Sanctifying profanity
Photograph by Mick Haupt via Unsplash
Rev. Dr. Justin Cox
I woke early the other morning, 4 a.m. to be exact. I have to beat the rooster if I want to get anything done.
I make coffee. I read. I write. In between, I stare at nothing in particular and attempt to coax the attention of a muse. Every now and then, she gives me a wink.
When the words don’t come, I go looking for books for inspiration. They jump-start me like a new battery in a beat-up but well-loved Datsun truck.
Reading an entire book from start to finish is like listening to a vinyl record. It takes a conscious effort not to skip around. Digital downloads are the opposite, like CDs used to be. You’re tempted to listen to your favorite tracks, and the B-sides remain forgotten. You can do this, but something gets lost in the process.
That’s why good albums from start to finish are rare. Maybe books are the same way.
When I read, I pay attention to footnotes. Too much time in higher ed has trained me to think this way. Usually, at a break in the story, I’ll do a quick search of an author or source mentioned and distract myself for longer than I intend. That morning, I went down a rabbit hole until I came across a quote from a former seminary professor about one of my favorite Christian anarchists, Will D. Campbell.
“Will could sanctify profanity like no other,” wrote Dr. Bill Leonard in a 2013 Baptist News Global article about the iconoclastic preacher who bucked conventional ministry and became a minister-at-large.
Campbell had just passed, and the Baptist world was expressing appreciation for a man who left them scratching their heads more than once.
I read those words over again: sanctify profanity.
I couldn’t stop thinking about them. The more I did, the more I liked them.
It sounds like Gospel work to me. Hear me when I say “Gospel” work, which shouldn’t be confused with “steeple” work. Steeples and the churches that rest under them are institutions that, be they good or bad, will eventually become self-absorbed, self-preserving, and self-serving in some form or fashion.
Sometimes it’s hard to see this, especially when the institution’s ideology aligns closely with our own. Institutions are always looking for their next round of acolytes to carry their messages and intentionally initiate the conversions needed to keep the status quo, the status quo. Hate-filled racial rhetoric of superiority and university mottos that implore a soul to bow before the academic throne, are both used so to keep a self-absorbed creed going along.
If the definition of sin is to “miss the mark,” then I think it’s safe to say the institutional church has, and openly continues to, sin when upholding its beloved institutions.
Real disruption — the Gospel kind — doesn’t invite chaos. It offers clarity. It invites the opportunity to step back and evaluate the situation.
Many might say, “Now hold up, preacher. Don’t you work in a church?”
I do. Guilty as charged. Accept my confession. I can see the beam in my own eye, and still know the problem that needs correcting. To think I have some inkling of a notion to fix the issue would perpetuate what Baptists have been doing since their emergence: splitting while still producing the same result.
I do not wish to fabricate another “steeple,” because that's what happens when we think, “if we just did it this way, it would be better.” Another idol gets erected, and the whole process starts right over again.
No, I believe I’ll take a different approach. It’s the only one I feel qualified to perform: to work on the fringe while remaining a detached voice, offering provocative criticism that is rarely heeded.
A Minister of Disruption, if you will.
I’m not looking to burn it all down for destruction’s sake, but am willing to walk the aisle, stand behind a pulpit, and speak hard truths when needed. I’m comfortable enough with myself to sit in the tension that the church needs to be uncomfortable.
Because real disruption — the Gospel kind — doesn’t invite chaos. It offers clarity. It invites the opportunity to step back and evaluate the situation.
I understand this to be the work and life of those like Campbell, who sanctified profanity whenever he got the chance. He did this by being crass at times. He did this when others thought him crude, vulgar, and heretical. He did that by not conforming to the expectation of what a preacher was supposed to do and say. He walked his own path, in his own shoes, and didn’t worry about filling anyone else’s. And because of this, he wasn’t concerned with building better steeples or arranging protective apologetics.
Instead, he trusted that reconciliation was for anyone and everything, and that Jesus had already done the heavy lifting.
As a pastor who’s supposed to have the vision with all the answers, I need reminding of this.
Along with coffee, maybe that’s what I’m hunting for in the wee hours of the morning. Not better words, more appealing arguments, or a fail-proof plan to dress the steeple up as something new.
No, the muse’s work is to tell me to let the record play through. That everything I hear is harmonized, and what I need to do is to point people towards that fact.
So in the by and by, I’ll keep doing what I know. I’ll wake early. I’ll keep reading. I’ll keep showing up in spaces that need shaking down. I’ll keep disrupting.
And when the words come — sanctified or profane — I’ll trust that somewhere in them, there’s a hint of something holy trying to break through.
Rev. Dr. Justin Cox is the senior minister at Emerywood Baptist Church, High Point, North Carolina. He received his theological education from Campbell University, Wake Forest University School of Divinity, and McAfee School of Theology. Opinions and reflections are his own.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
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