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Reform Magazine | March 29, 2024

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Commitment-Phobe: Righteous anger - Reform Magazine

Commitment-Phobe: Righteous anger

commitment-phobe-cropMoving on from atheism, Commitment-Phobe toured churches and tried God. Now, as a new Christian, the journey continues

I’ve never felt comfortable with Christian righteous anger – or any kind of righteous anger for that matter. How can I know for sure that my anger is justified? Isn’t there, always, another side to the story? I have spent much more of my life not being a Christian than being one, so I can’t possibly feel righteous in a Christian way. And what I like about my faith is that I hand judging over to God – to that higher power that has seen all and still made a sacrifice for me and for all of us. But this is a philosophy trapped in my mind and rarely acted upon by me.

Last month, my choice to not judge in anger was tested. My property was stolen not once, but twice. First off was my handbag. Not a horrid mugging, just the absent-minded moment of a mum chasing her child around a shoe shop and losing track of her bag in the process. I put it down on a stool along with all the other items I had been conned into carrying by my child. I guess I was forgetting I was in London, or that humans, given the chance, may be opportunistic rather than kind. And someone saw the opportunity to take my bag, leaving me phoneless, walletless and without the keys to my home. Luckily, my husband was with me, otherwise it would have been a truly miserable moment, stuck in a shopping centre with no money or means to get home.

Sat nursing a coffee in a cafe open to the throngs of Sunday consumers, I looked at each passing face and wondered if they might be the perpetrator. I didn’t feel angry with them, I felt angry with myself for letting go of my London cautiousness. My husband could see that I was going through the process of being victimised twice: once by the thief, and now by me, beating myself up for letting it happen…

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This is an extract from the June 2016 edition of Reform.

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