Articles - From the Vicar

Anger may sometimes be a good servant; it is seldom a good master. How did the prophet Nathan deal with his anger on seeing how King David had contrived to have Uriah the Hittite killed in battle so that he could marry Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba? Nathan channelled his anger into a parable that eventually caused David to recognise his sinfulness and to repent (2 Samuel, Chs 11 & 12). On the other hand how did Jonah deal with his anger on seeing how God had spared the sinful people of Nineveh when they repented? He became resentful that God had not destroyed Nineveh. Indeed he was so angry that he considered himself better off dead than alive (Jonah, Ch 4). Nathan’s anger served him well but Jonah’s anger got the better of him, becoming destructive and self-defeating.

Over the past few weeks I have come to believe that the attitude of members of the US & UK Governments towards those who hold different views from them over war with Iraq is increasingly similar to the attitude of Jonah: anger has become their master. Members of both administrations seem unwilling to concede that France, Germany or any other nation in ‘old Europe’ has a right to express caution over going to war. American and British rhetoric has become more and more angry. Ultimately such anger, like Jonah’s, is self-defeating because it does not allow room for the necessary moral arguments – both against and in favour of war – to be developed and debated. Christians may differ on the rightness of war with Iraq but we should be united in our desire for a public moral ‘space’ in which to consider the issues, a space that is free from angry assumptions about our motives if we display concern about immediate military action

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