Photograph by Mitsuo Komoriya via Unsplash

A Facebook friend of mine posted her sentiment that she was so angry at one of the candidates that her anger kept her from watching the presidential debates. Her post began: “Decided not to watch tonight. Stress level is too high.”

People of faith who care about social justice have every reason in the world to be angry. The injustices erupting daily overwhelm our sense of what is right, just, true, and good. There are political candidates vying to lead our nation who speak language of the most heinous authoritarian leaders from history, who seek to divide, rule, and even persecute those who are not in their corner. Everywhere we turn… Ukraine, Gaza, the U.S. border, women’s rights, addictions, the health care system, homelessness and hopelessness, the ever-growing wealth gap between haves and have-nots, guns and shootings, corporate greed, countries overtaken by gangs, abuse of media and social media, misuse of AI, scams against vulnerable people, insufficient resources to meet mental health needs, and hunger, starvation, and disease. It feels like we are making giant strides… in reverse… and it makes us angry. Yes. We. Are. Angry.

So therein lies the conundrum: how then shall we live, as people of faith who care about social justice and who are angry? We have a right to be angry, but our anger doesn’t get us anywhere. To paraphrase an Amish farmer, “Anger eats the container that holds it.” That would be us, the container. Anger is eating us up, even though the causes of it escalate. Put a “D” in front of the word and we get “danger.” Anger is dangerous. It can eat the container that holds it. That is dangerous, to us and to others. 

A Quaker friend told me why he chose to be a conscientious objector. He said that some of his friends, who were conscientious objectors, revealed their belief that they could never kill another human being. My friend said: “I’m not a pacifist because I couldn’t kill someone. I’m a pacifist because I get angry and could very well kill someone.”

Even the worthiest of heroes struggled with their anger, like Martin Luther King, Jr. did when confronting adversaries who sought his failure. He wrote that during the Montgomery bus boycott, “That Monday I went home with a heavy heart. I was weighted down by a terrible sense of guilt, remembering that on two or three occasions I had allowed myself to become angry and indignant. I had spoken hastily and resentfully. Yet I knew that this was no way to solve a problem. ‘You must not harbor anger,’ I admonished myself. ‘You must be willing to suffer the anger of the opponent, and yet not return anger. You must not become bitter. No matter how emotional your opponents are, you must be calm.’” Experiences like this led King to develop his basic principles of nonviolence, including Principle Four:

PRINCIPLE FOUR: Nonviolence Holds That Unearned, Voluntary Suffering for a Just Cause Can Educate and Transform People and Societies.

• Nonviolence is a willingness to accept suffering without retaliation; to accept blows without striking back.
• Nonviolence is a willingness to accept violence if necessary but never inflict it.
• Nonviolence holds that unearned suffering for a cause is redemptive and has tremendous educational and transforming possibilities.

King had every right to be angry, but he chose instead the way of nonviolence as a response. He showed that we have choices for how we handle our anger, even when we have every right to be angry.

The Book of James (1:19-20) speaks of anger: “You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.” Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. You already know that. This is not news. Solomon shared this advice in Proverbs (15:1): “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” Thumper’s mother in the Disney film “Bambi” framed this thought so that even the youngest child could grasp it: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” This is common sense: It is the tongue which gets us into trouble. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.

An office manager cut the following verse out and taped it to her desk as a reminder of her daily prayer, taken from Psalm 141:3: “Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips.” When asked why that verse, she answered that she tended to not listen well, to speak too quickly without thinking, and then to get angry or make others angry. So, she prayed before each new day that God would set a guard over her mouth and keep watch over the door of her lips. To cultivate the right attitude leads to the right behavior. 

Be slow to anger, wrote James. Good advice. We are glad to be reminded. Anger is often the opposite of slow. Anger can flash up like dried straw that catches fire – it flares up but then burns out quickly. Anger which lingers is dangerous and does harm. Anger which will not forget, which refuses to be calmed, or which seeks revenge will destroy from the inside out. Anger is dangerous to your health, to your spirit, and to the quality of your life… not to mention the impact it has on others. It eats the container that holds it.

Our heroes of the faith struggled to reframe their anger, and they set the bar high. But they showed us there is another way to channel our anger. King blazed the trail so we can redirect our anger which “can educate and transform people and societies.” The end goal is bigger than the immediate suffering we endure. And James gives practical advice to be slow to anger. Throughout history and today, people doing and speaking evil can rile up our anger and, like my Facebook friend, we just avoid looking at the cause.

When the sheep in the pasture became anxious, they looked up to see that they were in the Shepherd’s presence. That metaphor, embodied so well in Psalm 23, inspires us in our time of anger, stress, and anxiety to look up to see that we are in the Shepherd’s presence. And then, our eyes are upon the radiance of God’s love and grace, and are not upon the daily news items that incite our anger to flare up. Then, we contemplate other models for managing our anger, even when we have every right to be angry.