I took a class called Perspectives on Global Mission during my sophomore year of university. My professor, whom I deeply admire, spoke one day about righteous anger. It was a concept I had never really considered before.
Growing up, I mostly learned that anger was something to avoid. I was taught that we should forgive quickly, let things go, and try not to hold onto anger. Yet here was my professor talking about righteous anger and pointing to Jesus, who became angry enough to overturn the tables in the temple.
Jesus was not angry for his own sake. He was angry because a place intended for worship had become corrupt and unjust. Merchants had moved into the temple courts, and people who came to offer sacrifices were often charged unfair prices. The religious leaders allowed that behavior to continue. Seeing this exploitation, Jesus responded.
As he spoke, my professor suddenly slammed his marker on the board and said, “Is there something in this world that just makes you so angry?”
I remember realizing that many things made me angry—not just the kind of anger that flares up and fades away, but the kind that comes with a deep ache in your heart. I am angry when immigrants and refugees are treated as less than human. I am angry when people face antisemitism or Islamophobia. I am angry when Christianity is used to justify violence. I am angry when children and families become trapped in systems of poverty and racism. More than once, I have asked God, “Why?”—and not always in a polite tone.
Living in Jerusalem has only deepened that righteous anger within me. It arises as I pass through checkpoints, as I think about friends from the West Bank who cannot visit our new apartment here, and as I think about the many people who are still displaced and living in tents in Gaza.
Most recently, it has surfaced as I drive past a new Israeli outpost that has been established outside of Beit Sahour. An outpost is a small settlement established in the West Bank, often beginning with trailers and temporary structures in the hope that it will eventually become a recognized settlement. Under international law, settlements in occupied territory are illegal because they involve moving Israeli civilians into Israeli-occupied land (see Fourth Geneva Convention Article 49). This particular outpost is not only considered illegal under international law, but it is also unauthorized under Israeli law. Yet it remains.
The West Bank is facing an all-time high in settler attacks on Palestinian villages and individuals. The UN reported 190 attacks per month in January–April. Eighteen Palestinians, including children, have been killed this year, and the trajectory of attacks will surpass 2,000 by 2027.
What really stirs my anger is not just the grand scale of violence but personally what this outpost represents. If you continue driving past it, you arrive in Beit Sahour, one of the three towns that make up the greater Bethlehem area. We work there. We worship there. Many of our friends live there. Bethlehem is already increasingly isolated, and this is one more step toward cutting it off from the eastern and northern parts of the West Bank.
As I watch bulldozers move across the hilltop and see new fences and flags appear, I find myself asking, Why does no one stop this? Why do we keep allowing land to be taken and violence to continue? Are my friends in danger?
I do not know the answers to those questions. But I do know that we worship a God who is not indifferent to injustice. I don’t think righteous anger is meant to end with clenched fists. If it did, Jesus would have only flipped tables. Instead, he continued healing, teaching, feeding, and ultimately giving his life for the people he loved.
Living here has taught me that righteous anger can be a gift when it opens our eyes to injustice and keeps us from becoming indifferent. But it must also lead us somewhere—to prayer that refuses to give up, to speaking truth even when it is uncomfortable, to loving our neighbors more deeply, and to working for the kind of peace that is rooted in justice.
Every time I drive past that outpost, I still feel anger. I still ask God why. Perhaps righteous anger is God’s invitation to refuse indifference—to keep our hearts tender enough to grieve what grieves him and to love people enough to keep working for reconciliation, even when the work feels impossibly small.
What would happen if, instead of dismissing our righteous anger, we accepted it as God’s invitation to act? How might God be inviting you to use your voice and your actions in response to the things that make you righteously angry?
Commentary
Beyond Clenched Fists
I took a class called Perspectives on Global Mission during my sophomore year of university. My professor, whom I deeply admire, spoke one day about righteous anger. It was a concept I had never really considered before.
Growing up, I mostly learned that anger was something to avoid. I was taught that we should forgive quickly, let things go, and try not to hold onto anger. Yet here was my professor talking about righteous anger and pointing to Jesus, who became angry enough to overturn the tables in the temple.
Jesus was not angry for his own sake. He was angry because a place intended for worship had become corrupt and unjust. Merchants had moved into the temple courts, and people who came to offer sacrifices were often charged unfair prices. The religious leaders allowed that behavior to continue. Seeing this exploitation, Jesus responded.
As he spoke, my professor suddenly slammed his marker on the board and said, “Is there something in this world that just makes you so angry?”
I remember realizing that many things made me angry—not just the kind of anger that flares up and fades away, but the kind that comes with a deep ache in your heart. I am angry when immigrants and refugees are treated as less than human. I am angry when people face antisemitism or Islamophobia. I am angry when Christianity is used to justify violence. I am angry when children and families become trapped in systems of poverty and racism. More than once, I have asked God, “Why?”—and not always in a polite tone.
Living in Jerusalem has only deepened that righteous anger within me. It arises as I pass through checkpoints, as I think about friends from the West Bank who cannot visit our new apartment here, and as I think about the many people who are still displaced and living in tents in Gaza.
Most recently, it has surfaced as I drive past a new Israeli outpost that has been established outside of Beit Sahour. An outpost is a small settlement established in the West Bank, often beginning with trailers and temporary structures in the hope that it will eventually become a recognized settlement. Under international law, settlements in occupied territory are illegal because they involve moving Israeli civilians into Israeli-occupied land (see Fourth Geneva Convention Article 49). This particular outpost is not only considered illegal under international law, but it is also unauthorized under Israeli law. Yet it remains.
The West Bank is facing an all-time high in settler attacks on Palestinian villages and individuals. The UN reported 190 attacks per month in January–April. Eighteen Palestinians, including children, have been killed this year, and the trajectory of attacks will surpass 2,000 by 2027.
What really stirs my anger is not just the grand scale of violence but personally what this outpost represents. If you continue driving past it, you arrive in Beit Sahour, one of the three towns that make up the greater Bethlehem area. We work there. We worship there. Many of our friends live there. Bethlehem is already increasingly isolated, and this is one more step toward cutting it off from the eastern and northern parts of the West Bank.
As I watch bulldozers move across the hilltop and see new fences and flags appear, I find myself asking, Why does no one stop this? Why do we keep allowing land to be taken and violence to continue? Are my friends in danger?
I do not know the answers to those questions. But I do know that we worship a God who is not indifferent to injustice. I don’t think righteous anger is meant to end with clenched fists. If it did, Jesus would have only flipped tables. Instead, he continued healing, teaching, feeding, and ultimately giving his life for the people he loved.
Living here has taught me that righteous anger can be a gift when it opens our eyes to injustice and keeps us from becoming indifferent. But it must also lead us somewhere—to prayer that refuses to give up, to speaking truth even when it is uncomfortable, to loving our neighbors more deeply, and to working for the kind of peace that is rooted in justice.
Every time I drive past that outpost, I still feel anger. I still ask God why. Perhaps righteous anger is God’s invitation to refuse indifference—to keep our hearts tender enough to grieve what grieves him and to love people enough to keep working for reconciliation, even when the work feels impossibly small.
What would happen if, instead of dismissing our righteous anger, we accepted it as God’s invitation to act? How might God be inviting you to use your voice and your actions in response to the things that make you righteously angry?
S.J.
CONTINUE READING
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