We are broken people guided by our anger and following the pernicious disease of bitterness. Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us!
Like everyone else, I was broken-hearted when the news of Charlie Kirk’s assassination flashed across my notifications. I was shocked. Then confused. Confusion brings with it a sense of hopelessness, which gives way to anger. I was not the only one. Millions of users express their fury even now, raging against the injustice of murder or of those who satanically celebrate it.
We live in an era where the whole world is not only accessible but also barges into our minds every second of the day. It’s too much. When every tragedy, outrage, post, headline, and pundit demands attention, the mind goes numb and meaning drains away. In time, it all feels like a bitter sort of nothing. But, meaning is found in the midst of want, not excess, solitude, not clamor, restraint, not indulgence, Bethel, not Babel.
We must let the waves of tragedy drive us to the rock of Christ, whose shortest breath can calm the troubled seas. To do anything otherwise means being crushed by the rising tide of hatred.
We all have an anger problem, not in that we have anger, but that we struggle to keep our anger holy and free from sin. Righteous anger is a derivative of Godly love. This kind of righteous anger proceeds first from love of God and secondly from love of neighbor. Godly anger never proceeds from love of self.
Love is a misunderstood word in our times. The word conjures up a range of meanings from the innocent to the erotic. But simply put, love means to prefer or to value one thing above another. When a man loves a woman, he values her above his own life and all other women. When a mother loves a child, she values him above her own well-being and all other children. When Christ loves the world, He values us over His own safety and comfort, even to death, the death of the cross.
To love God, then, means to value Him above all other possible objects of love. We are to love Him so ardently that the intensity of all other relationships or interests in our lives pale in comparison to the passion we have for Him. If we do not have such love, we are not worthy to be His disciples.
Righteous anger, then, manifests only when something conflicts with the disciple’s highest loves: God and neighbor. On the other hand, anger derived from helplessness always flows from self-love. It is an anger that puts self first and neighbor second. And when we invoke God to justify such anger, we imagine Him as a tool who conveniently agrees with us.
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Loving God above all others would cure us of our helplessness, because even though we are helpless, God is not. Twitter may react in shock, horror, and malice, but God never reacts. He only acts. God is not notified of our tragedies. God already knew beforehand, and He has orchestrated a finale that will redeem the sorrow of every dissonant chord.
What does this mean for our anger? Does God’s providence demand we abandon any form of outrage?
No. An accurate understanding of God’s providence does not lead us to neglect this painful emotion, but to purify it. An anger that flows from and is purified by the love of God can energize us to accomplish our purpose as disciples. And what is our purpose?
Since the first command is to love God and the second is to love our neighbor, loving our neighbor means seeking their highest good—above all, that they too love God. We worship and lead others to worship God. This is our purpose as disciples: to maximize the worship of God. We must do everything in our power to maximize the worship of God first in our own lives, and secondly in our culture.
Chaos thrives beyond the boundaries of worship. Charlie Kirk is dead because someone chose to value himself above God and neighbor. Whom you worship will make the difference between life and death.
My wife calls worship “our part in the liturgy of God.” A godly anger can remind us of the dangers of extending our lives beyond God’s script. It can also motivate us to influence others to step into God’s plan.
Anger often bridges principle and action. If self-preservation is the guiding principle, our actions will only deepen our cultural downfall. If worship is the guiding principle, our actions can break the cycle of hatred and cause real change. Righteous anger also aims at the right enemies—not our neighbors, whom the Good Samaritan teaches us to love—but Satan and the sinful ideologies he promotes.
Our warfare does not draw blood. We do not wrestle against flesh. We tear down sinful strongholds and destroy false ideologies. We do not rid this world of sinners. We rob sinners of their sin. In its place, we lovingly give the former slaves of this world a pearl of inestimable value: the knowledge of God. We are Christians. We love our enemies.
“Further, the soul's faculty of temper is useful to us in many of the acts of virtue. When like a soldier who has placed his arms in the custody of his commander, it readily offers help in what is ordered, it can perhaps be an ally to reason against sin. For the temper is a sinew of the soul, producing vigor in it for the accomplishment of good actions…If your temper is not roused against the Evil One, you will not be able to hate him as much as he deserves. For I hold that it is necessary to have equal zeal for the love of virtue and for the hatred of sin. For this above all temper is useful.” –St. Basil the Great1
Basil of Caesarea, “Homily against Anger,” in On the Human Condition, ed. John Behr and Augustine Casiday, trans. Nonna Verna Harrison, Popular Patristics Series, Number 30 (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2005), 88–89.