1- I like the distinction between excommunicatory, explicit (my vote for the title of his 2nd point), and exclusionary (I'm definitely somewhere in the middle or the second and third, but questioning why I'm so worried about explicit language.) I recently talked to Josh about another blogger using "ass" repeatedly without any real need to - and I found that offensive, but the more I thought about it, I didn't have any real reason, other than...
2- The need for people to see the difference Christ has made in our lives (I don't think the whole "separation from the world" argument is viable in this sense). Right now, I'm not sure that people of my generation or younger would be affected either way by explicit language.
What are your thoughts? Do any of these three types of language help us connect better to non-christians? Is that even a good reason to use it? Do non-Christians really notice the absence of explicit or exclusionary words? If so, does that register as anything related to faith? Or has an "Orbit mouth" been relegated solely to those raised in the "Bible Belt" "Sunday School" programs, but not necessarily Christian?
**Note several of my previous posts and the use of "dirty" words, though I try to use them in some sort of context rather than just another adjective. I'm obviously working out this part of my faith as I blog... Bear with me.
1 comment:
what he says about postmodern objections to exclusionary language is quite true. The main objection of most postmodern-non-Christians is that Christian language of salvation says that if you haven't accepted Christ, you're not going to heaven. It's exclusionary, it leaves out a group of people. oddly enough it's side-by-side with the tolerance language: tolerate everything but intolerance. Ironic, I suppose.
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