In this Sunday’s message (Nov. 5, 2023), Allan Rudy-Froese, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary associate professor of Christian proclamation and Keller Park Church congregant, addresses this congregant question: “Within the evangelicalism of my childhood, there were a lot of taboos around ‘cussing.’ As I’ve gone through my own deconstruction, most of those taboos have more or less fallen away, and I often find a well-placed swear word to be just what the doctor ordered in the right context. But I confess that I still have a taboo around ‘taking the Lord’s name in vain,’ and so, despite my distance from evangelicalism, I still wince when I hear someone say ‘Oh my God!’ or ‘Jesus Christ!’ or ‘Goddammit!’ What’s up with that?” Allan presents a practical theology of swearing as a form of embodied practice and calls Christians care, love, and listen to those who express their pain through cussing.
