A Theology of Anger

Sometimes people get angry. Sometimes people speak hyperbolically, exaggerating for the sake of making a point. Sometimes people feel passionately about something, criticizing what they view as harmful and dangerous.

Inevitably, someone responds with a comment that goes something like this:

“I wish we could all just get along and speak to one another. We are all God’s children. Even if we disagree, can’t we still love one another?”

There is nothing in that in which I disagree with, but it still grates on me. Why?

Because it silences justified anger.

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Anger is not always an evil. It can, and often does, poison a person’s soul if they dwell too long on anger or, more specifically, bitterness. Sometimes, anger does not allow us to progress to a greater good, to a more acute reality of justice. Sometimes anger does not allow for positive dialogue.

I get it. I really do.

When I was a child, anger controlled me. It caused me to occasionally act violently towards someone, or something, else. It was a poison that I could not be rid of no matter how hard I tried. Until one day, it stopped, but that’s another story.

I know what it is like to have your own mind and heart be controlled by anger. I have witnessed the effects of my anger on my relationships with my family, friends, and acquaintances. I was an instrument of anger. For me, it was a great evil.

Then for much of my life, people would balk at the idea that I ever struggled with anger. I became a peaceful, passive presence, dedicated to the idea that we can all love one another if we saw past our pain and false projections of ourselves. I am still driven by this desire for peacemaking in our world. I abhor violence and corrosive vitriol.

For a long time, I rejected any notion of anger within myself, seeking a contemplative peace. I feared what I would become if I became angry again.

But I am angry.

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I can no longer sit in contemplative silence as a witness injustice taking place all around me. There is a war waging within me, vying for peace at the same time as feeling justified anger at the suffering around me.

If you have been paying attention to my work and thoughts for the past couple of years, you would recognize that I am probably angry. I feel so passionately. I love all people, including my enemies, but that does not prevent me from feeling angry.

I have come to realize that peacemaking and anger are not mutually exclusive. I have come to realize that the work of justice drives me to sometimes choose sides. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, wrote in his book, Night: “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.”

Anger is not always an evil. It can be a tool in the process of seeking justice. Oppression and injustice should make us angry. We should never look at the suffering of the world with neutral eyes. We should care for those who are suffering, for the oppressed, but we should also fight against the system that oppressed them in the first place.

If a person defends that oppressive system, we should boldly speak against them. Yes, we should love and pity them, as they have been blinded by the system of oppression. We should seek their liberation from their blindness, but we must not mistake whose side we are on.

My anger drives me to love and care for the oppressed, and it drives me to set ablaze the constructions of the oppressors.

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We cannot all just get along. Each of us chooses a side with our actions. Even one’s neutrality is choosing a side, as silence aids the oppressor.

When someone speaks of their oppression, or the oppression of their neighbor, listen to their story. Do not silence them for the sake of keeping some semblance of peace. Do not ask why they are angry because people are allowed to be angry, especially if it is aimed at an oppressor.

Our anger is driving us towards justice. We will misstep occasionally, as we all do, but do not mistake our anger as sinful.