The Seven

ANGER

Often, destructive anger is how our pain and fears manifest. When we’re afraid that someone else will step ahead of us or take the limelight away from us, we get angry. When we experience deep wounds or disappointments, we get angry. Anger often reveals that we’re operating out of a wounded ego, that we believe someone has wronged us or failed us in a way that seems to threaten our sense of identity. And so, rather than looking into our own darkness, or extending mercy, or turning to faithful friends, or turning to God, we get angry and lash out in fury.

Still, as destructive as anger can be in our lives, when we consider how Scripture portrays anger, we see a portrait that is more complex than anger being merely a vice. While Scripture repeatedly views anger as a destructive force, a power that overwhelms us and distorts clear thinking and harms everything and everyone it touches (see James 1:19-20), there is also in Scripture a counter theme: sometimes anger is just. Paul suggests in Ephesians 4:26, that there is a kind of anger that actually helps our efforts to resist sin. In fact, Jesus at times grew angry. Whenever religious powers oppressed the weak or used God as a pretext for their greed or power plays, Jesus’ anger burned (see Matthew 21:12-17 and Mark 3:1-6). If sin and injustice are really destructive, then it’s right to feel a fire in our bones whenever evil expands its reach. In his book The Enigma of Anger, Garret Keizer said, “I am unable to commit to any Messiah who does not knock over some tables.” Thankfully, Jesus knows when to knock over some tables.

Remembering that each of these 7 vices distorts something good, we can learn to discern the difference between a righteous anger defending the vulnerable or seeking justice and a caustic anger that can obliterate everything and everyone it touches. A righteous anger fights to protect others and to safeguard love. An unrighteousness anger leaves a trail of wounded relationships without considering the casualties.

In 2017, the KKK and a number of other white nationalist groups descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, to promote their evil, racist ideology. In response, thousands of people showed up to counteract that hateful message, carrying with them, for the most part, an appropriate level of righteous resistance. It was right to be angry at oppression and to be on the side of African American brothers and sisters forced to endure the onslaught of these violent philosophies. But at one point, we also saw on display the destructive anger Scripture warns against when a number of those counter-protesters just reversed the hatred, spewing ugly and vile, dehumanizing words back at the white supremacists. Anger and rage, unhinged from the transformative love of Jesus, always does harm, no matter how noble the intent might seem.

In contrast to this, James insists that, “you must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires” (James 1:19-20) NLT. On its own, James tells us, our anger never yields the good life. Our anger never heals. Our anger never turns enemies into friends. Our anger never opens up new possibilities. Our anger only destroys. James’s words pierce us because of how easy it is for us to justify our anger: perhaps we really have been wronged, perhaps someone else truly does need us to come to their defense. However, our brand of anger, isolated from its rightful foundation in God’s love, simply cannot enact goodness. It’s like trying to put out a fire with a blowtorch; we only fuel the destruction.

Question:     Where do you see both righteous and unrighteous anger manifesting in your heart? Where are the places you struggle with anger, and what or who triggers it?

Practice:     Gentleness.    The next time you are in the presence of someone who incites your anger, look that person in the eye. Be present to them, truly see them. Drop your shoulders, drop your guard and your defensiveness. Step toward them with gentleness, remembering you have nothing to protect or prove. Ask them some gentle question that emerges from a quiet place in your heart.