Is God Really Angry?

Jonathan Edwards is not the only one who thinks of God as angry. And not just occasionally upset or disappointed, but really relentlessly furious. There are many who hold this view because they think it best represents the picture of God in the Scriptures. Even more fear that it must be true, not because of their intellectual commitments but because they can't escape the gnawing sense that the angry God lingers near ready to vent.

Of course, some who see God as angry, see the anger directed only at the wicked. This works out well in evangelism when the preacher, like Jonathan Edwards seeks to manipulate through fear, guilt and emotional pain. They effectively exploit the anxieties rooted in the human experience. They promise that these feelings will vanish because their is a remedy for sin and wickedness.

This has been a standard approach and deeply ingrained in the American Church. In many ways it has been successful. But it has not come without a cost. There are many, maybe most, who are unable to move beyond the idea of the Angry God. So through the effort to bring people into the Church, the Church becomes distorted because their understanding of God is distorted.

This seems almost inevitable. If the first, most essential thing is to get people to convert then almost anything will become permissible or even necessary to make it happen. But, of course, getting people is not the first or most important thing. Loving God is the first and most important focus of te Christian. It is the guiding principle and all else flows from it.

Loving God limits what we can do and how we go about it. Loving God leads to loving our neighbor (in faith or out of faith). Loving God and loving our neighbor limits how we can approach or neighbor, including what methods and tools of persuasion we will adopt. Some approaches are not loving. Some are exploitative, manipulative and even cruel. Some add great suffering to the lives of those we claim we love.

I can hear the arguments. If our neighbor doesn't come to faith then they will suffer forever. We will address this specifically another day. In general, we argue that our means of persuasion are necessary because the stakes are so high. In other words, the ends justify the means. We don't have to act in loving ways now because what we re doing is so good and important. We are saving them from a worse fate.

But authentic love demands constant practice. We practice love by showing our respect. When we manipulate others through emotional persuasion we demonstrate our lack of respect. When we choose our "ends" for others and bypass their wishes, we demonstrate our disrespect. We don't practice love by disrespecting others.

Loving others necessarily requires that we respect them. Loving them can include our efforts to reach out to them, to offer information and help and at the same time allow them to choose without undue influence, manipulation or exploitation of their weaknesses.