Be Angry And Sin Not

The Jews have formed a cabal to destroy all the vestiges of Christendom. They are behind Feminism, pornography, and the chemicals in the water that are “making the friggin’ frogs gay.” They might even try to buy out Ford and Chevrolet. They are probably behind the demise of the American muscle car. Black rednecks and white liberals (to use Thomas Sowell’s nomenclature) are responsible for the moral degradation of America. Asians have taken over our tech industry by infiltrating our universities and the H-B1 visa program. Hispanics have taken over America’s labor and, effectively, brought down wages and taken American jobs. Erika Kirk worked for the CIA and is probably behind the assassination of her husband, Charlie.

What do you want to be angry about today? There are plenty of rage-bait conspiracy theories that, many times, contain elements of truth. Some, of course, are wildly untrue, but people throw them out there because engagement farming is a revenue stream for many posters. This was true before social media. In traditional media, “if it bleeds, it leads.” People are attracted to the sensational, especially that which threatens an apocalypse. Al Gore did this with global warming and the rising seas years ago. But he is only one in a long line that threatened catastrophe, trying to keep everyone in a dither and focused on those who had the answers … or, at least, claimed to have the answers but did nothing but keep people anxious and angry.

Anger is a God-given disposition. It cannot be eliminated, but it must be disciplined. Before we discipline anger, we must know what anger is in its righteous and sinful expressions.

Anger is rooted in and reveals our loves. God is angry every day (Ps 7:11). He is angry because the wicked seek to subvert his good purposes for creation and destroy it. Not to be angry with evil would be a moral deficiency. If you’re not angry when you hear of a mother giving birth and throwing her newborn in a dumpster to die, there is something wrong with you. If you aren’t angry when you hear children being sexually abused and mutilated or innocents being maimed and killed in war as they are used as shields, you have a problem. When you hear of another deranged trans shooting up a school, it ought to enrage you. As a Christian, when you hear of people seeking to destroy all the remnants of our Christian culture, you should be angry. When we become angry at these sins, we reflect the righteous anger of God himself. Not to be angry with these sorts of unrighteousness would be a sin. There is a time to be angry.

As with every other righteous quality that we have as the image of God, anger has been twisted by sin. We become angry for the wrong reasons. We are angry for the wrong reasons because we love the wrong things. Sinful self-love will be enraged when we don’t get what we want. We lash out and seek to destroy the offender because we see him as a threat.

But we can also have legitimate righteous anger and express it in sinful ways. Abortion should raise our ire. Acting as a vigilante and murdering abortionists is a sinful expression of that anger. We are to “be angry and sin not” (Ps 4:4; Eph 4:26). We are to have our loves in harmony with God’s loves and, therefore, be angry with those things that anger him. But we are then to express our anger in disciplined ways that are ultimately constructive. Righteous anger doesn’t “fly off the handle” and “vent all of its spirit” (Pr 29:11) because the righteous man knows that man’s sinful expression of anger doesn’t bring about the righteousness of God (Jms 1:19-20). Sinful expressions of anger don’t accomplish God’s plan for his creation; it only makes the mess worse.

So, next time you start to feel that fire burning inside, stop and ask yourself, “What is this anger revealing about what I love? Is that righteous or sinful?” Even if you conclude that it is righteous anger, then ask yourself, “What is the best way to express this anger to be constructive?” For example, is it helpful for me to get caught up in the rage machine that is social media, whether it is the subculture of Reformed world X or the general culture wars? Are my thoughts and posting on this online debate distracting me from other responsibilities where I can make a difference with people with whom I actually interact face-to-face? Am I consumed with anger about things over which I have little to no control? Why am I consumed with these matters I can’t control? Am I avoiding the things I can control but don’t want to deal with? Is my angry focus on these issues I can’t control a fig leaf for my feelings of inadequacy or my real deficiencies in another area of life?

Be angry, but do not sin.

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