God's Anger

I often get asked why the God of the Bible gets so angry. Anger seems too much like a volatile human emotion.  At best, it seems "beneath" our notions of an unchangeable, all-powerful God; at worst, it makes God seem petty or even cruel.  Despite our discomfort, God's anger appears often in the biblical accounts.  I think part of the problem is our mistaken assumption that God's anger and God's love are somehow in competition, as though God's love is somehow tempered or balanced out by God's wrath.  But God's wrath is not opposed to God's love—it is God's love when it encounters sin, when it faces the self-destruction of the beloved.  That's why we can say, as the Bible does, God is love, but we cannot say God is wrath.

Here in Canada where I live, there is a tendency for people to pride themselves on being "nice," on tolerance, on accepting everyone and everything.  Most of the time this is great, but the problem is that "niceness"
 in the face of great violence and injustice takes the side of injustice.  Tolerance turns out to be a convenient label for acceptance of the status quo—having minimal involvement in the lives of others and no investment in their fate.

Recently one of my friends who lives on the streets of Toronto was telling me in great detail the story of the atrocious abuse she experienced as a child.  As I was listening, feeling inwardly sickened but unsure of exactly how to respond, she would pause every so often and say "You're really angry, aren't you?  I can tell—I can see it in your eyes."  Then she would go on with her story.  The truth is that while I did feel angry and sad and confused and any number of emotions at that moment, I'm not sure I was registering much on my face at all.  Her frequent insistence that she could see how furious I was was less because of whatever visible anger I was displaying and more because she needed the affirmation that I was angry, that her pain and
 shame would not leave me untouched.  She wanted reassurance: "You are angry, aren't you?"

What we learn from the story of Jesus is that tolerance is a poor substitute for love.  You can tolerate someone without loving her or him.  And there are some things you cannot tolerate if you love truly and deeply.  What lover is not angry at the betrayal of the beloved?  What loving parents are not angry at the self-destructive behavior of their children?  If God were not angry at the state of the world and the human heart, it would be a sign not that God is "nice" but that God does not care.  As theologian Miroslav Volf has said, "A nonindignant God would be an accomplice in injustice, deception, and violence."(1)

The only objection against God raised more frequently than complaints about anger and judgment is the apparent lack of it—God's perceived restraint in the face of the world's great evils.

"How long, O LORD, will I call for help,
And You will not hear?
I cry out to
 You, 'Violence!'
Yet You do not save.
Why do you make me see iniquity,
And cause me to look on wickedness?
Yes, destruction and violence are before me;
Strife exists and contention arises.
Therefore the law is ignored
And justice is never upheld.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
Therefore justice comes out perverted" (Habakkuk 1:2-4).

"Will You restrain Yourself at these things, O LORD?  Will You keep silent and afflict us beyond measure?" (Isaiah 64:12).

In situations of great suffering and oppression, we want God to get angry and we have the strong suspicion that a God who does not get angry is a God who does not love that deeply.  Only a God who is angry at the ruin of the beloved creation is a God who will act in deliverance.  God's anger means that we are not abandoned or left to our fate.

It is not God's anger that is the problem—God's anger is our salvation.  It is our anger that is the problem.  We project our own personal indignations and
 inclinations toward vengeance onto God.  We use the phrase "righteous anger" to describe our own self-righteous anger.  We deflect our own guilt by outrage at the moral failures of others.  We respond to our anger by taking things into our own hands—either inflicting retribution or becoming self-appointed saviors, trying to fix the problems of others while ignoring our own.

But God is not like us.  God does not have a split personality.  God's anger is not a volatile, self-protective human emotion.  The story of Jesus Christ reveals that God's love for us and God's anger against our life-destroying ways both lead inexorably toward the cross.   And at the cross, God is not in those inflicting the pain but in the One suffering it in order to set things right.

Rachel Tulloch is a member of the speaking team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Toronto, Canada.

(1) Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and
 Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), 297.

sufjan and the good news

below is an excerpt from an interview at The Quietus on October 12th.

...Is it good to work with people who have faith? I guess it wouldn’t be as easy working with drug addled lunatics right?

SS: Hahaha. [Pause] What’s the question?

I should probably rephrase it. You’re a Christian, so it’s probably easier to work with Christians than some heathen hoovering up cocaine every day...


SS: Yeah. [Long pause] What?!

What I’m asking is, is it easier to work with somebody in the same faith instead of somebody of a secular disposition?


SS: [Pintersque pause] Ahhh no, not at all. I don’t draw lines when it comes to my work. People I work with come from all over the place. There’s heathens and potheads in my band. I love them all, so...

Being an artist of some repute do you find the calling to spread the Good News sits awkwardly with your profile? Is it difficult?


SS: Not necessarily, you know, I think the Good News is about grace and hope and love and a relinquishing of self to God. And I think the Good News of salvation is kind of relevant to everyone and everything.


I find as I get older due to a sequence of events spirituality becomes more intriguing, though having been indoctrinated with the hard line dogma that I’d go to hell if I didn’t follow certain practices and believe very specific things, I was quite angry about Christianity for a while.

SS: Oh dear.

I suppose you could call it Protestant guilt.


SS: The church is an institution and it’s incredibly corrupt obviously, but that’s because it’s full of dysfunctional people and people who are hurt and battered and abused. It’s very normal in any institution to have that kind of level of dysfunction. That’s unfortunate. I find it very difficult, I find church culture very difficult you know; I think a lot of churches now are just fundamentally flawed. But that’s true for any institution you know, that’s true for education, universities and it’s definitely true for corporations because of greed, and I think part of faith is having to be reconciled with a flawed community. But the principles, I don’t think the principles have changed. They can get skewed and they can get abused and dogma can reign supreme, but I think the fundamentals, it’s really just about love. Loving God and loving your neighbour and giving up everything for God. The principles of that, the basis of that is very pure and life changing.


Do you believe that God can be reached through other faiths? John 3:16 categorically states Jesus is "the way, the truth and the life" and nobody can get to the Father expect through him. A lot of people take that very literally and don’t believe you can find spirituality through Buddhism or Islam or whatever...


SS: Yeah, I mean who can know the mind of God and who can be his counsellor? It’s not man’s decision, you know. If God is infinite and he’s in all of us and he created the world then I feel there is truth in every corner. There’s a kind of imprint of his life and his breath and his word and everything. You know, I’m no religious expert, and I don’t make any claims about the faith. All I can account for is myself and my own belief and that’s a pretty tall order just to take account of myself. I can’t make any claims about other religions. There’s no condemnation in Christ, that’s one of the fundamentals of Christianity.


The Gospels are a good read, and then you get Paul ruining everything with his right wing attitudes.


SS: Well Paul is a good reference for the character of church institutions, the setting down of cultural principles. Because God is the church and the church is an institution and the institution is culture; you have to reckon with all the trappings of culture and that’s kind of what Paul designed. You know, that was his role. You can’t read it without looking at it in the cultural context of the time and place, it’s inherent you know.


Church originally was a body of people and it had nothing to do with a building.


SS: I mean it’s weird. What’s the basis of Christianity? It’s really a meal, it’s communion right? It’s the Eucharist. That’s it, it’s the sharing a meal with your neighbours and what is that meal? It’s the body and blood of Christ. Basically God offering himself up to you as nutrition. Haha, that’s pretty weird. It’s pretty weird if you think about that, that’s the basis of your faith. You know, God is supplying a kind of refreshment and food for a meal. Everything else is just accessories and it’s vital of course, baptism and marriage, and there’s always the sacraments and praying and the Holy Spirit and all this stuff but really fundamentally it’s just about a meal.


And there’s the cross of course. It’s an extremely powerful symbol and it has permeated into some of the greatest art and literature of the last couple of thousand years, but it’s peculiar that people wear an object that represents the putting to death of their Lord.


SS: It’s really morbid. It’s a really morbid symbol you know. It is very grotesque when you start thinking about it. But it’s also beautiful you know, it’s the ultimate sacrifice. And I think it relates to the meal as well because it’s Christ giving up his blood and flesh as food and that then itself is the giving up of his body for eternal life, therefore salvation.

how to fight a war - no fear in death

"We want to pay tribute to each of our colleagues who died, to their commitment to serve the Afghan people. Those who have known them and seen them at work can do nothing but pay the highest tribute to them ... In some news articles, the people on this team have been described as 'saints.' This is not how they saw themselves. They were basically selfless professionals willing to spend their lives and energy in a meaningful way."

- The International Assistance Mission, on the 10 members of their team killed Friday in Afghanistan.

IAM is an international charitable, non-profit, Christian organisation, serving the people of Afghanistan, through capacity building in the sectors of Health and Economic Development.

my prayers are with the ten and their families and friends. They are part of a story, an advancing kingdom, of those who have lost their life serving Jesus (hebrews 11).

where oh death is your victory, where oh death is your sting.

a modern telling of the beatitudes

blessed are those who don’t have it all together.

blessed are those who have run out of strength, ideas, will power, resolve, or energy.

blessed are those who ache because of how severely out of whack the world is.

blessed are those stumble, trip, and fall in the same place again and again.

blessed are those who on a regular basis have a dark day in which despair seems to be a step behind them wherever they go.

blessed are you, for God is with you, God is on your side, God meets you in that place.

the gospel is the counter-intuitive, joyous, exuberant news that Jesus has brought the unending, limitless, stunning love of God to even us.

a sabbath

it's saturday. 
i am preparing for my monday sabbath. 
when do you stop?

the great democratization

every man and every woman is created in the image of God … there is no hierarchy. gen 1:27 is the great democratization of God’s image… to every citizen of the world.

if it's true, it has significant ramifications. it means that we are all in the same boat.

it means that the starving child in Africa has every bit as much worth as a hollywood celebrity.

it means that a drug lord in columbia is worth every bit as much as a u.s. senator.

it means that an indonesian sweat-shop worker is worth every bit as much as you or i.

the church is to speak this over a community. the authentic church is the living demonstration for everyone, that there is a God at the core of the universe who’s name is love and whose imprint is found on everyone.

a love that is with us and will not leave us.

a love that cannot give us up.

what am i united to?

what am i united to?

(for those interested, i posted a few new songs in the record of the day column)

what am i united to?

following jesus

...what is God to do with a religion
that legitimizes indifference and
worship that inspires indulgence?"

being made new

the world is not likely to receive a message of transformation by untransformed people.

-how is your soul?
-are your eyes wide open?
-every moment is an opportunity to be connected the spirit.

ortberg asked dallas willard "how do I evaluate where my soul is at, how connected i am to jesus?" willard responded:

are you growing more and more 'easily irritated' these days... or less?

gospel - tim keller

When we realize that Jesus is going to someday destroy hunger, disease, poverty, injustice, and death itself, it makes Christianity what C. S. Lewis called a "fighting religion" when we are confronted with a city slum or a cancer ward. This full version of the gospel reminds us that God created both the material and the spiritual, and is going to redeem both the material and the spiritual. - tim keller

can christians serve in the military?

Question: Jesus ministered to military people (e.g. a centurion) and didn’t tell them to leave their military post. So do you think Christians can serve in the military? I believe it’s a Christians duty is to serve their country, aid the wounded, defend the oppressed, protect our families, stand for truth and justice, and kill when we have to. Do you agree?

Response: I want to start by saying I respect the fact that Christians have differing convictions about this. I also want to acknowledge that I admire the courage of men and women in the military and I’m aware that I benefit a great deal by the sacrifices people in the military have made, and continue to make, for my country. Nevertheless, I think there are some serious questions a person must ask themselves if they’re thinking about entering into the military (or not being a conscientious objector in countries that have a draft).

The fact that Jesus ministered to military personal can’t be cited as evidence supporting Christians enlisting in the military. Jesus ministered to everyone, just as they were. So should we. The fact that he didn’t tell soldiers to get out of the military doesn’t tell us much, for Jesus hardly ever told anyone to get out of the situations they were in – including prostitutes and the Samaritan woman who was living out of wedlock with a man (Jn 4). He just met people’s needs where they were at and didn’t seem to be in a big rush to get them to change. It’s the approach I believe we, his followers, should take.

Now, I think I agree with you when you say we’re to aid the wounded, defend the oppressed, protect our families and stand for truth and justice. The question is, what means do we employ to accomplish these things? And this brings me to the point I am sure I do not agree with you on, for you add, “and kill when we have to.” You apparently believe – as most people do– that killing in order to serve your country, aid the wounded, defend the oppressed, protect our families and stand for truth and justice is justifiable for a Christian.

Where does this idea come from? I know that common sense and normal nationalistic sentiments teach us such things. Universal “common sense” tells us that people ought to kill, if necessary, to protect themselves, their families, and their country (and note, people generally assume this regardless of what country they’re born into). But are followers of Jesus called to be just another version of practical, nationalistically-motivated common sense?
Didn’t Jesus command us to love, bless, pray for and do good to our enemies? Didn’t he command us to turn the other cheek, never “resist” an evildoer (Mt. 5:39), never return evil with evil but rather to always return evil with good? Aren’t we supposed to give water to our enemies when they’re thirsty and feed them when they’re hungry? (e.g. Rom.12:17-21). Didn’t Jesus rebuke Peter for using the sword, even though his self-defense would be considered justifiable by common sense? Aren’t we commanded to follow Jesus’ example of refusing to use the power available to him to defend himself, choosing instead to die at the hands of his enemies and on behalf of his enemies?

In this light, how can we justify killing our enemies “if we have to“?

And notice, there’s no “exception clause” in any of the New Testament’s teaching about loving our enemies.

You might be thinking: “Neither Jesus nor his disciples were thinking of enemies like Al-Qaeda. Surely he didn’t mean we’re supposed to love and do good to these sorts of enemies. ” But, as a matter fact, these were exactly the kind of enemies Jesus and his disciples would have had in mind. Jesus was talking to people who were not only threatened by vicious nationalistic enemies; they were already conquered by them. Most first century Jews despised their Roman oppressors at least as much as most Americans despise Al-Qaeda – and they were under their oppressive rule. The Romans would sometimes put dozens – in a few cases we know of, thousands – of Jews to death (usually by crucifixion) just to flex their muscle. If you can imagine living in an America that was conquered and then subsequently ruled by Al-Qaeda, you can get some idea of what Jesus was asking of his disciples when he told them to “love their enemies” and to never retaliate against them.

As it turned out, within a few decades, many of his disciples would have to watch their families be fed to lions or burned alive under Nero. Yet, rather than retaliate or “protect” themselves with violent force, these early Christians considered it an honor to follow Jesus’ example by letting themselves get crucified. In fact, the gracious way they died was one of the main catalysts for the rapid growth of the Church throughout the first three centuries.
Now, I am fully aware that many find this teaching offensive if not insane. Honestly, at times, so do I. At the same time, however, this insanity in an odd way “makes sense” in the context of the revelation of God in Christ. Think about it.

How “sane” was it for the Creator of the universe to become a human, experience the guilt and condemnation of sin, and die a God-forsaken, hellish death on a cross for the very rebels who crucified him (ultimately, all of us)? We are explicitly and repeatedly called to follow this insane example! “Be imitators of God,” Paul says. “Live in love as Christ loved us, and gave himself for us” (Eph. 5:1-2). In essence, Jesus is saying: “Do unto your enemies what I did unto mine.” At the very least, this has to mean: “Be willing to die for your enemies rather than make them die for you.”

So yes, the New Testament’s teaching on loving one’s enemies is insane. But isn’t that precisely what we should expect, given the kind of wild God we’re following?

And I’ll end by sharing one final piece of insanity. God promises us that, while it may not always look like it, the insane love he showed on Calvary and that he commands Jesus-followers to live out will in the end win. On “Good Friday”dying for one’s enemies looks ludicrous. But Easter morning tells a very different story.

I encourage all people who are considering enlisting in the military or who are now in the military in a capacity where they might have to kill another human to prayerfully reflect on how this fits with their call to imitate Jesus.

g. boyd (mook)

listless

“Fear breeds a deadening caution, a holding back, a stagnant waiting until people no longer can recall what they are waiting for or saving themselves for. When we fear failure more than we love life; when we are dominated by thoughts of what we might have been rather than by thoughts of what we might become; when we are haunted by the disparity between our ideal self and our real self; when we are tormented by guilt, shame, remorse, and self condemnation, we deny our faith in the God of love. God calls us to break camp, abandon the comfort and security of the status quo, and embark in perilous freeedom on the journey to a new Canaan. But when we procrastinate our of fear; this represents not only a decision to remain in Haran, but also a lack of trust.”
~Brennan Manning

from a friend - from SRI LANKA

Hello friends and fellow lovers of humans everywhere.

I was praying today and God put it very strongly on my heart that I should start a day of prayer and fasting for this country before we leave on June 6th.

I'm writing to you because you either lead a small group, a church or are part of a community that can join in prayer with us. How great if we could get people around the world praying all together for these people's lives.

I don't know if you know the current situation in the northern part of Sri Lanka (about 5-6 hours north of us) but it is getting pretty terrible with hundreds dying daily. We really need to lift this up into the hands of God who is able to do exceedingly more than we can ask or imagine. (It's really gut wrenching - please read at least ONE of these articles because it will break your heart for these victims!) And no one knows what the "truth" is because they won't let any foreigners or UN into the area because it's so bad!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/06/world/asia/06lanka.html?_r=2&hp

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20090510/AS.Sri.Lanka.Civil.War/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8047580.stm

[an article from sojo]

Witness to Sri Lanka’s Onslaught

by Christina Cobourn Herman 05-14-2009

I know of two priests who have decided to stay with their people in the so-called No-Fire Zone in northern Sri Lanka, where tens of thousands of Tamil civilians are trapped in a living hell. One of those priests described the shelling that killed so many on Saturday night:

All sorts of heavy weapons were used for more than 12 hours from all four directions on May 9-10, 2009. The night was a deadly night. Children, women, and elders were screaming at the peaks of their voices. It was callous, heinous and indiscriminate shelling and bombing. Words are lacking to describe [it]. … The eyes of the world are blinded. The people were the deliberate target of the attack of the Army. It was a bloodbath. People who sustained minor injuries also eventually died because no rescue mission was possible due to the incessant shelling and bombing. Even from the sea, the Navy has been using heavy weapons. People have nowhere to go and hide. The rate of killing by shelling earlier was in the hundreds and now it is in the thousands.

An Internet phone connection allows us to hear the sounds of the bombs exploding in the background.

Crammed into a tiny strip of coastal land, the civilians are caught — literally — in the middle of a ferocious battle between the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan military. The LTTE, fighting for their very survival, is keeping them there as a bargaining chip, hoping the international community will force the government to accept a cease-fire. The government, for its part, has called them all LTTE supporters and terrorists. They are children and their parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles — members of whole villages that fled the Sri Lankan Army as it advanced north.

The LTTE is outnumbered at this point, but refuses to surrender. They are clearly using the people as a human shield — they have been shooting at people who try to escape from the area. Apparently, they are banking on the international community caring enough about the civilians to stay the hand of the government. But this is not what is happening.

More than 1,320 people were killed in just 48 hours last weekend.

The trapped civilians can’t believe that the international community — the U.S., Britain, France, Norway, Japan, and others — is allowing the slaughter to continue.

An aid worker we are talking to tells us the death toll for the day and the details of the recent ICRC shipment of food and some medicines. Conditions are grim: food, water, and medicine is scarce, and sanitation facilities nonexistent. What supplies the ships are able to bring in are far short of what is needed. People are beginning to starve.

An ICRC ship got in last week, but two others were forced to turn around because of heavy fighting — without offloading supplies or taking away the 500 wounded people who were hoping to get out. That is about the only way people can escape the area. (ICRC ships have taken out some 10,000 wounded and people accompanying them). In the past the ICRC has gotten agreements from both sides to stop fighting so supplies can be landed, but this has been hard to get recently. There has been unconfirmed fighting between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Navy in the Bay of Bengal.

The doctors said they were really relieved last week when some antibiotics were included in the ICRC shipment — they had been without these essential supplies for two months. They have also been without anesthesia for several months — and they still don’t have any. The government is said to have to okay everything that goes onto the ICRC ships, and anesthesia is not on the approved list. This is not an oversight on the part of the government.

I can’t imagine what it is like to have a hand or a leg amputated without anesthesia. Yet I must have a hundred pictures of kids or their parents with bandaged stumps. It is, after all, a war zone.

my father is always working

you are the image

why does God put such an emphasis on the idea that his people should not turn to images of gods for worship? (i don't think it’s because he has self-esteem issues.) God doesn’t need our praise.

what if God doesn’t want us to create images of gods, because God has already created an image of the only God that matters.

what if the real evil of idol worship was not so much that God is robbed of glory, but that these images distract us from seeing the true image of God where he intended us to see it…

in ourselves?

Colossians 1:15 – Christ is the image of the invisible God … we were created in the image of God, and intended to be conformed to the image of Christ

GEN 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him

YOU ARE THE IMAGE – we are the means by which God is to share himself with creation.

a brief rant on the ever-pressing reality of complacency

we are five percent of the world’s population and we have 43 percent of the world’s arms/weapons. i think that should be disturbing.

without question.
point blank.
disturbing.

a few years ago the pentagon spent $1 billion on advertising. even in american history you have leader and leader - from george washington on, saying: be careful of large standing armies. and now we are paying a substancial part of our taxes to have our military advertise to us?!

many would argue at very basic levels:
if you are a follower of Jesus and you don’t start making some noise about what is happening in our world right now — then when do you speak out? We are spending billions every month on our wars right now. at what point to we stand up and speak out about the things Jesus calls us to get loud over.

this isnt simply about u.s. wars. God is simply much bigger than we have envisioned and is calling into being a compassionate community around the world. it is our duty to find out about what’s happening in the larger world - and respond well.

john dear (not the tractor) says this -

"My point is that not only are people dying around the planet, but we have died in so many ways with them. Gandhi would say we’ve lost our souls. That was the effect on the people who first built the tools of atomic war. This was the loss of their souls. We’re facing the death of our imagination. … We can no longer even imagine a world without nuclear weapons or a world without war. And yet that is precisely what we are called to do — to imagine the end of war.”

see, from the very beginning people have struggled with this idea. think of solomon building God’s temple... he ends up using slaves. solomon forgets the kind of world he’s supposed to build.

ole RB:
“Most of the Bible is a history told by people living in lands occupied by conquering superpowers. It’s a book written from the underside of power. It’s an oppression narrative. The majority of the Bible was written by a minority people living under the rule and reign of massive, mighty empires, from the Egyptian Empire to the Babylonian Empire to the Persian Empire to the Assyrian Empire to the Roman Empire. This can make the Bible a very difficult book to understand if you are reading it as a citizen of the most powerful empire the world has ever seen.”

to do

to be present.
to sing for Your ears.
to write and not listen to the inner critic.
to balance dream and discipline.
to serve kindly.
to think deeply, but not drown.
to cut the lag time between honesty and action.
to believe that you mean well.
to be beautifully angry about the right things.
to feel, face and embrace inner fears.
to speak to you, not about you.
to criticize by creating something beautiful.
to choose love over being right.
to choose love over my rights.
to be quick to encourage.

this is to seek first the kingdom.

to those struggling

remember that the tax collectors and prostitutes loved to feast with Jesus and the religious establishment gossiped about him and dissected his teachings and questioned his commitment to orthodoxy and eventually had him killed. there's a lesson for us there.