Doug Wilson Says the N-word, C-word, S-word, B-word, and A-word Because ‘Godly Obscenity Exists’

“My point is simply to show that godly obscenity exists. Certain subjects are not automatically off-limits. Of course, we are not protected by divine inspiration, as the apostles and prophets were, and so we fall short of biblical standards in many ways—and especially in an area like this, where we have so little practice and so few godly examples. However, we must become more puritanical and less Victorian—more ethical and open, and less sanctimonious and hypocritical.”¹ — Doug Wilson

Here are some examples of Doug’s use of profanity and racial slurs:

None of these are redacted in Doug’s original writings.

N-word:

“She comes up and beseeches Christ for healing. It’s not right, He says, to give perfectly good white folk food to ‘n****rs.’”²

(Read our blog post dedicated to dealing with this quote here.)

C-word:

“This is what they are saying. They are shamelessly declaring to the world that they are just a couple of c***s.”³

S-Word:⁴

“Rest rooms, as you may recall, don’t have surveillance cameras in them, and so when North Carolina acted like a commonwealth full of people with common sense and said that folks needed to use the kind of bathroom that matched their sex on their birth certificate, the enlightened ones among us—no other phrase will do—went ape s***.”⁵

“We are in the process of walking away from the promise of a redeemed culture under Christ so that we can all go live in a shambolic and s****y little shantytown … And depend upon it, there will be numerous evangelicals who have agreed to go peaceably off to that shantytown. They actually want to go live there, but they sternly object to the use of words like s****y.”⁶

B-word:⁷

“In the course of this answer I used an example of mean girls ganging up on another girl, and I said something like ‘suppose they are being really catty and b****y …’ As soon as I said ‘b****y,’ there was an audible gasp throughout the room, and one woman starting yelling something along the lines of ‘B****y! What the effin’ razzum skazzum effin’ hate-monger effin’ HATE!’ She apparently had a problem with the language I had been using.”⁸

“Reality catches up with us, and conservatives begin to recognize there might be greater depths to their political philosophy than b****ing about liberalism.”⁹

“It is not to choose women over men—it is to choose women over the rule of law. And so it is that a large army of singularly unattractive and b****y women have come to have any authority in our culture at all. How is that possible? Men go along because of fear.”¹⁰

A-word:

“But then came the really bad news. The bad-a** fundamentalists started showing up, wielding the new weapons that had now been okayed by the collapsing and collapsed establishment, but they were showing no sign of getting tired of them.”¹¹

“The reporter will come right back at you—but what about that transgender student enrolled there at Classical Christian High? To which you will request the name of said student, so that you can promptly expel his a**.”¹²

NOTE: Doug also chooses to quote others saying the f-word and n-word without redaction in his blog.¹³

OPINION: I believe the Bible is very clear that pastors should not use profanity or racial slurs. But Doug Wilson likes to push against accepted norms and so here we are. You might be asking, “What’s the big deal? So he cusses a little.” I believe it is a big deal because of what Jesus says: “How are you able to say anything good, since you are evil? For the mouth speaks from what fills the heart…I tell you that on the day of judgment, people will give an account for every worthless word they speak” (Matthew 12:34–36, NET). The warning James gives also rings true: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, because you know that we will be judged more strictly” (James 3:1, NET).

I believe that Christians, and especially pastors, should make it our aim to use pure speech. As the Holy Spirit says: “You must let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth, but only what is beneficial for the building up of the one in need, that it may give grace to those who hear…Neither should there be vulgar speech, foolish talk, or coarse jesting—all of which are out of character—but rather thanksgiving” (Ephesians 4:29; 5:4, NET).

When Doug argues that “godly obscenity exists,”¹⁴ it seems he does this only to justify his own vulgarity. It is another area where I believe Doug twists Scripture to his own ends. He wants to swear and speak crassly, and so he looks for places in Scripture to help him justify his position rather than humbly coming to Scripture to seek what God desires. Doug’s approach to Scripture is dangerous and opens the door to distorting biblical truth in other more serious areas, leading to self-righteousness, an unteachable heart, and pride (read related posts here).

Let’s look at some of Doug’s arguments and show how he fails to rightly make his case from Scripture. The first is his defense of his usage of the word s*** from the Apostle Paul. Doug writes:

“The word is skubalon, and means in the first place some kind of animal excrement…we simply cannot imagine the lofty sentiment of this wonderful passage (e.g., the ‘excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord’) functioning in the same sentence with dog s***. But there it is—Paul has scraped all self-important, prim and proper, fussy-tidy religion off the bottom of his shoe. Why? That he might win Christ.”¹⁵

And in another place he writes: “Do I speak too strongly? Is this too crass? No, it is good [sic] example of how our petty pietisms about vulgarity can get in the way of the gospel. This is the divinely inspired assessment (Phil. 3:8).”¹⁶

Notice how Doug fails to give any proof as to why skubalon (σκύβαλον) is equivalent to “dog s***” he just asserts it as “the divinely inspired assessment”, which is incredibly arrogant.¹⁷ This is not what a biblical teacher should do. A biblical teacher should argue from Scripture and show that what they teach is true, not just assert what they say is true on their own authority. No English Bible translation agrees with him (not even Martin Luther’s German translation, and he was notorious for using colorful language).¹⁸ When it comes to Greek and modern equivalency, the job of the teacher is even harder, and as one who has no formal training in Greek (or any formal seminary degree),¹⁹ Doug should not be asserting anything when it comes to the meaning of the original language based on his own limited knowledge but should rather study and research scholars who spend their lives in this pursuit. If we do so, we’ll find that scholars do not believe the Greek word skubalon is equivalent to dog s***,²⁰ but at most, closer to human “crap”²¹ or “dung”²² or as most modern translations have it, “rubbish.”²³ As Michael Aubrey²⁴ concludes: “There are a number of reasons why ‘s***’ is an unacceptable gloss. For one, even though σκύβαλον has a socially avoided referent, that does not mean the term itself creates the visceral reaction that a true obscenity would. More importantly, σκύβαλον has a distinctly different distribution in its usage compared to the English obscenity s***. The lexeme is comfortably at home in a wide variety of contexts, including in medical texts, for example.”²⁵ Doug shows he is not a careful student of the Bible, but seems to rather use the Bible for his own ends, seeking to justify his own vulgarity rather than submit himself to the clear meaning of God’s Word (read related posts here).

In another place, Doug argues that the Bible includes godly examples of vulgarity, obscenity, swearing, and cursing:

“But we can find godly examples in each one of these categories, and using the same sorts of words. Isaiah says that our own righteousness is like a used menstrual cloth (vulgarity, Is. 64:6), Ezekiel says that disobedient Israel was lusting after Assyrians who were hung like a donkey and who could ejaculate like a horse (obscenity, Eze. 23:20), Paul says that if he or an angel from Heaven preached a different gospel other than the first one preached to the Galatians, then God damn that guy (cursing, Gal. 1:8), and the law requires us to take our oaths in God’s name (swearing, Dt. 10:20).”²⁶

I grant that there are acceptable examples of swearing and cursing in the Bible, but I do not believe that those biblical categories are in the same category as swear words or curse words in modern English (such as the f-word, s-word, etc.) and Doug doesn’t take time to explain the nuance.²⁷ Swearing an oath, and rightly cursing someone who teaches a false gospel clearly have biblical merit (though I would argue for a more formal usage than Doug’s “God damn that guy” because of the seriousness of such an action, as exemplified for us in Scripture). But when it comes to Doug’s labeling of God’s Word as vulgar and obscene I believe he has missed the mark.

Let’s look at the two passages he mentioned. First, Isaiah 64:6: “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment [i.e., menstrual rag]; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away” (Isaiah 64:6, NASB95).²⁸ Doug labels this as vulgar, which means “rude and likely to upset or anger people, especially by referring to sex and the body in an unpleasant way.”²⁹ But is it vulgar? It is important to recognize that in ancient Israel—the original audience of this message—a woman’s menstrual discharge was not a hidden matter as it often is today. It was strictly regulated by law and deemed to make a person ceremonially unclean (Leviticus 15:19).³⁰ Therefore, they would not have considered its mention vulgar. For them, the point would have been clear: Their good deeds are unclean!³¹ Since they were the original recipients, their interpretation takes precedence over our modern understanding. And even today, would you be offended or angered if Bible translators chose to use menstrual rag instead of filthy garment? I believe the reference to a menstrual rag fails to meet the definition of vulgar. I would, however, consider Doug telling his “niece” that she needs to marry a man who is “well-endowed” as vulgar, not because a man’s sexual anatomy is inherently vulgar, but because it is an older uncle inappropriately discussing such things with his younger niece (see related article here).

Next Doug cites Ezekiel 23:20 and labels it “obscenity”: “She lusted after their paramours, whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys and whose issue is like the issue of horses” (Ezekiel 23:20, NASB95). But if you look at the original Hebrew, the terms used are clearly euphemistic—meaning “the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant”³² The word translated as “flesh” is “euphemistic for the pubic region.”³³ And the word translated as “issue” could be translated as “floods”.³⁴ It is clear that even as God speaks he is being careful, choosing to use euphemisms rather than the most crass words available in the language. But we also need to remember God is talking to his uniquely chosen nation that has turned away from him, not an individual—meaning God is using the imagery of “sexual potency” to refer to the “military power” of the nations that Judah sought alliances with.³⁵ God gives a description akin to bestiality to get them to understand the gravity of their sin of seeking help apart from him.³⁶ This is not the same as God using the f-word or some other obscenity. Nor is it license for us to use such a comparison whenever we want—nor should anyone go further than God did, without carefully using euphemisms to tone down what could turn into an obscenity. And we also understand that the office of prophet as it was in the Old Testament no longer exists today (Hebrews 1:1-2). The prophet Elijah killed 450 prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:22, 40), and clearly such action should not be emulated today.³⁷ So it follows, we should not assume the language the prophets used against Israel and other nations is a model for us to follow. Rather, we have been given the ministry of reconciliation, as ambassadors of Christ, imploring all to “be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:18–20, NASB95). Doug is seeking to push the boundaries, rather than encourage careful word choice as we see exemplified in Scripture, and he never fully addresses the distinction between Old Testament prophets and our ministry today. He chooses instead to give offense to the very ones God has called us to implore, to beg, to be reconciled to God. As James says, “…these things ought not to be this way” (James 3:10b, NASB95).

While it is true that Doug gives lip service to humility when it comes to his boundary-pushing: “…we are not protected by divine inspiration, as the apostles and prophets were, and so we fall short of biblical standards in many ways—and especially in an area like this, where we have so little practice and so few godly examples.”³⁸ In practice, Doug never seems willing to admit he’s crossed a line when it comes to crass and offensive language, even when confronted for his unredacted use of two of the most offensive words in the English language: c***³⁹ and n***** (read related article here). He clearly doesn’t actually think that he falls short, but rather thinks everyone who believes he is wrong is “more interested in moralism than morality”⁴⁰ and shifts the blame to his accusers. But maybe, as Spurgeon believed, the office of pastor is one that demands holiness: “The highest moral character must be sedulously maintained. Many are disqualified for office in the church who are well enough as simple members…Holiness in a minister is at once his chief necessity and his goodliest ornament. Mere moral excellence is not enough, there must be the higher virtue.”⁴¹ A pastor who not only uses crass, obscene, and offensive language but also seeks to justify himself from Scripture, teaching others to do the same, is not a pastor who should be held in high regard. Rather such conduct is contrary to the high calling placed on pastors and is grounds for disqualification (​​1 Timothy 3:1–13; Titus 1:6–8). As Kevin DeYoung has said: “Nothing is more essential to a pastor’s calling or the ministry he extends to others than his own personal holiness.”⁴² Even Mark Driscoll made a public apology when he became known as the “cussing pastor”⁴³—a gesture that, at the very least, demonstrated an awareness of the gravity of his role and the influence of his words. But Doug offers no such apology even though he stands condemned by his own words: “If you have a foul mouth, it is because you are bitter, discontent, unhappy, and cranked. That is the sewage down below; the words you speak are the effluvia.”⁴⁴ Doug has a foul mouth, and yet he seems to feel no shame, continuing to justify his own use of profanity and racial slurs, even to the point of recently defending the use of the middle finger in a video ad run by his college, New Saint Andrews (NSA).⁴⁵

Am I saying that a pastor should be disqualified because they let a swear word slip, or that we should question a person’s godliness because they use a swear word in private conversation? No. The heart is always the issue. And discerning the heart is more complex than one swear word. As Tim Shorey wrote: “Profanity, then, is not about the number of letters in a word; it’s about the way we treat, talk about, or fail to reverence or enjoy people and things God has created. Profanity is a bad thing, not primarily because it talks about bad things, but because it talks badly about good things. These good things encompass all God has made—including humans made in his image” (Genesis 1:26–31).⁴⁶

However, in public ministry, when a pastor develops a pattern of brazenly using crass and obscene language, especially to refer to people made in the image of God, it demonstrates a lack of self-control and understanding of the weight his words carry as a representative of Christ. When a pastor consistently resorts to offensive speech, especially in public forums (and writes an entire book defending himself),⁴⁷ it reveals deeper issues of character and maturity, which Scripture warns us to take seriously, particularly for those called to lead (James 3:1, Ephesians 4:29). The use of such language not only risks stumbling those under their care but also damages their witness to a watching world. As Paul wrote to Timothy: “The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:24–26, NASB95).

My prayer is that Doug would humble himself and repent from his use and advocacy of crass and offensive language and instead aim to speak in all purity, seeking to build up all image-bearers who hear, to the glory of Christ.

Want More Context?

Here are some links to other blogs dealing with this and other issues in more depth:

Denny Berk’s excellent review of Doug’s Book defending his use of crass and offensive language

Profanity Is Worse Than You Think

The Untameable Tongue

Talk, Edification, the Holy Spirit, and the Glory of God

Footnotes