Putting Crap Back in the Bible

 

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A Conservative Christian Theology Of Cussing

A Few Bad Words of Theological Humor

Mar 19

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— article written by Michael J. Svigel —

Conservative Christians have long been known for shunning all sorts of behavior considered by others to be morally neutral or enjoyable. Whether it’s drinking alcoholic beverages,¹ smoking tobacco products,² playing cards,³ going to movie theatres,⁴ dancing,⁵ or even drinking coffee,⁶ “fundamentalist”⁷ Christians are often viewed by outsiders as having a God who is not only a white-clad, frowning prude, but also a “Cosmic Killjoy.”

However, the study of cussing, kakalogology, has a less refined history among Christians in general and evangelicals in particular. This lack of definition has caused many outright offenses and some extremely awkward social situations. These range from blurting out words that sound mischievously like curse words but are, in fact, not,⁸ to a teacher or preacher’s hesitancy to utter the word “hell” in reference the place of eternal torment.⁹

What does the Bible teach concerning cussing? Can there be a Christian consensus on kakalogology? How are we to determine, in an age of words that did not exist in biblical times, what is appropriate and what is foul? If the Christian is to avoid uttering certain terms, we need to know what those are so we can at least keep an eye on them. And if there is a world of vocabulary available for communicating God’s message, shouldn’t we also be free to use it?

The Phenomenological Expressiveness Of Kakalogology

To avoid being flushed down the hermeneutical spiral, I will evade the issue of hermeneutics altogether with the exception of the following. There is much ado in hermeneutical works concerning such things as symbol, thing signified, meaning, referent, sense, indicator, sign, undsoweiter. In my own scheme, and for the sake of simplicity, I am limiting my discussion of bad words to symbol, meaning, and referent. In this work the term “symbol” means the actual word itself. There are two types of symbols: oral (the spoken word) and written (the written word). For example, the written symbol “crap” is simply a particular ordering of the right-open-crescent “c,” right-facing-hook “r,” clockwise-spiral “a,” and circle-with-left-tail “p.” The oral symbol is the combination of sounds made when one utters the word “crap,” that is, a short, silent tongue-scraping, semi-guttural sound (unvoiced velar stop), followed by a noisy bit of air passing over a lifted and retracted tongue and through a semi-pursed set of lips (voiced aveolar liquid syllabic), sliding smoothly into a smiley-faced, mid-length vowel tone (low front tense unrounded vowel), and ending in an abrupt and non-vocalized lip-popper (unvoiced bilabial stop).

The term “meaning” in this article has both an objective and subjective sense. Objectively, “meaning” is the unaffected definition of the word, that is, the connotation that the word itself brings to the context. For the word “crap,” the objective meaning is simply “something unpleasant.” The subjective meaning is the definition attached to a particular symbol by the user or receiver, which meaning is wholly dependent on context.

“Referent” is the concrete or abstract “thing” to which a particular symbol is applied with a particular meaning. Thus, one may apply the symbol “crap” with the specific meaning “bad-tasting” to a Pizza Hut pizza.¹⁰ “This is crap!” would then simply mean, “This pizza has failed to satisfy my culinary standards.”

The significance of the symbol’s meaning as applied to a particular referent is the broader contextual import of the semantic situation. The significance of equating pizza to crap is that it reveals the speaker’s general disdain for that particular pizza. If the person speaking is the president of Yum Brands, Inc., the owner of Pizza Hut, this statement has tremendous significance. If it’s your pet parrot, it’s not likely to be considered a paramount verbal event.

Although this extremely elementary discussion may fail to satisfy the hyper-intelligent cerebrals of the French and German philosophical hermeneutical schools, I must further point out to them that, after all, a sign is only significant when its referent signifies the expressive significance of its indicated meaning. When this happens, which is most often the case in phenomenological associative origins, the unity of the particular whole (and its parts inductively related to the whole’s particularity) functions as the sense of which the life-experience and expression of one’s own particular and general individuality relates to the significance of the sign, which, obviously, renders significance wholly meaningless.¹¹

What is a Cuss Word?

What exactly is a cuss word? This is a matter of intense debate among scholars¹² and lay-cussers¹³ alike, because while some words are considered taboo in certain cultures or countries, others are not. As a mild example, in some families quasi-cuss words include “dumb” and “shut up.” In other families, these words and worse constitute polite dinnertime conversation. Foreigners, too, are known to make all sorts of verbal blunders. In fact, mastering the use (and non-use) of cuss words is a skill that indicates a high level of proficiency in any language.¹⁴

To Cuss Or Not To Cuss?

Clearly, the Bible forbids something called aijscrologiva (aischrologia), “obscene speech.” Colossians 3:8 says, “But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech [aijscrologiva (aischrologia)] from your mouth” (NASB). The NIV translates the word as “filthy language.” The KJV has “filthy communication.” The ASV reads, “shameful speaking.”

The question is, “What does Colossians 3:8 specifically forbid when it tells us to put away aijscrologiva (aischrologia)?” The word itself is made up of two Greek words: aijscrov" (aischros) meaning “disgraceful, shameful, dishonest,” and logia (logia), meaning “oracles.” In every use in the NT, lovgia (logia) refers to “oracles,” or the revealed message from God. It is not the word logos" (logos), which can refer to actual words themselves (Matt 12:36), a message (Matt 13:19), or speech in general (Matt 5:37). So, it appears that Paul is actually forbidding false prophesying.¹⁵

Putting “Crap” Back in the Bible

Although many liberal scholars and non-Christians believe the Bible is full of crap,¹⁶ there’s actually only one place where the word occurs, though it is often scooped up or covered over by modern English translations.

In Philippians 3:8 Paul tells his readers that all the things of religious value in his former life are regarded to him now as skuvbalon (skubalon), that is, “crap.” While liberals, neo-orthodox, post-liberals, feminists, historians, Methodists, and other heretics may feel obliged to remove “crap” from the Bible by flushing it away with euphemisms such as “rubbish” or “refuse”, conservative Christians who believe every word is inspired by God (2 Tim. 3:16) should refuse to flush. Instead, we should embrace a translation that conveys the rhetorical effect intended by the author, as crass and base as it may seem to our perhaps overly-pious ears (cf. Eccl. 7:16).

The King James Version had no qualms about translating skuvbalon (skubalon) with a more suitable — though emotively sub-standard — “dung.”¹⁷ Only Luther had the guts to translate the noun with Kot in his German translation.¹⁸ The problem with translations like “refuse” and “rubbish” in today’s idiom is that the recent movement by earth-worshippers, tree-huggers, witches, Democrats, and other pagans towards recycling implies that almost all refuse or rubbish has some value. Likewise, even “dung” could be construed as having usefulness at least as fertilizer. Only a harsher term like “crap” would indicate the utter uselessness that Paul had in mind.

What does the crap we find in the Bible teach us about our emerging biblical kakalogology? Simply this: that however we seek to apply passages that forbid “unclean” speech, it must be done in such a way that allows Paul to utter the word skuvbalon (skubalon) in reference to Judaistic religious practices.

Conclusion

In light of this introductory discussion toward a conservative Christian theology of cussing (practical kakalogology), we must conclude with the NT that the utterance of a cuss word in and of itself is neutral (Rom 14:14), that there is nothing inherently sinful about a particular verbal symbol. Rather, its filthiness or appropriateness is derived from its referent and significance. Paul demonstrates this in his use of “crap” in Philippians 3:8, where the symbol skuvbalon (skubalon), has a metaphorical referent of his former religious practices, with the significance that these practices are worthless.