The Morality Of Anger

Have you ever heard of Christians condemning all anger as sinful?  I have, and ironically I get indignant when I hear about such teachings because they are demonstrably untrue.  While proper management of anger is a key necessity to living a righteous life, anger itself is not intrinsically sinful, as I will demonstrate the Bible teaches.  As with other areas, some people misrepresent Biblical morality and legalistically condemn anger as if people need to avoid all forms of anger in order to avoid sinning.  Since anger is sometimes a natural emotion and reaction, we need to know what divine revelation illuminates about it, lest we misunderstand how we should engage with this feeling or attitude that we find ourselves experiencing sometimes (as an aside, this post marks the one year anniversary of my blog!).

Anger is not universally condemned by the Bible.  The object of anger,
the motivation behind it, and the way it is expressed determine the
morality of anger.

Let's look at a verse from Psalms:


Psalm 4:4--"In your anger do not sin . . ."


This verse explicitly brings to light the fact that not all anger is associated with evil activity or illicit wrath.  If one can be angry without sinning, then it is true by necessity that anger in itself is not always sinful.  After all, God himself expresses deep anger all throughout the Bible.  One must acknowledge this important distinction when analyzing what the Bible actually teaches about anger.

Now, I will examine a quote from Jesus about anger that can seem puzzling at first.


Matthew 5:22--"But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment."


But doesn't this verse seem to contradict the one I explained before this?  First of all, Psalm 4:4 already distinguishes between sinful and permissible anger--anger itself is not intrinsically sinful and does not have to lead to sinful behaviors.  Anger is not always the same as a desire for vengeance (which the Bible does condemn: see Leviticus 19:18, Romans 12:19) or a desire to inflict harm on someone.  Second, Jesus became externally angry while on earth (John 2), so anyone who says that Jesus was perfectly righteous must concede that anger is not always sinful.  Third, even a footnote in the translation I used for Matthew 5:22 here (the NIV) admits that other translations add that the anger being addressed is anger "without cause".  The Bible obviously condemns anger without cause, disproportionate anger, or anger that entertains sinful behaviors or thoughts.

When dealing with anger, perhaps ask yourself the following questions:

1).  Do I have a reason for my anger?  Is it without cause?

2).  Am I acting in a manner which the Bible condemns because of my anger?

Such questions and honest answers to them can help us evaluate whether our anger is morally good or destructive and sinful.

Not all anger is abusive or malicious.  Since God himself gets angry at
certain things (Romans 1:18, Exodus 22:24, etc) and we are
commanded to be imitators of God (Ephesians 5:1), we are
commanded to express righteous anger as well.

Rage of some sort has practically always been a deep part of my personality and identity as a person--rage over perceived moral misconduct and eventually over irrationality.  As my blog has evidenced [1], I have embraced that ferocity in no small measure.  I experience it often.  I consciously allow fury (not malice) to fuel my words and actions.  And, as long as that rage is exercised within proper moral guidelines and aimed in legitimate directions, there is nothing sinful about this according to the Bible.  I am enraged that most people forsake reason for shallow, inconsistent reliance on fallacies, preferences, and assumptions.  I become very irate when Christians condemn or question me for engaging in practices that Biblical morality does not prohibit.  I get deeply frustrated and angry when people live as hypocrites.  Simply discussing or reading about things like sexual abuse, illicit torture, racism, sexism, and anti-intellectualism has provoked a great deal of both inner and verbalized indignance from me.  As I said, such anger is a part of my existential identity.  My kind of anger is not opposed by the Bible, nor does it evolve into malice (malice being the active desire to harm someone, anger being a state of heated attitude towards someone).

To teach that God discourages all forms of human anger is to greatly distort the Bible.  Until abused, anger is always either neutral or good.  The Bible instructs people to imitate the character of God--and anger is one of his characteristics, albeit one not that is necessarily popular in the American church at large at the moment.  Anger is not always tainted by sin.  In fact, it is morally good by Biblical standards for Christians to express healthy anger towards actual evils like injustice, anti-intellectualism, and legalism.  Because of this, we need not always fret over its presence in our lives.  Do not allow anger to transform itself into something illegitimate--but do not demonize all anger, as the results of doing so can be devastating.


[1].  I'm not normally subtle in my blog posts at all when I refer to certain people or ideas as asinine, pathetic, intellectually useless, or damaging!