Anger: A Dangerous National Blindness

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored 

than to anything on which it is poured. (Mark Twain)

I'm MAD!  We need to kick the bums out. 

I don't trust the monster big government has become. 

I'm tired of all the Washington intrusion in our lives and what they've done to my country!

NOW -- Which one of the candidates out there agrees with my mad-ness. That's who I'm voting for!!!!!

Makes sense, doesn't it. Why not? 

Shouldn't my anger at Washington make me single issue voter this time around?

 

Okay, I'm not really a fan of Buddha, but he  said, "Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned."

You can always expect a certain level of frustration every four years when we hold national elections. It's always a bit of a circus. But I've been observing the most interesting phenomenon in this national election year.

There's an anger bordering on rage blindness in the conservative arena which concerns me greatly. I've heard people -- with conservative, godly, well-defined morals -- willing to make exceptions to (overlook, close-their-eyes-to, ignore) the character of candidates who tells them what they want to hear. If you begin to question the moral and behavorial inconsistances in the one who most stokes their anger, they begin to verbally sound like two of the three "hear no evil, see no evil monkeys."

One of the leading candidates has successfully split the support of evangelical and Charasmatic Christian vote in several of the southern states. The baggage of his history holds multiple marriages, a history of using the legal system for bankruptcy to default on his debts, he swears freely at his campaign rallies, he'll toss legal suits at opponents like temper tantrums, he's pro-choice one year but not the year he wants the conservative vote, etc, etc, etc.  

But his supporters are so riled up they don't see a pattern of behavior -- only today's promise if he grabs the brass ring of the White House for them.

I am the next generation who's parents faced the consequences of a national election fueled by anger, but ignoring their leader's character. It was in another country almost 90 years ago, distant enough that most voters today are ignorant the consequences.

Their national leadership had promised change that would make them leaders of the world. But the bloated government was in shambles. Over six million were unemployed. The film and entertainment industry was filled with nudity and perversion. Economic and moral depression gripped the nation after the War-to-End-All-Wars. Protestants and Catholics alike were praying for spiritual revival for their country.

And then . . . a voice arose - a voice who appealed to their frustrations and rallied their anger. So thirsty for someone to follow, Milton Meyer, in his book They Thought They Were Free, made the important observation: the movement “came as an “angel of light” and the “Christians…welcomed him as a gift from God.” His followers were seen as puritanism to the majority who were sick of perversion and license parading as liberty.

Would you rally behind someone who promised to get rid of pornography and perversion in our society? What if he or she promised to restore a moral vision and hope to our young people? 

And if this person was a strong voice for God against the corruption and deceit within the smoke filled rooms of our nation and state capitals? Could you stand behind this voice if they claimed we could be a God-blessed nation again through full employment, eliminate national debt and our currency the envy of the World.

And what if this could be accomplished, with claims of God’s blessing, in four years or less?

Most of the churches were so appreciative of his moral house cleaning they called him a Messiah. He was able to use the church to springboard his way onto the national stage into power. Because they wanted the right things, they didn’t discern the spirit of the one who had come to give them those things.

This “Messiah” did deliver as promised. By 1938, full employment, genuine job security, and a robust industrial economy. His youth movement almost eradicated immorality and rebellion, and “gave such vision and purpose to the youth that they were the envy of the world."

The country was Germany. The angry, elected Messiah . . . Adolf Hitler.

Of course, not all German Christians were deceived by the spirit of Nazism. There were a few such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer who stood courageously against that diabolical power, but the over whelming majority of Christians were blinded by it because of a lack of discernment. 

Sadly, I'm hearing a lot of Americans who are willing to check their character-discernment at the door as long as their political anger is stoked and promises made to get their vote at the ballot box. 

Perhaps Louis L'Amour said it well, "Anger is a killing thing: it kills the man who angers, for each rage leaves him less than he had been before - it takes something from him."  

The books of the Psalms and the Proverbs in the Bible are filled with caution about association with angry, wrathful people. Angry is such a common emotion, easily caught and passed on faster than the flu virus. 

Unfortunately, the national ballot box is not the place to stuff with character-blindness. 

He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: 

but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly. (Proverbs 14:29)