Be Angry and Sin Not

Today at men's group it was an unusual subject. Bill Rosser was the speaker and he used as his platform an article in The Oxford Review on anger. The unusual part of it was that it was for and not against. So often in our current pacifist perpsective we are continually looking at any bit of anger as requiring psyciatric intervention. Anger management for any that even raise an eyebrow at least on the conservative or religious side of things. We fear becoming Crusaders, Inquis...itioners, fundamentalists, religiious ranters who would, if given leave, not think twice about putting dissenters on the rack. And thus have we become rather a soft receiver of calumny against Christ in all its manifestations in our culture. We have taken for instance the blatent loss of our freedoms even down to the simple act of baking a cake, or in more virule ways of the crude mocking of our Lord in publically funded 'art', or the smearing of the loveliest of the world's femininity in the mocking of Mary and motherhood. We have largely taken it. And yes, there is an aspect of our religion which does take it. But there is also a place to 'be angry and sin not' as St Paul admonishes us. In our culture we are made to feel guilty, to feel that we do deserve the monica of 'hater' if we feel the least bit of ruffling of our religious feathers. But this is an unbalanced view. Christ called the pharisees a brood of vipers and was a wrath to be reckoned with in the Temple. Tables were thrown over and a flagelium was premeditatively made. John the baptist had shouted his own Herod down. One imagines David facing Goliath made use of a righteous wrath over his own subjugation under the Philistines when he faced a giant in hand to hand combat. One sees the righteous indignation of the prophets. One sees Moses breaking the tablet of the law when finding the general person in the pew worshipping the revived god of Egypt. Yes, as some ages maybe have erred in being angry and sinning, we I think in our present age of niceness have erred in holding up niceness as the primary virtue. No, Alsan is not a tame lion as the Beaver says.