Christians and Swearing

It seems nowadays that it’s a worse sin to be judgmental of bad behavior than to do the bad behavior itself. And maybe this is good and proper. After all, Jesus was harsher on self-righteous judges than on “sinners”. But still, sometimes I’d like to let out things that bother me.

For example. I hate swearing. Is that OK? Am I allowed to feel that way without being called a judgmental, grace-less jerk? I’m not saying salvation is at stake, I’m not saying you’re a worse Christian for doing it, or less holy, or that God loves you less. I just don’t like it, it’s as simple as that, and would rather people not do it. Just like I don’t like kimchee. It’s a matter of personal taste.

OK, maybe it’s a little more than personal taste. My thing is this. Even the pagan world thinks that swearing is bad. They’ll do it, but they don’t want you doing the same in front of their kids. Or they wouldn’t say that stuff to their parents. Everyone does it, but there’s the understanding that it’s definitely not a good thing, and probably at least a little bad.

So given that even the world knows it’s not good, shouldn’t Christians at least care a tiny little bit about it? Not that we’re not Christian if we do swear, it’s just, as Christians, shouldn’t we in general at least care about trying to do what’s good?

But whatever, actually it’s not a huge deal. I mean that. Everyone lets fly the occassional expletive and no big whoop, who cares. The thing that does bother me is when fellow Christians go out of their way to cuss, as if to prove a point or something. That just totally sucks. There’s no grace, no love in that. If it slips, fine. But don’t do it to make a point. Why would you want to do that?

But of course, I’m a Pharisee so what do I know.