Charles Brammall
“Our God is a consuming fire.”
- Heb 12:29
We live 5 minutes from the Sydney suburb of Oatlands. Oatlands couple Danny and Leila Abdallah made headlines globally for their public forgiveness towards the driver who struck and killed three of their children and their niece, at Oatlands in February 2020. They stated that they chose to forgive the driver to avoid carrying anger and to protect their other children from a life of bitterness.
The Abdallahs lost Antony (13), Angelina (12), and Sienna (8), and their niece Veronique Sakr (11), when an out-of-control, heavily intoxicated driver mounted the footpath in Oatlands. Despite the unimaginable loss, the Abdallahs consistently relied on their Maronite Catholic faith to find peace.
Their public statements on forgiveness gained widespread attention, leading to the creation of the annual i4give Foundation and i4give Day, encouraging communities to reflect on forgiveness and family relationships:
I heard them speak at the National Prayer Breakfast in Parliament House some years ago: “Forgiveness is like a muscle; you need to keep building it. It taught us about not giving up and that life doesn’t stop no matter what. I (Danny) think in my heart to forgive him, but I want the court to be fair. It’s all about fairness. I’m not going to hate him, because that’s not who we are.”
Following the tragedy, Danny even chose to meet the driver in prison to personally tell him that he was forgiven, emphasising that forgiveness provided him and his wife with healing and peace. Anger?
* * * *
On a cold October morning in 2006, a husband walked into a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. His name was Charles Carl Roberts IV. He ordered the boys and adults to leave and tied up ten little Amish girls. Before taking his own life, he shot every one of them.
Five died.
The world reacted as the world always reacts (and rightly so)- horrified, grief-stricken, angry. TV cameras soon turned away from the crime scene and towards the families. Reporters expected outrage, demands for justice, and revenge.
Instead, they found something utterly baffling, to ALMOST everyone. Even before the gunman had been buried, members of the Amish community were filmed walking to his widow’s home, but not a lynch mob with pitchforks. No white hoods, or to protest or threaten- but to comfort her. Several of them attended Roberts’ funeral.
An Amish grandfather whose granddaughter had been murdered quietly told the killer’s family, “We must not think evil of this man.” Really?! But was he not a heinous sinner? Others established a charitable fund for Roberts’ widow and children.
Commentators globally said the community’s forgiveness and love were unbelievable. Some described it as beautiful, others as dangerous. Many saw it as psychologically unhealthy, nay, even morally evil.
Still others accused the Amish of trivialising justice.
Yet almost nobody asked the deeper question: How can people absorb such anger without denying either justice or love? And that question lies near the heart of Christianity. Not simply because Christians are commanded to forgive. But because the entire Christian story is about anger:
Our anger at God. His anger at our rebellion, rejection of His authority, and declaration of autonomy from Him. The anger of Satan, the anger of nations, and the anger poured upon (and willingly received by), Jesus. The anger He refused to return, and the anger buried in the tomb. The anger conquered by resurrection, and the anger finally entrusted to the enthroned King, who alone is worthy to judge.
Ironically, many Christians scarcely notice this. We imagine the Bible contrasts the angry God of the Old Testament with the loving Jesus of the New. Nothing could be further from the truth. The God who became flesh as a suckling infant is exactly the God who thundered from Sinai. The Lamb who welcomes little ones is also the Rider whose robe is dipped in blood. The One who wept over Jerusalem is also the Judge before whom every tyrant will one day tremble.
And the Bible never apologises for God’s anger- nor does it celebrate ours. And that distinction changes everything.
Anger’s Bad Reputation:
Ask almost anyone today whether anger is good or bad, and the answer usually comes quickly: Bad. Always bad. Therapists encourage clients to “process” anger, and schools teach children to “manage” it. Governments fund anger-management programmes, and employers require awareness training in it. Parents apologise for becoming angry, churches preach against it, and social media monetises it.
Meanwhile, almost all of us REMAIN angry. The contradiction is astonishing. Never has the world population condemned anger more loudly, and never have we seemed more addicted to it. Just drive on the road for a hour and you’ll experience it in spades. Sometimes from ourselves.
Sociologist Jonathan Haidt has argued that social media rewards moral outrage because outrage attracts attention. Attention becomes influence, influence becomes money, and entire industries now profit from perpetual indignation. It’s big business. A great money spinner. The invisible multinational multi-million dollar conglomerate.
Meanwhile, psychiatrists increasingly recognise that anger is rarely a primary emotion. The late psychiatrist Aaron Beck observed that anger often grows from perceived injustice or humiliation. From fear or loss. Beneath the clenched fist frequently lies a wounded heart.
That insight is hardly new. Nearly sixteen centuries earlier, Augustine of Hippo described anger as “love that has become disordered”. We become furious because something we cherish has been threatened— our reputation, family, or comfort; our possessions, ambitions or idols.
Even the pagan philosopher Aristotle recognised the complexity: “Anybody can become angry— that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way— that is not easy.”
Remarkably, Scripture would largely agree. The Bible never teaches that all anger is sinful. Nor does it teach that all anger is righteous. Instead, it asks an entirely different question: Whose anger is this? That question matters, because anger always reveals, surprisingly… worship.
Eden Peaceful
The opening pages of Genesis contain something remarkable: there is no anger. No irritation, resentment, or bitterness. No sarcasm, passive aggression, or score-keeping. No emotional manipulation, covetousness, or revenge. None. Whatsoever. The good life. Edenic in fact. The first human emotion recorded after creation is wonder. Then delight, then companionship.
Then shame. And only after rebellion comes blame. Adam blames Eve. Eve blames the Tempter/Liar. And none of them blames themself. Human anger begins not with shouting, but with self-justification. Every marriage and relationship counsellor knows this. Every parent knows it, every pastor knows this, and every sinner knows it.
The first explosion of anger comes in Gen 4: Cain burns white hot with vituperative fury because God rejects his sacrifice. But I often overlook the remarkable tenderness of God’s response. He doesn’t immediately condemn Cain, but reasons with him, chats with him. He’s a good listener, an active listener. (On the flip side of that [and complementary to it], our tag line at Artarmon Community Church [our entertainment church], was “Listening to the Speaking God”.)
But God listened, and then gently said to Cain: “Why are you furious? And why do you look despondent? If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” (Gen 4:6–7)
What an extraordinary image: sin is not sleeping. It is crouching. Like a lion. Waiting. Biding its time. In the doorway. Concealed by shadows. The apex predator.
Last week I was within a metre and half of a gigantic Sumatran Tiger at a zoo (separated by double strengthened glass). Its head was gargantuan- as big as a large medicine ball.
It roared.
I was shocked, and afraid.
NOTHING, is like the raw of a tiger. You could hear it 100s metres away on the other side of the zoo.
Someone familiar with lions once said that when you’re in the savannah you sometimes hear a noise that you THINK is lion. But when you hear a real lion you know for SURE that’s what it is. No mistaking it.
Sin is that lion. But silent. Far more terrifying than one you can hear approaching.
So God warns Cain (and us). And His warning is profoundly compassionate. Cain is not yet beyond rescue. But he refuses. And soon Abel’s blood shouts, screams, bellows, from the ground. So the first murder began with wounded pride.
History has changed remarkably little. Every genocide, every domestic assault, every church schism. Every road-rage incident, every family feud, and every awful divorce (and every divorce is awful). Every social media pile-on, every king hit sucker punch: Wounded pride. Somewhere behind them lies a Cain who believed he had been wronged.
The Bible’s diagnosis is devastating: our greatest danger is not that we become angry. It is that we start to believe that our anger is morally pure, simply because it feels justified. And illusion has destroyed kingdoms. It also destroys marriages…
(Part 2 will explore God’s anger in the OT, overlooked Hebrew vocabulary for wrath, and why His anger is an expression of holy love rather than divine irritability. Also, how every scriptural thread regarding anger leads inexorably to Calvary, where God’s justice and mercy meet, and mercy triumphs over justice.)
To be continued…
Image: From “The Creation of the Heavenly Bodies,” one of Michelangelo’s nine Books of Genesis frescoes on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.