Christian counselor Brad Hambrick talks about how we deal with our own fury in heated times.
Brad Hambrick oversees counseling ministries at Summit Church, a North Carolina church with 14 campuses and about 13,000 in attendance. He also teaches biblical counseling at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of books like Angry with God.
How do you distinguish between good and bad anger?
All anger says two things: “This is wrong, and it matters.” In the interpersonal space, sinful anger says a third thing: “This is wrong, and it matters more than you.” I can be right about the first two: “You shouldn’t have done that, and it’s important.” But when I’m willing to sin against you, then just because my prompt is theologically and morally accurate, that doesn’t mean my expression of anger is righteous. When you move toward social media and politics, in many ways, the “you” either becomes very far off or very ambiguous. People feel a lot more freedom to vent or to rage because they don’t really see a person. They just feel a cause.
Where do you see destructive anger?
Anger shows up most in private settings. If somebody is blowing up at Walmart, their regulation and social filters have deteriorated significantly.
We want to use an oversimplified test for righteous anger. “If I’m right, and it matters, this is okay. Tell me where I’m wrong.” Usually when we’re in that righteous anger spot, we love Jesus turning over tables in the temple. That’s what we feel like we’re doing.
And if you look in Matthew 21, after Jesus is finished turning over the tables, it says, “The blind and the lame came to him.” In my mind’s eye, when I think about Jesus in the temple, he’s just …