Okay, so this is going to be a rant. This has been weighing on me for some time now, and I've got to come out with all my thoughts on it. It's most likely going to make me look hypocritical in some way, so to that I have to say "judge me, agree with me; I don't care."
Profanity is weak. And it upsets me when people use it around me. And it saddens me when people I'm close with use it around me. It makes you and everything you are look bad. It shows a presence of evil, hidden or not, and it also shows a lack of replacement vocabulary. I used to curse.. often. In fact, at one point in my life I was known as the one more prone to it than most anyone in my current group of friends. And though that was a long time ago, it still saddens me to this day that I can say that truthfully. But rather than digressing further, I'll now get to what's been gnawing at me the most lately:
Christians are supposed to be set apart from the world. Christians are supposed to follow a higher standard. And Christians, above all, should know better. Yet, as of late, I feel almost suffocated by the "Christians" who surround me. I'm not going to state any names; I don't want to offend anybody. But so many people who call themselves Christians curse as much or more than others I know who aren't religious at all. Occasionally, I ask them about it too. My answers are generally along the lines of "yeah, I should work on that eventually," or "yeah, I've kinda just given up on that one," or "it isn't a big deal because I don't do it very often." Almost every time it's mentioned, they laugh it off or shrug it off like it's something that isn't important. WHY is that okay? What part of your mind tells you that profanity isn't a big deal? If we set up Hollywood as our model for morality, God help us all because our moral structures are doomed. Lord knows I'm not perfect; far from it. I have a lot of things I need to work out in my own life. But that doesn't mean that I should stay quiet and not point out things that other people don't even seem to notice that they should be working on, does it? If that makes me a hypocrite, then so be it. The biblical standards set upon us by the Lord are not negotiable. It isn't "okay" or "not a big deal" to just pick and choose which ones we think we ought to follow.
What saddens me even more is that if I were nonreligious and knew little of Christianity, but were to hang out with the average adolescent Christian that I've known most of my life, I would want no part of the church. Because its members are no different than anybody else. Now, I don't mean to go out and say that everybody is terrible. I'm just ranting about my own experiences and how they frustrate me. The desensitization of our world is truly a frightening thing when it even infiltrates our church; when fellow Christians will look upon "smaller" sins and say "that's not a big deal." I repeat again that I have a long, long, long way to go myself. I'm just asking for a little help from everyone else too. By indulging in things like simple profanity, we are giving Christianity a bad name and reflecting negatively on the Bible to others. I'm not to be excluded from this, either. There are far too many times when I realize that I am a poor role model for other Christians and other people in general.
I suppose it all just makes me sad that so many Christians seem to think that it's all okay.
J R Williams
