Should There Be Swearing in Christian Fiction?

To continue with my thoughts from Friday, one of the “issues” people apparently have with Christian fiction (read the Christianity Today articles as well as Lyndon’s comment) is that it’s devoid of swearing. Now, I’m fairly sure that no one is advocating for rampant use of the f-word throughout the books in gratuitous fashion, but it still strikes me as a bit odd that there are folks who are upset about it.

Swearing, in general, isn’t a particularly admirable trait. I had a teacher in middle school who summed it up pretty well – swearing is for people who aren’t creative enough to express themselves intelligently. That said, it’s not as if the odd expletive hasn’t crossed my lips – either on purpose (for emphasis or, when I was working full-time in an all-male office, because it was expected in order to be taken seriously) or on accident (like when I dropped a solid oak dining room chair on my big toe.) But both types are things that I’m working very hard to remove from my life because it’s not a good example for my kids, nor is it particularly great for my Christian witness.

So with that in mind, certainly we’re not lobbying for Christian characters to swear in Christian fiction, right? (Or at least not excessively – maybe if they drop a solid oak chair on their toe they might offer something heartier than “dang it.”) That leaves us with the non-Christian characters. Now, in general, it’s probably “realistic” for the non-Christian folks in Christian books to let one slip out now and again. Personally, I don’t know that I have a problem with it – particularly if it’s the more mild swear words (things like d**n or h**l). But I do think it’s probably safe to say that, regardless of how realistic it might be for the character to speak that way, they can’t be taking the Lord’s name in vain.

But I think we have to examine our audience before we make a decision one way or the other.

Who is the audience of Christian fiction? I posited on Friday that it’s fiction for Christian readers. I suspect, then, that these readers are looking to Christian fiction to meet their reading needs because there is something about the secular market books that is failing them. Perhaps they’ve turned to Christian romance to get away from a burgeoning problem with lust, something that the mainstream romance market feeds into a frenzy. Perhaps they struggle with some other issue–whether or not it’s sin–something they’d like to rid from their lives but that they find in secular fiction. Do we then, as Christians who are authors, have the right to insist that artistic freedom should allow us to put swearing (or sex or or or) into our novels and still have them labeled Christian fiction? Even if the swearing is brought on by catastrophe or the sex so graphically described is between a faithful married couple, we walk a fine line between our artistic freedom and the need to not cause others to stumble. I think of Paul, when he counseled the Corinthians that, despite meat sacrificed to idols NOT being harmful to consume, that if we know a brother or sister in Christ might struggle with their faith when they see us eating it, we ought to abstain. Yes, we have freedom in Christ–and that even includes artistic freedom–but that freedom isn’t an excuse for behavior that harms our walk or the walk of others.

Finding a book that has swear words in it is about as easy as walking to any shelf (excepting the Christian one) in the bookstore and grabbing something. But if you took the swearing out, would the story really suffer? I can’t think of any book where it would materially impact the story. Mitch Rapp would still be a kick-butt anti-terrorist hero if he didn’t swear liberally. Eve Dallas would still be a fascinating near-future NYPD Lieutenant if she could find it within her wherewithal to stop taking the Lord’s name in vain. From where I’m sitting, all swear words do is inflate the author’s word count in a cheap, unimaginative way.