ANGER AND FOLLOWING JESUS

REBECCA KONYNDYK DEYOUNG, PH.D..

PROFESSOR, CALVIN UNIVERSITY

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Introduction

Anger is a hot topic, perhaps especially for Christians. We might concede that it’s OK to be angry sometimes—for example, when human rights are violated. It’s not right to be complacent or indifferent in the face of that kind of intentional injury! At the same time, we might be wary of justifying anger, given how many times we’ve been harmed—or seen others harmed— by people who get too angry. No one who has encountered Christians ranting on social media thinks we need more of that kind of witness.

I never thought I had an anger problem until I had young children. They have a way of driving any sane person crazy! Fortunately, putting up with their terrible twos lasted for a short season, and most of the time, they were hilariously adorable enough to outweigh a few memorably horrifying trips to the grocery store when I completely lost my cool. But what if that hadn’t been a short season?

Most people agree that anger is a morally permissible (and maybe even required) response to injustice. That seems sensible to me, too. Here’s the trouble, though: the world is full of injustice—chock full of it! Given the fall and the damage sin causes in and through us, injustice happens most everywhere, most all the time. (Just read the news headlines.) But should we conclude then that it’s morally permissible, or even required, for Christians to be angry all the time? We might rightly have our doubts about that.

What can we say about injustice and a Christian response to it that doesn’t fall into this bind?

Two Christian Views

The Christian tradition offers us at least two ways to think about anger. Thomas Aquinas and many others say that anger is a normal human emotion—one Jesus also had. ² As an emotion, anger alerts us to justice violations (think: pain signals bodily injury). The trouble comes when anger gets mobilized to fight injustice rather than to protect or reestablish justice. In these cases, disordered anger aims at the wrong target. Even with the right target, however, we can still express anger excessively. Yes, the bully hurt my child. But I shouldn’t retaliate with violence. After all, the bully is also a child. So we want to distinguish between well-ordered anger, for example, the anger we feel when we watch civil rights footage of Black Americans being beaten for peaceful protest, and disordered anger, for example, that exhibited by a controlling boss verbally berating your coworker in the hallway at full volume. Aquinas calls the disordered forms of anger “wrath,” to distinguish the disordered version from the emotion itself. Notably, he calls the root of all emotions “love.” What we love explains what we fear, what we long for, what distresses us, and what gives us joy. The same story holds for what makes us angry. Tim Keller once offered this diagnostic test: review your most vehement, negative emotions. ³ They reveal your greatest attachments.

The alternate side of the Christian tradition starts by examining those attachments—what your heart is holding onto and, therefore, what your anger is protecting. These thinkers focus more on long- term character formation than conceptual analysis. Aquinas asks, “Can anger ever be morally justified? Could it be a good emotional response?” By contrast, the early desert Christians ask, “If we get angry frequently, even habitually, what kind of people (and what kind of community) will we become?” They frame the anger debate around the kind of formation produced by a lifetime of Christ- following. Their pastoral aim was to imitate the character and likeness of Jesus, whose own self-description is “I am gentle and humble of heart.” As Aquinas rightly notes, Jesus does get angry on certain occasions; the Gospels record his pointed rebukes. Nevertheless, we would be more likely to describe his overall character in the words of Henri Nouwen: Jesus is a “wounded healer.” His habitual response to injustice was to grieve, show compassion, offer healing, and open paths to reconciliation, even at great cost to Himself.

What about us? The desert community wisely noted how often our anger reflects anything but humility and gentleness. Rather, it showcases our own agenda and timelines (now!), our worldly desires and entitlements, and our swollen egos. The “dog of anger” keeps barking outside the “home” of our souls, says Evagrius, because we are hoarding treasure inside and are hell-bent on guarding it at all cost. We rationalize our responses self-righteously, but, in retrospect, our pettiness and selfishness shine through. Mindful of our deformation, then, this community counsels a retreat from the dangers of an angry response. John Cassian tells us to root out this deadly poison utterly from the soul (citing the Sermon on the Mount and Ephesians 4:31). ⁴ What should you do about anger? Get rid of all of it!

Most of us feel skeptical about the desert Christians’ draconian advice. Like me, you probably doubt that all your anger is wrathful. If that’s true, try this exercise. Keep an anger journal for a week. Track the target of your anger, and rate each episode of anger on a scale of 1 to 5. If you are like me, the results will be a convicting revelation. When we take a hard look at our political engagement, pace of life, caffeine and alcohol use, temper in traffic, and even the entertainment we choose in our free time (trading snarky posts on social media, listening to arguments between sports show hosts, enjoying scathing political commentary, reveling in reality- TV fights and humiliations), we see that most of us, most of the time, live in well-worn grooves of bad formation. We swim in a sea of contempt. We need a counter formation program that begins to turn the tide.

This early Christian community advised us to double check our anger’s roots and fruits. The anger journal gives us clues. As you peruse your own results, ask two questions: First, what are the roots of my anger? Second, what fruit is it bearing?

Cultivating gentleness and humility runs against the grain. Becoming like Christ requires intentional practice (as Eugene Peterson titled an early book—“a long obedience in the same direction”). Anger runs deep in us because most of us cling to control like an idol. It’s a hard habit to break because we want more than anything to have our way. In response, the desert Christians recommend practices of detachment, such as solitude, stillness, and silence—the same kinds of disciplines that Jesus practiced (e.g., Mark 1:35). Less cramming and climbing, less clamoring and yammering. Less of me. More of God’s Spirit in me (John 3:30), more listening (John 10), more abiding (John 15). This formation program ultimately aims not to withdraw us from action, but to cultivate action that flows from deeply rooted love and trust in God. Our lives must say, “Not my will but Yours be done,” but they must also say, “May Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven!”

A Bigger Toolbox, A Wider Frame, A Cooperating Community

How can we become passionate justice-seekers without letting our anger twist our character out of Christlike shape? I have two main suggestions, but I could summarize them all this way: “Don’t make your anger do all the work.”

How? First, we need to expand our toolbox of emotions and virtues beyond anger’s narrow range. Second, we need to widen the scope of our agency in several ways. While I can’t address all of our anger problems here, in what follows, I’ll offer a few practical steps to help reform and reframe our responses to the perennial problem of facing injustice and feeling angry about it.

Lament

Most of us think of Jesus’s cleansing of the temple as an example of righteous anger. In fact, we may relish this story, like Garrett Keiser who says, “I am unwilling to commit to any messiah who does not turn over tables.”5 But in Mark’s gospel, a less familiar story of anger gives us a glimpse of Jesus’s inner life (Mark 3:1– 6). On the Sabbath, a day the law prohibits work, Jesus faces off with the religious leaders in the synagogue over a man whose hand is withered. “What is lawful on the sabbath—to save life or to kill?” Jesus asks. They stubbornly refuse to answer. Do they even make eye contact with the man whose healing lies in the balance?

Stay in that tense silence for a moment. Mark reveals that Jesus feels angry! His anger conveys His deep distress at those who silently resist the healing of their wounded neighbor, seeking to preserve their leadership clout at any cost. Yet Jesus’s intense, visceral feelings of frustration lead Him not to lash out at them but to heal the man. As the Pharisees leave, muttering death threats, Jesus heads to the cross to offer Himself as a sacrifice for their sin, too. In this story, Jesus’s love, mercy, passion for justice, and anger all work together in the same direction. They direct Him steadily toward shalom, even at great personal cost.

Other emotions tend to lurk behind anger’s safe, controlling cover. That’s why psychologists call it a secondary emotion. That means our anger often functions as the public face of the pain buried in our hearts—our disappointment, rejection, fear, shame, despair, exhaustion, regret, anxiety, and grief. Jesus’s healing work extends not only to withered hands but also to withered hearts. His love and gentleness create a safe space to lament. When we show Him our wounds and tears, rather than hiding them behind an offensive tongue-lashing or defensive rant, our anger withers too.

We live in a world where things are not yet the way they are supposed to be. Anger can be one way to express our pain, but it need not be the only way. Christian communities and close friends can weep with those who weep. The Psalms give us words to cry out, when our injured hearts are raw and our bodies are full of pain. Jesus Himself spoke words from Psalm 22 on the cross. J. Todd Billings recommends lament-filled protest to convey these emotions to God, in silent pleading prayer and in shared liturgies and worship. ⁶ Christians rightly share their tears and fears with each other. We need to allow others to ask hard, sometimes angry-feeling questions (“My God, why have You forsaken me?”). Nick Wolterstorff invites Christians to “sit beside each other on the mourning bench,” to help each other bear life’s griefs and sorrows.⁷ Pope Francis described the church as a field hospital for healing the wounded. ⁸ The practice of shared lament reflects the character of Jesus, our Wounded Healer.  ⁹

An unjust world leaves us all scarred and wounded. Our emotional repertoire of responses must be wider than anger. When it is, we won’t force anger into an unbearably oversized role.

Embodiment

Reflecting on our emotions highlights our vulnerability—a vulnerability inescapable for beings made of flesh and blood. Keeping an anger journal for a week spotlights our bodily needs. Sleep deprivation, sensory overstimulation, physical discomfort, hunger, and stress make us prone to anger. Feeling anger raises our blood pressure, makes our skin flush, disrupts sleep, and floods our system with cortisol and adrenaline. Bodily reactions such as these lead to long-term poor health—even heart disease.

That’s right: too much chronic anger can kill you. As an ironic twist on Jesus’s counsel in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:21– 22), the command not to kill your neighbor turns out also to be a command that can save own your life, too.

If we’re not careful, our life rhythms drift toward chronic anger. We wake up to a startling alarm after too little sleep, check our phones for the latest anxiety-provoking news, skip breakfast, slam a cup of coffee enroute to work in a traffic-congested commute, face a workday with headaches and high-pressure deadlines that keep us working long hours, head home to overscheduled kids and unpaid bills, confront toddlers melting down at bedtime, and numb out on our individual screens to end the day. . . Rinse, repeat. No wonder we find ourselves angry—resentful of life’s demands, snappish at our co-workers or families, raging at other drivers! Like that toddler, what many of us need to deal with anger is a good nap, a snack, and a warm hug.

Jesus, who lived in a fragile human body with needs just like ours, shows us a better pattern. When exhausted by days of teaching and healing the crowds, He sought out quiet, solitary places to simply be at rest in the presence of God.10 Recharged physically and refreshed spiritually, He could return to His justice-seeking work with His characteristic gentleness and attentiveness to others’ needs. Being well formed with respect to anger starts with acknowledging our bodily limits, finding a realistic pace of life, and together crafting environments that better honor our physical health and well-being.

Hope and Humility

Two virtues also help frame anger more constructively. Hope draws its energy from focusing on God’s kingdom bringing power. With hope’s “eschatological eye,” we confidently rely on God to bring shalom to a broken and fallen world, through us and with us. In prayer, we yearn for the day when God restores all things, and we cooperate in any way we can. But we don’t need to force our agenda or force justice to happen by the deadlines we’ve set. When hope bids us pray, “May Your kingdom come, and Your will be done,” we acknowledge that God is the King, and that God’s kingdom will come—even if it comes in inscrutable ways and on a different schedule than we’d envisioned. Hope spurs us on to be
active kingdom-bringers without falling into the trap of thinking this project lies ultimately within our control.

In humility, likewise, we pray, “Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.” Our limited human power cannot make all things new or make all things right, all by itself. We need to stay in a posture of dependence on God. Where wrath proclaims, “my kingdom, my power, my glory,” humility stands willing to wait upon and surrender to the Lord. The virtue of humility pushes back against self-reliance. It welcomes weakness, which powers our justice-work with robust God-reliance. Following the counsel of the desert Christians, the humble give up the ego-drivenness that regularly produces excessive and misdirected anger.

Within the framework of these virtues of acknowledged dependence on God, we can do faithful kingdom work, with a passion for justice but without wrath. One contemporary confession of faith describes a life framed by hope and humility this way:

“As covenant partners, set free for joyful obedience,
we offer our hearts and lives to do God’s work in the world.
With tempered impatience, eager to see injustice ended, we
expect the Day of the Lord.
We are confident that the light which shines in the present
darkness will fill the earth
when Christ appears.
Come, Lord Jesus. Our world belongs to you.”¹¹

Take note that the church—the Christian community together—makes this confession. Individually, our hope tends to flag and our vulnerability can trigger fear, rather than humble reliance. Formation in hope and humility requires a “we” not merely a “me.” We preempt wrathful responses by offering encouragement to those who feel weak, exhausted, disheartened, or alone, and by living with more generous allowances for the ways we depend on God and each other.

From our own limited perspective and limited power, injustice may look like an unsolvable, insuperable problem. If addressing it relies only on individual human agency, we will keep finding ourselves wrung out by wrath, exhaustion, and despair. The church is a social body—made up of members in many ages and stages of life. Its social formation should fit its corporate mission.

One Body, Many Members

So good anger formation responds by lengthening the learning curve. That is, we should think about “the right way to be angry” not as a one-size-fits-all response but as a developmental process that unfolds in a community.

Although a small child learns from her caregivers to regulate emotions and direct them at the right targets, an older child can gain enough social awareness and empathy to restrain her own desires and wait longer to meet them, to accommodate others’ needs. As we grow into adulthood, healthy differentiation yields a secure sense of identity and a greater sense of our own agency. That in turn helps us take responsibility and speak honestly—with good boundaries, less defensiveness, and more confidence. Those skills, in turn, enable us to advocate for others effectively, in caring roles and leadership roles, with less burnout and enough self-care. In the long run, after life delivers the kind of suffering

that strips our last defenses away and makes room for radical surrender, our capacity to respond with grace and mercy may grow beyond what we could have imagined (“the wideness in God’s mercy” expressed by Frederick Faber). The goal of spiritual maturity is a life that looks more and more like Jesus’s example of self-giving love on the cross.

This learning curve recalibrates what we expect of a 2-year-old, a 13-year-old, a 32-year-old, and a 73-year-old: it should not be the same! Our anger—its expression, its restraint, its roots—must fit an appropriate developmental model of spiritual (emotional, social) growth. Of course, spiritual maturity doesn’t automatically come with age. Sometimes suffering teaches hard lessons about grace early on; other times people descend into bitterness. When things go well, however, we keep growing into greater Christlike virtue.

Can others see Christ in me—both when I am angry and when I am not? That, not merely anger management or self mastery, is the goal.

Along this journey, we also inhabit particular vocations. Jesus’s call to follow Him looks different for different people. As Christ’s body, we inhabit all of His roles—prophet, priest, and king. Anger has a different function in each: sometimes it stands in the foreground, sometimes in the background. In a prophetic role, we might be called to speak out boldly against injustice or to bring those who abuse power to account. Anger can fuel a prophetic voice speaking a word of warning, calling attention to the vulnerable against indifference or neglect. In a priestly role, our passionate opposition to injustice might lead us to serve as mediators or intercessors. Or our distress at broken systems may mean we pour ourselves out sacrificially for those who suffer injustice or for those who are taxed fighting it. In a kingly role, we might need dispassionate judgment to craft better legislation or enforce policies or build fair and social structures that uphold the needs and rights of all, even if anger initially alerts us to that which needs addressing.

Whether in loud protests or quiet laments or strategic lawmaking, each vocation calls for particular expressions of anger
and practices of channeling or curbing it. Each works for justice in distinctive and discerning ways. That’s good reason to resist a cookie-cutter approach to formulations of what “Christian anger” or justice-seeking looks like.

In the end, we must all work together. To offer our gifts and fulfill our role in the Body of Christ, we need each other. And we need Christ’s lordship over all. We witness and work not as individuals, but as a fellowship bound by a common  mission.

New Creation

We began with Thomas Aquinas’s definition of anger as a response to injustice. Christians see what’s not the way it’s supposed to be and want to right those wrongs. Love demands no less.

But our desire to address and correct injustice, as noble and essential as it is, must always be framed by an even wider goal—God’s desire to restore all things and make them new. The Spirit’s signature work is not retaliation or even restitution but reconciliation and regeneration and re-creation: the “healing of the nations” (Revelation 22). God invites us into that greater calling, even as anger keeps us vigilant in the “not yet.”

The Canticle of the Turning by Rory Cooney aligns our aching hearts and steadies our gaze on God’s promised redemption and new creation. Within that cosmic gospel story, we grasp both anger’s value and its limits:

“My heart shall sing of the day you bring,
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears,
for the dawn draws near,
and the world is about to turn.¹²”