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"I have three things I’d like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a shit. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night."
   – Tony Campolo

I came across this quote last winter and found it quite interesting. The Bible calls us to keep our tongues on a short leash (James 1:26), refrain from angry words (James 1:19-20), and say "only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen" (Ephesians 4:29).

However… is there anything inherently sinful with the word shit?

Now, I don't think that Christians should swear like sailors. But when used simply for emphasis, instead of to cuss someone out, profanity may not be as evil as contemporary Christians have made it out to be.

I doesn't really bother me that profanity is taboo in the Christian community. But what I do find disturbing is that contemporary Christianity in North America is obsessed with being respectable. And I think here we come to the heart of the issue.

Sometimes it seems like the "ideal Christian" of our culture would live in a suburban house with a white picket fence, work in a cubicle from 9 to 5, have 2.5 kids and a dog, never share his faith, never cause a fuss, and be entirely useless to the Kingdom of God. We have focussed so much on "traditional family values" and respectability that we've forgotten that Jesus was a wild vagrant who trashed a temple, told people to die to themselves (in a very real sense), and was unexpectedly executed as a criminal.

What have we done with that Jesus? Where have we hidden him? Why have we replaced his radical message with a religion obsessed with being respectable and popular? The Jesus of the Bible didn't seem to give a shit about being respectable and popular.

Perhaps instead of conforming to the culture of our world, the subculture of evangelical Christianity, or even the subsubculture of so-called "Christian hipsters," we should give our heads a shake and ask ourselves... are we willing to live and die as our Saviour did, an outcast, iconoclast and criminal?


Read more:

Paul's Profanity

Normal Christianity