Peace and Joy; Fear and Anger
Peace and joy are the default emotional statuses of the flourishing human being, where we are intended to live in communion with God and other people. But there are other God-given emotional states that alert us to danger and injustice, when something is not quite right in our world—the emotions of fear and anger. Fear and anger interrupt our equilibrium—they trigger our defenses and ready us for fight-or-flight. They are intended as short-term motivators for change. We were never intended to live indefinitely in these states, and doing so can cause serious damage to our souls.
Unfortunately, there is no shortage of fear and anger in the current climate of American Christianity, and it’s unrelenting. And while this is a generalization, it does seem that the Religious Right is mainly motivated by fear, while the Religious Left is mainly motivated by anger. It’s important to consider this and the implications of each.
The Religious Right, who label themselves conservatives, wanting to conserve the status quo or even return to what they perceive as the past, experience fear in two very distinct ways. First, they fear a God they perceive as angry, who takes personal offense at the sins of the world and whom they must appease in order to avoid being horribly punished. I used to believe that God was that way, but through a long journey have come to know him very differently. I have come to know that God is like Jesus, kind and loving and self-sacrificing to the point of death, and that Jesus came to show us what God is really like.
Secondly, the Religious Right fears “the other”—the ones who are not like them—immigrants, liberals, gays, Muslims, those who threaten the way of life they are intent on conserving. This is a failure to love, a failure to obey one of the two dual commandments Jesus said sum up all the Law and Prophets—love your neighbor as yourself. Again, it’s a journey to get there, working past the fear of the other, but it’s not optional for any of us who claim to be followers of Jesus. If we say we love God who we can’t see, but don’t love those around us who we do see, we are sadly deceived. That’s basic Bible, folks.
However, we must also look at the anger of the Religious Left, who often identify themselves as Progressives. Progressives are not interested in “conserving” a past, but making progress towards a better future. Without this kind of progress, slavery would still exist in America, and women could not vote. I am often comforted and inspired by the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. who said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” My hope for our world is that we continue to make progress to become a better world where all humans are esteemed and cared for, where we all learn to love our neighbors as ourselves.
But while the trajectory of our world is to become a just society, it can only happen as hearts are transformed into Christlikeness. The wisdom of Scripture tells us that the wrath of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. I am observing a great deal of wrath in the Christian Left, and like the Right, in two distinct ways.
First, they are angry at the church they believe “lied” to them about the nature of God and caused all the fear they experienced in earlier times. They are “deconstructing” a system of beliefs they were indoctrinated in, and they are angry. They blame church leaders, accusing them of deceiving them deliberately and duplicitously as a means of control. This anger has led many, many people to abandon the church altogether. I believe this will be ultimately disastrous for their souls, and collectively for our world, unless their anger-driven absence is short-term. This anger needs to be an impetus to finding themselves another local church where life-giving formation can continue, a place of communal worship and practice of the sacraments, a real-life exposure to “others” who are like and unlike them in many ways, a place to learn to love and be loved.
The second type of anger the Religious Left feels is the anger of injustice, primarily the injustice they become aware of as their eyes are opened to the “other”—systemic injustice that keeps certain people and peoples groups oppressed and unable to rise above forces that keep them marginalized, unequal, and suffering. This anger is not bad; in fact, this is righteous anger, anger that is appropriate and right and necessary. It is an anger that should bring about change. It is an anger that we cannot afford to not cultivate, and yes, an anger that privileged people will not cultivate unless they are on the journey of learning to see and love “the other” and not just themselves.
Anger and fear are both addressed in the Bible. We are repeatedly told to “fear not,” which is simple and straightforward though never easy, yet by grace and spiritual practices we make the journey from the place of fear to the place of love. This is the destination of the spiritual journey—the place of love. Perfect love casts out all fear.
We are, on the other hand, told we should be angry yet without sin. We can learn to not easily take offense, not live from our egos, give up the selfish anger that’s part of our false selves. We can learn to live in the land of love while at the same time living in the real world, eyes wide open to the injustices all around us, and we should rightfully be angry and yet without sin. What does this mean? That’s a bit trickier and requires maturity and nuance. It will only be possible by giving ourselves to prayer and formational practices. It will require the work of the spirit in our hearts. I look forward to and depend on receiving God’s grace every week in the form of Holy Communion, the Eucharist, which is a gift of the church, the sacrament that was the genius of Jesus. What’s in that bread and wine I eat and drink week after week? The sustenance I need to be transformed into Christlikeness.
Yes, the anger is appropriate, but it’s also dangerous—that anger must be brought to God and poured out before him, or it can harden us and make us bitter and cynical. The prayer book of Jesus was the Psalms, and it should be our prayer book as well, teaching us to lament, to release our anger before God, to appropriately process it so that we can act on it without sin. It is only then that we can begin to act to work constructively to right the wrong in our world and bring about the justice we so desperately need.
Two kinds of anger, two kinds of fear. The more I hear from the Christian Right and the Christian Left I realize that while their issues and beliefs may be very different, their hearts and tactics aren’t. Accusations, finger-pointing, ugly words are thrown from both sides. The dualistic, fundamentalist, black/white binary thinking is unchanged. Leaving behind fear to embrace anger is not necessarily progress, unless we keep moving forward to find a better way, a contemplative way, found only by embracing the wisdom practices that have been handed down from those who have gone before, the practices that have been conserved for us by the church. We need to heed the ancient warning of Saint James, that if we keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out, or we’ll be consumed by one another.
I believe we must be progressive, but I believe equally that we must be conservative! There is ancient wisdom that must be conserved, tradition that must be maintained, formational practices that are essential to our survival. The church is a two-thousand-year-old tradition, imperfect because it is human, but even in the imperfection it has potential to form us. Yes, the church as an institution is full of hypocrisy, and I as a human am full of hypocrisy. The work of the church, the work of my lifetime is to gradually purge that hypocrisy from ourselves (and from the church!) as we are formed in Christlikeness by submitting myself to the Holy Spirit and learning to love other people, as they must learn to love me.
The church as an institution began on the day of Pentecost, prophesied by Jesus himself. It was the vehicle for the preservation of the story of Jesus, the teachings of Jesus, the plan of God for the salvation of the world. The church exists for us and for one another. It has the potential to transform me, and my continued allegiance to and support of the church makes this same transformation possible for others. It’s far from perfect, which means an imperfect person like me gets to be a part. It’s full of broken, flawed, hypocritical people, which somehow makes it really, really beautiful.
One final warning that can’t be overlooked: the issue of humility. Humility, being poor in spirit, is probably the most important criteria for being transformed. God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Pride produces closed, hardened hearts—God won’t, God can’t change a proud person. Humility is the softening that allows God to come into the deepest places of our hearts and effect change. Humility allows us to consider that we may not know everything, and opens us to the possibility of change—it’s a crack in our armor. I know fearful people who are also humble, but I have a hard time envisioning an angry person who is also humble. Are the two qualities mutually exclusive? I know too many ex-Christians. They’ve rejected church, Christianity, religion. They have isolated themselves and are angry, bitter, and cynical—victims of spiritual suicide. Of course it’s possible to spend your life in church and not experience Christlike formation. But at least you have a chance.
The Christianity of the 21stcentury is in desperate need of reformation, and I see that reformation coming, one local church at a time. With the eyes of my faith and imagination, I see a future church emerging that has purged itself of much that is unfaithful to Christ, a church that embraces and worships a loving God while also embracing and caring for a hurting world, creating together a flourishing world where peace and joy reign supreme. The only way we can get there is by each doing our little parts to be there now.
Artwork: Marc Chagall "Cain and Abel" (1960)
Thank you so much. Moving from water to wine is a extremely fearful process for me since I was raised as a hypercalvinist. I'm humbly learning. Like Abraham who traveled.
You speak truth and comfort at the same time. Thats amazing.
Posted by: Jaap | December 02, 2018 at 05:00 AM
My priest recently when talking on Col. 3 drew our attention to the word "bear with one another" and commented on how in the church we do have to bear each other as a burden. But it is through the bearing and forgiving that we are transformed.
I thought I was a pretty good person until I was married. Later I had kids and found I was worse than I thought. God exposes our imperfection through our reactions to situations we find hard to bear. In that exposure I have the opportunity to give my brokenness to God and trust in His help to overcome and heal.
Thank you for your wonderful insight into fear and anger.
Posted by: Robyn H | December 01, 2018 at 10:09 AM