Sunday, October 3, 2010

Reflection on Righteous Anger

Is anger neutral? If not, can it be divided into righteous/positive or sinful/negative anger? How can they be distinguished from each other? In this post, I want to reflect on the concept of anger in the light of the Scriptures.

After the Jews returned from the exile, the nobles and officials oppressed the poor by imposing heavy interest, so they provoked Nehemiah. He stated in Nehemiah 5:6, “When I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry.” He kept saying, “What you are doing is not right. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies?” (Nehemiah 5:9) What made him furious? Where was his resentment based on? The Word of God in Exodus 22:25 explicitly states, “If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no interest.” This passage demonstrates how God care about the poor.

I believe that Nehemiah knew God’s compassion on His creatures including non-human creatures through the Law and his relationship with God, so he would have been angry on the rich’s maltreatment. In that point, his anger might be distinguished from sinful anger. Moreover, in Nehemiah 13:25 he curses the people who married to Gentile women, even beats them and pulls out their hair. Nehemiah’s action seems somewhat overly responsive to them, but he reminds me of God. Indeed, Psalms 7:11 depicts God as a righteous judge, who shows his resentment.

In Reflections on the Psalms, C. S. Lewis argued that the absence of anger was much worse than the spirit of hatred the ancient Jews held, since they perceived righteousness as one of God’s characteristics and revealed their honest resentment as a natural result. Does not Nehemiah’s anger reflect God’s image put within humans?

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