumble when you don’t know what will do that?
Worse, what happens when worlds of conviction collide? In this case, I really believe that my young friend has a list (at least conceptually) of bad words and is committed to living by it, even to the point of telling others (or at least me) not to violate his beliefs. Good for him; that shows some integrity. But I really believe that rules and lists ruin the core of Christianity, because they are a poor substitute for the relationship that Christianity really is.
And “bad words” in general? The person who is held up as our Biblical example more than anyone other than Jesus is the Apostle Paul. And there’s really no doubt that he used vulgar language, even in a couple places in the New Testament, where the translators have deliberately toned down their word choice so as not to offend the word-listers. See http://thinkhebrew.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/pauls-profanity/ for one discussion of this.
So Paul swore, I swore, swearing is offensive to some people, apparently swearing can actually be a “stumbling block” to some people like my young friend, and insisting on not using certain words (other than God’s name) as “curse words” is offensive to others, like me. So the real problem? To me, it’s how do my young friend and I co-exist, neither causing the other to stumble? My solution is simple: he can have his list, and I will try to abide by it. I know I will fail, because I have a temper, but I will try. But I get it – I mean, I used to have words I hated too, and sometimes I still catch myself judging somebody else for the way they talk. H***, I still have a list with one word on it, God’s name, and I can’t even stay on the right side of that rule all the time. But in this case, trying to honor my friend’s conviction has to be how I respond to the guidance to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph. 5:21). And maybe that’s what Romans 14 means, too.
