Christian Doublespeak Is Worse Than Profanity

In ‘Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.’—and many Christian circles—kind words are the most cutting.

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I once got into a Christian schoolyard fight. It was a verbal one—no one really fought at my strict Michigan boarding school—and thinking back, it was like a bizarro-world version of the standard clichés I learned from pop culture: Instead of meeting by the dumpsters after school, there would be a small crowd of kids in our dress clothes waiting outside the church after the service. It’s hilarious now, but I took that shit seriously at the time. I had a reputation to uphold. Other kids knew that I was sharp-tongued, quick-witted, and angry.

The only problem was that I had recently taken one of those Christian student pledges to stop cursing. Spirit Week, Week of Prayer, and S.W.A.T. Week (Students Working at Temperance) often came with new prayer, purity, and abstinence pledges that students could commit to following. I ignored most of them in my early days of Christian academy, but piousness was a type of social currency that I eventually had to buy into. I lived in a Christian-teen paradox where it was cool to know how to cuss someone out but also to be baptized, save sex for marriage, and stop cursing. I would’ve broken my pledge if I had been a few weeks into it, but I was on a 12-week streak of being pure of tongue. I would just have to work around it.

After the sermon, I stormed outside of Cedar Lake Seventh-Day Adventist Church, where the small crowd of kids had gathered.

“I heard you talking shit,” I said. (I said trash.) “Your lying ass didn’t think I would find out?” (I said butt.) The crowd was confused. Some of them weren’t aware of my no-swearing streak; others were, but thought that I would surely break it instead of trying to cuss somebody out without cussing. But I continued. Finally, I ended with a coup de grâce, pointing my finger in their face and pausing for dramatic effect as the crowd looked on.

“Fuck you,” I said.

Only I said, “Eff you.”

Eff … you.

It was so quiet that I could hear the rotation of the Earth. And that was when I knew I’d fucked up.

“Did … did he just say ‘eff you’?” someone said.

One snicker cut through the silence. Then two. Then laughter erupted from everywhere. One person fell on the ground laughing. She had to be picked up like she had fainted. I’ll never forget that shit.

The day I said “eff you” is the most embarrassed I have been in my life. It was my 8 Mile moment of being booed and laughed off stage, and I learned a lesson I will never forget: Christian doublespeak exists for a reason.

In the Christianity I was raised in, piety is a performance. I was taught that we were saved by grace and Jesus’s sacrifice for our sins, but at the same time, that being a “good” or “bad” person is partly determined by how you talk:

Luke 6:43–45:

For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit … A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks.

Colossians 3:8: But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth.

Ephesians 5:4-5:

Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Matthew 12:36-37:

But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it on the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

I learned that cursing is a sign of a corrupted soul and one of the basic antitheses of performing righteousness. And I had to learn the hard way: My first time ever being suspended was after I transferred to a new school and was caught using profanity. (You can read that story in my memoir, Piccolo Is Black: A Memoir of Race, Religion, and Pop Culture.) I curse anywhere from “casually” to “frequently” as an adult, but after a childhood of practice, I can still easily switch from vulgarity to the fruits of the spirit. To this day, no elder Christian in my family has ever heard me curse, and I’ve never heard them do it either.

I was reminded about Christian doublespeak and the performance of righteousness when I watched the new movie Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul., which was released in theaters and on Peacock Premium last week. It’s a satirical comedy that follows a wealthy married couple, played by Sterling K. Brown and Regina Hall, who are trying to revive their Baptist megachurch after a high-profile scandal. It pokes fun at many of the themes you might expect: the teachings of the prosperity gospel, lies that megachurch leaders tell themselves to profit from their congregants, the cognitive dissonance it takes to believe oneself to be a good Christian while doing terrible things. But what stood out most to me was the performance of Christianity, which the movie captures well.

Honk for Jesus has its shortcomings; there are so few supporting characters that you have to believe a megachurch is run by two people, and the details of the pastoral scandal are too hackneyed a trope to be used as a meaningful reveal. But it holds a mirror to Christian doublespeak in a way that I rarely see in pop culture.

Focus Features

Christian doublespeak is a way of saying something kindly to disguise its insidiousness. It includes phrases like “bless your heart,” “I’ll pray for you,” and “love the sinner but hate the sin.” My favorite explanation of Christian doublespeak comes from the book Rage Against the Minivan, by Kristen Howerton:

If you are not familiar with the inner workings of Christians, very rarely is someone ‘fired.’ We use Christian-speak like ‘released’ or ‘blessed into a new ministry’ or ‘called out to a new vocation’ because it sounds better, and because we don’t want to be held responsible for actions that could reflect poorly on us. This kind of code-speak is rife in Christian circles, and it can range from annoying to downright toxic. Christians can rely on God-speak to distance themselves from personal responsibility or owning their own decisions, and they can also use it to avoid vulnerability. You can blame anything on a prompting from God, from skipping out on a commitment to breaking up with someone. God’s will can become a cover for all manner of bad behavior, from little slights and rejections to outright evil. This is accepted in Christian circles—whether it’s simply passive aggressive or veering into spiritual abuse—because we’ve all been trained that we cannot question God.

In one scene in Honk for Jesus, Trinitie (Hall) runs into a former congregant at the mall. The conversation that unfolds between them is full of artificial smiles, forced laughter, and veiled contempt.

“Sister Denetta,” Trinitie says. “How are you?”

“Look at you!” Sister Denetta responds with a smile. “Oh, bless your heart.”

Trinitie tries to hide her indignation. “Look at you,” she replies. “And bless also your own heart.”

The conversation spirals from there and includes the types of insults you might need a Rosetta Stone to fully appreciate. These women are locked into a verbal knife fight hidden by a veneer of purity and class. Scenes in Honk for Jesus highlight the key difference between profanity and Christian doublespeak: Profanity is harsh in its directness, but it tends to be honest, while Christian doublespeak is among the most indirect, dishonest, and manipulative ways to communicate.

In a later scene, Trinitie reaches her doublespeak limit with a woman heckling her on the street.

“Let me tell you something,” Trinitie says. “Me and my husband, we practice love and forgiveness. We are Christians. Not saints, and not God. And we are doing the best we fucking can.”

“Girl, fuck you,” the stranger replies.

“Fuck you,” Trinitie yells back.

Fuck … you.

Not doublespeak. Not trying to have it both ways. Just direct, transparent, uncalculated coarseness, the way communication is sometimes. To me, that “fuck you” is kinder and more respectful than Christian doublespeak ever is. And I’ll take honest profanity over doublespeak any day.

***

Thanks to everyone who responded to my last Humans Being, about Netflix’s Mo and his choice between God and therapy. My favorite response came from Joyce, who wrote:

I have no idea how I stumbled across your stuff, but I did recently, and then I had to subscribe to The Atlantic to keep reading. And then I bought your book, Piccolo Is Black. I was also raised Adventist, and I raised my children Adventist. And it was all good until it wasn’t … So now my Sabbath mornings are spent reading the rebellious prophets of my generation. And I keep company with God, who thankfully got through to me that I also needed therapy.

To Joyce and everyone else: Thanks a ton for subscribing to The Atlantic. I’ll be here for as long as they keep me around, sharing embarrassing stories about masturbation and difficult family relationships and work addiction. Come for the TV and movie recommendations, stay for the memoir adventures!