The material below contains use of language that may offend some readers. Just letting you know that now. If in any way you suspect that you might be one such reader, then don’t keep reading this. Just don’t. If you keep reading it and you are offended - I’ll pray for you.
Years ago I used to listen regularly to CKNW talk radio quite a bit. I remember one occasion when show host Bill Good had a segment on some cultural/religious matter. A caller who spoke from a conservative religious perspective, ended his call by saying to Bill Good, “I’ll pray for you.”
I winced. It was clear from the next words of Bill Good that he took the apparently positive sentiment the same way I did. He heard the words as a “Fuck You”. I winced because I heard the caller being sanctimonious and aggressive. The supposedly loving sentiment about prayer was perhaps actually a demonstration that the caller saw his viewpoint as proper, acceptable, even godly, and if anyone disagreed they were not on God’s side. Like saying, “I’ll pray for you, because if you loved God then you would think like I think.”
It is not unusual for pastors to think that someday they might write a book. For years when I was a pastor I told a significant number of people that I was considering writing a book called, “Ten Thousand Ways to Say ‘Fuck You’”. I should have. There was clearly a market for such honesty as the popularity of “Go the Fuck to Sleep” and other such titles have demonstrated. My unwritten book was going to be from the viewpoint of a pastor who had heard the words “Fuck You” many, many times in church work, in elders’ meetings, in the foyer. Now, to be sure, most of these occasions, the sentiment was masked by words like “I’ll pray for you” or “It’s been so long since we’ve seen you” (to someone who hasn’t been at church for awhile). A church might say on a sign or in a bulletin, “Everyone is Welcome” and mean something quite less than "everyone” or something quite different than “welcome”. (Quick note - sometimes “Everyone is Welcome” does mean “Everyone is Welcome”.)
There are passages in the Bible that warn against “coarse talk” or “filthy language”. I knew, as a pastor, that most of those injunctions were actually against talk that tore other people down, talk that was aggressive or accusatory or demeaning. The Bible doesn’t have a list of words that can’t be said as in George Carlin’s "7 Words You Can’t Say on TV”. (Once again, viewer discretion advised if you click the link). I came to see that we can be coarse and vulgar and aggressive without ever using the word “fuck”, and that sometimes the word “fuck” is not aggressive or demeaning at all. Some of the meanest people I have known would never use “the f word”. Some of the most loving people I know clearly are okay with the word, at least in certain contexts.
There has been good research done into the positive use of swear words. Turns out that they are sometimes positively helpful in friendships, work and other relationships. They can function in a manner that brings people together rather than apart. Of course, this is not the case if they are used to degrade or demean.
Similarly, we clearly do not need words that are largely considered vulgar to degrade or demean or look down on other people. This is what I mean by the title “Ten Thousand Ways to Say ‘Fuck You’”. Listen for it. You might hear it during a television interview or when you hear friends talking. You can hear it in a church foyer or at a grocery store. I heard someone just today at Costco tell someone else to “Fuck off”. They used different words, but the message was clear. The altercation was over the person feeling that they had been inconvenienced by the location of someone else’s shopping cart.
So, what does “I’ll pray for you” mean? It can actually mean “I’ll pray for you”. Assume that unless it is otherwise clear.
Perhaps you are familiar with wanting to express something like that. After all, praying for people can be a good thing. However, as you go to say “I’ll pray for you” you become aware of how it might sound. You don’t want it to sound trite or aggressive or dismissive. I hope. I tell people that I will pray for them or that I have been praying for them. When I do so it is because I am praying for them. They are in my mind when I pray to God. I pray for strength or blessing or comfort. I think if I wanted to say “fuck you” I’d find a different way of saying so.
Myself, I hope never to have the occasion to say to anyone...”Fuck you”.
I imagine that that would require me to have hate in my heart.
I can actually think of people that might deserve Fuck you and there could be a long list.
I would hate their deeds but then I would wonder what brought them there..
I would also find a different way of saying Fuck you.
I can't agree more, Todd. I personally had many-many experiences when people told me "I'll pray for you", and the message I actually heard was - "You better believe that God will deal with you!". I even had to tell someone after they offered their prayers - PLEASE, DON'T. And me personally - I usually don't tell people I'll pray for you (unless they ask), I have never felt there was a need to say that, I just prayed.