The Commoditization of Displaced Anger

It fascinates me how there are pockets of the American church, not limited to any one school of thought, where the most popular personalities are celebrated for behaving in ways juxtaposed to the core concepts of personal holiness, communicated in every era of Christian thought. Conservative or liberal, high church or low, charismatic or cessationist, publicly disagree with the wrong person and you will be reviled by them and sacrificed to the their mob of social media sycophants, to be labeled all manner of despicable and irredeemable things. As a grown man hiding behind a picture of a 16th-century theologian with laser beams for eyes types into his phone that you’re “fake and ghey,” while his child sits next to him on the couch, watching Bluey, he does so with the self-assurance that he is in all ways good and that you are the epitome of evil. He is being an Elijah, and you are a prophet of Baal.

Our society has commoditized displaced anger as a cathartic release of existential angst, and, like everything else the world does, we American Christians have to have our own weird and cheaply produced version of it. Look within any theological, and especially religiopolitical, tradition and you will find someone with a podcast and/or largely-followed social media account defining enemies and flinging ad hominems at them, inviting their fans to pile on. I’ve obviously been mobbed many times by Christian Nationalists and their “anon army,” but I’ve also received identical treatment from a very popular progressive podcasting pastor and his personal mob. What was my offense? Insisting that belief in some sort of real, effectual substitutionary atonement by Christ on the cross is required to be an orthodox Christian, and that it wasn’t just “an invitation to join Christ in his sacrifice” (note that I didn’t add “penal,” meaning that even Catholics and Eastern Orthodox share my position). I’ve been mobbed and accused of all manner of despicable things for respectfully disagreeing with the analysis of a popular, mainstream anti-Christian Nationalist writer. I’ve been mobbed by the fans of popular conservative Christian podcasters for saying that it was unchristian of them to mock the physical appearance of people. I’ve even been mobbed for countering the opinion of a popular Christian satirist that we should never apologize to the mob.

There is a sickness in our culture, and the answer for Christians isn’t to join up with it by becoming its Hegelian antithesis. We must refuse synthesis. We must be willing to respectfully rebuke our fellow church members who find their catharsis in the mob, instead of sheepishly looking the other way. We must be willing to stand up for the second greatest commandment, when we see Christian culture turning into one of hate and derision. To do any less is to be ashamed of the gospel.