Book Review: Good & Angry

I've spent the last couple days entrenched in this book, and today I realized I am impressed by how balanced it is. And content-full. But backing up...

Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness by David Powlison is a book about, you guessed it, anger. I would say it's about how we deal with anger, but Powlison makes it clear that anger is not an "it" that you "deal with," as if it is separate from your being (see Chapter 5, or page 46, for more about that). Anger is our assessment of a situation. It says "That matters . . . and it's not right" (p. 39, or Chapter 4). What is unique about this book is that the author argues that to never feel anger is also a problem because anger "is the justice emotion. Anger is the deliver-the-oppressed-from-evil emotion" (p. 63).

"Your anger is both brilliant and appalling. The shifting line between good and evil plays out when it comes to your anger, like everywhere else. Your anger is Godlike to the degree you treasure justice and fairness and are alert to betrayal and falsehood. Your anger is devil-like to the degree you play god and are petty, merciless, whiny, argumentative, willful, and unfair."

--David Powlison, Good and Angry (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2016), p. 65-66 (Chapter 6!)

 

Powlison then delves into what he calls the "constructive displeasure of mercy," which to me, honestly?, has been rather confusing. But, in summation, when you feel angry, you can do anger well by responding with 1) patience, 2) forgiveness, 3) charity, and 4) constructive conflict, each of which he explains in detail. I thought his description of patience especially noteworthy:

"You struggle within yourself so that you don't react immediately in the wrong way. You bear with difficult people and events, not out of indifference, resignation, or cowardice. You hang in there because you are driven by a different purpose. . . . [Patience] is how to be purposeful and constructive in the face of great difficulties. . . . By definition, patience means that what's wrong doesn't change right away." (p. 78, Chapter 7)

I love that Powlison repeats over and over that mercy is not saying that what someone did was okay. "Jesus gathers up our angers, not to neuter our sensitivity to evil, but to redeem how we respond" (p. 72, emphasis mine).

I am only 100 pages into this 243 page book, but so far I have gleaned a lot and done much self-inspection. I have learned that I don't have to lump all my irritation/impatience/frustration/mad issues into one lump and say "that's bad, I need to be more patient." This is SO helpful, because some things are worth getting stirred up over (p. 31). Because the author makes that differentiation, he can then provide Biblical tools for how to handle that justice emotion constructively.

I'm hoping in the second half of the book Powlison will deal more with the less-godly side of anger, like irritation when someone doesn't understand what you're talking about on the first go-through, or doesn't hear you even tho you've yelled from the bathroom three times already, or the drawer sticks when you're in a hurry because a wooden spoon is wedged in there and when you jerk the drawer free your whole body feels jarred. I think he will though since one of the upcoming chapters is called "The Everyday Angers."

So far, this book gets 5 out of 5 stars for being so balanced, Biblical, and not trying my patience by being slow to get to content. (Trying my patience...impatience....anger...get it? *silly joke* But seriously, each chapter is packed full of content.)

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Cross Focused Reviews in exchange for a timely review.