Invoking sacred can be profane, taken personally

By Mary Kaye Ritz
Advertiser Religion & Ethics Writer

The Rev. Susan Champion, chaplain at St. Andrew's Priory, the Episcopal school for girls, calls the taking of the Lord's name in vain "epidemic." Dick Adair • The Honolulu Advertiser

Whenever Chandler's ex-girlfriend — the one with the whiny New Yawk accent — opened her mouth, you could practically hear the Third Commandment breaking with these three words:

"Oh. My. Gawd."

When someone says "Omigod!" to Pearl City High principal Gerald Suyama, he responds, "No, my name is Gerald."

Or else he takes a deep breath and in the lowest possible baritone, responds with a rumbling right off Mount Olympus, "ye-e-e-e-sss?"

But he's noticing it more in his staff than in the teenage crowd.

The Rev. Susan Champion, chaplain at St. Andrew's Priory, the Episcopal school for girls, calls the taking of the Lord's name in vain "epidemic."

A check of news libraries across the land shows columnists have taken up the topic and are getting cascades of mail in response.

Vance Rains wrote about it in a 1999 Florida newspaper column how he is "painfully surprised at how casually, flippantly and irreverently I hear the Lord's name used." Henry Chmay in 2001 wrote in the Ottawa Citizen "it is more common than the Canadian 'eh.'" The Asheville Citizen-Times staffer Carole Currie mused "does this bother anyone?" last October, and received phone messages and e-mail for two weeks in response.

Here in Hawai'i, G. Harada writes, "I would like to know how the different religious groups feel about people using God's name in vain," prevailing upon The Advertiser to write an article about it.

(Just a hint, G: They're against it.)

Sure enough, once the note appeared, "like, Omigod!" — we tuned in to the frequency of the Commandments and discovered G. was right: Omigod! fills the air — and airwaves.

It dots prime time, especially family-friendly sitcoms.

In the "Sweet Home Alabama" preview, Reese Witherspoon's character uses it six times, in the span of just seconds.

When Bethany Awana, a 15-year-old sophomore, switched from public school to parochial school last year, she found her vocabulary changing at St. Andrew's Priory.

"I told myself, 'I should really change my attitude,' " said Bethany, who said she used to get into fights over using the phrase.

Since then, she's corrected herself by substituting "Oh my goodness" for "Omigod!" She even tells old friends she's rather not hear them swear during phone calls.

The change is so profound, chaplain Champion had her help with a skit at the start of the school year, "Hallowed Be Thy Name."

Champion's concern is squarely theological: "It's cheapened how people think about God. It's lacking respect. ... It tells us in Scripture, keep the Lord's name holy. Maybe it's not on the same level as cursing God, but it's disturbing, because it's not so obviously a curse word, accepted more easily."

As for TV and movies, battle lines between Hollywood and a growing business dedicated to sanitizing films and TV programs are currently being drawn as some conservative audiences grow tired of what they call gratuitous sex, violence and foul language.

Studios and directors say they are sensitive to those concerns, but believe directors should have the right to say "cut."

Recently, the Directors Guild counter-sued video stores that carry edited films as well as software companies that do the editing. CleanFlicks, a chain based in Pleasant Grove, Utah, uses a proprietary system to scan DVDs and videotapes for what it considers objectionable material, including the use of God's name in vain.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.