The F Word and Christians

Posted on by

I have had two con­ver­sa­tions in the last 24 hours with men who have become dis­en­chanted with the con­tem­po­rary Chris­t­ian church, aka the Insti­tu­tional Church (or IC as many blog­gers like to call it). These are guys who love God and have deep roots of faith. They did not express a cri­sis of faith in their con­nec­tion with their Cre­ator. No. Their angst lied in the forms of church they have known.

I have been say­ing it for the last sev­eral years: there is an epi­demic of dis­il­lu­sion­ment with all-​​things-​​church hap­pen­ing in many sec­tors of Chris­ten­dom in Amer­ica. A 90-​​minute feel-​​good ser­mon on a Sun­day morn­ing is not cut­ting it for many in this 21st cen­tury gen­er­a­tion. There is a dis­sat­is­fac­tion that is on the prowl for forms of faith com­mu­ni­ties that make sense to them.

Authen­tic­ity has become a well-​​worn word. And also trans­parency, real­ness, hon­esty, and the almighty F bomb…F*ck. Yes. Just about every angsty, dis­af­fected Christ fol­lower I meet ends up reach­ing deep down into their vocab­u­lary bag as they search for the right words to describe their divorce from tra­di­tional church. The F word, appar­ently, is just the right word to say out­loud with emo­tive force what has been pent up and brew­ing for years, and even decades, for some folks.

The F word has unwit­tingly become the rebel yell for those men and women who find them­selves at odds with church cul­ture. Out­laws and sailors need to make room for dis­il­lu­sioned Jesus Freaks to grab an F bomb and hurl it at the stained-​​glass windows.

I think this unfet­tered launch­ing of all-things-f*ck might be an indi­ca­tion that some peo­ple have felt cen­sored and sti­fled. It’s like the scene from the Huck­le­berry Finn story. A street ruf­fian, Huck Finn is taken in by the pious church woman, Widow Dou­glas. In his lament to his best buddy, Tom Sawyer, Huck com­plains of how over­man­aged his life has become:

She makes me get up the same time every morn­ing. She makes me wash. I gotta wear them fancy clothes that just smoth­ers me. I can’t smoke, I cant chaw. I gotta wear shoes all Sun­day. I gotta ask to go swim­min’, I gotta ask to go fishin’. Well I’ll be damned if I don’t have to ask to do every­thing. I tell ya, I had to sneak up to the attic and cuss for ten min­utes just to get the taste back in my mouth.


I won­der if some of the Chris­tians I’ve met lately are like Huck Finn… need­ing to break out of an overly struc­tured faith and san­i­tized lifestyle as well as Chris­tian­ized vocabulary? 

Lan­guage has always been and will con­tinue to be the place where beliefs and rev­o­lu­tions are born, shaped, and f*cked up.  Words have power, and no more than the pow­er­ful moth­er­lode of the unholy F word.

If you find your­self in con­ver­sa­tion with some­one sort­ing out their cyn­i­cal rela­tion­ship with the rag­ing, dys­func­tional beauty known as The Church, be pre­pared for some potty mouth. If if offends you, let it go. Some Chris­tians need to dig deep to let words buried under rocks finally come out into the light of day.

I truly think we are liv­ing in a time of spir­i­tual rev­o­lu­tion and church ref­or­ma­tion. Puri­tan­i­cal leashes are being cut as tongues fly loose with taboo ques­tions and for­bid­den profanities.

I know writ­ing this will ruf­fle some of my more refined read­ers sen­si­ble feath­ers (like my mom!).  But that’s ok. It’s my blog. And f*ck it…if I don’t say it out loud who will?

Powered by FeedBurner

Did this post res­onate with you? Pass it on!
Pin It

Comments

The F Word and Christians — 24 Comments

  1. Hey Renee! you and I need to hang out! where are you in the world? if you are ever any­where need Port­land, OR give me a great big FUCKING holler! Cof­fee is on me (I gave up drinking!)

    Hey Adam,
    I have no idea how you found me but I’m glad you did. I googled your name, like any good blog­ger worth her ink would, to see if you “really” had writ­ten a book endorsed by U2’s Bono.

    Yep. Found it. And yep you did. Also found your web­site. You sound like the kind of writer I can learn from! So, same invite to you: if you are ever in the Port­land, Ore­gon area, give me a holler. Would love to spend an after­noon with you pick­ing your writerly brain!!

    http://​www​.atu2​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​b​o​n​o​-​l​a​u​n​c​h​e​s​-​b​l​a​s​t​-​a​t​-​c​h​u​r​c​h​.​h​tml

    Reply ↓

  2. Here’s some­thing Bono wrote as an endorse­ment of a book I pub­lished in 2004: ‘So here it is, the church vs God, and sadly the church is win­ning. Adam Harbin­son takes on the church as mau­soleum for the dead Christ and the church as hand­cuffs and fire brigade for the risen Christ, it’s an inter­est­ing sub­ject. Though I find solace in places I never could have imag­ined. The quiet sprin­kling of my child’s head in bap­tism, a gospel choir drunk on the Holy Spirit in Mem­phis, or the back of a cathe­dral in Rome watch­ing the first cin­e­matog­ra­phers play with light and colour in stained glass sto­ries of the Pas­sion. I am still amazed at how big, how enor­mous a love and a mys­tery God is — and how small are the minds that attempt to cor­ral this life force into rules and taboos, cults and sects. Mer­ci­fully God tran­scends the church which is, I think, the sub­ject of the book.

    Reply ↓

  4. Hi Pam! I just hit you up on FB. I watched your video on Recy­cle Faith and I loved it. That is exactly what I went through too! I cussed like a sailor, became “saved” although I still don’t know from what, since it felt like hell?!? and just like you the lan­guage fell away! I thought it must be god! And then I found myself on the floor in my bath­room one night scream­ing to God FUCK YOU because I was so dis­traught and hurt with the whole idea of church. I had worked really hard at it with no results. So I came to the same con­clu­sion, that its just a word. But you are right, because SO many peo­ple think its taboo there is tremen­dous energy attached to it and that’s why it feels so good to say it! It is the fullest form of a large part of the plan­ets freest form of expres­sion of emo­tion. With the world’s clamp down on the F word and the world’s clamp down on emo­tion, it becomes an all pur­pose form of free­dom for the soul. And who doesn’t want to be free?? The great­est thing about con­tro­versy like this is most peo­ple either love it or hate it, but either way it gives it so much power!

    Love who you are!
    Sin­cerely,
    Fuckin’ Renée!

    Reply ↓

  6. Hey CH, yeah, I kinda remem­ber Bono get­ting in hot water for fling­ing the F bomb around at some music show. So if I come to West­ern Europe, like the UK and I drop an F bomb in a sen­tence with the aver­age cit­i­zen, is that ok? ‘Cause you never know. I just might get over there someday!

    Reply ↓

  7. coin­ci­den­tally, an inter­view with me about the F word just got posted over at Recy­cle Your Faith. Here’s the LINK if you’re curi­ous. It’s only three min­utes, but be warned if you cringe at the sound of the vul­gar­ity of the F Bomb, for they are being thrown about in the video!

    Reply ↓

  8. Over here in West­ern Europe, the f-​​bomb is so much a part of the gen­eral cul­ture that you just might hear it in churches here – and no one will bat an eye. As an Amer­i­can, though, I get what you’re say­ing. God Bless!

    Reply ↓

  9. Wel­come to the club, Andrew!! So what part of the coun­try are you(that is, if you’re in America!)?

    Davida!!!! Long time no see. Great to see your famil­iar name on the com­ment board…and sooooo glad you like the new blog digs. It was a hoot redec­o­rat­ing. I love it! And yes, hurl­ing F bombs has never felt so free­ing. It’s just a word for so many of us, an emo­tive sound that car­ries deeply pent up emo­tion and pas­sion that needs to vent like a burst­ing vol­canic plume. And the word is really sym­bolic of some­thing else…of lis­ten­ing to each other with rule books in hand rather than hear­ing each oth­ers sto­ries. For so many of us, our story, the one we are now will­ing to tell, means let­ting loose a few caged up F birds. That’s just the way it goes. So glad you get that…and don’t stay away so long next time! Did you sign up for my enewslet­ter? Sign-​​up form in the sidebar…I only send it out three times a month. It will give you a quick low­down on where and what I’m writ­ing. Sign up for it if you haven’t already!

    Reply ↓

  10. i haven’t been by for a visit in way too long!! love the new look! :) and about this most recent post, so f*cking true!!! i knew i liked ya! ;)

    Reply ↓

  11. For myself, I would love to take a church sab­bat­i­cal; a year or so when the hum of it is not con­stantly in the background.

    I was raised in evangelical/​charismatic church set­tings, but have always been dubi­ous of many of the doc­tri­nal posi­tions I have been brought up with. I started to really res­onate with authors like Brian McLaren about 5 years ago and have come to the con­clu­sion that I feel most com­fort­able declar­ing myself a Chris­t­ian Universalist.

    That def­i­n­i­tion doesn’t set well in most churches and an exclu­sivist view doesn’t work with me anymore.

    What to do, what to do.… :)

    Reply ↓

  12. Thanks for jump­ing in this dis­cus­sion, Andrew. I am now curi­ous about your story. Seri­ously, there is a HUGE epi­demic of dis­af­fected evan­gel­i­cals going on out there. Don’t know your specifics, but I bet within the con­fines of your church there are oth­ers just like you. The tricky part is fig­ur­ing out whether to stay, or go.…at least for some peo­ple it is. What about you?

    Fran.…oh, my bad! I obvi­ously mis­un­der­stood your com­ment. Of course you work around many foul-​​mouthed co-​​workers, likely far worse than my sim­ple lit­tle three-​​word hol­ster of cuss words. The F bomb must be tame for what you hear!

    So I guess I can cuss around you? Yay! I’ll effin see you at Off the Map tomorrow!

    Reply ↓

  13. Silly woman! I work around police, fire and emer­gency med­ical peo­ple. Swear­ing doesn’t bother me much. I was just think­ing out loud about whether or not the “F” word ever dis­ap­pears from a person’s vocabulary.

    Reply ↓

  14. Pam, you are describ­ing exactly where I LIVE!

    I have an obses­sion with God, but would like to be done with Church. There are good peo­ple where I attend, but at the end of the day it is still a place that is “our way or the high­way” and that teaches my daugh­ter in Sun­day School that all of her friends are going to Hell.

    We use words like “grace” and phrases like “uncon­di­tional love” but we seem afraid to believe it. I see peo­ple trans­formed by God become com­pletely detached from their com­mu­ni­ties because they only feel com­fort­able with other Chris­tians who espouse their views.

    My sup­port with finances and time only gen­er­ates more of this hob­bled out­look of life.

    Not sure what the next step is, but I feel com­pletely spent.

    Reply ↓

  15. Pam, yes, it is always lib­er­at­ing talk­ing to other potty-​​mouthed believ­ers, LOL.

    I am in inner-​​city Mel­bourne. It is SO HOT here at the moment. Not even offi­cially sum­mer yet and today it’s 34C (93F). Too hot!

    Reply ↓

  16. I appre­ci­ate the spirit and tone in which Fran said what she said. I have to say I’m more on Fran’s page although I have let a few words fly myself. My son had his first encounter with a cuss word this week and it was pretty funny.I posted about it. Noth­ing like the F bomb though…thank goodness!

    Reply ↓

  17. Thanks every­one for shar­ing your thoughts. Sue, you totally crack me up and I KNOW you and I would have rous­ing dis­cus­sions that could keep us up all night long in foul-​​mouthed rev­elry. You’re in Aus­tralia, yes? My hubby was in Mel­bourne and Perth for­ever ago. He LOVED it and has always wanted to go back for a visit. What part are you?

    Jared, glad you chimed in. (since you are one of the guys I refer to in the first para­graph!) Great to hang out with you the other day. I’m glad you got a hold of me…

    Hey Joel, Free­dom starts with an F! Yay for free­dom to say what needs to be said in the con­text of when it must be said!

    Hey Al, since you are a vet­eran fol­lower of Christ I espe­cially appre­ci­ate your affir­ma­tion here. I will see you at Off the Map in a few days!

    JOY!!!! That SUCKS that she said that to you. Grrr.….charaacter ought not be mea­sured by per­sonal expres­sions of frus­tra­tion, pain and anger with four-​​letter words that carry emo­tional power.…it’s unfor­tu­nate she did not pay atten­tion to the point you were mak­ing and instead let h-​​e-​​double-​​toothpicks become her focal point with you. What­ever. It’s the evan­gel­i­cal cul­ture. Piety and puri­tan­i­cal, you could be telling the most painful story of your life and drop an F bomb and the evan­gel­i­cal radar of “you said a naughty word” starts drown­ing out any­thing else said. So glad you have found freedom.…and really, it’s not about a word, it’s not about the F word.…it’s about express­ing uncen­sored emo­tion and speak­ing the lan­guage of your heart (in an appro­pri­ate con­text of course…at my blog — MY BLOG  — I can speak freely. But I would never, ever use pro­fan­ity around my mom or many other peo­ple who I know it would offend them…just like I would never cen­sor my words with my clos­est friends, because I don’t have to…unfortunately, in the evan­gel­i­cal world, rigid rules over­play rela­tion­ship and hon­est communication.…

    Hey Fran, I appre­ci­ate what you are say­ing, totally I do.…and I’ve read that same pas­sage and oth­ers like it…and for some the F word is an obscenity…for me it is not. It has become a part of my dialect. Some peo­ple think crap, butt and stu­pid are forms of obscen­ity so they strip them out of their vocab­u­lary. I respect that. But for many of us, the F word is not an obscen­ity. There is a grow­ing tribe of F lov­ing Christ fol­low­ers who are dis­cov­er­ing that abu­sive speech can be more read­ily found in other forms such as, “You have low char­ac­ter, as Joy was told…or you’re not good enough…or you’re going to hell.…” abu­sive speech and obscen­ity are in the eye of the beholder, or rather, to the ear of the lis­tener. Which is why I don’t swear around my mom and many others…but with close friends and with writ­ing, it is a part of my every­day, heart lan­guage. And really, to be totally trans­par­ent, I really only use three four-​​letter words: f*ck, d*mn, sh*t…I don’t like the rest of them. MoFo totally offends me and G-dd*mit absolutely offends me. I won’t say them and I pre­fer not to hear them.

    Thanks for shar­ing your thoughts! (note to self: do not cuss around Fran!!!!.….see you in a few days in Seat­tle at Off the Map!)

    Reply ↓

  18. I look at the “F” word as another device that serves a tem­po­rary pur­pose. The use of loaded words relieves a buildup of pres­sure but what hap­pens when the pres­sure is no longer there. So the ques­tion for me is what hap­pens when the pain and frus­tra­tion either go away or no longer present in such a strong way. That is the point for me when the “F” word and oth­ers like that no longer become nec­es­sary. I believe that is what is being described in Eph­esians 5:4 “Nor should there be obscen­ity, fool­ish talk or coarse jok­ing, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.”

    Reply ↓

  19. okay…I love this piece…because mostly, the F-​​bomb is at times the only word that I feel can cap­ture how com­pletely angry and frus­trated I am.
    I have a rep­u­ta­tion for col­or­ful language…in fact a women’s min­istry direc­tor pulled me aside once and said “Joy…it’s not that you aren’t a capa­ble leader…it’s just that you lack char­ac­ter”. This in response to me, in a moment of com­plete dis­pair utter­ing the phrase “I can’t under­stand what the hell is going on”…Good thing I didn’t drop an f-​​bomb that day if the other phrase was char­ac­ter dam­ag­ing.
    Anyhow…I love other authors like Anne Lam­ott who also have a flair with the swears…However, when I write, I have inten­tion­ally avoided overt use of profanity…even when it seems to be fit­ting out of those places of fear.
    I recently wrote a blog with the word sh*t in it…and not long after, some­one responded…“You are a great writer…you come across so intel­li­gent in your blogs…until you use pro­fan­ity.
    UGH.
    All that to say thanks for jump­ing on this slip­pery slope…I am right behind you! WHEEEEEEEEE!

    Reply ↓

  21. Do you think Joel when Bono was singing Glo­ria back in the 80s to God about “loosen my lips” that he was refer­ring to the abil­ity to say the F word? Haha :)

    Reply ↓

  22. “The F word has unwit­tingly become the rebel yell for those men and women who find them­selves at odds with church cul­ture.” Nicely put! I hadn’t thought of it before, but that describes exactly my expe­ri­ence with “lib­er­ated vocab­u­lary.” The loos­en­ing of my lips had a lot more to do with the FREEDOM to say it than with say­ing it as such. Thanks, Pam!

    Reply ↓

  23. I love that quote from Huck­le­berry Finn. You gotta love a fic­ti­tious char­ac­ter with an Irish last name ;)I have also reached down to the bot­tom of the “emo­tion bag” for this one in describ­ing parts of my jour­ney. How­ever, I don’t direct it so much at the insti­tu­tion, any­more. I just can’t find any other way to express the depth of my “fed upness” with the direc­tion I see things going in gen­eral with the church in North America

    Reply ↓

  24. Okay. Thanks.

    So it’s been 10 years since I’ve been out and decon­struct­ing and sort­ing it all out in my head, the whole church thing. And that struc­ture, and the mind­bog­gling real­ity that that fucked up Beast unit could be related to what we expe­ri­ence *in here* … fucks with my head, Pam :)

    I agree, I think the winds are blow­ing now and it is SO EXCITING!! Such con­fus­ing times but so much renewal and growth. It is 18 dif­fer­ent kinds of wonderful

    Reply ↓