"Did you finish killing everybody who was against peace?"
We seem to live in the age of rage.
Nobody likes an angry individual.
The man road raging or the woman harassing the barista earns little sympathy.
But a mob of angry people gathers even more company.
The age of rage shrewdly rebranded as outrage, and everyone joined in.
“Did you hear what happened?”
“Can you believe they would!?”
“HOW DARE THEY!?”
The frenzy builds from a whisper to a riot seamlessly.
The Scriptures warn of this in the first chapter of Proverbs:
10 My son, if sinful men entice you,
do not give in to them.
11 If they say, “Come along with us;
let’s lie in wait for innocent blood,
let’s ambush some harmless soul;
12 let’s swallow them alive, like the grave,
and whole, like those who go down to the pit;
Can we confidently say the gossip, slander, and petitioning of our day sound different than these voices?
While the Bible warns against the age of outrage, it is a scary thing to see the pages of the Bible burn as fuel for much “Christian” rage.
The Bible is a big enough book, with broad enough content, that you can probably find a way for it to agree with you against the enemies you chose before you read a word.
After all, remember how the leaders of Israel likely had a chapter and verse when they crucified the Author of the Bible:
Deuteronomy 13:1–5
If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder, 2 and if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place, and the prophet says, “Let us follow other gods” (gods you have not known) “and let us worship them,” 3 you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. 5 That prophet or dreamer must be put to death for inciting rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. That prophet or dreamer tried to turn you from the way the Lord your God commanded you to follow. You must purge the evil from among you.
Here is my plea:
Lower yourself more aggressively than you rise up.
Turn your zeal upon the sin within your heart. Transform the injustice within arm’s length.
We have an incredible capacity for focusing on the problems that God has not entrusted to us.
Prayer is our only path for these problems.
The heart humbled before God will pray zealously against the evils of the world and take most seriously our own evils.
The Christian heart shouts, “How DARE He!?” to the audacious Gospel of forgiven and freed sinners in Christ!
We rejoice that God demonstrated His love while we were still sinners and restrain the sinful outrage that so easily arises.
The world will not be better through the rage of the people.
In an age enticing you to outrage, lower yourself more aggressively than you rise up.
Did you finish killing
everybody who was against peace?
Selected from a poem by Wendell Berry: https://onbeing.org/poetry/the-contrariness-of-the-mad-farmer/