Christians and Anger

Do you struggle with anger? Does a close family member or friend? Are you known for your Irish-red-hair and the fact that you are incapable of playing sports without a blowup of some sort? Anger – so much of it. It fills every corner of the web and spills over into our personal lives. Or are we using the web as a not-so-anonymous place to vent our anger at strangers?

The movie Noah is the perfect example. When the movie hit theaters in March, you could find reviews of it in every imaginable area of the web. I wish I could say I enjoyed the thought-provoking debates it triggered, but the angry, irrational folks quickly overran the reviews and comments from reasonable folks.

Is anger a problem only when discussing the movies? Absolutely not. Give folks another day and they will be tearing into Pope Francis, and any person making the news for one reason or another. Just take a few moments to read through the comments on any given website and you will see every imaginable form of nastiness. This irrational, childish, behavior has been documented in recent surveys and is even costing people their job.

What is anger? It is described in the dictionary as “a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility.” Here I am primarily addressing uncontrolled anger triggered by people’s beliefs, opinions and actions. Once anger takes over it can affect our ability to communicate effectively – making us more likely to say or do unreasonable or irrational things.

Pope Francis devoted one of his homilies to this subject in June of 2013. He pointed out that, “there is no need to go to a psychologist to know that when we denigrate another person it is because we are unable to grow up and need to belittle others, to feel more important.” This, he said, is “an ugly mechanism.” Jesus, “with all the simplicity says: “Do not speak ill of one another. Do not denigrate one another. Do not belittle one another.” The Pope noted, “in the end we are all travelling on the same road”, “we are all travelling on that road that will take us to the very end.” Therefore, “if we do not choose a fraternal path, it will end badly, for the person who insults and the insulted.” The Pope noted that “if we are not able to keep our tongues in check, we lose”. Pope Francis observed that it is not that we are bad, rather “we are weak and sinners.”

We don’t hear much about sin or being sinners anymore, especially stated so bluntly as Pope Francis is known to do. Yet The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines sin as, “an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.”121, CCC 1849

Famous writer Madeleine L’Engle notes in her book A Circle of Quiet,“A self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed to the child, finished and complete. A self is always becoming.” And what are we becoming? Angry people whose every thought has to be affirmed by someone? Or people of self-control – willing to humbly admit our sins and shortcomings and still trust in the mercy of Our Savior. Not an easy task by any measure, but we can start by being kind to our neighbors on the web.

NOTE: If you are looking for a practical guide to overcoming anger, I would suggest checking out Dr. Ray Guarendi’s new book Fighting Mad. It is full of practical advice to help take on the monster of anger in our lives. The book can be purchased here.