Is our anger ever righteous?

I remember, in an earlier phase of the internet, the sense of being part of a large, ongoing conversation. On Facebook and Twitter, one could be drawn (for better or for worse) into dialogue with all kinds of perceptive people one had never met in real life. Social media these days feels very different.

Between the whims of the algorithm, which seem never to promote the things I want to read or the things I write, and the sheer quantity of trolls, bots and malign presences drenching these platforms with tedium, one feels caught up in a crowd of people shouting at each other, never really feeling heard.

Angry

With that said, however, I recently posted on X about a shocking case in the news: a couple of men who had adopted, abused and murdered a little baby, and had done so without social workers or medical personnel intervening in ways that would have saved a little life. For some reason, that was the kind of contribution the algorithm was happy to promote, with thousands of people seeing it, and many more engaging with it.

Why was that? Most of what I post is, to be honest, pretty niche: snippets and selections from my reading, little thoughts and comments on various things. This, by contrast, was angry.

I was angry about this news, angry that it should have happened like this, and angry that those entrusted with care had abused that trust (in a hideous irony, the murderer of this baby seems to have been the safeguarding lead at the school where he taught). I was angry, and anger connects, energises and spreads.

Henry Nowak

In the wake of the horrific murder of Henry Nowak, in an area of Southampton I know very well, all manner of anger has been stoked.

One painful feature of the murder was the way that ethnic minority status was weaponised, so that the institutional desire to avoid racism at all costs was manipulated to present Nowak as the aggressor.

The anger felt draws on an aggrieved sense of institutions no longer being trustworthy, of justice no longer truly being done (the charge of "two-tier policing"), and to such anger, ethnic and cultural difference now appear simply as threats.

In a marked departure from the Nowak family's own desires, MP and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage called for "pure, cold rage". We can phrase this in the form of questions: when are we, the British people, allowed to be angry?

How far must things go before we give vent to our anger, and allow it to drive the agenda?

Connects, energises and spreads

To call for anger is to summon up something very old and very strong in the human heart. Anger connects, energises and spreads.

It connects: it opens us up to situations and people, engaging us with their plight, drawing me out of my own blinkered world. To get angry about something is to connect with it.

It energises: I am seldom as motivated as when I am angry, and the journey from anger to action is a very short one indeed. Anger brings a momentum which carries things forward, gets things done.

And it spreads: so often, we are mysteries to one another, slow to grasp exactly where others are coming from, slow to be heard and understood. But anger spreads, quickly; it wasn’t long before strangers were piling into like, repost and comment on my anger on X. And as it spreads, it builds – and the results, as unrest and violence on the streets of Southampton ^[1] and Belfast ^[2] alike testify, are very difficult to control.

'When can I get angry?'

I remember, a few years ago, being horrified by a trend towards embracing rage and anger among ethnic minority leaders in churches (a circle to which I belong).

Activists, keen to capitalise on a broader, cultural embrace of antiracism, spoke of rage as holy, gave lectures and wrote books on the subject, encouraged people like me to feel ever more aggrieved at the majority culture.

Now, of course, there is such a thing as righteous anger. God knows how to be angry like that.

Jesus, in His human anger, never sinned. (He cleared out the Temple in a righteous anger, precisely because it was excluding the nations.) Paul even says, in Ephesians 4v26, "In your anger do not sin".

The right kind of anger will be part of a godly response to the brokenness of our world. But here’s the problem. We might be too quick to assume that our anger is righteous – and it may not be. James puts it like this: "My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires." (James 1v19-20)

Yes, anger can be fashionable. Because it connects, energises and spreads, anger can get things done. And yes, there is such a thing as righteous anger. But we ought to be slow to become angry, and painfully aware that, so often, our anger is not righteous, and it does not produce the righteousness God wants.

Indeed (which James alludes to, connecting being quick to listen with being slow to speak and become angry), human anger tends to be seductive: we have such a good time directing our anger at those people or that situation that we fail to listen, fail to discern the whole picture, fail to check our blind spots.

When can I get angry? The answer to that question is very likely to be: “Not yet – not without prayer, not without seeking the Lord, and looking to Him." For the Christian, humility and wisdom – and obedience to the clear command of Scripture – tell us that we must be slow to get there.

In incendiary times, with tinder box voices all around us (whether from political figures wanting us to decry immigration levels, or progressive theologians calling us to rage against hierarchy), we find refuge in, and seek to become more like, our holy God:
"My shield is God Most High,
who saves the upright in heart.
God is a righteous judge,
a God who displays his wrath every day." (Psalm 7v10-11)

1. Editor's note: For Comment articles in response to the Henry Nowak murder, see this piece by Orlando Saer and this piece by Tim Farron;
2. for a Comment piece in response to the violence in Belfast, see James Burnett's piece here.