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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: How appropriate are expletives in explaining Christianity?
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Stejjie
Shipmate
# 13941
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
2. Exclaiming "s***" is only apposite if you stub your toe in the relevant material. Since that material is normally soft and yielding, a stubbed toe is unlikely to result.
It might possibly be appropriate if you step in something and it makes you "s***" - in which case the noun and verb might both apply. Again, highly unlikely.
But "shit" (waits for sky to fall in... no, nothing) doesn't just mean "poo" or similar, at least not in the way most people use it. Similarly, "sexual intercourse" is one meaning of the word "fuck". Etymology =/= definition; so to say that one can only use the former when talking about "poo" or the latter when talking about "sexual intercourse" simply isn't accurate, even if that's where the terms originated from.
You said earlier that:
quote:
Truth trumps profanity any day of the week.
But perhaps for some people, the truth is that they feel their lives are shit, or fucked up or whatever expletive they care to use. The Onion article Bostonman links to captures that perfectly.
I'm not a great fan of swearing (though I have done, not least when I mowed over the lawnmower cable the other month and it made pretty colours and a loud bang), but if we're going to get all hung up about the language people use and not listen to what they're saying through their expletive-ridden tirades, we're not going to be able to minister to them at all.
Somehow, I'm struggling to picture Jesus getting more worked about someone swearing than about dealing with whatever made them swear.
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A not particularly-alt-worshippy, fairly mainstream, mildly evangelical, vaguely post-modern-ish Baptist
Posts: 1117 | From: Urmston, Manchester, UK | Registered: Jul 2008
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
[QUOTE]Somehow, I'm struggling to picture Jesus getting more worked about someone swearing than about dealing with whatever made them swear.
(general point) We all seem to know exactly what Jesus gets worked up over these days, such that it can become an easy cloak for accepting behaviour and attitudes (in ourselves and others) that aren't helpful at all.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
[QUOTE]I DO have greek and can assure you that it means 'shit'.
So do I and I assure you it doesn't. It means a waste product (rubbish): to render it as "s***" is reading into the text what isn't there.
Anyway if it does mean what you claim, why does it not appear as that in any translation I'm aware of?
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
[QUOTE]Somehow, I'm struggling to picture Jesus getting more worked about someone swearing than about dealing with whatever made them swear.
(general point) We all seem to know exactly what Jesus gets worked up over these days, such that it can become an easy cloak for accepting behaviour and attitudes (in ourselves and others) that aren't helpful at all.
(general point) Jesus got worked up about a whole lot of things in the bible. I await evidence that profanity was one of them.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
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ArachnidinElmet
Shipmate
# 17346
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bostonman:
Not a theological piece of writing per se, ut maybe tangentially theodical... The Onion's treatment of the Newtown shooting (warning: not safe for profanity-averse eyes) could give the Psalmist and Job a run for their respective monies.
Point being, profanity can sometimes more effectively capture and express the rawness of our emotions in a way polished prose or verse cannot.
ETA: fixed code
![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif) ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
Point made. That was a lovely piece of writing, made stronger by the considered use of swearing.
I understand that some people are uncomfortable with swearing and would respect their wishes when talking to them, but have not found this to be split down religious lines. I have come across the theory that Christians shouldn't swear at all, but usually espoused by non-churchgoers. ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
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'If a pleasant, straight-forward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres' - Kafka
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
[QUOTE]general point) Jesus got worked up about a whole lot of things in the bible. I await evidence that profanity was one of them.
It did where it involved insults aimed at hois dad
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Jesus got worked up about a whole lot of things in the bible. I await evidence that profanity was one of them.
Only semantics of course, but I'd rather think that Jesus was very much into countering the profane things of life! And he did direct his followers not to use oaths or swear, if we're going to go down the Bible route.
Howeve, it is difficult to imagine him being needlessly offended by the fruity language of 'sinners and publicans' etc!
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Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
And he did direct his followers not to use oaths or swear, if we're going to go down the Bible route.
Two different meanings of "swear" obviously.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
[QUOTE]I DO have greek and can assure you that it means 'shit'.
So do I and I assure you it doesn't. It means a waste product (rubbish): to render it as "s***" is reading into the text what isn't there.
Anyway if it does mean what you claim, why does it not appear as that in any translation I'm aware of?
Because translators are coy.
Do you have lexicographal evidence to back up your claim.
Otherwise, you say potAHto and i say potAYto.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
I'm no Greek scholar, but as far as I know Leo is right. "Shit" is a perfectly good translation. As it would be of "worthless dung" anyway.
That doesn't mean its got the same force in Greek that the English word has in English. Of course it doesn't. No two words (other than simple labels for the same thing) have exactly the same range of meaning or usage anyway.
And even in English "shit" has a different force in different contexts. I think its a relatively mild expletive where I live. And also has some literal use - if there is horse-shit in the street you can call it horse-shit without being shockingly rude. It seem to be ruder in some other places.
Which is all quite normal. In the corner shop I can buy a packet of Instant Cock Soup. In fact I did, I have one in my kitchen. From somewhere in the Caribbean I think. If the same stuff had been made in England it would probably have been labeled Chicken Soup. I get the impression that in some parts of the USA it might have been too rude or too funny even to display. Same word, same approximate range of meaning, different force.
My guess is that we probably don't have enough evidence to know how shocking or rude, if at all, words like "skubala" or "kaka" would have been to St Paul's friends and neighbours.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Jahlove
Tied to the mast
# 10290
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
[QB If the same stuff had been made in England it would probably have been labeled Chicken Soup. I get the impression that in some parts of the USA it might have been too rude or too funny even to display. [/QB]
Indeed, ken. I am informed by some of my correspondents in the US that they excise *a breastful of milk* from *In the Bleak Midwinter* because it bunches their panties.
LOVE *Instant Cock Soup* - if only! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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“Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.” - Mark Twain
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
[QUOTE]I DO have greek and can assure you that it means 'shit'.
So do I and I assure you it doesn't. It means a waste product (rubbish): to render it as "s***" is reading into the text what isn't there.
Anyway if it does mean what you claim, why does it not appear as that in any translation I'm aware of?
Because translators are coy.
Do you have lexicographal evidence to back up your claim.
I'll answer my own question:
Σκύβαλον - skubala is a hapax legomena, ie it occurs only once in the New Testament. It might be related to skor in attic Gk.
quote:
That skuvbalon took on the nuance of a vulgar expression with emotive connotations (thus, roughly equivalent to the English “crap, s**t”) is probable in light of the following considerations: (1) its paucity of usage in Greek literature (“Only with hesitation does literature seem to have adopted it from popular speech” says Lang in TDNT 7:445);3 (2) it is used frequently in emotionally charged contexts (as are its verbal cognates) in which the author wishes to invoke revulsion in his audience; (3) there is evidence that there were other, more common and more acceptable terms referring to the same thing (in particular, the agricultural term koprov" and the medical term perivsswma);4 (4) diachronically, the shock value of the term seems to have worn off through the centuries; and (5) a natural transfer of the literal to a metaphorical usage, in which disgust, revulsion, or worthlessness are still in view, argues for this meaning as well.5 Nevertheless, that its shock value was not fully what “s**t” would be is suggested in the fact that in the Hellenistic period (c. 330 BCE-330 CE)
source here
A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd Edition translates σκύβαλα as “refuse”, “garbage”, “human excrement”, “crud”, and “crap”.
R. B. Hays Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul - ‘crap’ source here
Gordon Fee Paul’s Letter to the Philipians – the word is a vulgarity.
quote:
This is a Greek word that is the equivalent to the modern English word "shit." Skubala is a rare word, used only in Philippians 3:8 in the New Testament. Dung, rubbish, refuse, and a loss are various inaccurate translations of the Greek word. No translation accurately translates this term to its modern English equivalence: "shit." The word means "excrement" either animal or human. It is a very strong word!
source here
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Morlader
Shipmate
# 16040
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jahlove:
Indeed, ken. I am informed by some of my correspondents in the US that they excise *a breastful of milk* from *In the Bleak Midwinter* because it bunches their panties.
Not just in the US. At a pretty posh church in S London, the choir copies of Darke's In the bleak had "a heart full of mirth and a manger full of hay". It's a tenor solo verse and our soloist started "..a breast full of hay.." We were all agog about how he would get out of it - "a manger full of milk" perhaps? But he just sang "a manger full of hay" without wavering ( much ).
I had the solo the following year and sang the breast full of milk version. Well, it's a solo, so there's no prob with the choir singing what the copy says.
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.. to utmost west.
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Jahlove
Tied to the mast
# 10290
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Posted
![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif)
just noticed, I agreed on something with ken. Apocraplyse Nigh!
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“Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.” - Mark Twain
Posts: 6477 | From: Alice's Restaurant (UK Franchise) | Registered: Sep 2005
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Jahlove
Tied to the mast
# 10290
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by leo:
[qb] [QUOTE]I DO have greek and can assure you that it means 'shit'.
So do I and I assure you it doesn't. It means a waste product (rubbish): to render it as "s***" is reading into the text what isn't there.
Anyway if it does mean what you claim, why does it not appear as that in any translation I'm aware of?
Because translators are coy.
Quite so, Leo.
Interestingly, I was taught that the word *busy* as in
1 Kings 18:27
27 At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” 28 So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. 29 Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.
was a euphemism for *taking a dump* i.e. Elijah, in the terminology of our times is saying *you're full of shit*. Although the Baal whose followers were contesting Elijah is not explicitly called Baal Peor, it's quite likely that it was the same chap, whose name is identified with excretion.
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“Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.” - Mark Twain
Posts: 6477 | From: Alice's Restaurant (UK Franchise) | Registered: Sep 2005
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anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
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Posted
I would like now to offer amore general review of the book.
Basically I find the book a bit of a letdown, although it is an ok read, despite occasion purple prose, and of course the fucking swear words. It is rather a rant. And much of it could have been written Hitchens, as it has a lot of polemic about what's wrong (fucked up) about the church. I found Spufford a very
Iilable author, and appreciate him giving vent to what it feels like to want and try to believe, knowing you're on thin ice.
But it is a real problem working out what he means by the Christianity which he find so emotionally convincing. He does state that he tries to believe everything in the creed, and maybe he does but there's no evidence of this in the book. There is very little or no mention of resurrection, atonement, prayer. It is really a minimalist faith, and because of this there is no analysis of why,for example, the idea of Jesus dying to save the world is emotionally convincing, and I have no reason to think that this is included in his take on Christianity
If fact there is little, if anything, that could not be believed by a Buuddhist or indeed Atheist, since no truth claims are made.
I'm also concerned about his view of foregiveness, which is central to the book. He starts by hinting that he had treated someone close to him badly, and how important it is to feel forgiven. But is it not more relevant to seek foregiveness from the one you have wronged? I'm not implying he did not, but assuming he did, why is it so important to have a sort of cosmic foregiveness? Nor does he even mention the possibility that Christian foregiveness is conditional, at least according to Jesus (aka Yeshua).
I was taken aback by the final chapter in which he goes all inclusive and states that he views hard right republican fundies as his fellow travellers, when he previously implied if not directly stated that he prefers atheism to fundamentalism. So I'm confused, but enjoyed the interaction with Francis Spufford's mind.
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Schnuffle schnuffle.
Posts: 2538 | From: UK | Registered: May 2006
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
Returning to the original question: While there are circumstances in which terms which are vulgar or obscene or profane may be appropriate to achieve emphasis or to express outrage, I think these are unusual. If I attend my neighborhood church and discover the preacher using objectionable language routinely, I will probably look for another church. The English language has a vocabulary so vast that there are nearly always alternatives.
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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PaulBC
Shipmate
# 13712
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Posted
I would be apalled if a clergyperson in my church used obscene, foul, or crude language
at any time .BUT especially from the pulpit.
Such language does not build up the church and appeals to the lowest common denominator in humankind.
I believe that we should avoid such language at all times. Am I a success at this ? No . It is an ideal to strive for , the
mark towards which should press as Paul states. Does bad language hjelp explain the faith ? I think not. ![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif) ![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif) ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
[ 24. December 2012, 19:52: Message edited by: PaulBC ]
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"He has told you O mortal,what is good;and what does the Lord require of youbut to do justice and to love kindness ,and to walk humbly with your God."Micah 6:8
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
I dunno. I once described King David as "kind of a fuck-up" and I still think that was the perfect way to describe him.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Rosa Winkel
Saint Anger round my neck
# 11424
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Posted
Swear words certainly bring out the "Look at me, I pay my taxes and fast" tendency. The choice of words that we use is only the tip of the iceberg of how we show the fruits of the Spirit. The fruits, love, joy, peace and all that are more important than particular words in this context.
It's words like gay, Jew or retarded used in a context of discrimination that we should get worked up about. There's a whole manner of words inherited from colonialism (with its partner, racism) in our everyday language, words that don't receive such attention.
I was once at a Mass (an evening sung Mass for St. Thomas, hence there being not a lot of people there) where the Priest spoke of hearing about a funeral of a child, where the mother got up during the service, put his hand on the coffin and said "I think God's a shit". He spoke of that being an example of how God is big enough to tolerate such comments (a matter for another thread).
After the service a server complained to me about how a "profane" word was used. Talk about priorities.
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The Disability and Jesus "Locked out for Lent" project
Posts: 3271 | From: Wrocław | Registered: May 2006
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
I dunno. I once described King David as "kind of a fuck-up" and I still think that was the perfect way to describe him.
Others would find that description rather inadequate or imperfect.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Well, we could expand it to mass-murderer, adulterer, liar, mercenary, thief, kidnapper, bandit, rapist, senile old man, and so on. They are all there in the book of Samuel. "Total fuck-up" does as a kind of summary.
And still God loved him. Which is sort of the point.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
"Total fuck-up" does as a kind of summary.
Hardly. That's like looking at one side of a coin and calling it "total tails".
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
And still God loved him. Which is sort of the point.
That always is the point, but never in the simplistic way that you have suggest there... God did have a thing or two to say about David's failings, and David mostly knew when it was time for sackcloth and ashes.
As for the OP, swearing has its place and on rare occasions may even be put to the service of Christ. However, the effect of swearing is in my opinion not captured well in the written word. Reading "fuck" is rather less than hearing "fuck" and that is less still than experiencing the speech act entirely. As part of written argument expletives rarely achieve anything but highlighting the weakness of what is being written. And yes, I do include SoF posts in that judgement.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
"Total fuck-up" does as a kind of summary.
Hardly. That's like looking at one side of a coin and calling it "total tails".
That's why I went with "kind of."
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
Tony Campolo comes across like a little boy (in the story quoted above) who sticks his tomgue out and says "bum", giggling cos he thinks it's rude. It isn't - it's just attention seeking and I can think of better ways to draw people's attention to the problem of injustice than swearing.
Speaking as someone who was in Prestatyn that evening in 1982 (a very early Spring Harvest) and heard the whole of that impassioned talk (about the values of the kingdom) I can assure you that I have never heard anything that was less like a giggle or did more to change, for the better, that whole event.
But, yes, there were people who were offended by the language. I wasn't one of them. It changed the way I looked at a lot of things. I guess you had to be there.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Yeah, I read a transcript of that speech in The Wittenburg Door, and in context Campolo came across as pretty angry. He was not trying to be cute at all.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
As for the OP, swearing has its place and on rare occasions may even be put to the service of Christ. However, the effect of swearing is in my opinion not captured well in the written word. Reading "fuck" is rather less than hearing "fuck" and that is less still than experiencing the speech act entirely. As part of written argument expletives rarely achieve anything but highlighting the weakness of what is being written. And yes, I do include SoF posts in that judgement.
I agree - when it's written it's not an expletive and loses its impact entirely.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Clemency
Shipmate
# 16173
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Posted
Was anyone at Greenbelt a few years ago when Martyn Joseph sang a song (and tried to get us all to join in the chorus in which God told some American Conservative (forget who, Pat someone) to f.... off. To me it just did not work at all. A friend with young kids there had some explaining to do to them.. I cogitated a lot as to why it left such a nasty taste in my mind and decided it was not so much the word as the mockery-from-a-safe-position. GB has over the years provided some high and low moments; this one was, for me, pretty p- and b-athetic....
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Who knows where the Time goes?
Posts: 90 | From: Northumberland, UK | Registered: Jan 2011
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
I was reminded of this thread when I found a cracking typo in the Ringing World for 21-28 December.
On page 1319 "For those who have rung at the Church of the Holy Rude, Stirling..."
I can't help feeling that it's exactly the sort of church where you could read II Kings 9:8 from the pulpit.
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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AdamPater
Sacristan of the LavaLamp
# 4431
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
... He does state that he tries to believe everything in the creed, and maybe he does but there's no evidence of this in the book. There is very little or no mention of resurrection, atonement, prayer...
Maybe the edition I'm reading now is different to the one you've read.
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Put not your trust in princes.
Posts: 4894 | From: On the left of the big pink bit. | Registered: Apr 2003
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Jack the Lass
Ship's airhead
# 3415
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sandemaniac:
I was reminded of this thread when I found a cracking typo in the Ringing World for 21-28 December.
On page 1319 "For those who have rung at the Church of the Holy Rude, Stirling..."
I can't help feeling that it's exactly the sort of church where you could read II Kings 9:8 from the pulpit.
AG
Er - point of order - that wasn't actually a typo.
Church of the Holy Rude, Stirling
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"My body is a temple - it's big and doesn't move." (Jo Brand)
wiblog blipfoto blog
Posts: 5767 | From: the land of the deep-fried Mars Bar | Registered: Oct 2002
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anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
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Posted
AdamPater:
Don't think so, but I got it out of the library, so would have to reload to check. Perhaps you could give some summary of his beliefs about atonement, preferably with page references.
If I'm wrong hen in will stand corrected, but I need more than you've given so far.
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Schnuffle schnuffle.
Posts: 2538 | From: UK | Registered: May 2006
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AdamPater
Sacristan of the LavaLamp
# 4431
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Posted
Well, that's one way to spend a Sunday afternoon...
I found 14 "fuck"s (or similar), 11 "shit"s, 53 "HPtFtU"s and 4 "bastard"s, on 55 distinct pages out of 224.
"bastard" appears exclusively in the sense of "He doesn't exist, the bastard", a quote or reference to Samuel Beckett.
"HPtFtU" is introduced early as an initialism for "Human Propensity to Fuck things Up", a technical term for, essentially, "original sin", in recognition that contemporary discourse doesn't really understand "sin" in it's orthodox Christian sense. As such it seems a bit harsh to count "HPtFtU" as an expletive, or even particularly vulgar.
"fuck" and "shit" (and similar) appear on 23 separate pages.
There are occasional appearances of colloquial language that might be considered not quite right, such as "arse", "pissed off", "pissed", "buggered", "crap" and "bloody", but there weren't that many of them, really. "bloody" was the only word, on one occasion ("Richard bloody Dawkins") that I thought really counted as an expletive. Other usage of "fuck" and "shit" (and derivatives) might be vulgar but they did add meaning to the sentence, acting as a verb or noun in context.
Chapter 5 is a paraphrased gospel account, including the resurrection. "Prayer" is described from an insider perspective in pages 57 to 66.
The author sets out to give an account of "Christian faith from the inside" (stated intention in the last chapter), in deliberate contrast to an understanding of religious belief as assent to various propositions about the world (page 18). As such, it's a bit out of scope to expect a discussion of "atonement", which is arguably a high level propositional truth of faith, rather than one of direct emotional and personal import.
Personally, I think I recognised every part of this personal account from the inside of Christian faith. I think I would enjoy meeting the author, over a pint after church.
Could be wrong about some of the counting. Definitely might not have taken in some of the author's intent: I was focussing on the fucking words, not the author's intention or meaning.
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Put not your trust in princes.
Posts: 4894 | From: On the left of the big pink bit. | Registered: Apr 2003
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AdamPater
Sacristan of the LavaLamp
# 4431
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Posted
Bugger... missed the edit window. Meant to say that, agreeing with a review I read, the book is meant to be heard in a reading out loud. The language works.
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Put not your trust in princes.
Posts: 4894 | From: On the left of the big pink bit. | Registered: Apr 2003
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
It's hard to imagine that many of us in the western church are sufficiently inflamed by the gospel and consumed by God to justify using expletives. We're too tentative and conciliatory for that. I can see that the Dead Horse issues might lead many to anger, but as for 'explaining Christianity', that's a job that's either been highly intellectualised (although maybe the odd swear word in an academic tome adds a little 'colour'), or at a popular level it's a task that most ordinary Chrisitans feel deeply uncomfortable with anyway, and I don't see how swearing could help with that.
As others have said, in most cases it just seems like posing, or trying to shock for the sake of it. I suppose that if swearing is part of your everyday language and not an affectation, then it might be understandable. But that's not the case for most Christians, and these days fresh converts aren't usually drawn from the kind of demographic where f words appear in every other sentence. More's the pity.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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RdrEmCofE
Shipmate
# 17511
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Posted
The Revd. Bowdler was famous for rewriting folk songs and fairy tales removing any distasteful words, so that they could then be allowed to be read by Victorian children.
It would seem that similar ‘editing’ takes place when translating the Holy Scriptures, in order to preserve the sensibilities of the prudish.
In the following translations a simple concept is rendered in a number of ways. Mostly it seems that the ‘meaning remains clear’ but in Youngs Literal version it seems he simply could not bring himself to translate it literally but chose rather to make it altogether meaningless.
I must say however the gritty coarseness of the KJV is so much more expressive of the force of contempt carried by the imagery of the original Hebrew.
It makes me wonder how much more of The Bible has been rendered an anodyne, inoffensive mistranslation of the gritty and punchy original.
1 Sam. 25:22 So and more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall. KJV
22 God do so to David and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him. " RSV
22 God do so to David and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him. NRSV
22 So and more also may God do to the enemies of David, if I leave to the light of the morning any that is his of one who urinates against the wall. NKJV
22 So may God do to the enemies of David, and may He do more so, if I leave any of all that is to him to the light of the morning, of one who urinates against a wall. Greens Literal Version
22 God do so to the enemies of David and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him. ESV.
22 God do so unto the enemies of David, and more also, if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light so much as one man-child. ASV
22 thus doth God do to the enemies of David, and thus He doth add, if I leave of all that he hath till the light of the morning -- of those sitting on the wall. Youngs Literal Version.
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Love covers many sins. 1 Pet.4:8. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not holding their sins against them; 2 Cor.5:19
Posts: 255 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jan 2013
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