- CURSE kərs noun. A solemn utterance, meant to invoke supernatural evil, punishment, or harm.
- 2. verb. Invoke supernatural evil, punishment, or harm.
- 3. noun. Cause of evil or suffering.
- [Curser 'kərs.ər noun.]
Years ago, when I taught at a Christian school, I had a mom ask for a meeting to object to something I wrote on her son’s report card. The boy wanted to grow up to have a highly technical job… but he didn’t do his homework. In any of his classes. I’d told him more than once, “If you don’t do your homework, you’re not gonna get the future you want.” And that’s what I wrote on his report card… and his mom was offended. She claimed I’d “word-cursed” him.
What on earth is a “word curse”? It’s a curse. In some churches they claim every negative thing we say, whether we intend them to be acutal binding curses or not, are actual binding curses. And true, sometimes the things we say will get into someone’s head and affect them for years. I’ve met people who were seriously hindered by the awful things their parents, teachers, pastors, bosses, or coaches told them. They believed that junk, and it still messes with them. It surely worked like a curse! So that’s what these Christians claim they are. It’s an unpleasant word… which is functionally a curse.
Okay, those who teach about “word curses” kinda have a valid point. But by their definition of “word curses,” I actually didn’t curse the boy. My comment is an if-then statement. If you don’t do X, then Y. It’s conditional. And a whole bunch of God’s messages are conditional: If you obey him, then you get blessed. If you don’t, then you don’t. That’s not a curse; that’s a warning. Fulfill the conditions!
Ultimately she agreed with me… but I can’t fault her at all for being sensitive about curses. I certainly didn’t wanna hinder my student by making him believe he wasn’t capable. Quite the contrary!
But you’ll find certain Christians are extremely sensitive about “word curses.” And of course regular curses. And “cursing,” by which we mean profanity, which is a whole other discussion.
Among certain dark Christians, every negative statement—more accurately, anything they can interpret as a negative statement, and they pessimistically interpret a whole lot of things as negative statements!—counts as a curse. Fr’instance I could say, “Hmm, looks like rain,” and to their minds I just cursed the sky. Seriously. “You take that back! Don’t you call rain down on us!” As if my casual observation has the power to call down rain—and y’know, if it could, I’d make a fortune.
See, according to these fearful folks, all our words—including idle ones—spoken into the atmosphere, have the power to create and destroy. They figure we humans are made in God’s image, Ge 1.27 and since he has the power to call things into existence with a word, they claim we have the very same power. Way lesser; I can’t state like God can, “Let the waters separate from the dry ground,” and instantly my swimming pool has been drained. But somehow, to some degree, I have the semi-divine power to make stuff out of nothing. My uneducated weather forecast can actually make weather.
Which is rubbish; it’s based on pagan “mind science,” the 19th-century belief that reality is in fact a mental illusion, and we have the power to affect and change the illusion if we believe hard enough. It’s what the Christian Science church teaches. It’s not consistent with the scriptures; God created a real, external, objective universe. I could believe really hard that my words (without any Holy Spirit to empower ’em, of course) can stop tornadoes… but I’d be a moron to bet on it.
Don’t get me wrong. The spoken word isn’t a powerless thing. Words can build up; words can tear down. I can make someone’s day by giving ’em a compliment. I can ruin their life by criticizing ’em at the wrong time. That’s what Solomon meant when he wrote death and life are in the tongue. Pr 18.21 For this reason, Christians need to watch what we say. We never know the direction we’re influencing people.
But the idea my words have magical power that might trigger a reaction in nature around us, and create all sorts of unintended horrors: Not biblical. Ridiculous.
And illogical too. You’ll notice all the Christians who fear accidentally destroying stuff through their “word curses,” somehow never worry about accidentally blessing stuff. “Gee, it looks like the weather today will be really nice!” never seems to force the clouds to dissipate. Nope. Blessings have always gotta be intentional, but curses can be accidental.
