The Addictive Power of Anger, Pt. 1 of 2

Ace struggles with anger and wants help.  He is not alone.  I remember an incident when the children (we have three) were much younger and I totally lost it.  I don't recall what the issue was, but I do remember being totally frustrated by the fact that all my calm and reasonable appeals for action were being completely ignored.  So I put on my angry face (scary!) and started using my angry voice (very loud) and was amazed.  I was getting impressive results.  I had everyone's attention (How could they ignore this louder and scarier me?) and all their energies were focused on compliance.

In this moment I felt the drug-like power of anger.  In my mind, I was "in control."  I was simply using a mode (angry mode) that more effectively motivated others to action.  It would be easy to rationalize a recurring resort to anger, especially when the ends seemed noble and biblically appropriate.  A question asserted itself:  If the goal is for my kids to do what is right, isn't an angry outburst warranted when lessor means are ineffective?  This question exposes one of the compelling attractions of anger.  It gets results!

Yes, anger gets results, but what kind of results?  James 1:20 declares, "For the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God."  Translation:  Anger may get results, but it does not result in righteousness!  I say again:  Whatever anger is producing, it is NOT righteousness.  Now this begs the question:  What  exactly DOES it produce?  Find out next week in part 2.

Comments

[Alex Marshall]

So is anger never appropriate? For example, when Jesus drove out the money-changers, that seemed pretty angry. Or some of Paul's letters where he is less than gentle seem pretty adamant and perhaps would fit what we would call anger. I agree with the idea that we should not use anger as a "motivator," but are there times when a more "angry" response is appropriate (in quotations because perhaps it should be labeled something else in those times?)?

[Bubba matthews]

Hi Alex:

How's college?

Ephasian 4:26 is an interesting passage..."In your anger do not sin..." It seems that perhaps there is an anger that is appropriate and it seems likely to be the motive that matters. Jim;s illustration is anger so as to produce results he wants. Your illustrations seem to be rightous anger that produces results that glorifies God. the latter case seems to be a small category of times when anger, or angry action, could be called for. I, of course, always tend to get angry at the wrong things and hence blow it.

[Alex Marshall]

College has been great, have several awesome profs who have really challenged me (in a good way).

How's Baylor? I've been reading some stuff by several of your Philosophy profs (didn't realize Francis Beckwith was a Baylor guy till the other day, bet his move to Catholicism put out shock-waves there!).

Your distinction of motives makes pretty good sense. I figured that was probably the correct way of looking at it, but Jim's post seemed a bit more "absolute" (not questioning the existence of absolutes, just not sure if that's the word I'm looking for here) so I wasn't sure. Thanks for clarifying!

[Rufus]

Anger is an emotion - it is neither good nor bad. It is an emotion that alerts us to the fact that our will has been thwarted (all I have to do is drive on a freeway for this to happen to me). If our will was in line with God's on a particular issue, then our response would be like His - righteous anger. For most of us our will is not aligned with the Lord's and our anger occurs when someone does not comply with our wishes or expectations. To deny our anger is a dangerous thing. The question is what do we do in response to it. To avoid sin, our will must remain in control. It is the action (contemplated or real) in response to anger that we must face. We cannot even let us get away with calling someone a name (jerk, idiot, etc). Christ clearly speaks against that. We must become the kind of people who respond as Christ would...