What makes you angry?

I began my devotional reading this year by re-reading The Cross of Christ by John R. W. Stott.  I'm about half-way through the book and finding so much that I've missed in previous readings.  In my reading today I came across his thoughts on the doctrine of propitiation.  I marked these words.

First, the reason why a propitiation is necessary is that sin arouses the wrath of God.  This does not mean (as animists fear) that he is likely to fly off the handle at the most trivial provocation, still less that he loses his temper for no apparent reason at all.  For there is nothing capricious or arbitrary about the holy God.  Nor is he ever irascible, malicious, spiteful or vindictive.  His anger is neither mysterious nor irrational.  It is never unpredictable, but always predictable, because it is provoked by evil and by evil alone...What provokes our anger (injured vanity) never provokes his; what provokes his anger (evil) seldom provokes ours (173).

As a younger man my anger got the best of me more than once.  I would like to say I've slain that beast, but it would not be true.  I've tamed it quite a bit, but it's still not dead.  I would also like to say that I now have only righteous indignation, but that also would not be true.  Most of the time when I get angry it is because of injured vanity.  When I was saved many of the things that were temptations for me were removed, but God has left this challenge to remind me that I will always be dependent upon him, and I'm thankful that he has done a great work in this area of my life and continues that work today.

Unfortunately, I meet a lot of pastors who also struggle with anger issues.  A few times it has almost been amusing to watch such pastors who were confronted with their anger issue to demonstrate it's reality through their rejection of that confrontation.  Of course, this is not limited to pastors but can be found in all Christians.  I have seen and heard some truly horrible things in church gatherings that demonstrate how much of a problem anger is in people's lives.  As I reflected on Stott's words I realized that most of the conflict and anger that erupts in churches is seldom about evil; it is nearly always about injured vanity.  Somebody didn't get their way, and a firestorm ignites.

The Bible does not forbid anger.  It tells us that we can become angry and yet not sin.  I have to agree with Stott that the anger that is allowed should be towards evil.  We should get angry over the violence that occurs in our streets.  We should be angry at the drug trafficking that destroys lives.  The church should be angry at the exploitation of women and young people in the sex trafficking that occurs today.  We should be angry at discrimination in all its forms.  We should be angry at the death of so many unborn children through legalized abortion.  We should be angry at the number of children who go to bed every night hungry while living in the wealthiest nation in the world.  We should be angry at the lack of moral restraints that passes as entertainment today.  We should be angry at a government that has usurped the role of God in many people's lives, at the political correctness in our society that tells a child he cannot talk about Jesus in school, and at political leaders who fatten their own checkbooks while ignoring the needs of the people who elected them to office.

But, we aren't.  Most political leaders know they can ignore our concerns because many of us seldom vote, and if we do, like most Americans we vote our pocketbook and not our values.  Seldom do we hear preaching from our pulpits that addresses these issues.  Our board meetings and business meetings seldom include any discussion about how to address these issues in our communities.    We are content to talk about whether the pastor should get a one percent or a one-and-a-half percent pay increase and what color carpet should we install in the sanctuary.  And, too often, if our suggestion isn't approved, that's when we get angry.

The church faces some real challenges today, and if we are going to meet those challenges we are going to have to get angry, real angry but only at the things that makes God angry.  God's wrath is directed at the evil that harms his creation and the persons for whom Christ gave his life.  When we get angry enough at that evil that we actually begin to try to do something about it the church will once again become what God intended for it to be and genuine revival will break out.