ActiveFaith.us
 
 
OK, so I’m watching the game on TV tonight. No, not that game; in my house, where sports is never discussed and ESPN is never watched (“not that there’s anything wrong with that”), it’s well understood that “the sport” is politics and “the game” is any primary, runoff, or general election (late-night votes and filibusters on C-SPAN count too). “The Superbowl” is, of course, the Presidential election. “Break out the popcorn and the cream soda, boys! It’s gonna be a long night!”
 
All of this is in fun; politics is, in reality, very serious business to me. God calls politics -- that is, government service, and the actions before and after getting into that position -- a “ministry” (Romans 13:4), just like any other ministry that He has established in His Word. That’s why I get so angry when I see a lot of the things that go on in politics, and especially at a lot of things that come out of the mouths of politicians. (“How do you know when a politician is lying? His lips are moving.”)
 
So anyway, I’m watching the results of the Nevada caucuses and the South Carolina GOP primary. Mitt Romney, the “father of homosexual marriage,” won the former; and John McCain, the founder of McCainism (“no free speech rights, and citizenship for all illegals!”), won the latter. I missed Mitt Romney’s victory speech (although it probably had something to do with how conservative he is, at least this week), but I caught McCain’s (his lips were moving, if you know what I mean).
 
But then, McCain made his way over to the Fox News cameras to be interviewed by Sean “who cares about principles, as long as your Republican” Hannity. Hannity was all smiles with McCain, and I guess McCain was smiling too (who can tell?), as he asked him a sockeroo of a question: to paraphrase, “Do you think that you changing your position and endorsing border security first helped you win in South Carolina today?”
 
Without missing a beat, McCain replied with something like, “Well, my position hasn’t changed, I’ve always supported border security first, blah blah blah.”
 
I say “blah blah blah” because I could no longer hear him. I was shouting too loudly at my television set.
 
My wife came running from the kitchen, thinking that one of the kids had done something to really infuriate me. My daughter froze. My cat jumped up with his back arched and his tail all puffed up, with huge round eyes staring right through me, ready for “fight or flight.” My son kept singing and brushing his teeth upstairs, oblivious to the rage I was directing at my idiot box.
 
“You lying, stinking, no-good... give me that remote!” I quickly hit “rewind” on our TiVo, and listened to the interchange again, thinking I must have heard it wrong. Nope; I was right. The man who crafted the McCain-Kennedy Amnesty Bill, which resulted in so much outrage from Americans across the country (and especially from the Republican base), and which was only defeated because of that outrage directed at Capitol Hill... was claiming that he agreed with the base, that we need border security first, that this is what is needed in order to address the problem of 12-20 million illegal aliens in this nation.
 
I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears. And that’s when I blew my stack.
 
I am just so sick and tired of the weasels who think we’ll just forget so soon... and of the voters who actually forget. And they forget, over and over and over and over and over....
 
It got me really angry. And that got me thinking (after I calmed down) about what God thought about the reaction I had just had.
 
The problem is this: we’ve all heard and understood that biblically, anger is a sin. Right?
 
  1. Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools. (Ecclesiastes 7:9)
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  3. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. (James 1:19-20)
 
So anger is wrong, right? But wait a minute; all of the verses I found when searching the Scriptures didn’t say “don’t be angry” -- they said “be slow to get angry.” So does that mean that there are times when anger is OK? Is there a type of anger that’s righteous, not sinful?
 
Apparently so:
 
  1. “Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil.” (Ephesians 4:25-27)
 
Matthew Henry’s commentary on this passage states, “Take heed of every thing contrary to truth. No longer flatter or deceive others. God's people are children who will not lie, who dare not lie, who hate and abhor lying. Take heed of anger and ungoverned passions. If there is just occasion to express displeasure at what is wrong, and to reprove, see that it be without sin.”
 
I think maybe I get it. Yes, we can get angry, if our anger is not just “ungoverned passions,” if what we’re getting angry at is wrong, is unrighteous, is sin. God gets angry, the Bible tells us again and again; what He gets angry at is sin, like when His people stubbornly disobeyed and challenged Him. Jesus got angry, in Matthew 21 and Mark 11, driving the moneychangers out of the temple with a whip; He was angry at sin, at the holiness of God being defamed.
 
One of the 49 commands of Christ in the New Testament is to Honor God’s Law: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” (Matthew 5:17-18)
 
God is a jealous God (He has the right to be so). He is jealous for His Word, His Name, His Truth, His people; and He does not countenance sin. And guess what? If we are His children, then His Holy Spirit abides within us; and when we see things that are just plain wrong, His Spirit agrees with our spirit, and we get angry for the righteousness of God.
 
But we aren’t perfect. That’s why we should be “slow to anger” -- because, honestly, the temptation is to use Ephesians 4 as an excuse. This is where self-government comes in, and why self-government is the foundation of all sphers of government: family, church, and civil.
 
So was I wrong to get so angry tonight and shout at my TV set? I probably was, since I was so hasty to do it. But this is an anger that I feel more and more as I am involved in politics. It’s anger at the violation of God’s law, of His righteousness. It’s righteous anger.
 
As long as I understand the difference, I can continue walking the path to love God and love others. Imperfectly, of course.
 
I think I’ll get started on Chapter 2 this week.
 
William Greene is the author of Christian Political Activism: Biblical Principles for Active Faith, a “work in progress.” Read the latest chapters at ActiveFaith.us.
“Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil.” (Ephesians 4:25-27)
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Righteous Anger