On the Use, and Misuse, of Ugly Words

One does not enter pastoral ministry with the dream of one day writing treatises upon the polemical use of the word “faggot,” but here we are.

I have almost written this piece half a dozen times, most recently last month when Eric Conn, pastor of The Refuge Church in Ogden, Utah and co-host of the influential podcasts The King’s Hall and Hard Men Podcast, within a few hours called a fellow minister “a retarded snake” and posted the one-word retort “SlowToThink” to a Christian writer whose X handle is “SlowToWrite.” But the article hadn’t quite come together until I recently spent a couple days on X discussing whether “E-lie McFaggot” is fitting rhetoric for Christian disputation.

Eli McGowan is a Christian filmmaker whose X account is largely devoted to documenting and critiquing the alt-right, Christian Nationalist-adjacent movement to which Conn belongs, along with figures such as Joel Webbon, Dale Partridge, and Conn’s co-pastor Brian Sauvé. McGowan’s work at times carries the whiff of a tattletale, and he is widely despised by his opponents, from whom the nickname “E-lie McFaggot” is hardly the harshest response.

Of course, “Twitter is not real life,” as we used to say back when X had a real name. It is not news that largely anonymous figures say unpleasant things on the internet. But in point of fact, X is real life, and sins on X are nonetheless sins. Furthermore, sins on X have a way of eventually leaking into the lives and churches of those around us.

When Pastor Conn was challenged for his “SlowToThink” mockery, he responded,

Pointing out someone’s argument makes exactly zero logical sense = masculine frame

Hysterical woman frame/you = “Why are you making fun of people”

Increasingly, many men on the online Christian right will explicitly defend their frequent use of mockery and crude language as manly and biblical modes of disputation. It is a case made earnestly not only by anonymous commentators, but by some of the most influential leaders in this part of the broader Christian Nationalist movement.

In defense of their thesis, they typically point to an array of language in Scripture which might be loosely classified as harsh or ugly. There is Ezekiel’s shockingly graphic simile to illustrate Israel’s spiritual unfaithfulness (Ezek. 23), or Paul’s wish that the false teachers who demanded that the Galatians be circumcised would simply castrate themselves (Gal. 5:12). And of course, there is the less graphic but still harsh language of John the Baptist and Jesus himself toward the Pharisees, calling them, among other things, a “brood of vipers” (Luke 3:7) and “whitewashed tombs… full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (Matt. 23:27).

Yet, on the other hand, Scripture is full of warnings to beware and guard our tongues (James 3); to “put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth” (Col. 3:8); to “Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt” (Col. 4:6); to have no “filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks” (Eph. 5:4).

There is also the foundational call to love our neighbor as ourselves, which the Westminster Larger Catechism helpfully expounds in its teaching on the duties required by the Sixth Commandment: “…charitable thoughts, love, compassion, meekness, gentleness, kindness; peaceable, mild and courteous speeches and behavior; forbearance, readiness to be reconciled, patient bearing and forgiving of injuries, and requiting good for evil” (WLC 135).

So are Ezekiel and Paul, John and Jesus violating the scriptural command to guard our tongues? Obviously not. We must allow these examples of harsher speech to clarify and sharpen how we understand the repeated command that Christians speak with grace and kindness, while also allowing those broad commands to enforce limits around what these challenging passages may permit.

It seems clear that some on the online right have seized upon these sharper passages of Scripture to justify essentially any language their flesh feels like hurling at an opponent. Yet, any rebuke of such abusive language must seriously grapple with the ways that passages like Ezekiel 23 and Galatians 4 do expand what is permissible Christian rhetoric. I think three tests can help us judge when sharp or even ugly language may be justified, and when it is not.

1. Is it spoken with love?

God’s harsh words in Ezekiel were to a people he still calls repeatedly “my people,” to whom he promised to come to save and shepherd (Ezek. 34), to cleanse and give a new spirit (Ezek. 36), and to restore from death to life (Ezek. 37). His very grief and anger at their spiritual unfaithfulness was because of the love he had shown them and would show them again.

Paul in Galatians wrote to those he feared were “so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel” (Gal. 1:6), and his letter is full of warmth toward the wandering saints in Galatia, who he exhorts, “you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Gal. 5:13).

The same Christ who called the Pharisees snakes and whitewashed tombs met with the Pharisee Nicodemus to patiently answer his questions (John 3), and in the end saved not only Nicodemus but many of his fellow Pharisees (Acts 15:5)—not least, Paul himself!

Love does not exclude the possibility of sharp language when necessary, but sharp language without love is always sin. If it is true that “the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity” (James 3:6), then especially when we know we are in a heated, polemical context, we would do well to examine each sentence carefully and ask ourselves if God would judge our words to be anything other than the faithful wounds of a friend (Prov. 27:6a).

2. Is it rare?

Ezekiel is 48 chapters long, and it is one of 16 prophetic book in the Old Testament. Ezekiel 23’s graphic condemnation of “Oholah and Oholibah” (representing Samaria and Jerusalem) makes up one of those chapters in one of those prophetic books. Galatians 5:12 is a single verse within one of the many passages which Paul wrote dealing with the Judaizing false teachers.

“Not too much” is a difficult standard, but it is often the correct measure when dealing with other people. I should correct my children, but not too often relative to expressions of love and encouragement. I should admonish members of my church, but that should not be all they hear from my pulpit. Like salt, the right amount can be wonderfully helpful, but too much ruins the dish.

If the predominant flavor of my polemical rhetoric is personal, shocking, and rude, I am very far from hitting the biblical mark. And speaking from a heart of genuine love will go a long way toward getting that balance right.

3. Does it have a point?

This is the most objective and practical criteria which can be drawn from Scripture’s examples of sharp or ugly rhetoric. In each case, there is some definite, identifiable point being made.

Ezekiel isn’t just being crude. He is portraying the spiritual unfaithfulness of Israel with shocking imagery to make his listeners recoil and then realize their apostasy is actually uglier than anything the prophet just described.

Paul isn’t just expressing anger at the pro-circumcision party in Galatia. He is making a keen point: Since circumcision no longer has any spiritual significance, if they are trying to save themselves by a meaningless mutilation of their male member, why not just whack the whole thing off? If the latter would be absurd, so is the former. It is a bracing argument, even crude (and hence unique even in Paul’s polemics against the Judaizers), but it is an argument.

Similarly, calling the Pharisees snakes and whitewashed tombs communicates a sense of concealed but deadly uncleanness; a warning not only to their compatriots, but to any Pharisees with ears to hear.

Such pointed argumentation, even when—rarely—framed in shocking or even crude terms, is very far from playground insults and slurs. Nowhere does Scripture endorse the sort of personal name-calling which communicates nothing more than “I despise you.” It gives no warrant for a disdainful verbal free-for-all merely because we believe someone to be a bad person.

If I take Scripture’s warnings seriously, I need to examine my sharpest words the most carefully. What am I actually saying with this harsh or shocking phrase? And why am I choosing this form? Is it because I genuinely believe it best communicates a meaningful point which honors God and loves my neighbor, or am I just looking for an excuse to “curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God” (James 3:9)?

Frankly, writing something like this feels rather futile. One suspects the likeliest outcome will be that some digital passerby suggests I am kind of girly. But I do believe there are those who have convinced themselves they are biblically justified in using the ugliest language against those “made in the likeness of God” because doing so is actually the manly and prophetic thing to do. It is these men—also made in the likeness of God—who I hope will fear God enough to seriously consider my words.