MetaCatholic

A private email has made me aware that the recent discussion on metaphors has included language which some people are uncomfortable with. I would not have regarded any of the language I’d used or read in that category, but I am (now) aware that others do. This also touches on issues raised by Paul’s use of the S word. So I should warn you now that this post for the purposes of discussion contains some words some people will find offensive.

It seems to me that this could seem like a natural case for applying Paul’s principle about not causing the weaker in faith to stumble. The problem, of course, is that we’re not entirely agreed about who the strong and weak were, and how much these were cultural issues between Greek and Judaean, and how much social issues between rich and poor. If the former then we do have a scriptural text to ponder in this regard, but if the latter then it’s a bit more opaque.

The social unacceptability of certain words and phrases varies tremendously from one cultural group to another. In mainstream English culture “bloody” was once a fairly strong word, whereas it now carries very little taboo or intensive force. Certain words, most noticeably “fuck” and its variants were never spoken in front of women and vicars without an apology. Now they are printed in quotations in at least some national newspapers, though never in the ones read by those for whom “fucking” is the only intensifying adjective they use. Ironically those who most employ the adjective are left under the misapprehension that it is spelt “f*@%ing.

There is a perception that swearing and religion shouldn’t mix. An atheist friend of mine was assumed to be “religious” by workmates, simply because he rarely swore. This perception perhaps has more to do with constructions of religion as feminine and middle-class than with ideas about the morality of language, and it is verging on obsolescence. Another irony is that people will still sometimes apologise to a minister for saying “fuck” but virtually never for saying “Christ”. Other cultures are no doubt significantly different about taboos and acceptability.

In the wired world it is probably impossible genuinely to deal with all the issues of linguistic sensitivity around taboos. It so happens I’m of the opinion that it’s not particularly big or clever to show how many naughty words I know. At the same time, I don’t worry overmuch about their occasional use. I am aware that others feel differently, and I hope that we can across our cultures, histories and personalities be sensitive to each other.

In part, however, I cannot help but feel that too narrow a focus on the use or non-use of swearwords misses the point. From time to time I have dropped in on an Anglican blog discussing one or other of the many evils of gay sex and bishops. (It’s too depressing to read them regularly.) The language on the liberal blogs sometimes uses a rude word. The language on the conservative blogs rarely does. Yet I am amazed at just how much sheer anger and hatred is expressed in the name of defending Christ by people who want to insist that they are the only true Christians left in the world (or at least the Episcopal Church). In the most recent one I looked at, one commenter suggested that getting beaten up for being gay was the person’s own fault for being so stupid as to be gay in Nigeria. Another said that it was strange to complain about straight people beating up gays while saying nothing about gay men giving each other diseases. No-one seemed to think there was anything to take exception to in these remarks. No-one suggested that the lack of charity (to put it no more strongly) in these remarks might be sinful. Rather it seems that each commenter was urging the next one on to a yet more outrageous condemnation of someone else.

I would suggest that being careful about how we use words in the multi-sensitive and worldwide web that embraces so many different cultures is an ethical matter. I see the issue of swearing as a very minor component of that discussion.

Various blogs are noting the death of Krister Stendahl. There are comparatively few books that come to be seen as discipline-altering and influential decades after their publication. There are even fewer articles /lectures, but his “Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West” is one of them – possibly the most significant. What would Pauline studies look like today if he’d never written it? How many other articles can you say that about?