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by
Ed Stetzer
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January 7 - January 16, 2019
We have reached the point where the comment sections of major newspapers are a greater testament to the depravity of man than all the theology of the Reformers put together.
How do we know when righteous anger has made the turn into unbridled outrage?
“I’ve read the end of the story. The last chapter of Revelation says, God wins. Because God is in control and will redeem all things, I can be calm, bold, and gracious as I share the gospel.”
We need to be constructive, offering Christians a vision for how to navigate outrage and be more effective in showing and sharing the love of Christ.
Of evangelicals with an opinion, 82 percent believe that since the 2016 presidential election, groups within the Christian church have become increasingly polarized on issues of politics. Of evangelicals with an opinion, 73 percent believe the 2016 presidential election revealed political divides within the Christian church that have existed for a long time.
the average gap between the views of Republicans and Democrats on fundamental issues increased from 15 to 36 percentage points between 1994 and 2017.
This is not being countercultural with the message of Jesus; rather, this form of tribalism conforms to the pattern of this world and does not fight for the basic truth that should unite all Christians.
When we become primarily identified with any tribe outside the body of Christ, especially when we are identified to the point where others are repelled by us, we’ve traded our Kingdom-based identity for a world-based identity.
Many people are willing to create their own reality to affirm their rightness, ignoring facts, logic, and others’ objections.
Christians, too, have a raging Hyde within them that often comes out through their computers or mobile devices. We can quickly devolve into behavior that is anything but humble, loving, and sacrificial. Instead, it is often prideful, domineering, and pushy.
Several studies show that religious identity has little bearing on the ethical or theological views or behaviors of those who self-identify as Christians. In other words, the beliefs and practices of most people who call themselves Christians do not look like what we’d expect from people who are actual disciples of Christ.
First, participation in the believing community is the true mark of someone belonging to the Christian faith.
While church attendance does not make one a Christian, the idea that one could live the Christian life without the church is foolish.
We try to disguise our worldly anger behind appeals to theological or ethical justification. We need to be angry, the logic goes, because of all the sin in the world. This is what makes this lie so powerful. Yes, there is a lot in this world to anger us, and Scripture does call us to be angry about many things. We should be angry over sin in ourselves and in the world. We should be angry about injustice. We should be particularly angry at how quickly we can grow inoculated, numb, or apathetic to injustices. In fact, we can actually contribute to the outrage when we fail to get angry about the
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In essence, the Christian faith does call us to righteous anger, but it is a lie to conflate this with outrage.
J. I. Packer defines righteous anger as “the right reaction of moral perfection in the Creator towards moral perversity in the creature.”[1]
While God’s perfect and holy nature ensures that his anger is always righteous, humans are flawed and biased. Even when we are certain that our anger is righteous, our flesh may distort our vision and blind us to the truth.
Thus, although there are times when righteous anger is the necessary response to this world, Scripture calls us to exert significant control over why, how, and how long we are angry (Proverbs 29:11; Ephesians 4:26-31; and James 1:19-20).
Righteous anger is directed toward things that anger God.
Righteous anger mirrors the way God is angry.
Take, for instance, Exodus 34:5-7. Here we have the pinnacle of the Old Testament description of God as the Lord describes himself to Moses: The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s
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God’s righteous indignation flows from his love and faithfulness;
likewise, if your anger is not consistently and sacrificially tempered by steadfast love and forgiveness, it is not righteous anger.
Righteous anger submits to God’s role as ultimate judge.
Outrage is motivated by a desire to punish or destroy rather than reconcile and refine. It is frequently accompanied by hubris and a confidence in its judgment, categorically rejecting any nuance. Outrage is fast and decisive rather than reflective, choosing to exhibit God’s retribution rather than reflect his persistent, steadfast love.
Outrage is disproportionate.
Outrage is selfish.
Outrage is divisive.
Outrage is visceral.
Outrage is domineering.
Outrage is dishonest.
Be quick to listen and slow to anger.
Reject the impulse to right every wrong.
Proverbs 26 tells us to both answer a fool according to his folly (verse 5) and to resist this response (verse 4); in other words, we need to use discretion and self-control.
Think through what you are trying to accomplish.
The idea that Christians are more interested in protecting their truth than listening and hearing out opposing viewpoints is quite prevalent.
They have put the kind of hope in their political leaders and policies that once was reserved for God and the work of the gospel.[4]
It shows the world that our loyalty is to the person on the ballot or in the office rather than the Person who said he is the Truth.
Billy Graham recognized this danger and once said, “I don’t want to see religious bigotry in any form. . . . It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.”[6]
In times of chaos and insecurity, people look to leaders who claim to have the answers. We are drawn to compelling communicators, those with vision for the way forward, and the polished images of people who are simultaneously idealized and approachable.
However, only those leaders who consistently make much of Jesus are worthy of following. Only those who remember that they are “jars of clay,” created to show the “surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus,”[8] are going to lead us through the age of outrage.
Ask, as Charles Sheldon did in his 1896 book In His Steps, “What would Jesus do?” I can easily imagine Jesus walking into an LGBTQ-frequented coffee shop, listening, and sharing. For too many Christians, though, LGBTQ people are their enemies.
From the perspective of religious liberty, we are, as Ross Douthat put it in the New York Times, negotiating “the terms of our surrender.” He elaborates, I am being descriptive here, rather than self-pitying. Christians had plenty of opportunities—thousands of years’ worth—to treat gay people with real charity, and far too often chose intolerance. (And still do, in many instances and places.) So being marginalized, being sued, losing tax-exempt status—this will be uncomfortable, but we should keep perspective and remember our sins,
and nobody should call it persecution. But it’s still important for the winning side to recognize its power. We are not really having an argument about same-sex marriage anymore, and on the evidence of Arizona, we’re not having a negotiation. Instead, all that’s left is the timing of the final victory—and for the defeated to find out what settlement the victors will impose.[12]
In a recent LifeWay Research study, 85 percent of all believers ages eighteen to twenty-nine agree they have a duty to share the gospel, and 69 percent feel comfortable sharing their faith. Yet only 25 percent of them look for ways to share the gospel, and only 27 percent actually build friendships with unbelievers to do so.[1] This means that even as most Christians recognize that mission is essential, they fail to act on this belief.
Kevin Ezell notes that many churches in North America have “responded to the cultural crisis by going into survival mode. [They] have taken a defensive position—hunkering down in their churches hoping the immorality of the culture does not creep in.” But this posture is nothing more than a “circling of the wagons,” which inevitably leads to an “us versus them” mentality.[22]
In that locked room days after his death, Jesus gave us the way forward. We are to go out as he first went out. Just as the Father sent him, he now sends us.
In a culture awash in a sea of outrage, Christians frequently do not look very different from those with secular worldviews. We have the same addictions, indulge in the same selfish political games, and ultimately reveal the same fears and anxieties as our neighbors, coworkers, and leaders.
Eugene Peterson describes the Christian life as “a long obedience in the same direction.”[14]
Philip Nation is right when he says the foundational truth of discipleship is this: “Love is the central discipline of the Christian life. Everything else will flow from that as the centerpiece of spiritual formation.”[15]
