Proliferation of Public Profanity a Cultural — and Spiritual — Problem
By Tim Wildmon
April 6, 2006
(AgapePress) – Perhaps you saw the same survey I saw the other day about Americans and public profanity. It said that we the people are cursing more frequently and using words that were once considered taboo in public. I was probably 12 years old when I first heard the “f” word used by a neighborhood kid. I even asked my parents what it meant because I had no idea. Talk about an awkward moment for a parent. Today, however, you frequently hear words such as this out in the open.
A few weeks back I was on an airplane and the 25-year-old male a few seats over was yaking on his cell phone, letting everyone in on his business that none of us cared about. About every 60 seconds he felt the need to use the “f” word. I don’t know if that made him feel more adult or what. Later in the airport waiting on a connecting flight, there was a lady, about 50, talking loudly on her cell phone. I heard her twice use the “f” word in what sounded like a casual conversation. Then while I walked at a local park earlier this week some teenage boys were playing basketball. One of them called another one a “mf” just as casual as you please. They were not in a fight, they were just talking to one another.
Raw profanity has become an acceptable part of popular culture today.
Rap music — the most popular music among young people today — is filled with gutter language. They play it loudly in their cars. Movies and television programs use hard profanity on a regular basis. In a way, we have become desensitized to it. This has been the goal of Hollywood for many years. There was a time before the mid-60s when foul language was not used on television, in movies or popular music.
But today many people mock you if you complain about public profanity. They say it’s just the way people talk today and the language one uses doesn’t matter. My question then is, why use words like “f” and “mf” and “gd” in public if language doesn’t matter? Why didn’t the teenage boy on the basketball court just say, “Give me the ball, John,” instead of “Give me the ball ‘mf’?” Why did certain words come out of the young man’s mouth and not others? I contend most people who use foul language intentionally do so because they understand the words themselves represent rebellion against societal norms — or what used to be societal norms. Otherwise, why use that kind of language? It’s an attention grabber. Then, after using profanity for a long period of time, it does become second nature — just the way people talk.
For the Christian, foul language is forbidden by the Bible. That is why using profanity in public was considered unacceptable before we became a post-Christian culture. Christian values and morals are now considered passé or “old-fashioned” to many Americans ““ especially the younger generation, sad to say.
In the New Testament book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul gives these instructions to followers of Jesus: “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
“But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there by any obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving” (Ephesians 5:1-4).
In Ephesians 4:29 Paul says: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”
What I take from this is that we shouldn’t tear down people personally. So, in the spirit of that biblical command, I don’t desire to attack anyone. If we have criticism of someone, we can do so without attacking that person himself — and do so with the purpose of achieving a positive resolution to the problem. We can talk about an offense without mounting a personal attack on the one who has offended.
Even though we know the standard, still, we are human and we often fail to live up to those standards. But the occasional slip is not what I am talking about. I wish it were. What I am talking about is a serious profanity problem in the general population. Sadly, I doubt we can reverse this trend. As I stated earlier, in many respects our American society has rejected the Christian moral value system. So this really is the way people talk to each other if they don’t care what God thinks about the words that come out of their mouths. To them — to us in our current cultural context — it doesn’t seem to matter. But according to God’s Word, words still matter.