Ty Cobb, the Wrath of God, and the Power of Fake News

Ty Cobb, as baseball fans are aware, is famous for being an amazing player.  He was the first person voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and still holds the record for having the highest lifetime batting average.  He is also certainly one of baseball’s most infamous players - widely known for being an angry, racist, and wrathful individual.

Charles Leerhsen, author of the award-winning book Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, in a fascinating speech shows that much of what we think we know about Ty Cobb is… wrong.

Leerhsen tells the story of how in doing basic research by using original sources, he quickly discovered that, while Cobb was not perfect, he was certainly not the rage monster popular opinion has made him out to be.  It turns out that a man named Al Stump, a hack writer, wrote a scandalous piece about Mr. Cobb that was shared over and over by people who were trying to correct its errors but instead ended up perpetuating a lie.

Yes, it seems that Ty Cobb’s legacy was a victim of fake news.

And it seems that popular culture wanted to believe in a caricature (“Cobb was a wrathful person and player”) more than they wanted a complete picture.

But, Ty Cobb is not the only “wrathful” victim of fake news – there is another whose reputation has been misshaped and mishandled.   

Many people have misperceived God as a mad, violent deity.  This is an extremely popular view (remember, the most famous and formative sermon in American history is Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”!).   Many of us have heard and incorporated narratives of God as wrathful and those misconceptions have taken on a life of their own.  That “fake news” has become the story we expected, wanted and embraced.

But if we follow Leerhsen’s example and do a little digging, will the research support that perception?

In the New Testament, the Greek words often translated as anger, rage, indignation or wrath are used both in reference to God and in reference to humans.  I’ve categorized the verses below using the NIV:

1.      Texts that caution humans against being wrathful/angry/indignant:

a.      1 Cor. 13:5 – Love, “does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”

b.      Eph. 4:26 - “’In your anger do not sin’: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry,”

c.      Eph. 4:31 – “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger”

d.      Col 3:8 – “rid yourselves of… anger, rage…”

e.      1 Tim 2:8 – “lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing.”

f.       James 1:19 – “everyone should be… slow to become angry.”

g.      James 1:20 – “because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.”

2.      Texts that tell humans to hate evil and wrongdoing

a.      Rom 12:9 – “Hate what is evil; cling to what is good”

3.      Texts that refer to a connection between law and wrath:

a.      Romans 4:15 – “because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.”

4.      Texts that refer to Jesus being angry:

a.      Mark 3:5 – Jesus, “looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.

5.      Texts where God is described as having anger/hate/wrath:

a.      John 3:36 – John the Baptist says, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”

b.      Rom. 1:18 – “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.”

c.      Rom 2:5 – “But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.”

d.      Rom 2:7-8 – “To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.  But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.”

e.      Rom 3:5 – “But if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.)”

f.       Rom 9:22 – “What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath – prepared for destruction?”

g.      Rom 12:19 – “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.”

h.      Rom. 13:4 – Christians should respect human government because “He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.”

i.       Eph. 5:5-7 – “For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person – such a man is an idolater – has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.  Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be partners with them.”

j.       Col 3:6 – Paul instructs them to leave behind a list of sins… “Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.”

k.      1 Thess. 2:16 – The people persecuting the Christians “heap up their sins to the limit.  The wrath of God has come upon them at last.”

l.       Heb. 3:11 & 4:3 (citing Psalm 95:11) – Because of Israel’s disobedience and rebellion… “I declared an oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’”

6.      Texts that refer to the destruction of Jerusalem or a future punitive judgment

a.      Matt 3:7-8 & Luke 3:7 – John the Baptist says to the Pharisees and Sadducees, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?  Repent!”

b.      Luke 21:23 – Jesus in talking about the upcoming destruction of Jerusalem says: “How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people.”

c.      Eph. 2:3 – “All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.”

7.      Texts that refer to the way Jesus saves us from wrath or future punitive judgment:

a.      Romans 5:9 – “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!”

b.      1 Thess. 1:10 – Paul refers to how they’ve stopped worshipping idols and are now following Jesus, “who rescues us from the coming wrath.”

c.      1 Thess. 5:9 – “For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

8.      Texts that refer to wrath in the book of Revelation

a.      Rev. 6:16-17 – “They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?”

b.      Rev. 11:18 – “The nations were angry, and your wrath has come.
The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your people who revere your name, both great and small—
and for destroying those who destroy the earth.”

c.      Rev. 14:10 - “they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb.”

d.      Revelation 14:19 – “The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath.”

e.      Revelation 15:1 – “I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues—last, because with them God’s wrath is completed.

f.       Revelation 15:7 – “Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls filled with the wrath of God, who lives for ever and ever.”

g.      Revelation 16:1 – “Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go, pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth.”

h.      Rev. 16:19 – “The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath.”

i.       Rev. 19:15 – “Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. ‘He will rule them with an iron scepter.’ He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.”

While there certainly are a basketful of references to God’s anger/wrath, it would be interesting to follow that up with a study of how many times God described as loving or holy or good.  My guess is that there would be significantly more than references to his wrath…

But, my objective in this post is not to ask you to ignore references to anger/wrath/indignation on God’s part.  Instead, I think the references to wrath of God have been misread and have distorted our image of God.  There are two examples that I’ve found helpful in trying to understand the relationship between anger and the Almighty. 

• Memory and Children – Let’s imagine a mother who asked her grown daughter to relate how she remembers her childhood.  The daughter responds by saying that her clearest memory is of her mom grabbing her gruffly by the side of a busy road.  The mother’s mouth hangs open in shock as she considers all the eating and playing and enjoying each other’s company that happened over the years. As they discuss the memory, it turns out that what the daughter is recalling is the one time when the mother had to save the daughter by pulling her out of a busy street to protect her from a passing car.  Could it be that the stories of intense emotion, the ones that may stand out the most, may not be the ones that should define our overall experience of God?   If they seem out of character, could there be a good reason for that?
• Maps and Globes – Taking a 3D object and turning it into a 2D image inevitably distorts it.  Because of this most of the maps in our classrooms and offices are wildly inaccurate.  Greenland looks to be the same size as Africa in those pictures, but the truth is that is laughably incorrect.  Any time we squash something flat to get it to fit on a page, we will alter what it is in reality.  I think that is similar to how we have misinterpreted the wrath of God – by smashing a view of God flat on a page we have distorted God’s important desire for justice as modeled in Scripture and made it into a dominant feature on the theological landscape when in reality – it is just cold, small, (and relevantly minor) Greenland.

For the rest of this post I would like to examine this topic by asking a few questions and sharing some observations.  So here goes…

1.      Does the phrase “wrath of God” mean what we think it means?

One text from the Old Testament that can help us address this issue of God’s wrath is found in Psalm 7:10-16.  That psalm talks about God as a righteous judge who prepares to go against the ungodly **in wrath** but interestingly the examples given in the following verses show that the damage done to the disobedient people is all self-inflicted.  Could we say that God’s wrath is a dish best served cold, or maybe more simply put, God’s wrath is a dish that is… self-served?  When we live contrary to the essence that God has called us to be, we cause trouble for ourselves and initiate our own destruction (we serve the dishes of wrath to ourselves). 

2.      Is “wrath” even really the best word for what God experiences?  

I’m not convinced that “wrath” is the best translation of what God experiences because in modern English it tends to mean uncontrolled anger or rage.  Would it be more accurate to use different terms like God’s “righteous anger” or God’s “deep commitment to justice”? 

In talking about this topic with our Makua friends, they differentiate between three different words: “Urusiya” means to be upset or angry.  “Uviruwa” is a stronger reaction that could be violent (they brought up the examples of the flood in the time of Noah or of Jesus cleansing the temple).  But the word that sounds the most like wrath is one they borrow from Portuguese, “raiva,” which means rabid anger or rage and is interestingly also the word for rabies!  The Makua Christians I’ve talked to say they certainly see how a “just anger” is a good and important part of God’s character but they don’t believe that God has “raiva.”

If wrath is uncontrolled anger or rage, does that seem to fit with the character of God? I don’t think so, especially if that that is the kind of anger that human beings are specifically instructed in Scripture not to have.

Exodus 34:6; Numbers 14:18; Psalm 86:15; Joel 2:13 all say that God is slow to anger and abounding in love.  The Apostle Paul certainly knew those scriptures and that is why I don’t think he would ever see wrath as a definitive quality of God.  A God that doesn’t get angry at injustice wouldn’t be good, but serving and worshipping a rage monster wouldn’t be good either. What we need here is more than a caricature – we need a complete picture. 

In talking this through with Rachel, she has shared the example of how if one of our daughters gives the stink-eye (an expression of contempt) to her sister, something like anger flashes inside of Rachel, an intense reaction that serves as a catalyst for a stern intervention – necessary to deal with the way they are treating each other.  God gets angry at our sin and injustice because of what it does to us, how it divides us, and how we are enslaved and trapped by it more than his own personal offense at it.  God is more angry at sin and the way it holds us captive to sin, death and Satan because what we do shapes who we are as individuals and how it effects the way we treat each other. 

So, re-framing the wrath of God does not mean perceiving God as a “pushover buddy” who enables your bad behavior. Instead, he is more like the true friend who calls you to live at a higher level – he takes away your keys so you won’t drive drunk, but it you are hell bent on doing things your own way and reject being in relationship with him… things will not go well for you.  So, God’s response to injustice is not generally to “nuke the place,” but may be more like a smart bomb to address the heart of the problem.  It seems to me that what God experiences is less like wrath and more like a “judge’s legitimate emotional reaction to injustice.”

3.      Is Jesus saving us from God’s wrath? 

Certainly not.  God is NOT like a wrathful, abusive parent who is interrupted in his plans to inflict harm on us by our benevolent older brother (Jesus) stepping in to take the beating for us.  The Scriptures affirm that God’s character is revealed fully in Christ (John 14:9).  God and Jesus are not doing some kind of divine good cop/bad cop routine. Jesus is not saving you from God.  God loves you immensely.  Nowhere in the Bible does it explicitly says that God poured out his wrath and punishment on Jesus instead of on us.  God doesn’t kill Jesus.  Instead, incredibly, God deals with our sin by submitting to all the brokenness that we throw at him – through his own death on a cross. God didn’t kill Jesus – we did! (that’s what Peter says in Acts 2:36 – human beings did this!)  But that’s not the end of the Story – Christ triumphs!  We don’t have to live under guilt, shame and fear because Christ has defeated Sin, Death and Satan!  That is really good news!  Instead of being stuck in Darkness – God brings us into his kingdom of light and love and life!

Conclusion

On a recent podcast, I heard Leerhsen describe his surprise at the push-back he has gotten from people who are angry at him for questioning the dominant narrative about Ty Cobb as a wrathful player.  It makes me wonder if whether followers of Jesus who try to counteract fake news about God as a wrathful deity should be prepared for push-back as well…

Thanks for reading… this is certainly still a work in progress.  My hope is that we can keep learning and growing and begin to see a more complete picture of the God revealed in Christ and move past the destructive caricatures of a God full of wrath. 

May we grow in our understanding of both the love and justice of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus!

Grace and Peace,

Alan