From 2007-2010, I worked as a billing clerk for a trucking company, R+L Carriers. For the first several months, I was stationed at the Wilmington, Ohio headquarters. One of only two male billing clerks in the department, the other guy was a huge fan of Insane Clown Posse. We didn’t talk much.
A Christian heavy metal group called Demonhunter in particular paired well back then with commuting on my motorcycle until they gave me permission to work remotely from home. It was like a dose of masculinity offsetting what otherwise felt just a touch effeminate about what I did for a living - not least because my dad and one of my brothers-in-law were truck drivers there.
Yet the older I get, the less sustainable the intensity of Demonhunter feels. For one, I think this is because I’m getting more easily tired the older I get. For another, I realize more the older I get that greater carefulness is needed in addressing complex, high-stakes situations and issues. More than intense emotion is required of me.
Still, every now and then, I turn on this heavy stuff as a kind of palate cleanser, especially if an opposite sentiment like meekness, gentleness, kindness, patience seems as though it’s been stressed overmuch in recent engagements.
But I also think of where James says we should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. And I’m just not convinced a steady diet of angry music is any more helpful than committing to a steady diet of some other sentimental fare.
Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes that there is a time and season for everything under heaven. That includes – to my mind, at least – a time to get angry and make just war. But that doesn’t mean you want to become the theological equivalent of a Norseman berserker, unable to distinguish friend from foe, swinging wildly in all directions just because there’s a war on.
The same holds true for other sentimental imbalances. I'm reminded of a line from John Reuben’s album ‘The Boy vs. The Cynic.’
“And entertainers sing of extremes that don't exist for you and me.”
Where James says the anger of man does not bring about the righteous life God desires, we do well to consider whether other emotional states do. I mean this as a sincere question. All the while, I suspect the answer is in the negative.
We clearly are emotional beings. God made us that way. There's no sense apologizing for it. Moreover, I believe our being emotional is part of what it means that we are created in His image. So setting a goal of showing no emotion is not good. Instead, our goal should be to feel the appropriate emotion for each situation based on what is good and true.
If I’m right about that, we should guard our hearts. We should take regular inventory of the emotions we’re feeling and being influenced to feel – by music, imagery, words, relationships, décor, festivities, press releases, the news cycle, and even by God’s Word.
Just like we should be weighing whether we are thinking rightly about God and one another, or any other object or event, we should also be weighing whether we are feeling rightly.
This holds true even of the recent book by Sinclair Ferguson I read, 'The Whole Christ,' concerned with, as the subtitle says, 'Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance—Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters.'
It's not hard to see how emotions ran high where discussions of the proper order of operations discussing the Law, Grace, Works, Salvation, and the Gospel were concerned. Controversy arose in relation to the pseudonymously published work by a certain E.F., titled 'The Marrow of Modern Divinity.'
Yet all the more rather than less, works like this can prove instructive regarding the need not only to keep close watch over our doctrine and conduct, but also to regulate our emotional responses to ideas, works, and disagreement about the same.
