Preaching to the choir

 I found this in one of my subscribed Christian emails. I have noticed over the past couple of years, maybe more than that, an increasing number of Star Wars t-shirts. I sure hope preachers believe more in the good book than sci-fi.

"The problem with a bitter and angry person is they’re never content to keep it to themselves. They want to spread it around. Instead of dealing with it, instead of going to the person they’re angry with or have a conflict with and seeking to resolve the problem, they hold it on the inside. They allow their anger to dig in deeper, and that becomes a root of bitterness." 

Why this paragraph failed: It simply didn't make a cohesive whole. And I think I know why, the person who wrote it was angry.

Preaching isn't about the sin or the sinner. I mean it is, but it is more about God. What God wants, what God expects. And then you deal directly with the choir instructor. That's why this whole defeating an emotion thing is pretty mean.

In all times people thought the world God created was terrible because of evil, and that because God created the world, he created evil, and perhaps they believe that anger pertains to this same evil that God created. And because God is angry, jealous and has been said to have put forth a good bit of wrath, that seems really confusing. 

Christians believe that God has our best interest at heart. He cant be evil?  Even Jesus was angry. Why is being angry so bad?

Evil is still just rebellion from God. That is why they say they do not have the problem of evil in the east. They don't have the problem of rebellion. 

I don't think raging is a good thing. It is terrible. And today in the same batch of emails I get daily, I got my daily quote, ironically, being C.S. Lewis talking about virtue. It was ironic not because of this blog, but because I read it yesterday. Same quote.

The testing of virtues is a good place to explain about anger. I have struggled quite a bit with anger. Over the years I have come to realize that when you make terrible mistakes, and being angry is almost always a terrible mistake, you tend to blame yourself. Mistakes can be accidents. You're too busy, too tired, sick, afraid, ... you can forgive yourself for an accident you made when you knew you were tired, if ... if it was something forgivable, like falling asleep on the job. What makes the anger situation special is that a lot of times there's a pretty good reason for being angry. At least you may feel that way. So you are humiliated after being angry or feel like you're at a loss when you have been injured in some way. That's a terrible feeling!

I can sympathize with people who suffer from feeling angry in the same way I can sympathize with people who are depressed. It doesn't make it a good thing, or any less frightening or stress causing to be around. Being around angry people is no fun. But it isn't a terrible sin, there are terrible sins. This is a terrible vice, and one that can be mended by trying to have a little virtue. But to point fingers and call angry people sinners, especially in our world? That's a lot like making a Disney movie's virtues more valuable than what God really might think. God may prefer an angry man to one who doesn't care about what is right or wrong.

Anger rests in the bosom of fools, but only fools believe in absolutes. This is truth.