Article: It's Time to Embrace Feminism's Anger

[yeshuaslavejeff]

"Healthy" Scriptural Anger: Ephesians 4:6 (Expanded Greek)
Wuest: Be constantly angry with a righteous indignation, and stop sinning. Do not allow the sun to go down upon your irritated, exasperated, embittered anger. (Eerdmans)

 

[bekkilyn]

Please quote or reference ANY post in ANY thread on ANY forum that says that women are sub-human, etc ... (as a basis for your "please note")

Just read any thread that includes women in the topic.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Just read any thread that includes women in the topic.

I've read maybe hundreds, and didn't see anything like you mentioned. That's why I asked - for verification/ integrity of purpose.

Saw more, in fact, against men than against women. Maybe rightly so, but each must be tested, checked, compared with Scripture before accepting.

 

[archer75]

I'm really sorry about your experience, archer.



I don't know? I can't speak for that exact circumstance, but I know there have been plenty of occasions in my life where I've been acutely aware that I wouldn't have been treated as badly if I were a man. I don't think it's wrong to notice or articulate that.

I mean, there are times when someone treating you badly makes it explicit and clear that it's about gender ("Women don't belong in science" (my first degree was in science), or "It's not appropriate for a young woman to do this job," or "It isn't the right time now to add a female in [role].") There are other times when people don't explicitly state that it's about gender, but you know that a man in that position wouldn't be treated in the same way, or face the same criticisms for the same behaviour. Pointing that out can be a valid part of analysing what is being done wrong, actually.

This is all fair, Paidiske. Maybe I was making a distinction that was inappropriate. I think you're right.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

It has always been difficult to learn how, or to teach how, or to find out how
to be righteously angry and sin not, for men and for women.
"Always" at least for many I know or met. (and myself).

Oh, there's a log of anger in many places... and if with lack of self control,
or with injustice, or as or in or with punishment , it can be or rather is very disturbing. And it takes patience, understanding and time to learn what is right in line with Scripture. I don't remember ever seeing anyone "teach" this in any group(s) or assemblies. (Only a few individuals , step by step, caring and prayerful)

 

[Dave-W]

I was talking with my wife earlier. She has expressed some frustration with me for not being more “assertive,” and said it made for some economic hard times when the kids were young. I asked her if her Sunday school ever taught the “JOY = Jesus, Others, then You.” She said it was mentioned once or twice but never developed or even repeated. In my congregation it was drilled home with a “Jesus, 2 billion OTHERS, and then yourself.” So any anger was taught as trying to put self ahead of someone else.

“Be angry but sin not” never made sense in that context. It always seemed to be missing a leading DON’T.

If I got it that bad as a guy, I can only imagine how much worse the girls got it.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

I was talking with my wife earlier. She has expressed some frustration with me for not being more “assertive,” and said it made for some economic hard times when the kids were young. I asked her if her Sunday school ever taught the “JOY = Jesus, Others, then You.” She said it was mentioned once or twice but never developed or even repeated. In my congregation it was drilled home with a “Jesus, 2 billion OTHERS, and then yourself.” So any anger was taught as trying to put self ahead of someone else.

“Be angry but sin not” never made sense in that context. It always seemed to be missing a leading DON’T.

If I got it that bad as a guy, I can only imagine how much worse the girls got it.

Have you since then ever seen Biblical (right) 'anger' taught ?
How to be rightly angry anywhere at all ? (and how not to sin with anger)

Even studying specifically in the Bible when Jesus and Yahweh were angry - seeing WHO and WHAT they were angry at, what the Bible says about this ?

 

[Dave-W]

Even studying specifically in the Bible when Jesus and Yahweh were angry - seeing WHO and WHAT they were angry at, what the Bible says about this ?

They could get angry since they are God and God does not have human fallen flesh to be sinfully angry.

I have been told by some that being angry without sin is possible and even expected at times (especially during grieving the loss of someone close) Not sure if i believe that or not. The only way I could possibly see that happening is if it is so bottled up inside that no one, not even those closest to you, can tell you are angry.

Not good at that.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

The only way I could possibly see that happening is if it is so bottled up inside that no one, not even those closest to you, can tell you are angry.

short fast note: this is both sin, and harmful to one's own self, and to others, especially if in the body of Christ this happens.

 

[Dave-W]

short fast note: this is both sin, and harmful to one's own self, and to others, especially if in the body of Christ this happens.

I can understand the “harmful to self,” if one believes psychology, which most of evangelicalism does NOT; but you will have to show me chapter and verse SPECIFICALLY saying it is sinful for me to believe that.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

I can understand the “harmful to self,” if one believes psychology, which most of evangelicalism does NOT; but you will have to show me chapter and verse SPECIFICALLY saying it is sinful for me to believe that.

I didn't even think of that possibility, that it is sin for you to believe something.....
have to lay that in prayer before Yahweh to let Him reveal this.

Don't even get started in psychology - worldly man's ways are altogether cursed by Yahweh, anyone who trusts in man/men/flesh/ carnal/ is cursed by Yahweh Himself He Says Clearly.

 

[PloverWing]

I asked her if her Sunday school ever taught the “JOY = Jesus, Others, then You.”

I was thinking about that! Yes, we learned that acronym in Sunday School. There was a song:

Jesus and Others and You, what a wonderful way to spell JOY.
Jesus and Others and You, in the life of each girl and each boy.
J is for Jesus, for he has first place.
O is for Others we meet face to face.
Y is for You and whatever you do.
Put yourself last and spell JOY.

(Anybody else sing that in Sunday School?)

When I was a kid, the song seemed fine. Put yourself last, yep, that's what we're supposed to do. And maybe it was a fine message for my 8-year-old self, a corrective to natural human selfishness. But now that I'm an adult, the song seems more sinister. In everyday family relationships, for example, I'm always supposed to yield to other people's preferences? In the workplace, I'm never supposed to assert my own needs and rights?

"Love your neighbor as yourself" is an important message: Recognize that other people are every bit as much children of God as you are, and recognize their needs as being as important as your own. But going farther, loving your neighbor 10 times as much as yourself, isn't as healthy as I thought it was when I was 8.

I'll note that we're no longer in gender-specific territory. The song could encourage boys and girls alike to erase themselves, if they're of a particularly receptive temperament.

 

[Dave-W]

"Love your neighbor as yourself" is an important message:

That was replaced by. “Love one another as I have loved you.” (after all, how good is “love your neighbor as yourself” when you are suicidal??)

IOW, you die to self - all of your own desires and needs. And the only “right” you have is to lay down your rights.

Anyway, that is how I was taught.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

How many times did Jesus in the NT (and Yahweh in OT plus always) tell the disciples TO DO something, and more specifically like "what others do is no concern of yours" you "DO as your Father has told you to DO".... DOing, not just HEARing Him.
This is true for everyone, women, men and children,
and
it is always what is best to DO. Yahweh doesn't make mistakes nor ever slip up in His directions to men, women or children (or angels above the earth and on earth or below the earth, wherever - Yahweh doesn't make mistakes, ever).

 

[Paidiske]

Sometimes I think it was a positive benefit in my life that I came into the church as an adult and didn't pick up a bunch of wrong-headed ideas in Sunday school.

I can understand the “harmful to self,” if one believes psychology, which most of evangelicalism does NOT; but you will have to show me chapter and verse SPECIFICALLY saying it is sinful for me to believe that.

That it is sinful for you to harm yourself, or that it is sinful not to express anger?

Tell me, Dave, if your emotions are buttoned down so tightly that nobody except you even knows that you're feeling them... is that honest? Does it help your relationships if you never communicate deeply about how things make you feel?

 

[bekkilyn]

If I was ever taught the JOY song in Sunday School, I don't remember it. Only Joy to the World and the Ren & Stimpy Happy Happy Joy Joy song come to mind.

You have to at least *have* a self in order to be able to make a choice to lay it down for someone else. Also if you abuse yourself to the extent that you grow physically, mentally, and spiritually weak, you won't have the ability to help others. It's an extreme that I believe to be as sinful as extreme narcissism as both are overly focused on self.

 

[Dave-W]

That it is sinful for you to harm yourself, or that it is sinful not to express anger?

Tell me, Dave, if your emotions are buttoned down so tightly that nobody except you even knows that you're feeling them... is that honest? Does it help your relationships if you never communicate deeply about how things make you feel?

I took as meaning to express anger, but I wanted him to clarify.

I am not sure if I would sat it is honest or not; and I was raised to never talk about feelings. It has only been after turning 50 that I even considered doing that. So the last 10 years have been trying to adjust to that. Still not good at it.

 

[Paidiske]

Healing is a lifelong journey (and not completed in this lifetime, either).

But with what you've shared about how you were raised, I don't have any hesitation in saying the messages you absorbed then were neither normal nor healthy. I am glad to see that you are adjusting.

 

[Sam91]

I don't feel we as Christians should encourage anger. Ephesians 4:31 warns us against it. Philippians 4:8 tells us where we should be looking.

Paul's message to the Churches wasn't about activism and angrily speaking out.

I think the Micah verse in my signature puts it well. Instead of being angry isn't it better to love and do justice and uphold a better way with all humility and kindness but with a solid conviction that dominating another human is wrong. So is favouring one person over another. James 2:8-9

 

[Paidiske]

I don't think anger and love are mutually exclusive.

I was reading something recently about Sojourner Truth, and a situation where she was going to speak in a particular place, and there was a threat that the building would be burned down if she spoke there. Her response to the threat was to say, "Then I will speak upon the ashes."

It struck me that on the one hand, that was a statement of incredible defiance; burn it down, I will speak anyway! But on the other hand, it was the promise of the potential for reconciliation. I will speak anyway. I will put words out there that might build a bridge between you and me and allow us to go forward with a renewed relationship; that might repair what is broken and restore what is lost.

The bold claim that "I will speak upon the ashes," I am certain, was not devoid of anger. Sojourner Truth did not speak without anger, from the records I've found. But it was also not devoid of love.

Anger is not the same as domination, either.