Anger is to humanity what nuclear energy is to electricity. Powerful and creative. Volatile and dangerous.
God created anger, and for good reason. Anger stirs social workers to rescue abused children from violent parents. Anger provokes prophets to expose exploiting power brokers. Anger compels the courageous to break chains of injustice. Anger confronts religious hypocrites and drives moneychangers out of temples.
Then again, evil hijacks anger for destructive purposes. It batters spouses and children. It unleashes the privileged against the powerless–and vice versa. It propagates hatred. It murders innocents. It morphs into resentment, escalates into bitterness, depresses into isolation, and explodes into carnage.
We have witnessed what happens when anger goes nuclear. 9-11. Columbine. Ted Bundy. The recent shooting rampage at Virginia Tech provided its own commentary in the form of a video made by the shooter. It showcased rage’s demonic darkness.
Few of us will ever descend into the pit of wickedness as did that student, but every one of us experiences anger.
Sadly, amid the proliferation of every conceivable form of media entertainment, two of the most popular are, for lack of better labels, shout radio and scream TV. From those crazies running around the TV stage and blaring their prejudices on call-in talk shows, rage and hatefulness draw a big audience.
Then again, the church can’t feign innocence. The easiest way to stir the amen corner in some churches is say something damning about someone not in the room. “Those liberals” or “those fundamentalists,” “those gays” or “those homophobes”; whenever any of those labels is lifted up, slapped around, and verbally pummeled, the pew potatoes awake and are stirred to action.
I’ve dubbed that “Potshot preaching.”
I resolved years ago never to do it, although I’ve fallen off the wagon a few times. Whenever I have, the whole room has felt like the accelerator pedal has been pushed to the floor. Oh, my Presbyterian congregations didn’t know how to shout “Amen,” but any preacher can tell the difference between folks grooving with the sermon and folks losing consciousness. Potshot preaching is inebriating.
Potshot participating is intoxicating, too. Many a church has its resident critic, who will dissect the day’s sermon–perhaps with a harrumph, perhaps with a derisive laugh–at the neighborhood café. Oh, the pastor may have been unnecessarily provocative. She may have run roughshod over the biblical text in favor of promoting a personal agenda. His sermon may have been pointless. When that happens the pastor ought to hear–perhaps Tuesday or Wednesday–some feedback that aims to speak the truth in love, so next week’s sermon may rise to a higher level. But if the criticism is done behind the back, if antagonism becomes a style of relating, and if hostility spreads, the church sickens, and, left untreated, it dies a slow death.
At the OUTLOOK we love providing a venue for readers to raise complaints, offer contrary viewpoints, or challenge others’ assumptions. Hundreds write and thousands read the letters to the editor on line. But some of the correspondence gets ugly. Some hateful. Most we still post, and some we print, but a few letters so violate basic decency, that we are compelled to hit the delete key.
When reading such letters, I worry that rage’s demonic darkness is heading our way in the next oncoming cold front.
Then again, I also remind myself that God created anger, and that it is just as capable of spurring redemptive behavior as destructive.
Clearly we need to help one another sort through the right and wrong uses of anger. We need each other’s help to discern the difference between healthy, excellent practices and damaging, debilitating reactions.
In this issue of the OUTLOOK we are launching a collaboration called “The Church Wellness Project” with Tom Ehrich, one of our favorite Christian commentators. His simple thesis: every local church can implement the kinds of practices that will promote congregational health. And such health promotes a contagion of redemption. The columns will be simple to grasp, and will serve a weekly dose of ecclesial nutrition.
My hope in publishing these columns is that Tom will help us all become the healthfilled, transparent, humble, thoughtful, compassionate, prophetic, courageous and, ultimately, Christlike community of faith that knows how to turn even anger, like harnessed nuclear energy, into a creative motivation–just as God intended.
— JHH
