Angry Theologians

A recent column published by Christianity Today asks “Why Are There So Many Angry Theologians?” The author is Ronni Kurtz, assistant professor of theology at Baptist-related Cedarville University. Before proceeding to read my response, read the essay. You can find it by using key words. I did.

An understandable problem with Professor Kurtz’s column is the lack of identification of any angry theologian. But I don’t doubt that many theologians are angry at or about something. The question is, is such anger justified? Are there cases of justified anger among theologians?

One reason I care is that I suspect some of my readers here (and others) think I may fit Professor Kurtz’s description of an “angry theologian.” In fact, just recently, one here accused me of being “irascible.” I had to look that up. It means “quick to become angry.” I accept that description IF it means that I am quick to become angry when someone misrepresents what I have said or written and I suspect that was intentional.

But the deeper question I have for Professor Kurtz is about biblical “theologians” and even Jesus. And post-apostolic theologians. Haven’t prophets and apostles and great Christian theologians displayed justified anger? It seems so to me.

Do I need to give examples from the Bible itself? Jesus’s cleansing of the temple, Paul’s wish that the Judaizers in the Galatian churches would castrate themselves (Galatians 5:12), Paul’s separation from Barnabus over a disagreement (Acts 15), numerous other examples (to say nothing of the Old Testament prophets such as Elijah!). In Ephesians Paul says to “be angry but sin not….” (4:26). Yes, he goes on to say not to let the sun go down on your wrath, but what to feel and do when a person does not repent? In 1 Corinthians Paul orders the church to expel a member, even to turn him over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh!

After the New Testament, after Jesus and the apostles, we come to angry theologians such as Irenaeus writing five books against heresies (late 2nd century). Was his anger against the gnostics justified? If you think he wasn’t angry, you haven’t read “Adversus Haereses.” How about Athanasius and Arius and the Arians? Need I go on? I could mention numerous Christian theologians throughout history who were angry. Augustine against Pelagius and the Donatists. Luther against the indulgence sellers and die Schwermer.” I could go on and on.

My question to Professor Kurtz is this: Isn’t being angry part of a theologian’s job—when he or she is confronted with rank heresy that is bold and powerful?

A story. When I taught at Oral Roberts University I was angry after many chapel “services.” I was angry when Oral claimed from the pulpit that his grandson wouldn’t have died days after being born if The City of Faith had a birthing suite. He said that he stood over the infant as it died and felt Satan come into the room and take his life. There sat his daughter-in-law on the platform, just days after giving birth, looking dismayed and very upset.

Another story. A special speaker in ORU chapel preached loudly that “You can’t be a good witness for Jesus from a wheelchair.” There were several students in the audience in wheelchairs. An angry theologian dared to stand up and contradict him. The speaker was a well-known television evangelist and promoter of the “health and wealth gospel.” He boasted on television of having several Rolls Royces given to him by God. Shouldn’t a theologian be angry?

I became angry when a Christian publication put out an issue in which almost every article seriously misrepresented Arminian theology. I am angry whenever I encounter a “Christian” cult that promotes heresy and uses spiritual abuse to recruit and keep members. I was angry when I heard Rev. Sun Myung Moon speak. I was angry when Rev. John McArthur held an anti-Pentecostal, anti-charismatic conference called “Strange Fire” at which speaker after speaker blasted a whole segment of fellow Christians.

In a world filled with “Christian” heretics, cultists, liberal theologians who deny Jesus’s deity and resurrection, fundamentalish ministers and leaders who knowingly misrepresent me and other evangelical Christians…I think anger is justified.

During the “open theism controversy” that raged among American theologians throughout the 1990s and the first decade of this century I heard and read many theologians knowingly misrepresent open theism as, for example, process theology. It made me angry. Shouldn’t it have made me angry?

I get angry when I hear or read people calling the substitutionary atonement of Christ “divine child abuse”—without making clear they do not believe Jesus was God voluntarily suffering for us and in our place.

One of the most irenic theologian I ever knew was the saintly Donald G. Bloesch and yet he expressed real anger in at least one of his books about the Trinity and how some feminist theologians (and others) were undermining it.

I wish Professor Kurtz had been more specific about anger among theologians. Is it ever justified? If so, when, under what circumstances? Surely Professor Kurtz doesn’t think it is never justified (?).

I would argue that every theologian should be angry about some things, especially rank and rampant heresies filtering in among the brothers and sisters, often being taught openly by television evangelists and others. I would argue that every theologian should be angry about blatant misrepresentations of other theologians’ (and preachers’ and Christian writers’) beliefs—especially when those doing the misrepresentation have every reason to know better.

I would like to see a follow up essay/column by Professor Kurtz explaining more about angry theologians and when, if ever, they are justified in being angry. I can’t imagine that anyone who knows the Bible and church history things anger on the part of “theologians” (including prophets and apostles) is never justified.

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