Episode 196: Violence in the Bible, Part 5--Prayers of Revenge

The wise and faithful Fred Rogers said, "Anything human is mentionable, and anything mentionable is manageable."  It was both a touchstone of his approach to children's television in his Neighborhood of Make-Believe, and also a key to his approach to ministry and life.  Rogers also taught generations of children to ask the difficult but vital question, "What do you do with the MAD that you feel?" with the understanding that we all feel anger sometimes and need to decide how to use, channel, and process it.  With that in mind, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve explore a set of prayers in the Bible, found in the Book of Psalms, that vent anger to God sometimes in very explicit ways, even calling for God to do violence to enemies.  What do we make of verses calling on God to bash the heads of the babies of a foreign enemy on rocks, for example?  And what does it mean that these words are in our Scriptures? For that matter, what difference does it make to know that God isn't obligated to give us the things we pray for, but is able to let us vent what we need to vent as the first step toward metabolizing our anger from bitter vengeance into something useful to change what is wrong in the world?  In a conversation that spans everything from particle physics to Maya Angelou to Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, this is an important conversation to have, and you're invited to share in it.  Becuase everything that is mentionable... can become manageable.