Anger -- particularly though not necessarily confined to righteous anger -- can be a powerful motivator, affectively sustaining criticism of, and resistance to, oppression and injustice. It can function as emotional fuel for the many steps to work for changing of social conditions (and even more difficult, human hearts and consciences). One's own anger -- and that of others -- can even exert an unveiling effect, permitting one to perceive conditions of which one was previously unaware or concealing from oneself. It is not surprising that anger played a role in the Civil Rights struggle for desegregation, anti-racism, and equality in America, nor that it was a force in the non-violent approach of Martin Luther King.
King's thought and action, I have claimed
elsewhere, is clearly situated within the mainstream of a long-running and well-developed Christian theological tradition grappling with ever-present problems of violence, hatred, unjust social relations, and oppression, elaborating responses to these with the example and words of (and in mainstream tradition, in communion and relationship with) Jesus Christ. This is not to deny his originality or importance, but rather to stress continuity with other thinkers he names and draws upon, not least of which are SS. Paul, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas, all of whom made contributions to the ongoing project of making fuller sense of anger, as an emotion, a response, a virtuous or vicious habit, a dynamic.
