American Anger

I didn’t publish a piece last week because I was on vacation. While I was out, America turned 250 years old. I’m a pretty patriotic person, and in recent years I’ve been particularly concerned for this great nation. When asked what form of government the Constitutional Convention of 1787 had created, Benjamin Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Can we keep it? I sure hope so. A republic, however, requires a baseline level of shared values. As Christianity has receded in the United States, so has the set of shared values that could guide the nation. It’s hard to say we have a shared vision of the common good. What people across the political spectrum do seem to share, however, is anger.

Shortly after the first assassination attempt on President Trump, I attended a friend’s birthday party. One partygoer, a large and powerful man, sat on the couch watching some cable news channel, clearly agitated.

“We need a civil war,” he said out loud to no one in particular.

I raised my eyebrows.

He looked directly at me. “Are you ready?”

“Ready for … civil war?” I asked incredulously. “No. I’m not.” I’m really, really not. In fact, I’m not sure what being ready for such a thing would even entail. Hoarding ammo and MREs in my basement? Teaching my family how to cauterize wounds and purify water? Fostering a level of hatred for my enemies that would motivate me to kill them? No, I’m not ready. But some people sure seem to be. Some people are itching for it, even some Christians. To suggest we need a new civil war in the United States is one of the most profound combinations of evil and stupidity I have come across in my adult life.

I’ve never been in war. I don’t want to be in war. I believe those who say that war is hell. I don’t want to kill or be killed. To take human life is a matter we treat with insufficient gravity. We heroize killers and valorize killing. The thought of civil war may sound appealing based on the fictional representations of war we take in with our mothers’ milk, but, were we ever to go that way, it would be hell on earth. Ask the survivors of the civil wars that have plagued the continent of Africa.

Social media and cable news are the matches and gasoline of conflict entrepreneurs, people who generate clicks and money by stirring up controversy, and particularly by provoking anger. We human beings are wired to notice threats. When we do, our dopamine spikes, which leads to an increase in engagement with similar content. It’s an addictive feedback loop. We pick up speed as we go, which is why so many people spend so much time doomscrolling or watching the highly biased news channel of their choice. We are becoming an angrier people, less tolerant of one another, more entrenched in our ideological bunkers. Over the past ten years, I’ve watched people I know and love become ever more extreme in their politics, and ever more infatuated with the political jostling that has become grist for the social media mill. Many of them have also become angrier. A recent report by Pew indicates anger and polarization are increasingly prevalent among the American public. Another research group reports, “When asked how angry or proud whatever they had identified made them feel, 46% of respondents said they felt ‘extremely angry,’ over double the percentage who indicated feeling ‘extremely proud.’”

We see consistent reporting from legacy media regarding the militant right, but far less so on the militant left. If you’re not following Andy Ngo’s work, I recommend you do so. He’s one of the few folks tracking what’s happening in the bizarre world of Antifa, Trantifa, and other such groups. Two things are concerning: (1) the growing presence of militant activism, and (2) the fact that it takes an independent journalist like Ngo to expose one side of this.

The optimism that once characterized American life is being displaced by cynicism and anger, and many Christians participate in this.

Not all anger is evil. Jesus himself became angry at times. There is righteous anger. When I hear stories of child abuse, steam starts to pour out of my ears. The Bible teaches us that God has wrath as well. That wrath, however, is the inevitable consequence of God’s love. If God has no wrath, God has no love. Imagine a God who could look out over child sex trafficking, genocides, and the exploitation of the world’s most vulnerable people and simply say, “Hey… It’s all good. Why get worked up about this stuff?” Could we possibly call such a God good with a straight face? Could we possibly believe that such a God loves us?

What we call God’s wrath is the outworking of God’s love, and, likewise, any truly righteous anger within us must be born of the love of God instilled in our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. Then we must channel that anger redemptively. Moreover, we can’t stay angry forever. Ecclesiastes teaches us, “Do not be quick to anger, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools” (7:9). Of course we will at times become angry, but to allow anger to set up camp in our hearts is a different matter. The Epistle of James counsels, “[L]et everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness” (1:19-20).

When I say things like this, I often get the response, “Yeah, but Jesus flipped over tables in the temple!” A couple of things on this: First, you’re not Jesus. Second, Jesus’ action in the temple wasn’t a temper tantrum. It was a prophetic condemnation of the temple system. Prophets often acted out God’s judgment in dramatic ways. Think of God’s instruction to Ezekiel:

And you, O mortal, take a brick and set it before you. On it portray a city, Jerusalem; and put siegeworks against it, and build a siege wall against it, and cast up a ramp against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it all around. Then take an iron plate and place it as an iron wall between you and the city; set your face toward it, and let it be in a state of siege, and press the siege against it. This is a sign for the house of Israel (4:1-3).

Perhaps Jesus was angry. Again, sometimes anger is righteous. That doesn’t excuse all manner of behavior among those claiming to be his followers.

A few weeks ago I was reading Luke’s gospel and came across this passage: “Your eye is the lamp of your body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light; but if it is not healthy, your body is full of darkness. Therefore consider whether the light in you is not darkness.” (11:34-35). Ancient people associated the eyes with moral character. If a person was of good character, it would show in the eyes. There was also the “evil eye,” which could curse another person, an idea that is still prevalent throughout much of the world today.

But what if a person mistakes darkness for light? What if we mistake good for evil and evil for good? In that case, we may act with intense conviction toward the working of evil without perceiving the true moral freight of our actions. This is similar to Jesus’ teaching about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit in Mark 3:29, “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.” Why is that? Remember that Jesus’ opponents have accused him of working wonders not by God’s power, but by the power of demons. Jesus’ point here is that if you cannot distinguish between the power of God and demonic power, you cannot repent and be saved. The light in you is really darkness.

As we think about the future of this great nation, all American Christians should take a moment to ask if, at times, we have mistaken darkness for light. Have we internalized attitudes that lead us away from God, rather than toward him? Have we come to regard our ideological opponents as irredeemably evil, even subhuman? Is the light within us actually light? Are we overcome with anger? Have we fooled ourselves into believing that our anger produces God’s righteousness? It’s crucial that we continue to immerse ourselves in Scripture, prayer, and worship so that we are reminded again and again what God’s righteousness actually looks like. At the same time, it is equally important that we refrain from practices that warp our thinking and lead to evil attitudes and actions. Put more simply, if Facebook leaves you feeling like you want to punch someone, put your phone down, go for a walk, and pray.

Franklin’s answer, “A republic, if you can keep it,” should remind us that the preservation of this form of government is an act of will on the part of its people. That means not just willing a specific structure of governance, but the cultivation of the kinds of virtues required of a republic. Respect for the other, a willingness to listen, basic human compassion, patience, and a desire for the common good must be held broadly in order for a republic to function. These kinds of attitudes flow naturally out of the Christian life, which leads to the question of how the diminishment of Christian formation in the U.S. will come to bear on the stability of our system of government.

Is the light within you darkness? It’s a hard question for us to ask ourselves, but true repentance requires no less.

And God bless America.

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