When is it Profanity?

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;

2 Timothy 2:15-17

Scripture clearly states that we are to shun ‘profane and vain babblings’. But when does language become ‘profane’? How should Christian writers handle the use of ‘profanity’ in their writing?

Glorifying God is our Goal

Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Matthew 5:13-16

When we write, fiction or non-fiction, hero or villain, glorifying God should be our goal.

Fill your Mind, and the Mind of your Audience

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

Collosians 3:16-17

In order for profanity to appear in your book, it must first appear in your mind. And, once it is in your book, you will read it again and again as you edit and revise. You will be filling your mind with this profanity.

And then you will be sending your book out, and encouraging your readers to do the same thing.

Realism is no Excuse

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.

Ephesians 5:11-12

It is not our job to document the details of the lives of evil men. If we have an evil character in our book, it should be in order to point out his evil, how it goes against God’s law, it’s destructive end, and God’s offer of repentance and salvation. It should not be to provide a diary of his evil deeds… including the way he talks.

Deal with Sin

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

Romans 1:18-32

There is no question but that Christians are required to deal with sin. Which implies a certain naming of sin. But, at least in Scripture, no naming it using profanity.

When Truth become ‘Profanity’

And it came to pass, when he began to reign, as soon as he sat on his throne, that he slew all the house of Baasha: he left him not one that pisseth against a wall, neither of his kinsfolks, nor of his friends.

I Kings 16:11

Now we need to be careful to realise that profanity is subjective, not objective. It is more of a direction than a destination. There is a reason why it is conjoined with ‘vain’. To be ‘vain’ is to be useless. Thus a word which is useful, and used in a useful and God honouring way, is not ‘profanity’.

Let us examine, for example, the word ‘bastard’. A few years ago I was working with a young colleague, and she used that word. I asked her if she knew what it meant. She said, “Like, yeah, it means someone nasty, someone you don’t like”.

But that is the modern meaning, it is not the origin:

B'ASTARD, noun A natural child; a child begotten and born out of wedlock; an illegitimate or spurious child. By the civil and canon laws, a bastard becomes a legitimate child, by the intermarriage of the parents, at any future time. But by the laws of this country, as by those of England, a child, to be legitimate, must at least be born after the lawful marriage.

Bastard eigne', or bastard elder, in law, is when a man has a bastard son, and afterward marries the mother, and has a legitimate son, called mulier puisne, or younger.

The word may also be used of artillery, or swords… and it does not refer to them being nasty or disliked.

Thus when a word is being used in its legitimate use, to describe the legitimate thing, in a legitimate way, it is not being used ‘profanely’. And this may even have a result of attacking the sins of this age. If, for example, someone were to decry the amount of bastardy nowadays, the modern generation, after they had the word explained to them, would be insulted and offended. How dare someone worry about whether a child was born in wedlock or not? Because, of course, our generation is so mired in sin that we consider calling someone who was born illegitimately a ‘bastard’ as a worse sin than the act that produced him!

But my Characters!

Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, and beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him.

And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them, and said unto them, Nay, my brethren, nay, I pray you, do not so wickedly; seeing that this man is come into mine house, do not this folly.

Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing.

But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go.

Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man's house where her lord was, till it was light.

And her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way: and, behold, the woman his concubine was fallen down at the door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold.

And he said unto her, Up, and let us be going. But none answered. Then the man took her up upon an ass, and the man rose up, and gat him unto his place.

And when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of Israel.

Judges 19:22-29

Now, I doubt greatly whether any modern Christian author (at least one who hoped to be published by a modern Christian publishing house) would write such a scene as this one that we find in the Scriptures. Far too graphic, far too evil, not at all the nice kind of thing that Christians should be publishing! And yet there it is in Scripture! Sexual assault, proposed Sodomy, gang rape unto death, the dismemberment of the corpse, all in Scripture.

And yet… there is no profanity here. Scripture does not record the (no doubt indecent) words that the men spoke. It does not record one word of the various body parts involved in the sexual acts. It does not even speak of how she was dressed when she fell down upon the doorstep.

So it is perfectly possible for a writer to have evil characters, with foul language, without repeating the foul language. Perhaps if you say, “He came into the room, swearing like a drunken sailor,” the audience will understand the profanity without having to hear it. Without having it brood in their heads. Just as we hear the above rape.

Cool Kid

or

What about my Secular Audience?

And he said unto me, Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against me: they and their fathers have transgressed against me, even unto this very day.

For they are impudent children and stiffhearted. I do send thee unto them; and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD.

And they, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, (for they are a rebellious house,) yet shall know that there hath been a prophet among them.

Ezekiel 2:3-5

I’m waiting for someone to show me the passage in Scripture where Christ moderated his message to appeal to a secular audience. Until someone shows me that passage I am going to stand firm with the idea that while we may be ‘all things to all men’ the point of that must be that we ‘save some’. If the only way we see to communicate the gospel is to delete the gospel from our message, we are not communicating the gospel.

And if what we do communicate to our secular audience is that we are ‘just like them’, that their use of language is fine, that there’s nothing wrong with profane and vain babbling as long as we put the words into the mouth of a ‘bad’ character in the book, then I do not believe that we are communicating the Gospel.

We need to remember that, as Christians, we can never be the ‘cool kids’.

Conclusion

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Phillipians 4:8

So, here’s the check list I am proposing:

1. Our words should always be chosen in order to glorify God, advance the gospel, and edify our audience.

2. We will need to bring forward sin, which will include describing sin. But we advance the gospel when we present sin as sin, not as normal.

3. Our goal should be to leave our audience with a mind full of Biblical ideas… including their own guilt, God’s salvific work, His power and glory…

Thus profanity, as profanity, should have no place in our books. We may well write about characters who speak profanely, as we write about characters who commit adultery. But those characters should not tempt us to use profanity ourselves, any more than the others should tempt us to commit adultery ourselves.

Thank you for reading Von’s Substack. I would love it if you commented! I love hearing from readers, especially critical comments. I would love to start more letter exchanges, so if there’s a subject you’re interested in, get writing and tag me!

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If you get lost, check out my ‘Table of Contents’ which I try to keep up to date.

Von also writes as ‘Arthur Yeomans’. Under that name he writes children’s, YA, and adult fiction from a Christian perspective. His books are published by Wise Path Books and include the children’s/YA books:

The Bobtails meet the Preacher’s Kid

The Bobtails and the Cousins

The Bobtails go to France

and

No Ordinary School

As well as GK Chesterton’s wonderful book, “What’s Wrong with the World”, for which ‘Arthur’ wrote most of the annotations.

Arthur also has a substack, and a website.

Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,

Von

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