In today’s digital age, users are quick to post their thoughts online, often hitting publish before reflecting on the lasting implications of their opinion. Which means there’s a good chance that at this very moment, someone is posting something you’ll find outrageous. Whether the subject is Potato Head, Dr. Seuss books, the political topic du jour or just a social media faux pas, there’s no shortage of cultural flashpoints that trigger outrage.
On any given day, a celebrity can be caught saying something ignorant, a pastor can post something controversial, a political development can spark all-caps rants, or an insensitive joke can rally social media mobs bent on collecting their pound of flesh. Most days, it seems like we’ve become a culture addicted to outrage.
There are bloggers, cable hosts and authors who’ve made entire careers out of finding new ways to be mad. And even though they fuel the problem, they’re merely symptoms of a deeper issue. The peddlers of outrage are simply filling a demand. In an era of shared experiences and online communities, collective outrage has become one of the strongest unifiers. And there’s no emotion that performs better online than anger.
But Todd Deatherage, co-founder of faith-based peace-building organization Telos Group, said believers are called to something better.
“After nearly 20 years in our nation’s capital,” he shared, “I’m disheartened by the poisonous state of our political discourse and even more by the contribution that have been made to the toxicity by those who do it in the name of Jesus.”
Such a Thing as ‘Righteous Anger’?
Anger has a purpose. It can help us identify boundaries, communicate seriousness and acknowledge when a line has been crossed. The Church has an opportunity—and an obligation—to listen and process anger, both inside and outside its walls.
But historically, the Church has often been too slow to anger when it comes to issues that truly matter: ignoring gross injustice within its own ranks and discouraging victims from crying out for vindication. That’s a damaging attitude. The problem isn’t that we get angry—it’s that we often get angry indiscriminately. We’re as furious about a news anchor’s jab at Christians as we are about racial discrimination, and it all comes out as blind rage.
Deatherage recalls seeing a woman whose car was covered in competing bumper stickers—some about faith, some about guns and one declaring her a “Proud Member of the Angry Mob.”
“I wondered how to square the driver’s concern for life with a decal image of an automatic assault rifle labeled as a ‘modern day musket,’” he recalled. “But the larger incongruity for me were the stickers professing affiliation with churches and Christian schools bearing names like Good Shepherd alongside the oval sticker… ‘Proud Member of the Angry Mob.’”
It’s an image that captures our modern paradox perfectly: the desire to stand for what’s right colliding with the instinct to rage at what’s wrong.
“Angry discourse can certainly motivate and stir people to action,” Deatherage says, “but we as Christians are called to live differently. Shouldn’t we resist the urge to be a part of the angry mob rather than proudly trumpet our affiliation with it?
“There are arguments and battles I am content to lose if the cost of winning them requires membership in the angry mob,” he continued.
Maintaining a constant tone of “righteous anger” in the face of things that offend us feels right. But in the Kingdom of God, righteousness doesn’t mix well with anger. “Human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires” (James 1:20).
We live in a deeply broken world filled with deeply broken people. It’s easy to find something to be mad about. The thing is, if you’re always looking for something to be angry about, you’ll always find it—and you’ll always be angry. That cycle can make you see others as “the enemy,” and they’ll likely see you the same way. But when Jesus tells us to love our enemies (Luke 6:27), it’s hard to do that if most of our energy is spent being angry at them. Although it’s not easy, Christians are called to maintain a posture of grace.
A Posture of Grace
Unlike outrage, grace isn’t glamorous. It’s rarely loud or emotionally satisfying. It feels good to join the crowd in piling on someone’s worst moment. It feels a lot harder to show restraint when someone offends us.
“There are arguments and battles I am content to lose if the cost of winning them requires membership in the angry mob,” Deatherage said. “Or, better said, I want to be a part of finding a way to live together with deep differences in a pluralistic society. I want to do it in ways that allow me to reflect into the world the deep sense of divine love and grace I’ve experienced and on which I am entirely dependent.”
That reflection, he argues, starts with humility.
“Be humble, winsome and irenic,” he said. “Jesus’ call to take up His cross won’t always be welcomed, of course, but we are called to be peacemakers and the sweet aroma of Christ.”
There’s a reason James urges believers to be “slow to speak and slow to become angry.” His words directly oppose Internet culture, which demands quick reactions and even quicker tempers. Online, impulsive moments live forever through screenshots, sound bites and tweets.
James understood that we’re all human. We all react impulsively. And when we do, we’ll all want something afforded to us when we mess up: grace and compassion.
When Should We Be Angry?
In a world as broken as ours, there are legitimate issues that should make us angry and drive us to seek justice. Even Jesus got angry when He saw people being exploited (Matthew 21:12). But when we don’t reserve our outrage for genuine injustice, our anger loses its power—and worse, it can consume us.
Deatherage’s final thoughts read like a roadmap for modern discipleship.
“Listen more than you talk and don’t demonize those you disagree with. Be hesitant about holding people to moral or religious standards to which they haven’t agreed. Seek the common good, the flourishing of all, and respect and defend the rights of others more than your own. Do your homework and learn to calmly and intelligently articulate reasons for what you believe. Give complexity its due. Not everything can be reduced to a bumper sticker slogan. Stay in the game—in the world though not of it—and don’t walk away or retreat into a Christian subculture bubble.”
And perhaps most important of all, he concludes, “Reject angry activism in favor of hopeful engagement.”
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). There is a culture war happening. There are things that demand our passion and outrage. But according to Scripture, those things aren’t made of flesh and blood. They don’t command rage—they call for compassion. They require understanding, nuance and measured justice.
The culture war that’s happening—the one between the Kingdom of God and “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”—won’t be won on an angry blog rant, a Facebook argument or a sharply worded tweet. Scripture tells us the weapons of that war are different: the truth of God’s love, the righteousness we’re called to live by and the salvation given to us through one defining characteristic God asks us to always embody—grace.