Anger can have a range of effects on faith, and it’s my belief that a truly robust faith has room for this feeling. For an earlier post about anger, click here, and for a more in-depth look at anger in the Christian religion, click here. To look at the intersection of anger and faith, read on…

“Is it ever acceptable to be angry at God? I would suggest that it is not only acceptable, it may be one of the hallmarks of a truly religious person. It puts honesty ahead of flattery.” —Harold Kushner

“Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding,
but one who has a hasty temper exalts folly.” —Proverbs 14:29

As we alluded to in an earlier post, American Christianity has a big anger problem, so let’s take some time this week to unpack that idea and dive a little deeper. In particular, I want to start with a negative example and build toward something more positive.

I grew up white American Evangelical, meaning that I constantly heard a narrative about the dwindling influence of the church and the threat of secular liberal pop culture. As such, my church and denomination shared a collective sense of disempowerment, and as we’ve talked about, feelings of powerlessness and anger go hand-in-hand. I’m going to make a statement which may finally scare off the last of my Evangelical readers, but…

Because of the power dynamic it sets up, white American Evangelicalism is inherently angry. To be a white American Evangelical is to carry a sense of unresolved, often-repressed anger.

First of all, let’s clear something up: white American Evangelicals are perhaps the most powerful voting bloc in the country. Every politician and every corporation must cater to them at some point. The only oppression we ever experienced was the stuff we made up:

“Disney is celebrating their LGBT employees.
Help! I’m being oppressed!”

“The CDC has warned that it is unsafe to hold unmasked, large, indoor gatherings.
Help! I’m being oppressed!”

“Our public prayers on government property have to be inclusive of other faiths.
Help! I’m being oppressed!”

“People on twitter were mean to me.
Help! I’m being oppressed!”

Yeah, as you can see, I’m clearly still angry myself about all the made-up persecution, but it was effective. The feeling of disempowerment cultivated anger, which caused people to buy into the movement which has become increasingly grievance-based over time. “Slow to anger” my ass. Anger is American Evangelicalism’s #1 marketing tool.

Given the anger’s shoddy foundations, how was it expressed? Well, lots and lots of talk about the evils of the world. Soong-Chan Rah has written more on this, but Evangelicalism in America survives by building an us-vs.-them narrative and defining an “in group” against the rest of the world. They believe God will destroy the evils of this world, and only those who believe the Gospel will be spared— thus all the lifeboat imagery, thus the obsession with Revelation, thus redemption always being personal rather than communal or universal, thus the fixation on the cross but not on the cradle or the table or the empty tomb. There’s a sort of passive-aggression (or sometimes aggressive-aggression) toward the rest of the world. Caring for the planet (Genesis 1, book of Joel), love of neighbor (Deuteronomy and the gospels), and care for the widow and orphan and stranger (like, the whole damn book) all move to the back-burner when Christians hate the world.

So alright, case closed. White American Evangelicalism is mad at the wrong things and expresses that anger in an uncreative way (the “I’m just going to take my ball and go home” strategy). What’s the alternative?

As previously discussed, there’s a strong Christian tradition of anger at injustice, and this sort of anger can spur us to powerful action on behalf of oppressed people around us. As Rabbi Kushner points out in the quote at the beginning of this post, an openly angry faith is a genuine faith. If faith is all about forming an interactive relationship with God, then hiding our anger would undermine the relationship. Better to express it openly! So, okay, we’ve named the anger and committed to expressing it openly. How do we do that?

As theologian and activist Eleanor Humes Haney wrote, “Courage is nurtured by both love and anger.” When we feel anger at injustice, and our anger is shaped by a love for those being mistreated, we are empowered to act courageously— to initiate change, to fight on others’ behalf, to find hope. At this point, while anger remains a part of the equation, we’re starting to step across the center of the feeling wheel into anger’s equal/opposite: power. We’ll talk more about powerful faith next week, but I want to close with one last example.

The story goes that God was angry with the Ninevites for the many injustices they committed, so God made a plan to destroy the city. Ever sporting in the Hebrew Bible, God also sent Jonah, a reluctant prophet who hated the Ninevites and wanted to see them destroyed. After some shenanigans involving a big fish, Jonah arrived in Nineveh and commanded the Ninevites to repent, and to Jonah’s astonishment, they did! God was pleased; after all, God had been angry over the Ninevites’ injustices, and these had now been remedied. Jonah, however, was irate; his anger had been prejudiced and hateful against the Ninevites themselves. Jonah had never wanted Nineveh to be saved. Through an object lesson involving a vine and a worm, God rebukes Jonah for this anger.

Righteous anger targets injustices, rises slowly, and dissipates after change.
Hatred only deepens until it erupts into violence or consumes the hater.
Jonah is a cautionary tale about anger and hatred.
It invites us to reflect on our own anger and think:
Are we being more like God or more like Jonah?

Leave room for anger —not hatred— in your faith.