Tuesday, May 27, 2008
On Being Ticked Off
But anger isn't always bad. This may come as a surprise to some people, Christian as well as non-Christian.Mark then goes on to describe two circumstances of just anger
If you are a Christian, you may have had the experience of becoming angry with a family member or co-worker and then hearing them indignantly say, "And you call yourself a Christian?"
The Christian may feel ashamed, thinking that they've given a bad witness of their faith because they lost their cool.
But they may have no reason for shame. An interesting passage in the New Testament tells us, "Be angry but do not sin." The very phrasing of that admonition should tell us that there's nothing inherently wrong or sinful about getting angry. It's possible to be angry without engaging in sin.
- upon seeing injustice
- upon being treated inconsiderately
As Mark so rightly points out, the problem is not the anger, but what we do with it.
I have been told my whole life that I have "an anger problem." I am only recently discovering that some of my anger has been justified, and that holding and bottling that anger is not merely destructive to justice, but the suppression of just anger can be personally damaging. Just anger is often God's pointer to a situation that needs correction.
I think much of the nonsense that currently floats around that anger is somehow unChristian is a sub-conscious control mechanism that the professional Christians of the world arrives at. Think about it. If anger is indeed a pointer to injustice, and we all know the church is as guilty of injustice as anybody or anything else, what better way to eliminate the pointer than to delegitimize it?
What is truly sad is that in so doing, the church has robbed itself of a power that can be used to genuinely change the world for the better. What was the Martin Luther King led civil rights movement if not a justly channeled expression of the deep-seated anger born of segregation?
The question is not about anger, but about WHY anger. If someone is angry with you, you need to ask why. Many times we have wronged those that are angry at us, perhaps unintentionally, but wronged nonetheless. The church needs to learn to listen to anger. There is much to be learned from it.
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