What is Righteous Anger?
Hateful words incite unstable people to acts of violence, while expressing words of righteous anger helps the unstable see a way forward without violence.
I feel the same outrage as many of you, but I am not going to add fuel to the fire. There are nations that would love to see us kill each other and are instigating the hatred to bring that about on social media. We need to act like a democracy of reason and handle this maturely with wisdom not impulses.
Not all love is mature. Immature love responds with impulses not reason. Indeed, sometimes we have to react, but when we react from impulse, it is a sign we have not learned how to respond with righteous anger, although we often think we have.
We all think at times that our anger is righteous when we place moral values above love. We think that being mad at someone’s immorality is a sign that we are righteous and cannot stand to be in the presence of people who do such things. Jesus (we do not have to believe in him to learn from him) spoke of the great love of an immoral woman to rebuke moral leaders who thought their morality made them righteous.
Mature love makes us righteous then, love for one’s enemies, those whom we judge for their immorality. But you ask, “How do I hate the actions and not the person committing them?” Distinguish between the body and the person. The actions of the body are the result of choices made by the person, blindly or not; they are not the person. But if you believe that the body is the person, then you believe there is no spirit and that we are just this lump of clay that is birthed and goes back to the earth.
In that case, there is no point to love or life itself for that matter. But if you know that love is real, you also should know that love cannot come from this lump of clay!!
Loving Trump and Elon is not likely to change them, but it will definitely free those of us stuck in not knowing how to hate the actions of the body but not the person. This will enable all of us to work together maturely and resist with patience, so that unnecessary violence can be avoided. Again, hateful words incite unstable people to acts of violence.
Maturity sees immaturity and does not play its game.
Jesus did not incite violence in others when he turned over the vendors’ tables—because he taught people about forgiveness, non-judgment and love for one’s enemies. He responded with the reasoning of mature love and displayed righteous anger. If we do not love the enemies of conscience (suneidesis),1 we cannot have righteous anger against their actions.
Suggested articles:
The Eyes of Democracy (Introduction and Index of Articles)
Suneidesis is pronounced soon-eye-day-sis. After reading the link explaining it, you will see how central it is to this teaching. Using this foreign word regularly in discussions helps us get accustomed to experiencing something new and positive in our awareness. When the word conscience is used, it will refer to the aspect of suneidesis that involves right and wrong, but this aspect cannot be separated from our co-conscientious awareness of all things.
If I understand that my awareness of something as simple as a cup includes co-conscientiousness, I do not allow myself to get blinded by the cup alone but know it as part of all creation at the hands of the Creator or the universe, depending on one’s beliefs. Spiritual maturity does this naturally.
You write wonderfully. And you are right as well. We can save democracy but it will be changed.
This article that you’ve written about righteous anger has come at a time of the season of lent and we’re discussing all of what you just said and how to handle life with so much hate and how do we deal with our feelings about what’s going on in our country with righteous anger and forgive and love our enemies we must try we must try we must try, but we still stand up for justice and what is right. Mr. Rogers a Presbyterian minister had so many lessons within his show about reaching across the table and loving your enemies. Thank you for writing and being the light that we need to hear right now George.