Abstract
In a world plagued by injustices such as gender-based violence, racism, poverty, and inequality, preaching and liturgy can foster a prophetic imagination that simultaneously criticizes and energizes. In two articles, the potentially positive role that anger can play in this kind of liturgy and preaching is explored. After a narrative-style introduction, the first article provides a contextual and theoretical background by describing a South African and global context that elicits a wide range of angry responses. It follows with an exploration of anger as an emotion and the importance of the human body, including the emotions and the senses, in the performance of worship and preaching. Furthermore, anger in theological discussions is presented, as well as the practice of listening to anger. Finally, different kinds of anger are described with one specific type, named Lordean rage by Myisha Cherry, being examined as a meaningful type of anger for liturgical praxis. Expressions of Lordean anger as encountered in biblical and present-day contexts can, and even should at times, be embodied in preaching and liturgy. The second article builds on these insights and develops a preliminary liturgical and homiletical praxis theory for angry preaching and worship.
Introduction 1
On the continent of Africa, storytelling is an important part of preaching and liturgy. Therefore, the following story from South Africa begins this contribution about the role of anger and listening in preaching and worship.
There was a man who lived in the Northern parts of his country. He had a wife who came from the South, but the woman left the man and went to her father's home. Maybe she was angry at him, maybe even unfaithful. Who really knows what happens within the four walls of a house between a husband and a wife? Whatever the issue was, or whether the problem between them was his fault or hers, or maybe both, she left her husband and went back to her father in the South.
More than a year after she left, her husband decided to fetch her. Upon arrival, his father-in-law welcomed him with overwhelming hospitality. It was almost as if the father-in-law wanted to please the husband with all the food and drink he had, to ensure that his son-in-law would be kind to his daughter.
Eventually, the man and his wife departed from her father's house to travel back to their home in the North. On the way back, they had to stay somewhere overnight. The first option, which one of their co-travelers proposed, was a nearby city. The man, however, refused and said that that city was inhabited by foreigners and, therefore, could be potentially dangerous for people like them. So, they pressed ahead to a city mostly inhabited by their own people.
As was the custom back then, upon their arrival in the other city, they waited for their own people to take them in and give them lodging. Of course, one might think that the man and woman would quickly receive assistance in finding food and a place to stay with their own people. But this did not happen—their own people ignored them. An old man, however, who was a foreigner living in the city, invited them to stay with him in his home.
The old man gave them food and drink. As they were just getting merry, a gang of thugs surrounded the house and demanded that the old man hand over his male visitor to them for homosexual gang rape. But the landlord refused. Instead, he offered his virgin daughter and the visitor's wife to be raped.
The mob refused this offer. They wanted the male visitor. But while they were still arguing, the man, who had just fetched his wife from her father's house, pushed her out through the door and left her to the mob of rapists. He then went to bed and slept.
In the morning, he got up. After opening the door and going out, he saw his wife lying at the door of the house, with her hands on the threshold. Looking at his mutilated wife lying on the doorstep, he said to her, “Get up. We’re leaving.”
But she did not move. She was dead. Then, he picked up her corpse and continued his journey to the North. On his arrival back home, the man did something strange. He dissected the body of his wife into twelve pieces and sent a piece to each of the tribes in his country.
The story ends with the people who saw this saying, “Such a thing has never been seen or done… Think about it! Consider it! Tell us what to do!” 2
This is a story from the book of Judges, chapter 19. This story resonates with the current South African context plagued by violence and crime, including gender-based violence. What is an appropriate reaction or emotional response that such a story, as described in an ancient text or as encountered in a present-day context, should evoke in hearers or readers? Should it be sadness after rape and murder? Maybe apathy, as this story from another time and place has little to do with me as the reader? Or perhaps anger at violence, crime, and injustice?
These articles scrutinize the emotion called anger to gauge its significance for preaching and worship. The working hypothesis is that certain kinds of anger are indeed an appropriate response when we are faced with injustices such as gender-based violence, as illustrated in the story. These responses should be incorporated into liturgical and homiletical praxis.
This story from Judges 19 is a Bible story and, as such, is a story that can be the basis of preaching in worship services. However, should a text of terror such as Judges 19 be preached at all? Should lectionaries at times include Judges 19 in the readings? And if texts such as Judges 19 are indeed used as preaching texts and to develop liturgies, can a worship leader and preacher celebrate and preach in a detached, disembodied way when the story forms part of worship? Furthermore, can a preacher engage with this and similar stories of events in sermons and worship services in disembodied ways with suppressed emotions and by means of mainly rational ritual-liturgical performances, which in addition, often call upon hearers not to get angry? Jakub Urbaniak writes: “In much of our theologizing and church life, the tendency is to stifle or sideline anger for the sake of rational, constructive arguments on the one hand and pastoral spiritual programmes aimed at forgiveness, healing and reconciliation on the other.” 3
Walter Brueggemann asserts that the emphasis in the book of Judges falls on “reimagination.” 4 In the process of sustaining traditions, old memories and historical facts were reformulated in the light of God's rule. This exploration of anger, preaching, and worship is positioned within this kind of prophetic tradition, the task which Brueggemann argues is “to hold together criticism and energizing.” 5 The embodiment of anger in the pulpit and in worship has the potential to both criticize and energize and, as such, opens the potential of prophetic imagination.
South Africa is experiencing a plague of gender-based violence, racism, corruption, and criminal state capture. 6 These reflections on anger, preaching, and worship were partially born in this contextual reality and in the midst of major student protests. These students, according to theologian Samuel Maluleke, “drink a potent cocktail of Biko mixed with Frantz Fanon.” 7 Judges 19 can assist us in connecting reflections on liturgy and preaching in a violent South African context to the emotion called anger.
The story from Judges 19, and similar ones, should make people angry. What do we do with anger when it comes to preaching and liturgy? Should I preach only in a rational way about anger and resist incorporating any anger into the liturgy, or should I, at times, allow space for the embodiment of anger in worship and preaching? Can and may I preach on anger, or in an angry way, and may I celebrate an angry liturgy if I have not yet deeply listened to anger? And what does listening to anger entail?
These two articles explore wisdom from the African continent, along with insights from various scholars who have done research on anger, to work toward answers to these questions of how to approach anger when it comes to the practices of worship and preaching. 8 The main question addressed in this reflection can be formulated as follows: Should anger within texts and contexts at times be embodied in sermon and worship preparation and in preaching and celebration, and if yes, how can it be approached? In the first article, the focus is on the “should,” and in the second article, the focus falls on the “how.”
To answer this dual question, the articles commence by first presenting a very angry and violent nation at the southern tip of Africa, followed by a consideration of global expressions of anger. As an exploration in liturgy and homiletics, academic disciplines I engage as part of the field of practical theology, I deliberately locate these articles in a very specific South African context and leave it to readers to explore their own wider applicability. 9 Second, the emotion labeled anger is unpacked by drawing on insights from various disciplines, including theology, pastoral care, and philosophy. Insights from the domain of ritual studies and reflection on practices by African scholars are included throughout the exploration as a bodily-based epistemology. 10
In the second article, the insights gained from the exploration of anger in Africa are applied to liturgy and preaching. Part 2 builds on Part 1 and provides a preliminary theory of liturgical and homiletical praxis for angry worship and preaching. The hope is that, in the light of these reflections, readers will be better able to imagine what embodied angry liturgies and sermons in their own contexts could look like.
At the outset of this exploration, I must emphasize that since I write as a South African theologian, these articles are in a postcolonial mode. 11 The aim of these articles is to disrupt and interrupt traditional sources of knowledge and embrace previously neglected sources and epistemologies, such as those from Africa. 12
Anger
Anger in South Africa and Beyond
Before and after South Africa's transition to democracy in 1994, many people were angry. Before 1994, preachers such as Allan Boesak, Desmond Tutu, and Beyers Naude often embodied a holy rage in their preaching practice. The prevalence of anger in South Africa has become extremely acute in recent years. South Africa is angry, and people are angry for a wide variety of reasons. Reasons include ongoing experiences of colonialism and racism, even though we have been living in a democracy and a post-apartheid dispensation for almost three decades. Corruption has become endemic. The statistics for crime and violence are sky-high. Gender-based violence is unprecedented. Poor service delivery is a frustrating daily reality. Unemployment and poverty are widespread, and this list goes on. Urbaniak makes a convincing argument in his discussion of public theology and Black theology that postmodern Northern contexts should not be confused with the messiness of a “postcolony” in the South, such as South Africa. 13 The anger in South Africa is similar but, in important ways, very different from anger in other parts of the world.
Names of persons such as Anene Booysen, Andries Tatane, and Mido Macia make the average South African's blood boil while tears roll down our cheeks. Anene Booysen was a 17-year-old girl when her intestines were ripped out while she was raped. Andries Tatane was killed by police while participating in a protest march against bad service delivery. Literally thousands can be named to paint a horrific picture of pervasive violence. 14
South African university campuses over the past few years have experienced unrelenting waves of protests, such as #RhodesMustFall, #FeesMustFall, and a call for the decolonization of curricula. For a variety of reasons, many students in South Africa are very angry young people. Theologian Tinyiko Maluleke wrote, “Some of the angriest people on earth, at this time in history, are to be found on the Southern tip of Africa” and also that “a centimetre beneath the smiles and cordialities lies a latent anger.” Maluleke further argues, “If there is one area in which the Truth and Reconciliation Commission failed and failed spectacularly, it is the area of anger. We are an angry people. This is an angry nation.” 15 After Bishop Desmond Tutu's death in December 2021, several observers commented that people love to remember his jokes, his lampooning in the pulpit, and how he embraced people. But commentators and scholars, who research his preaching, too easily forget how he also embodied anger in the pulpit. In the preaching of the current Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba, there is a renewed anger, but for different reasons than those of Tutu. 16 South Africa is an angry nation, but it is not only South Africans who are angry, of course; internationally, people are also angry.
There is a lot of anger embedded in international hashtag movements, such as #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo, as well as activism related to issues such as global warming, immigration, coloniality, inequality, gender issues, pro- and anti-vaccination drives related to the Covid-19 pandemic, war, wokeness and more. 17
In light of pervasive anger at an (inter)national level and the fact that preachers cannot ignore this reality, preaching and worship offer at least two options. First, an argument can be made that anger is always “bad,” leading to destructive behavior or, theologically speaking, that getting angry is a sin that should be avoided at all costs (and even preached against) and not embodied or embraced in the pulpit or worship services. An alternative possibility, also the route followed in this exploration, is to embrace anger in the homiletical and liturgical preparation process, even in the pulpit and worship service, as an important and creative energizing force. Choosing the latter option, as is explicitly undertaken in this exploration, requires that anger as a concept should be unpacked in more detail. St. Augustine apparently once remarked that Mother Hope has two beautiful daughters—their names are Anger and Courage. Anger arises from the way things are, and Courage seeks to ensure that they do not remain as they are. In what follows, Mother Hope's first daughter will be explored in light of the main question posed in the Introduction above.
Anger, Embodiment, and Emotion
Anger is an emotion. When it comes to the theme of emotion, the problem is not only the historically deleterious view of the role of emotion in theology and church but also that anger has traditionally been viewed as a so-called negative emotion and, in the course of history, has been elevated to the status of a deadly sin. 18 To embrace a positive appreciation of anger as an emotion for liturgy, it is necessary to reflect on its negative appropriation in theology and the church. This negative view of emotion and anger in church and theology effects consequences that can be detected in our practices. In this regard, expressions of anger can be descried all over South Africa, also in symbolic and ritual format, except in one place, and that is in churches. 19 Many churches in South Africa are still trapped in notions that anger and expressions of anger are always sinful. Therefore, Christians should accordingly not display their anger (especially Christian women), or so it is often assumed. 20
In his book, The Angry Christian, theologian Andrew Lester defines anger as “a physical, mental, and emotional pattern that arises as a reaction to a threat to the self and is characterized by a desire to attack or defend.” 21 Lester explains the philosophical and theological biases against emotion and shows how, with few exceptions, the Stoic position was preferred in the West. A philosopher such as Emmanuel Kant viewed emotion as “an illness of mind.” Emotion was generally viewed as opposed to rationality. 22
Lester also discusses neuro-scientific research, which investigates how emotions function as part of an evolutionary process in human beings, noting that they relate to “our earliest ancestors in solving survival problems.” 23 Anger can, as such, be closely connected to mobilizing the body in the face of danger. Myisha Cherry writes in The Case for Rage about the positive potential of emotions and states that “they help us grapple with the world. Some alert us to danger, aid in decision-making, and motivate our actions. Others help us understand ourselves and other people. And they assist us in tempering our actions.” 24 In a similar vein, theologian Xolani Kacela argues that anger has the potential to frustrate, motivate, and incite change. 25
In spite of the positive appreciations of emotion in general and anger in particular, negative views of emotion, as well as a body-mind dualism, infiltrated theological thought, resulting in the undervaluation of emotion and anger. Lester makes a strong plea for incorporating emotions when thinking about personhood and theological anthropology. He writes: “Constructing a theological anthropology without attending to the affective life is like trying to understand an automobile without addressing the role of the motor.” 26 People perceive emotions with their bodies; Dutch theologian Gerardus van der Leeuw wrote as early as 1949: “We do not have bodies, we are bodies.” 27
Traditionally, however, emotion is not viewed in such a negative light in Africa as was often the case elsewhere, and concomitantly, there has been a positive appreciation of the body in Africa, including in expressions of worship. 28 Cas Wepener writes, “The true translation of the liturgy into the ‘vernacular’ in Sub-Saharan Africa was a more spontaneous process or organic development that not only involved written and spoken language, but rather and in the first instance involved body language.” 29 In this regard, Africa potentially has an advantage when it comes to the positive appreciation and utilization of the body and emotions in general, and particularly of anger as part of preaching and worship. The importance of the body will be attended to below, specifically exploring the body as an important vehicle for knowing. As such, the importance of a bodily-based epistemology, especially with regard to rituals and liturgy and in relation to expressions of anger, will be explored.
From an evolutionary perspective, as already mentioned, anger can be viewed as part of creation and critical for human survival. 30 According to Eugene Peterson, anger can be a diagnostic window through which those who are angry can gain insight that they will not get anywhere else. Peterson writes that angry people should ask themselves why they are angry. 31 And usually, they will realize that behind the anger lurks injustice or oppression. Anger can thus be useful in context to make this kind of diagnosis, as asking why we are angry can lead to deeper insight regarding the reasons for the anger. By exploring their anger and the reasons behind it, people who are angry can understand themselves and their contexts better. According to Lester, “The Bible is not focused on eradicating the internal experience of anger, our capacity for anger, but on why we get angry and on how to creatively handle the expression of anger.” 32
This exploration concurs with scholars such as Campbell and Lester that anger is not necessarily a sin as such, although it can turn into aggression and unacceptable behavior. 33 As a physical-emotional response to a perceived threat, however, anger is potentially also a gift. Yet, as has been argued, emotion traditionally has neither been appreciated so positively in theology and the church, nor do many people deal with their emotions well. The body and emotion, however, should not only be re-evaluated and appreciated for the same in homiletics and liturgy but should also function on a deeper epistemological level.
Certain matters cannot be understood solely with our reason and for which we also need our bodies. In other words, understanding comes from the unity of the mind and the body. Our bodies are important in how we know what we know and from where that knowledge comes. In this regard, the work of Irish philosopher Richard Kearney 34 on carnal hermeneutics is valuable in exploring the “inextricable relationship between sensation and interpretation.” 35 In Kearney's recent work on the sense of touch, he writes, “Touch keeps us susceptible to the world as it commutes, like Hermes, between inside and outside, self and other, human and nonhuman. Tactility is our most refined means of transition and translation.” 36 Rituals and liturgy, which include the act of preaching, are embodied practices that include all five senses and human emotions.
Human bodies are clearly not stupid. 37 On the contrary, human beings were created as psychosomatic beings, and this means that the possibility of knowing is not limited to our reason and engages our bodies. According to Theodore Jennings Jr., the function of ritual is to obtain, convey, and spread knowledge. 38 He speaks of the noetic or intellectual function of rituals, but let us extend this idea to a broader spectrum of symbolic behavior, not only ritual and liturgy but also to preaching as a liturgical ritual performance.
Like liturgy, preaching is an action people perform with their bodies. It includes the preacher and the hearers or worshipers. 39 Every time someone participates in a practice like a ritual or a church service, it may seem as if it is exactly the same as the previous times, but small variations always occur. Those small differences are important, for it is in and through participation that a person acquires bodily knowledge that can be obtained in no other way than performance. Jennings writes: “It is not so much that the mind ‘embodies’ itself in ritual action, but rather that the body ‘minds’ itself or attends to itself in ritual action.” 40
In ritual action, such as preaching and worship, there is no detached observation—the observation of the action to just glean insight or knowledge from it. On the contrary, insight is obtained within the action, and it is only through participating in the action that participants acquire knowledge or discover how to act. Participation is imperative to know what is about to happen. A comparison is sometimes made to dancing as a person will know what to do next in the dance only by participating with his or her body in the dance. With regard to the embodiment of anger for liturgy and preaching, this means that we are going to acquire certain kinds of knowledge and know how to act only if we participate with our bodies in the practice while embracing the emotion. 41 The preacher stands with her body, flesh, skin, and emotions as a kind of chiasm between the text and the context. The flesh and skin of a preacher and worship leader “is the pre-existing, pre-reflective chiasm which allows for the mutual insertion of the world between the folds of my body and my body between the folds of the world.” 42
Anger and Theology
Human bodies, with their emotions, are important sources of knowledge. With regard to the emotion of anger, Campbell writes that anger, like humor, “reflect[s] the human capacity to transcend the immediate situation, gain a new perspective and effect change for the better.” 43 Anger can thus assist with the task of reframing, to use the concept made popular by Donald Capps. 44 This reframing is akin to a prophetic imagination, which, according to Brueggemann, is “to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.” 45 To formulate a preliminary praxis theory for angry liturgy and preaching that can assist in reframing the current situation, however, persisting views of anger in church and theology need to be disrupted in order to imagine new possibilities for liturgy and preaching. When the emotion of anger is freed in this way, understandings of God are also freed; and we can better discern the image of God in which we are made, which is sometimes the image of a God for whom anger forms no part. 46
A closer look at anger in the Bible, both the anger of characters and the anger of God and Jesus, shows that anger often arises from love. God and Jesus often got angry because what they loved was threatened. This insight can be linked to why we and the people of South Africa get angry. We very often get angry because what we care about is being threatened. It should be clear that different kinds of anger should be carefully scrutinized. This exploration of anger will focus on (holy) anger triggered by injustice, which threatens my and my neighbor's freedom.
Scholars, such as practical theologian Alastair Campbell, show that anger is a complex issue in the Bible, but they agree that there is often a link between God's anger and God's love or caring. 47 Campbell, for example, states in his book The Gospel of Anger, “Perhaps the dark shadow of destructive aggression emanating from divine wrath is just our limited view of the brilliance of divine love.” 48 God's anger is often directed at injustice, at the oppression of the downtrodden, the orphans and widows, of those excluded.
Viewed from a social-constructionist perspective, people get angry because their cherished narratives are threatened, and, according to Lester, a threat to a core narrative makes people vulnerable to anger. 49 People get furious for various reasons, but all those reasons can be traced back to particular narratives. People in South Africa get angry because narratives they hold dear are currently threatened, or in any case, that is how they perceive it. Some South Africans get angry because the freedom for which they struggled is threatened by corruption and state capture. Other South Africans get angry because their cherished narrative of a Rainbow Nation and reconciliation, which they embraced, is threatened. 50 And in most cases, these narratives converge with each other and with many other narratives that are also being threatened.
To become angry for the right reasons is not only not a sin; on the contrary, it is a necessary expression of love. It is also why Cherry added the subtitle Why Anger is Essential to Anti-racist Struggle to the title of her book The Case for Rage. 51 Becoming angry is also more than a mere feeling of love. It is the first step towards interruption and change as acting upon that felt love. Hill writes in this regard, “If prophetic rage is nothing else, it is the merging of thought and action as continual process, and refusal to cease hoping, resisting, fighting, praying, and striving.” 52
South African theologian Nadia Marais also points out that what lies behind people's anger is often disappointment, and the anger is an indication that the people who get angry are hopeful. 53 Her argument is akin to Emmanuel Katongole's argument regarding ritual expressions of lament in Africa as acts of hope. 54 The actions in and through which anger is expressed have the potential to provoke thinking, and this thinking can lead to progressive action. Campbell argues that anger can be “a positive source for change” and is “a demand for repentance and renewal.” 55 A certain emotional intelligence, however, which includes close scrutiny of different kinds of anger, is needed before anger can be embraced as a positive source of change in worship and preaching.
Scrutinizing Our Anger
Some scholars state that only when a negative emotion, such as anger, has been turned into a positive emotion, such as love, can it be useful. 56 In this exploration, I side with Cherry and other scholars, such as Lester and Campbell, on the potential positive contribution that anger can make. Anger, however, should not be approached in an uncritical way, as certain kinds of anger can indeed be destructive. With regard to the various kinds of anger and closer scrutiny of these kinds, I present and examine insights gained from Myisha Cherry's work.
Cherry has studied anger and rage for many years as a philosopher. In The Case for Rage, she builds a case for the need for and use of anger in the struggle against racism. 57 Many of her insights pertaining to anger and racism, however, can be applied to other struggles in the world. According to Cherry, not all anger is necessarily good; but if we distinguish carefully, we can indeed identify the good types of anger.
Cherry shows that some scholars classify anger according to the concern it addresses. 58 If it is about a moral concern, then it is good; but if it is about an immoral concern, then it is not good. Another distinction concerns anger in relation to the intent of the anger. Is the intent of my anger to carry out some form of payback, or is it maybe a demand to recognize and respect me? The type of anger is a third distinction: namely, is it sudden anger aimed at destruction, or is it more deliberative anger that protests wrongdoing? Cherry furthermore distinguishes five helpful categories of anger and shows how one of these categories is useful in a struggle for justice. 59 In alignment with black scholars who often prefer the word “rage,” she also opts for the term “rage” rather than “anger”; however, the two terms are interchangeable in her work. The main features of the five types of anger are summarized below, and the distinctions she makes are critical for developing a homiletical and liturgical hermeneutic for angry preaching and worship and the practice of listening to anger which will be discussed in terms of praxis theory in the second article.
The first type of anger Cherry distinguishes is “rogue rage,” which can be experienced by, for example, a marginalized white male in a postcolonial South African context. His rage can be directed at injustices that he perceives, but the expression of his rogue rage is not against the particular person or institution that caused his situation. People with rogue rage blame almost everyone for their experience of injustice. They feel isolated and alone and direct their rage in a rogue way against everyone. The aim of the rage is not a change in policies, for example, but just to hit out at anyone and everyone. The perspective informing this rage is nihilism. People experiencing this kind of rage have no hope that things will get better, so they just lash out. 60
“Wipe rage” can be experienced by people who, for example, feel that they, as a group, are being threatened by the number of immigrants entering their country. They then make these “other” people targets with the aim of eliminating them as villains. The focus of the anger is not necessarily death, as we have seen in South Africa in the form of xenophobic attacks; it can be a kind of social death by having them removed. The core element of wipe rage is that there can be only one winner and one loser. One group experiencing wipe rage must wipe out the other group. 61
“Ressentiment rage is aimed at a group in power and expressed by those without power.” 62 Indigenous first people in South Africa who are angry at all black and all white people in our country can serve potentially as an example of people experiencing resentment rage. The aim of this kind of anger is revenge. The indigenous people, for example, want the power of the people who are in power so they can pay back those who are in power. A typical example would be colonized people who want to take revenge on the colonizers. 63
“Narcissistic rage” usually springs from “a sense of exceptionalism” and not systemic injustice. 64 Cherry gives the example of rich black person treated with suspicion at an airport and body-searched because of one's skin color. The person is then enraged, not because of the systemic injustice of racism experienced, but because of being treated in the same way as many poor black people are treated. People expressing narcissistic anger are mad at the forces that target them as individuals; thus, it is personal. They are not expressing their anger at injustice in general and, hence, also for the sake of all people who suffer under such a system. In their rage, they reaffirm their hierarchical place within the greater scheme of things as individuals. According to Cherry, people with this kind of rage show indifference toward the suffering of others. 65 These first four categories bring Cherry to her fifth category, which she deems to be useful in the struggle against racism.
Cherry makes a case for what she calls “Lordean rage.” She named this rage after black feminist scholar and poet Audre Lorde. Lorde published widely on anger, and Cherry especially makes use of her article entitled “The Uses of Anger.” 66 In that article, Lorde writes: “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of Color remains chained. Nor is any one of you.” 67 What Cherry calls Lordean rage is anger or rage in which the rage is absorbed for energy. She argues that rage is useful when it is focused with precision and translated into the necessary action. Cherry calls Lordean rage “metabolized anger” in reference to an article “Metabolized Anger” by Emily McRae; she quotes McRae, who describes this use of anger as “the virtuous channeling of the power and energy of anger without the desire to harm or pass pain” but rather with the aim to “fight injustice and respect the reality of one's anger without being destroyed by it.” 68 Lordean rage, thus, is aimed at creating change. Cherry qualifies the aim of this kind of anger as “not change as in the destruction of what is good or the elimination of the other, but to change certain beliefs, expectations, policies, and behaviors that shape and support injustice.” 69
Critical in the development of Cherry's distinctions of types of anger and her promotion of Lordean rage is Audre Lorde's conviction that a person is unfree as long as anyone else is unfree. Those outraged with Lordean rage are not only fighting for themselves but also for the suffering of other people. In this exploration, I am particularly interested in Cherry's Lordean rage, as I believe it is, to a certain degree, akin to God's holy rage. It is also akin to Mother Hope's daughter called Anger. It is not destructive anger, but it is disruptive anger—but disruption in the service of reimagining and, as such, of hope.
Throughout her book, Cherry argues that anger should be given the credit it deserves, as it has a special power that is mighty enough to combat some of the strongest forces and systems in the world. 70 And when it is Lordean rage, the anger does not exclude empathy and compassion. So, for example, when an angry protester marches in the street, it can be out of empathy and compassion for the downtrodden and a love for justice.
These distinctions regarding types of anger are important because some anger should be criticized, but some types of anger, such as Lordean rage, should not only escape criticism but be lauded. This is helpful in developing what Cherry calls an emotionally intelligent and nuanced discussion of anger. 71
Conclusion: Towards a Homiletical and Liturgical Praxis Theory for Angry Preaching
This article explored anger as an important emotion that can be potentially valuable for the practice of liturgy and preaching in that it serves interruption and disruption and, as such, can assist in cultivating a prophetic imagination. In local and global contexts, much anger can be discerned. Anger is also rife throughout the Bible. Preachers and worship leaders cannot ignore any of this anger. Anger is an emotion, and as such, it is an integral part of the human body. Theologically, anger can be seen as part of creation and our capacity for anger as a gift from God. From a neuro-scientific perspective, anger helps with survival as anger is activated by perceived threats. Furthermore, anger assists humans in mobilizing. However, there are different kinds of anger, and one kind is anger elicited out of love directed at change, of which a ritual expression is an act of hope. There are many examples of divine anger in the Bible, and often they are expressions of love and care in response to injustice. In light of the various kinds of anger discussed by Cherry, however, it is essential that preachers and worship leaders develop their emotional intelligence, distinguish between various kinds of anger, scrutinize their own anger, and ensure that the anger embodied in the homiletical and liturgical process is a form of Lordean rage. 72 Anger is potentially very dangerous. In this exploration, however, Lordean rage is not viewed as a deadly sin. Instead, it is given absolution and invited into the liturgy.
In the second article, this exploration of worship, preaching, and anger is developed further with the aim of formulating a preliminary theory of liturgical and homiletical praxis because angry sermons and liturgies can be hopeful sermons and liturgies, ritual expressions that we still care. In the language of Martin Luther King Jr., they represent a refusal to accept that the bank of justice is bankrupt. Such sermons and liturgies can stand as hopeful insistences that we can indeed still cash the check of reconciliation and justice in South Africa, despite our experiences that sometimes there seem to be insufficient funds in the bank of justice. Angry liturgies and sermons could be part of our attempts to mine a stone of hope out of a mountain of despair. In the second part, an analysis of preaching and anger is further developed, and a preliminary praxis theory is presented.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Unit for Theological Research of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (Western Cape Synod).
