James and the Modern World
By Rev. David Wilson Rogers | May 30, 2015
Someone has an encounter with the police. For whatever reasons, tensions flare, hostilities rage, and shots are fired. Someone dies, and someone else is caught in the crossfire of a hostile public debate over the legitimacy or outrageous character of the killing. Tempers flare, and the war of words begins. There is rage at the insensitivity and questionable moral character of the shooter. Others retaliate at disreputable nature of the one who was shot. In angry rhetoric, both sides unleash a triumphant tirade of emboldened disdain for the ignorant people who disagree.
There are those who rail against the poor. Branding them as lazy, they angrily create caricatures of pathetic leeches that drain from the good of society and drag down the overall quality of our culture and nation. In response, there are those who blame the system and its inherent inequality for creating poverty has an unrelenting cycle of punitive destruction brought upon those less fortunate by those with wealth and power. In fits of absolute self-righteousness both sides seek to repudiate the ignorance of those who disagree.
As cultural, religious, and traditional assumptions shift in the modern society. Many defiantly playing to the time honored assumptions of the past while bitterly blaming the problems of the presence on those who would reject traditional values. In contrast angry reprisals of vehement protest or levied against those who hide in the nostalgia of what once was, without honestly acknowledging the great problems and calamities of the past. Equally convinced of how wrong the other side is, both raise fists of anger at all those who do not view the past with equal interpretation.
In writing to the early church. The Apostle James takes a bold and prophetic word across time that speaks to American culture today. “Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.”
In a rapidly changing culture where people are quick to polarize on absolute sides of any given social, religious, economic, or political issue, it is vital that Christians heed these important words of Scripture. It is unfortunately, a great problem with much of modern Christianity today. Each of us, convinced of our own righteousness in the theological worldview we have formed, can be very quick to denounce other ideas that we personally and morally find offensive.
In all reality, there is a good chance that we are right. The question becomes, does our anger— born of our sense of righteousness and religious priority— produce God’s righteousness? James continues by saying that as Christians we are to rid ourselves of “all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness.” As followers of Jesus Christ, it is important that we follow his example and “welcome, with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save” our souls.
In addressing the conflicts and disputes that permeate the Church, James addresses the fundamental driving force behind so much of what divides Christian against Christian, denomination against denomination, and religious tradition against religious tradition. It is rooted in cravings at war within us. Desires to dominate and control or pursue a life that satisfies our selfish needs take root within our Christian faith. Out of that deceitful route grows an unholy distortion of religious fervor that chokes out the beauty of God’s grace, Christ’s humility, and the Spirit’s compassion. The message of James is not only God’s Word, but it is also powerful wisdom that has the ability to not only save our lives, but also our nation. Will we heed?