De Ira 2024

It was a kind of parable of our time- a young man, isolated and bullied, hides his anger until it bursts forth as he takes his father’s gun and commits the horrendous act of trying to kill the former President.  Not so dramatically, but rather at a cotidian level, we can discern an uptick in anger around us.

I recently listened to a presentation by Raskin and Harris of the Center for Humane Technology, who laid much of the blame at the feet of social media (which, they believe, will be made exponentially worse by AI). They spoke of what they called the ‘down the brainstem’ factor. They point out that Facebook had at the outset a fairly simple algorithm. It rewarded more attention, and attention was won by the baser passions, lust, anger, shock, etc. So social media ignited the pursuit of success in this harsher way, down the brainstem, as it were.  This has been both dynamo and metaphor for our time.  The problem of course is that anger is a vice.

It is also a mobile passion. It moves down generations- try Greek tragedy, if you doubt. It moves outward from ourselves, dramatically in hostility to the other, the outsider. It hides itself within from our own eyes, so that we are incensed by the mote in the neighbor’s eye and not the log in our own. In fact its origin, in Cain and Abel and yet further back into the mist of pre-history, is as mysterious as original sin itself. Finally anger doubles down, puts down roots, shouts down empathy and moderation, its virtuous counterparts. 

The place to start is with an inventory of ourselves. The New Testament is infuriatingly clear on the subject.

‘’’Vengeance is mine,’ says the Lord’ (and hence it does not belong to us.) 

“Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, and give no opportunity for the devil.’

‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’

These mandates do not inhibit us from speaking the truth, only we must do so with agape, that is, self-sacrificing live, Paul tells us.  Proclaiming these exhortations out of season, wrestling with them ourselves, and confessing when we fall short, are an important part of the vocation of the Church in our time. 

Let me add an addendum of a more practical tenor. Here are some practices which repel wrath: play (e.g. displacing my ire upon those New York Yankees!), neighborliness, for example in clubs or public occasions, penitence, when we can lay our wrath open and have it cauterized, and ‘rest and quietness’,  (from  Isaiah 30:16, in a passage addressed to an ‘obstinate nation.’)

 

Peace,

+GRS

Modern Christians 5: Pandita Ramabai

The missionary movement of the last two centuries comes in for lots of criticism nowadays, for imposing their cultural assumptions, being lackeys to the colonialists, etc. And they did make mistakes (though they were, as often as not, a pain in the neck to the imperialists). Since they were ready to die for their faith (often from malaria), we should not be too quick in our censure.

But none of this is what is the most interesting. That is the surprise, that the Gospel came to be heard when, where, by whom could not be predicted, that churches of great vitality and courage rose up, that those churches came to express their faith in new ways, and that Global South Christians took the lead in this. The rise of world Christianity is a ‘great new fact’ of modern history (as the great Roman Catholic theologian Karl Rahner called it. This rise was not yet clear in the 19th century, but it picked up speed in the 20th, especially and surprisingly after independence. Mass movements like the East African Revival, the conversions of untouchables in India, and the pentecostal growth in Latin America were key.

I have chosen, from many possible candidates, Ramabai, a convert to Christianity from Hinduism in the late 19th century. She was a teacher and advocate for widows and orphans as well as those of lower castes. Her Mukti Mission underwent an early charismatic revival. She struggled to find an authentically Indian form of the faith. She was revered for her saintliness of life. She was an harbinger of much to come.

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Complete the Race (II Timothy 4:17)

At the end of our vacation we find ourselves in Chicago for its Marathon weekend (the fastest, I have read this morning, perhaps because it is cool and relatively level). Marathons offer many good things. You can see world-class athletes from places like Ethiopia and Kenya. There is a feel of fiesta with signs by family members, getups by some for-fun runners, and food for sale.

But as I looked out my hotel window at 7:30 a.m., I watched the race of competitors who have lost legs or their use. Wheeling vehicles by arm for 26 miles means serious fitness and determination.

Those competitors were to me, this morning, a symbol of the Church too. For each is wounded. The larger family cheers them on. Each by grace has risen up to run the race. Ahead is the goal, the prize, the welcome home. We find the companionship of Jesus the Lord, there, and along the route too.

Amen.

GRS