Dear Class Member,
Two recent events -- a shooting on a university campus and the flying of a plane into a public building -- appear to be anger-driven acts. Innocent people's lives were taken in both cases.
Those events, along with the observation by some commentators that our culture as a whole is becoming more angry, make looking at what the Bible has to say about anger a meaningful exercise. So that will be the topic of our next class.
If you wish to start thinking about our topic in advance, below is some introductory material.
Anger-Driven Acts Take Innocent Lives
The Wired Word for February 28, 2010
In the News
On February 12, Dr. Amy Bishop, a neurobiology professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, pulled a gun at a biology department meeting and opened fire, killing three of her fellow faculty members and wounding three others.
On February 18, Joseph Stack III flew his private plane into a building in Austin, Texas, that housed an office of the Internal Revenue Service. The crash caused an explosion and fire that killed one IRS employee, injured several others and ended Stack's own life.
The two incidents were unrelated, and the perpetrators had no known connection, yet reports of the two crimes include a common theme: anger.
After delving into Bishop's background, The New York Times topped an article about her with this headline: "For professor, fury just beneath the surface." Among the things the article reported about her was that "Her life seemed to veer wildly between moments of cold fury and scientific brilliance, between rage at perceived slights and empathy for her students." In the past, Bishop had shot and killed her brother (which was claimed to be an accident at the time), physically attacked a woman in a restaurant for taking the last child booster seat, and had been questioned in a mail-bomb plot against a doctor at Harvard. On another occasion, she became enraged when, on a paper she coauthored with another professor, her name appeared second.
The shooting at the university may have been a response to Bishop being denied tenure at the school.
Several reports about Bishop suggest she may have a mental disorder, but that makes her rage no less real.
The Times article about Stack's suicide flight into the IRS building reported that in recent weeks, his wife had complained to her parents about her husband's "increasingly frightening anger." It also said that on the night before his airplane attack, she had taken her daughter and gone to a hotel to get away from her husband. Before leaving for his flight, Stack posted online what the article called "a rant" against the government and set the family home on fire.
Although Stack apparently didn't have a history of rage-driven behavior, he did have a longstanding grudge against tax authorities due to personal dealings with the agency. The details of his tax circumstances haven't been reported, and it isn't known what caused him to act against the agency at this particular time.
Anger, a common and basic human emotion, has been a factor in many crimes throughout history. But there seems to be a growing number of anger-driven crimes to cite as examples today, especially of the kind where the perpetrator forfeits -- or at least is prepared to forfeit -- his or her own life.
Quite apart from criminal acts, anger also appears to be on the rise in aspects of life from how we deal with other drivers to how we view politics. One recent newspaper editorial that referred to "our increasingly angry culture" wasn't talking about crime at all but about complaints over snow plowing!
No statistics are available to confirm that anger is more of a factor in life today than in the past, but plenty of examples in the news show the damage that anger-driven behavior can cause.
More on this story can be found at these links:
The Big Questions
Here are some of the questions we will discuss in class:
1. As long as you don't break the law, is expressing your anger, even in a way that might be considered abusive, your right?2. What is the Christian view of anger?3. Anger can be harmful, but it can also be helpful, such as when indignation motivates us to fight injustice. So how do we tell when our anger is righteous and when it isn't? Should all plans that arise from righteous anger be acted on? Why or why not?4. Because anger often has a negative effect on the ability to think clearly, what things can you do to ensure that decisions growing out of anger are appropriate and in keeping with your commitment to follow Jesus?5. In "angry times," do Christians have a greater responsibility to control their anger? Why or why not?
Confronting the News with Scripture
We will look at selected verses from these Scripture texts. You may wish to read these in advance for background:
Psalm 7:9-16Mark 11:11-192 Kings 5:1- 14Ephesians 4:25-32Colossians 3:1-17
In class, we will talk about these passages and look for some insight on the big questions, as well as talk about other questions you may have about this topic. Please join us.
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