What Are Your Thoughts on "Minced Oaths?"

First a definition for those unfamiliar with the term. A “minced oath” is a bowdlerization of words or phrases otherwise deemed offensive or blasphemous. Common examples would be the substitution of darn for damn, heck for hell, gosh for God. Some argue that when we use these substitutes we nevertheless stand guilty of using the originals, that gosh takes God’s name in vain, and darn belittles the reality and horror of damnation. While I am sympathetic to that perspective, and give thanks for those who seek to be deliberate and to honor God with their tongues, I do not share that conviction.

The ground of my concern with this objection is in an understanding of how language actually works. On the one hand we must steer clear from the notion that words have no meaning, that meaning is imposed on words from the outside, that we can mean what we wish with whatever words we use. This is the post-modern conceit and it is deep folly indeed. On the other hand, however, we would profoundly misunderstand language if we took that view that words are utterly static, immovable soldiers that are completely unfazed and unchanged by how they are used by actual people. That is, usage may not define meaning but it impacts meaning. And usage changes over time.

It may well be two hundred years ago people began to substitute those terms, that when they said, “Darn this dull ax of mine” that they were actually wishing that their ax should suffer eternally, but wanted to say so while maintaining a façade of politeness and respectability. That, however, doesn’t necessarily mean that today when someone says, “This darn operating system keeps crashing” that they intend to communicate, “I want my operating system to suffer God’s wrath eternally, but I want to say so in a more genteel way.” I suspect that what is intended to be communicated is simply this, “This operating system is frustrating me by crashing all the time.”

Now it is certainly possible for people to have competing meanings for different words. This is why I’m supportive to those who refuse to use “minced oaths.” If they mean by darn what others mean by damn, they should not use the word cavalierly. (How much more on gosh and God?) We should shudder at the thought of eternal torment. The trouble is when those who rightly won’t use minced oaths, because they see such a connection between the substitute and the original term, impose their understanding of the term on their brothers who don’t see such a connection. Some judge their brothers for saying damn when what they really said is, “I’m frustrated,” or, “That’s a disappointment.”

I admire the scrupulosity of those who won’t use minced oaths. I do not admire the judgment of some among them who impose on those who will use minced oaths, not seeing them as minced oaths. Not only should our language be seasoned with grace, but so should our reaction to our brother’s language be seasoned with grace.

Learning from Myself Forty Years Later: Thoughts on the Republication of My Doctoral Dissertation

Crossway just republished my 1974 doctoral dissertation from the University of Munich. In re-reading parts of Love Your Enemies, I am struck at how solidifying those early days were.

For example, a significant focus of the dissertation was on the nature of motivation for loving our enemies and the role of God’s Spirit in bringing about enemy-love. In one section I asked, If we are born again by the Spirit, and led by the Spirit, and transformed by the Spirit, and sanctified by the Spirit, and empowered by the Spirit, and taught by the Spirit, what would be the necessity and function of human words, like “Love your enemies”?

If, as Paul says, we have been “God-taught to love one another” (1 Thessalonians 4:9), why do we need to hear Matthew or Luke or Paul or some contemporary teacher say into our physical ears, “Love your enemies”? I devote six pages to this issue (106–111). It is not small. It is a subset of issues about how God calls and shapes his people in this world and fits them for the next.

Here is the word picture I used to sum up my answer: “To put it in a picture: the command of enemy love, as part of the New Testament [ethical teaching] given ‘by grace’ and ‘through the Lord,’ is a seed sown by the Spirit’s gifted servants, in the ground of the renewed heart, which the Spirit himself has created, so that the fruit which springs up in the attitude and action of the Christian is indeed the fruit of the Spirit.” (110)

In other words, God solidified in me in those days the truth that the work of the Spirit in producing his fruit is not merely individual and not merely internal. It is both communal and external. The Spirit inspired written commands and promises. The Spirit raises up human speakers. The Spirit gives gifts of teaching and exhortation. The Spirit creates community. The Spirit providentially brings us into contact with these influences. The Spirit takes the humanly spoken and humanly explained command to love and presses it on our Spirit-humbled, Spirit-softened, and Spirit-readied heart. And the Spirit inclines that heart to joyfully pursue obedience, and be conformed to the beauty of Christ.

The result is “the fruit of the Spirit.” The ground where it grows may be the believing heart. But the seed and the conditions for its growth are much more than that heart.

I thank God for what he was doing in me in those days in Germany forty years ago (1971–1974). And, given how my 66-year-old mind forgets, I am glad I can still learn from what I wrote.

In between the scholarly jargon, maybe you could too.

One Thousand Thoughts About Church…#935

“A successful pastor will also develop the power of prayer among his members. He will teach them and lead them to adopt the best methods in this respect. The duty of secret and family prayer will be enjoined. Each will be encouraged and exhorted to unite in the prayer meetings of the church and personally to engage publicly in prayer upon all suitable occasions. Only through such attainments will the church be spiritually developed; only through such prayers of his people will he himself be able most successfully to discharge all his duties among them.” – James P. Boyce

 

One Thousand Thoughts About Church…#936

“An assembly of public worship is not merely a gathering of God’s children with each other, but is, before all else, a meeting of the triune God with his covenant people. In the covenant, God promises his chosen ones that he will dwell among them as their God and they will be his people… The triune God is present in public worship, not only by virtue of the divine omnipresence, but, much more intimately, as the faithful covenant Savior. Through Christ, God’s people have access by one Spirit to the Father.” – The Directory for the Public Worship of God

 

One Thousand Thoughts About Church…#937

“The metaphor of the church as an organism – at least two distinctive uses of ‘body,’ for instance, not to mention pictures of the church as a unit being the bride of Christ – makes one wonder if one is doing full justice to the word ‘church’ if it can be said to refer to two or three Christians who happen to meet at a bus stop and happily exchange a biblical verse or two. No doubt Christ is with them, but does this small collective of Christians function the way the church does in the New Testament?” – D.A. Carson

 

One Thousand Thoughts About Church…#938

“As a church, we must explain the main point of the Bible; it is the only way to engender real interest in it, and it is the only way to be honest. True, the main point of Christianity may be offensive to some, but Paul warns us about this in his first letter to the church of Corinth: ‘For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved, it is the power of God’” – Jay Lemke

 

One Thousand Thoughts About Church…#939

“Worship assemblies for Christians are to be characterized by good order, not confusion (1 Cor. 14:26, 33, 40). Thus New Testament congregational worship is led and governed by the overseers (elders who “take care of the Church of God,” 1 Tim. 3:-45). That this is the rule for New Testament worship is illustrated by the fact that Paul wrote to deliver instructions for the life of the church, including its corporate worship services, to pastors like Timothy (e.g. 1 Tim. 2:1, 8,11; 4:13; 2 Tim. 4:2).” – Greg Bahnsen