Toward a Christian Spirituality of Anger

Abstract

Spiritus 23 (2023): 9–35 © 2023 by Johns Hopkins University Pr ss After a significant season of discernment about this address, I made the decision to focus on the topic of anger. It was initially for personal reasons, as I will soon describe, but in the months since solidifying that decision I was both surprised and delighted to discover that when I mentioned this topic to others, without exception there was immediate interest and affirmation. What is it about anger that would elicit such a widespread and consistent response? Perhaps it is because we seem to live in, to borrow the words of author Pankaj Mishra, an “age of anger.” According to Christian theologian and activist, Barbara Holmes, who focuses her work on African American spirituality, mysticism, cosmology and culture,