Last month, citizens around the country took to the streets dressed in black, waving flags that read “No Kings” and protesting against ICE raids in LA that had shattered families just days earlier. Their anger was raw and real — a pulse of frustration against a system that seems designed to punish the vulnerable. But this wasn’t just a one-off event. From immigration crackdowns to housing injustice to troubling policy changes, America is simmering with outrage.
It’s easy to get swept up in the storm. As Christians, many of us feel a deep call to stand against these injustices. After all, Jesus showed righteous anger—flipping tables, calling out hypocrites, and grieving over brokenness. Yet the kind of anger flooding our feeds today often feels different—more performative, more reactive, more exhausting than hopeful.
That tension—the desire to be rightly angry but the risk of falling into shallow outrage—is something Dr. Derwin Gray has wrestled with. Speaking to RELEVANT about cultivating a hunger for righteousness, he said, “I long for sad things to be untrue one day. I hunger for wrongs to be made right. I thirst for the hurt to be healed and the broken to be fixed. I want decay and death to give way to life and human flourishing.”
That hunger is the root of righteous anger. But Gray also said that anger isn’t just noise; it’s a sign of something deeper.
“How do we know something is unjust unless we believe there is a standard of justice?” he asked. “Why do we get angry and hurt by suffering unless we know it shouldn’t be that way? How do we know a line is crooked unless there is a straight line to compare it to?”
Our anger points to a belief in a better world — one God made and desires to restore.
That longing for justice isn’t just a wish. It’s a call to action. The God who created everything good didn’t leave us to wander in brokenness. Jesus stepped into the mess to bring new life, and through his resurrection, invites us into the work of renewal.
Being angry about injustice isn’t the end of the story. It’s the spark, the fuel for a much harder, longer journey.
“Healing can only happen if we are willing to act,” Gray said. “The good life is a life that answers God’s call to make a positive difference in the world, to be a giver, not a taker. How different will the world be because you existed? You don’t have to be famous to make a difference — you just need to be faithful.”
This kind of faithful anger doesn’t look like viral outrage or hot takes that fade by morning. It’s slower and messier. It’s showing up when no one’s watching. It’s serving the homeless, supporting immigrant families, advocating for justice in local meetings and loving the neighbor we don’t agree with.
“The justice the world longs for is found in you,” Gray explained. “The King of heaven gives you His righteousness so you can express it to the world around you. If Jesus can lay down His life for us, who are we to keep our lives? Paradoxically, when we lay down our lives in service to others, we find the true good life.
“True happiness is found in meeting another’s need,” Gray continued. “Happiness is found in healing a hurt. Happiness is found in becoming God’s paintbrush to create beauty where there is ugliness, hope where there is despair, and salvation where there is condemnation.”
The early church lived this reality. Historian Rodney Stark noted how Christianity revitalized cities by embodying charity and hope amid chaos and suffering. Tertullian, an early church leader, wrote, “It is our care of the helpless, our practice of loving kindness that brands us in the eyes of our opponents… they say how they love one another!”
Jesus put it most clearly in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Hunger and thirst are primal needs, and Jesus links them to a longing for God’s justice and peace — a calling to love God fully and to love others deeply.
This hunger isn’t just a feeling; it’s a way of life.
“We can’t live without God, just like we can’t live without food or water,” Gray said. “He is the only food that will nourish us and the only drink that will satisfy our thirst. The food and water we need to live and thrive are free of charge — we simply must come.”
So yes, be angry. Let that anger remind you something is wrong and needs fixing. But don’t stop there. Let it fuel a hunger for God’s justice that moves beyond outrage and into action. Because in a world full of shouting, what we really need is a church willing to show up with love, mercy and the courage to be agents of healing and hope.
The protests in L.A. showed us anger is real and justified. Gray’s words remind us it must lead us somewhere better — into the messy, beautiful work of making God’s justice real in a world that desperately needs it.
