I remember Anne Lamott’s quote, “You can be pretty sure that you’ve created God in your image when he hates all the same people you do.” There is a lot of bad stuff in the world that rightly generates our anger. The Christian person is to be cautious how much room they give to that anger.
“Righteous indignation” may be real, and in some cases legitimate, but the line between its legitimate form and “self-righteous-indignation” is blurry. Dallas Willard gives a good vision for dealing with this dangerous balance.
Although he (Jesus) certainly let his condemnation fall upon self-righteous and deeply corrupted leaders, we never see it in other contexts. And we can trust him to express it appropriately toward such people, though we ourselves could rarely if ever do so. Anger and condemnation, like vengeance, are safely left to God. We must beware of believing that it is okay for us to codnemn as long as we are condemning the right things. It is not so simple as all that. I can trust Jesus to go into the temple and drive out those who were profiting from religion, beating them with a rope. I cannot trust myself to do so. – The Divine Conspiracy, 221
