Television mirrors life, but it also helps to shape it. In this case, a coarse stratum of American life has broken out of barrooms and settled into our living rooms. Should television be used to spread cursing into our homes while indoctrinating our children?

Psychologist Timothy Jay has written a book on the subject of swearing in public, Cursing in America (2000). He claims that women and children are swearing more in public because the culture is changing and that it's more pervasive. Television actors, celebrities, sports figures and even cartoons show people cursing the air blue.

Modern societies and their cultures are indeed changing for the worse, and a good part of the blame can be laid at the doors of media. The more families watch evening television sitcoms—filled with sexual innuendos, four-letter words and religious expletives—the easier it becomes for everyone to curse more in public. The ever-ubiquitous television industry becomes our moral standard. Regrettably, the amoral standards of media typically set an entire nation's social norms.

Have you noticed how easy it is for people on television game shows to use the religious expletive "Oh my God!"? If you watch TV game shows, notice how many times this phrase is used. Does this expletive have any real meaning?

The point is that human beings have strayed so far from God that just about any kind of epithet is acceptable. Your Bible says that we should not take God's name in vain and that He pronounces a sentence of guilt on anyone who does (Exodus 20:7). Yet people have long used God's name loosely and profanely.

This is symptomatic of a greater problem: People who call themselves Christians are unwittingly following a new kind of religious secularism. If the majority of society curses freely, does that make it all right? Not according to your Bible. God says He will not always ignore how people talk and think about Him with callous disregard: "Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30).

Anyone who curses to make a point is either willingly ignorant or too lazy to expand his or her vocabulary to more articulately address important issues. Cursing also suggests a willing slavishness to peer pressure. Don't fall into the social trap of making your point with cursing just because others do.

Don't be fooled into following the foul-mouthed foolish. Cursing the air blue comes from the wickedness of the human heart (Jeremiah 17:9). It is a sin that must be repented of and overcome (Romans 12:21). (Source: Associated Press.)