Reading for Preaching
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
In October of 1981 Ayman al-Zawahiri was picked up by Egyptian authorities on suspicion of complicity in the terrorist assassination of Egypt’s Anwar Sadat. Sadat had been the object of rage from militant Muslims who deeply resented his friendship with the West and his peace efforts with Israel. After the assassination, Egyptian authorities imprisoned Zawahiri...
“Anger,” in Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’S of Faith
“Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving...
Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith
Trust God’s anger. It’s generally against really bad oppression of the poor (think Isaiah, Amos, Micah). And it really heats up when people oppress the poor and then go to church and get pious. Our own anger is dangerous, less trustworthy, more apt to be built upon fear, and to express itself meanly or self-righteously....
The Chosen
“I sat there stunned and terrified, engulfed by his rage. His reaction had caught me so completely by surprise that I had quite literally stopped breathing, and now I found myself gasping for breath. I felt as if I were being consumed by flames. The silence that followed his outburst had a fungus quality to...
“You are Nasty and I am Nice: Angles on Anger”
passim: Anger focuses on the offender, finds him culpable, wants to hurt him at least a little, finds him somewhat repulsive at least for a time, and sees oneself (or assumes oneself) in a position to judge. Loving people have love as their ‘default’ position, and have a hair trigger for it, but like the...
Preaching Connection: Anger