by Peter Davison
Q: Why are there so many angry people these days, including church people?
A: I think we need to distinguish between two kinds of anger — the "righteous anger" that protests against the numerous injustices in our society, and the selfish anger stemming from our desire to have our own way. We should get worked up about the exploitation of the weakest members of our society; but much of our anger is all about power, and not wanting to have our own privileged positions challenged.
In hierarchical societies, those at or near the top often live in fear of being toppled. This results in intellectual dishonesty, as in "I know; you don't" kinds of statements, and in outright manipulation of their power to achieve predetermined ends. But we also have a lot of people who have invested their lives in "faithful obedience," and now are upset because their lifelong certainties are being questioned. It’s been said that the "Seven last words of the church," as distinct from Jesus' "Seven last words from the cross," are "We have always done it this way." Many of us read the Bible, or even the Prayer Book, not for enlightenment, but to find texts to justify our preconceived ideas. Sacred texts become, not sources for shared understanding and life together, but weapons used in wars of divide and conquer. And when Christians break with one another, they can often be heard claiming that those who disagree with them are going to hell.
This, of course, raises another issue. Too many people are fearful of "not being on the right side of God." Their fearful obedience of a deity who, they believe, offers heaven for conformity and eternal damnation for disobedience, makes them fearful of getting on God’s wrong side. On the other hand, they often confuse being on God’s right side with "sitting at God's right hand on thrones of judgment." Anger and self-righteousness often go hand-in-hand. In 1964 Eric Berne published his famous book, "Games People Play." He described interpersonal relationships as follows: I'm OK, you're OK; I'm OK you're NOT OK; I'm NOT OK, you're OK; and I'm NOT OK, you're NOT OK. Desirable relationships are built on the first type; destructive ones on the second and third, which become relationships of domination and submission. But the most destructive of all are relationships in which two parties both lacking self-esteem make impossible demands on each other and tear one another apart.
Jesus' harshest words were for the self-righteous, who set themselves up by putting other people down. Part of the problem, however, is that people who have been put down too often believe what they’ve been told. They buy into the rules set by their oppressors, and come to believe "It all depends on me." But no matter how much they achieve, they usually reinforce their deeply seated belief in their inferiority by sabotaging their own best efforts. I believe many of the angriest people in the church today are acting out a legacy of bad parenting, and a projection onto God of abusive or neglectful authority figures.
It's no accident that the church is, at heart, a Eucharistic community. We are drawn together by gratitude and mutual respect. Despite all our differences, and the tensions they can create, in our worship we give thanks to God that we live by God's grace, and it doesn't all depend on us. In Holy Communion we practise a radical giving and receiving which depends on openness to God and one another. When we close our hearts and minds and clench our fists, it is we who are in a hell of our own making, not those we condemn. Furthermore, you’ve probably noticed that people who live gratefully and gracefully are the people you wish to imitate. Go for it.
