Anger, Anger, Anger

I, like many of you, have been shocked at the expressions of unbridled anger that have appeared in the news recently. Over the last few weeks, we have seen at least 2 videos meant for You-Tube that captured young women beating mercilessly other young women. In the most prominent of those videos, something like 8 teenage girls cornered and pummeled another of their peers because of some petty thing she had done or said about them on-line. The video is extremely difficult to watch, because it shows these young girls--just oozing with hatred--absolutely wearing out another young girl, all the while 2 young men "guarded" the door and prevented others from coming to the victim's rescue. In the other video, an Arizona teen actually picked up a metal folding chair and struck a school mate in the head with such force and venom that it knocked her flat.

What are we to say about these things? Well, on the one hand, I would say that we must all realize that anger is nothing new. It has been around since at least the time when Cain killed Abel. The Bible says that ALL people, without exception, are sinful. And each of these videos is a case in point to prove the Bible's claim. People have not changed. We are just as sinful as we have been since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. What has changed is the EXPRESSION of our sinfulness. We now have much greater technology available with which to express our sin. In the first of the abovementioned cases, for instance, it is unlikely that the episode would have happened at all had the internet not existed--or, if it had happened, it probably would not have happened to the extent that it did, and we probably would not have heard about it like we have.

How anyone could watch those videos and not see a problem is beyond me. I would be willing to bet that even the most hardened atheist or agnostic--though I have not spoken with any about this--would still say that what those videos depict is wrong, even downright evil. Of course, that kind of an admission presents an opportunity that Christians ought never let slip by, because, you see, the atheist or agnostic has NO grounds whatsoever upon which to make that claim. The atheist or agnostic has no grounds to say that what these girls have done is wrong. The most that such atheists or agnostics could say is that what these girls have done is not what they themselves would choose to do under similar circumstances.

Let me explain why I say this. In order for atheists or agnostics to be able to say that what these girls have done is "wrong," they have to assume that there is such a thing as "wrongness." And, in order for there to be such a thing as "wrongness," there would also have to be such a thing as "rightness." Wrongness would make no sense and could not exist without there being such a thing as rightness. The existence of wrongness necessarily implies the existence of rightness (the former being the absence or the obverse of the latter).

And if "wrongness" and "rightness" exist, then there would also have to be some sort of STANDARD by which to differentiate the one from the other. We have no way of labeling a certain action as "right" or "wrong" without some sort of standard to tell us that that action is "right" and a different action is "wrong." So, the existence of "wrongness" in the world demands the existence of a standard of right and wrong.

And if there is a standard of right and wrong, then there would also have to be a STANDARD-GIVER, someone who has given the standard to us, someone who transcends us. That someone could not be one of us (a fellow human being), because then that standard would just be "his" or "her" opinion and could not apply to every single one of us universally. This transcendent standard-giver is the very thing that atheists do not believe in and that agnostics don't know for certain exists.

For us to be able to pronounce what these girls have done as "WRONG," which I hope that we all would do, requires us to believe that the God of the Bible exists and has spoken His standards to us.

But, not only so--and this is far more important--these two news events also proclaim the human need for a SAVIOR or REDEEMER. Those of us who would watch these videos and only see what these girls have done need to look into our own hearts and see the same basic roots of anger and sin that are/were present in these young girls. We are not any better than they are, are we? We may not express our anger/sin in the same way that they did (let's hope not, anyway), but the anger/sin is still there, isn't it? Just because the expression of our sin is different, more socially acceptable, doesn't mean that we are basically OKAY and that they are BAD. The same anger/sin that led them to beat these poor girls leads us to do something different. The expression is different (thankfully) but the heart is still the same, still oozing with anger.

Jesus came into the world and died on the cross not just to clean up the expressions of our sins, to make them more socially acceptable. Jesus came into the world and died on the cross to clean up our hearts, to give us new hearts, hearts that are filled with joy rather than anger.

That is the solution--the only solution--not just for these young girls, but for each one of us. We all need Christ. That's what these videos teach us.