Anger

A powerful force in human life, for better and for worse.

America is an angry place at the moment. I don’t know if it is angrier than it has been in the past, or if we just see it more as people express it more freely and have more ways to freely express it. But it seems that our words are less guarded, less peaceful, and more full of wrath. We see this in the public square as people argue and insult each other over politics. We see it in the Church as well, as people argue and insult each other over politics. And theology. And the Bible.

Anger is powerful. Righteous anger can transform a community and bring justice to it. Unrighteous anger, however, is destructive. It separates, demeans, and even kills.

In Glittering Vices, Rebecca Konydyk DeYoung has a chapter on anger that is worth the price of the book. One very helpful distinction she makes is between righteous anger and wrath. Righteous anger moves us to act in ways that fight injustice, evil, and other wrongs. It aims at justice, at moving the world to be more like God intends it to be. This kind of anger is good. It moves us to pursue what is right and good, in the right way. Wrath, however, is different. It is misguided, misdirected, and excessive. Rather than aiming for justice, it aims at the self. It is self-centered. Wrath aims at the wrong goals, protects my personal agenda rather than God’s, and is concerned with my dignity, reputation, and expectations. When excessive, it is out of proportion or even out of control.

Wrath leads us to show disdain for others. We dehumanize them. For what? For having a different view than we do? For refusing to toe the party line at school, work, or church? Anyone who reflects upon the state of our discourse can easily see these problems.

It is easy to think that “These are just words, they do not cause much harm,” or “People need to be tougher,” or “Mean tweets are no big deal,” but in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus rejects such justifications. He refuses to minimize the harm that angry words do: “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire” (Matthew 5:21-22). It is clear that anger and words spoken in anger to others are to be taken very seriously.

Some say we need to focus on righteous anger, keeping it while we discard the unrighteous forms. But there is another way of approaching anger, one favored by the desert monastics and passed down to us today. Rather than focusing on avoiding wrath but keeping our righteous anger, it counsels us to simply avoid anger altogether. Church father John Cassian says that anger is a “deadly poison” that must be “completely rooted out from the utmost corners of our soul.” Dallas Willard puts it succinctly, when he says that “there is nothing that can be done with anger that cannot be done better without it.”

Honestly, I’m between two minds here. I see strengths and weaknesses in both Christian approaches to anger. But there is wisdom here, if we take to heart the destructive power of anger in our souls, relationships, and world. Perhaps we need not completely reject anger, but instead avoid it as a habit. There will be times for righteous anger, but if anger is our default response, we may have some work to do in concert with God in this area of life. And there are some things we can do.

Antidotes to Wrath

• Practice lament: look to the pain and vulnerability behind the anger of yourself and other people and lament together. Tell God what you don’t like, cry out for justice, or peace, or whatever it is you long for him to do. But do it with passion, even expressing your anger to God. This has been so helpful to me in recent years.

• Practice hope: we can do this through prayer, song, and worship. We can hope for what ought to be and one day will be. Instead of anger at what is, we can focus on what will one day be, when all will be made right.

• Keep an anger journal for one week: Rebecca Konydyk DeYoung has her students do this, and it is very revealing. For a week or so, record the objects, extent, triggers, and extent of your anger. Then let the journal sit for a week. Now read it, and you’ll likely discover that the actual anger in your life has little to do with justice, and more to do with not getting what you want in the more trivial things of life. not always, but more often than you’d think. What seemed like righteous anger in the heat of the moment often looks petty and small in the coolness produced by the passing of time.

• Slow down: drive the speed limit, spend time in solitude and silence, get enough sleep, prioritize a sabbath rest. This all will help.

• Cultivate humility: focus less on yourself. There is no need to protect our false self, defend ourselves from insult, or put ourselves at the center of things. Seek to live a God-centered, other-centered, and love-centered life. Anger will dissipate.

• Practice gentleness: if we trust that God will set things right, we don’t need to try to get our way through wrath. We can trust him, and treat others with gentleness as a result (Gal. 5:22-23).

I’ve grown a lot in this area of life over the years, but I still struggle with anger. Just yesterday I got angry with the driver in front of me, as they were focused on their phone well after the light had turned green, and then with another driver who was coming at my car on my side of the road. (Maybe driving is my problem, not anger). I get angry at soccer referees, angry at friends and others I love, and angry at myself. But I have found that practices like the above can be helpful. I encourage you to pick one or two, and try them out. If they don’t help, try a different one. I’m confident you’ll see growth over time. Anger can be fun for a while, but a life of patience, humility, and gentleness is better and better for us, in the long run.