The Worst Curse Word of All

What’s the worst curse word of all? It depends on who you ask. The FCC and MPAA have their opinions, of course, and enforce standards on the media within their purview. Progressives often have a very different standard–liberally cussing a blue streak with traditional profanity but catching the vapors when anyone uses politically incorrect terms. Conservative Christian pastors and teachers will often weigh in as well according to the wisdom God has given them. Some will be stricter than anyone, broadly applying Ephesians 5:4 to a larger-than-usual list of bad words. Others will turn a blind eye to what our culture considers more “severe” four-letter words which are merely earthy, but they forbid more common curses which are actually blasphemous or deal flippantly with grave realities like damnation.

But if we ask which common curse word breaks the most Commandments, there’s a clear frontrunner–and it’s frequently found on the lips of media personalities, progressives, and conservative Christians alike. I’m speaking, of course, of the word “Nazi.”

While it’s not exactly what we think of when we hear “curse word”, Nazi is a curse in the truest sense: It seeks to bring calamity upon those to whom it is applied. But most strikingly, whereas the F word might break the 6th Commandment because of its indecency or the 4th because your mom doesn’t want to hear you say it, “Nazi” manages to break the entire second table–and all 10 when we put it into the Church’s mouth. And the same goes for all the associated labels like “racist” or the ever ill-defined “white supremacist.”

Consider what happens when someone is called a Nazi in 2024. Everyone in the US, left and right alike, has been conditioned to react to the term as though it’s a genuine curse. Liberals use it against anyone to their right. Conservatives also use it against anyone to their right. And in each case, its entire purpose is to mark someone as a public enemy–to unperson the target and render them an untouchable. “Nazis” need neither free speech, nor due process, nor common decency because mass media has ingrained their villainy in every American mind. But if we contrast this with the Ten Commandments (and especially Luther’s explanations in the Small Catechism) the transgressions against each become quite clear.

Sins Against Our Neighbor

Most obviously, of course, calling someone a Nazi is a matter of bearing false witness. The historic Nazi party ceased to exist long ago, and former members are now exceedingly rare given the passage of time. There are some few who LARP in Nazi regalia, but that’s the closest anyone comes today. In short, “literal Nazi” no longer means literal Nazi.

Now, it’s fair to object that historical accuracy isn’t really a concern in the rhetoric of name-calling. Nevertheless, even as name-calling, “Nazi” moves beyond mere ridicule and is applied specifically to damage your neighbor’s reputation. The term’s continued use by cultural & political elites as a way to mark their very real enemies for attack ensures that such damage is far more persistent than a mere insult. But our neighbor’s reputation is precisely what the 8th Commandment is given to protect.

Modern cancel culture, however, ensures that the curse is not limited to the 8th Commandment. Labeling someone a Nazi bears with it the intention of removing him from proper society. You’re not supposed to associate with “Nazis” or employ them. Rather, you’re meant to treat them like lepers and tax collectors. We’re all too familiar with innocent men losing jobs, homes, friends, and family because of precisely the kind of pointing and shrieking accomplished through this word and its corollaries.

We must therefore consider the 9th and 10th Commandments as well. According to Luther, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house” means we should be of service to him in keeping it. Likewise, “Thou shalt not cover they neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, etc” means we should not estrange away our neighbor’s wife or workers, but urge them to stay and do their duty. Calling someone a Nazi does precisely the opposite, and it does so deliberately.

Once we run afoul of these last two Commandments, we inevitably break those against adultery and theft as well because that’s what they’re meant to hedge against. Robbing a man of his livelihood by rendering him unemployable through slander is unmistakably a matter of theft when we’re called to help our neighbor “improve and protect his property and business.” Likewise, putting someone into an “untouchable” category like Nazi is designed to destroy his personal relationships, including with his wife. One need not spend that much time on social media before you see a myriad of calls for women to divorce any husband who votes for whoever they liken to Hitler this week. Whether that call is heeded or not, the cries of the mob do damage relationships. This is a far cry from the love and honor the 6th Commandment requires us to offer our spouses.

Even the 4th Commandment is transgressed by this same dynamic. To be sure, your mother and father may or may not approve of calling someone a Nazi. They may even do it themselves. But it’s easy to see how it corrodes the bonds of love, honor, and loyalty that God commands us to cherish. Every Christmas and Thanksgiving, we hear stories of families too broken apart by politics to even share a meal together. If politics is an idol that prevents us from loving the family God has given to us, then “Nazi” is certainly the idol’s means of marking blasphemers who must be expelled.

And if there was ever any doubt that calling someone a Nazi violates the 5th Commandment, this election cycle should put it to rest. There have already been two assassination attempts against Donald Trump–the current candidate being constantly likened to Hitler by his opponents. And it should be no surprise given common rhetoric. Every movie we’ve ever watched has conditioned us to believe that killing Nazis for any reason or no reason at all is always permissible. We already heard the left proudly exhort us to punch Nazis after Charlottesville. Indeed, violence against anyone labeled a Nazi is the entire purpose of Antifa, the terrorist wing of the Democratic party. Calling someone a Nazi in 2024 is an unmistakable attempt to bring bodily harm upon him when done publicly (and a wish for bodily harm when done privately.)

Sins Against God

So that covers the Second Table of the Commandments which govern how we treat our neighbors. But for the Christian, it does not stop at the Second Table like it should. This is because many Christians have begun calling men Nazis in the name of God.

Once again, there’s one very obvious Commandment being broken: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain. Certainly, the misuse forbidden here includes cursing someone in God’s name, as Luther’s explanation explicitly states. But then, this is precisely what the LCMS did to critics of the false teachings they recently packaged with Luther’s Large Catechism when President Harrison accused them of Nazism and its usual corollaries like racism, white supremacy, etc.

But there is also the Third Commandment to consider. While Christians are not bound to keep Israel’s sabbath, we are certainly bound to treasure what the Sabbath was for. As Luther explains it, “We should fear and love God that we may not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.”

Well, President Harrison’s demands for excommunication were fulfilled not only against those labelled a Nazi but even against those merely associated with those labelled as Nazis. And in the case of the former, the congregation did the unthinkable and filed a restraining order so that police would prevent their target from ever hearing God’s Word from that congregation ever again. This can hardly be called holding the preaching of God’s Word sacred. On the contrary, by raising the stakes of the dispute to excommunication (over worldly doctrines rather than Biblical ones, no less) they displayed enormous contempt for the hearing of God’s Word.

That just leaves us with the first and greatest commandment: Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. I could take the easy road and simply point out that violating any Commandment is also a violation of the First. After all, every time we choose to sin, we choose to put something ahead of God in our lives. But the matter goes deeper than that.

In the contemporary world, “Nazi” and its corollary labels are always and only given in service to Critical Theory, which owns those terms. But as I’ve pointed out before, Critical Theory is not a run-of-the-mill philosophy, but a false religion. Its doctrines of liberation from oppression are religious in both nature and fervor, and its labels are meant to mark blasphemy against them. When Christians use these labels, they are therefore practicing syncretism–a matter of including idols alongside Christ. So those who curse men by calling them Nazis are also offering pinches of incense to false gods whether they intend to or not.

But What If He Really IS a Nazi

In my experience, pointing out the sinfulness of cursing someone as a Nazi always raises the same objection: “But this guy really IS a Nazi, so it’s OK to call a spade a spade!” Color me dubious, because everyone thinks the person they call a Nazi “really” is a Nazi. But let’s play devil’s advocate and assume you’re the very special exception.

As I’ve already explained, virtually no one is actually a Nazi in 2024, but perhaps there’s really some relevant similarity between Nazis and your target. Perhaps it’s even the kind of similarity that makes such a person your enemy. Very well, then. It is time for you to love your enemy. As God clearly tells us, love is the fulfilling of the law. You therefore cannot love your enemy by calling him a Nazi and thereby breaking all Ten Commandments. Unless you have been appointed by God to wield the sword, you have no business bringing calamity upon this person for being your personal enemy.

“But we must warn people about him!” Indeed, we ought to warn people against dangerous neighbors, false teachers, and the like. And yet, Christians have been doing so for thousands of years before the word “Nazi” was ever conceived. True morality has never changed in all this time, and we have ample language without resorting to mercurial novelties. Given the common American principle of “everyone to my right is a Nazi” even as we slide ever leftward, it’s a label that invokes harm while simultaneously being morally vapid. Surely a pious and learned watchman like yourself can compose a more meaningful warning related to something that’s actually Biblical rather than a curse born and raised exclusively in the last century.

“But we have to make sure people know that the Nazis were bad!” Our entire society is literally built around Nazis being bad. We’re so morally bankrupt that Hitler is the only remaining direction on most moral compasses. Your own input on this point is therefore wholly insignificant except to the men you sin against. What you really want to ensure is that everyone knows that you think Nazis are bad so they don’t hate you too. But sacrificing others to establish your own reputation is hardly Christian behavior. Rather, it is the behavior of the second-least popular kid in school mocking the least popular kid so he can, for a brief moment, feel like part of the “in” crowd.

The cost of this virtue signaling is high indeed, for it turns men into moral vegetables. The wise man roots moral questions in the unchanging word of God found in Scripture and Natural Law. Modern fools, however, turn every moral question into a competition to determine who can tie the opposing side to Hitler most convincingly. To make matters worse, their game of pin the tail on the Nazi is based on the most puerile version of WWII history fed to us in television and movies. As a result, contentions like “don’t be strict and orderly because Nazis were strict and orderly” bear as much emotional weight as “don’t try to exterminate lesser races because Nazis tried to exterminate lesser races.” Men who should be devoted to wisely discerning good from evil instead concern themselves with explaining to the world why their vision of good is less like the Nazis than that of their opponents.

A Spirit of Fear

There’s a reason such a severe cost is so gladly paid. The beating heart of these objections is that the entire Postwar Consensus was established specifically for the sake of burying the Nazis permanently. And whatever else you may say about it, it was quite successful in that respect. No matter what view of WWII history one takes, it’s undeniable that the Nazis were defeated so profoundly that even their name remains our greatest curse nearly a century later. But despite this, we’ve all been trained to fear questioning the Consensus because doing so might somehow unseal the grave. In short, we do it because the Spirit of the Age has us absolutely terrified.

But God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. We can find soundness of mind by basing our judgments on the Wisdom of God’s holy word instead of the passing fashions of the 20th century. We can find love by following God’s Commandments towards friends and enemies alike, rather than obsequiousness towards whoever the TV tells us to feel sorry for this week. Were we to do this faithfully, I’m certain we would discover we had far more power than what few petty dregs of authority the Spirit of the Age tosses our way when we toe his lines.

Therefore, instead of cursing our neighbors, we ought to do some soul-searching to discern whether our abject fear of a dead and defeated movement is reasonable. Are there, perhaps, more clear and present dangers facing those God has entrusted to us? For example, there might be political movements afoot which are A) demonstrably responsible for far more wickedness than the Nazis and B) aren’t completely defunct. Or perhaps our nation is so far fallen that it’s calling down upon itself Old Testament punishments like barrenness, foreign invasion, debt slavery, and female rule. Maybe our trusted religious leaders are substituting modern political doctrines for our historic confessions of Christian Truth and declaring men damned for disagreements over 20th century wars. It may even be that the Postwar Consensus in which we trust is actually driving all of these greater evils, and our continued empowerment of its curses only makes it more effective.

If so, then we ought to consider the possibility that our fear of the Spirit of the Age vastly outweighs our fear of the Lord–and repent accordingly.