The holy fire of righteous anger.

Why I'm so sick and tired and refuse to apologize for my anger at abuse.

“All my life I’ve been sick and tired. Now I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.” — Fannie Lou Hamer

This wasn’t resignation—it was revolution. It was a declaration of holy defiance. It marked a threshold, a tipping point, a fire-lit stand against injustice that had gone on far too long. Fannie Lou Hamer wasn’t just physically tired. She was soul-weary from battling systemic racism, poverty, and white supremacist violence. She was done with being dismissed by political leaders—even in her own party. She was bearing the grief of being beaten, sterilized without consent, and denied the most basic human rights.¹

Fannie Lou Hamer from Kelly Latimore Icons (check it out!)

I’ll never fully comprehend the weight Hamer carried. But I feel a kindred fatigue in the fight against clergy sexual abuse. And I need to say it:

I’m truly sick and tired.

Not of survivors. No, they are the reason I keep going. I’m sick of the abuse—and the systems that allow it to fester. Survivors have carried decades of betrayal, coercion, fear, and gaslighting. Then they shoulder the unravelling: therapy bills, lost jobs, broken trust, being blamed for what happened to them. Their exhaustion is sacred. It’s holy ground. They don’t tire me. They inspire me.

I’m sick of being told I shouldn’t be angry. That anger isn’t Jesus-y. I’m angry at the repetition. At the identical patterns. At the protectors of power who shrug and stall and stay silent when they could lead. I’m sick of watching powerful men with prestige and platforms let survivors bleed while they hide behind institutional silence. I’m sick of Christian organizations behaving with less integrity than corporations.

I’m sick and tired of leaders who haven’t done their homework on abuse—who seem defensively ignorant while the systems they lead continue to perpetuate the conditions for abuse. I’m sick of communities defending abusers because the truth is just too inconvenient. I’m sick of calling for repentance and being met with brand management.

I’m sick of the myth that love should never look like anger. As if Jesus didn’t turn over tables. As if silence in the face of injustice is more holy than truth.

I’m sick and tired of the physical cost of denying our anger. Gabor Maté, in ‘When the Body Says No’ reminds us that repressed anger leads to illness, especially in Christian women taught to be endlessly accommodating. Anger isn’t the problem. Denial is. And it’s killing us.²

“When we suppress our emotions, particularly anger, we lose our ability to say no. And when we cannot say no, our bodies often say it for us through illness.”

Gabor Maté

I once served on the teaching team at The Meeting House where Bruxy Cavey, (then an esteemed pastor who turned out to be a predatorial abuser) said, “Whatever anger can do, love can do better.” It sounded nice. But in hindsight, it wasn’t good theology—it was expert grooming. Telling people not to be angry is a great tactic if you benefit from the status quo. Choosing ‘not to be angry’ is a sentiment reserved for the highly privileged few. I’m now fairly certain the whole ‘stuff your anger down’ ideology is not at all theological, but a helpful and practical strategy for people with power and privilege to avoid questions or take any accountability for their contribution to injustice. I’m angry so many people bought the idea that anger is wrong when they should have learned that abuse is wrong and anger at abuse is holy. 

I once wanted to close a sermon with a Franciscan prayer of discomfort. It was rejected—for being too angry. That’s what happens when theology is weaponized to be silent about injustice. Anger becomes the problem instead of abuse.

Danté Stewart, in Shoutin’ in the Fire, writes, "Rage liberated me from my lies and gave me the courage to see anew the present and the future."

He’s right. Anger, when rooted in truth, isn’t destructive—it’s divine. Jesus used his anger to heal, to free, to confront. He got angry at legalism that ignored suffering (Mark 3), at hypocrisy that hurt people (Matthew 23), at systems that kept outsiders excluded (John 2), at harming and exploiting the vulnerable (Matt 18).

“Anger is not a shortcoming to be denied, but a creative force that tells us when something is wrong. Every woman has a well stocked arsenal of anger, potentially useful against oppression – personal and institutional which brought that anger into being. Focused with precision – it can become a powerful source of energy serving power and change. Anger expressed into powerful action and the service of our vision and our future is a liberating and strengthening act of clarification.” 

Audrey Lorde (Sister Outside)

So let me be clear:

I’m angry that women are still the ones leading the charge to expose abuse, and then are blamed for it while men watch from a safe distance refusing any solidarity or support.

I’m angry that survivors scrape to get by financially while abuser-backed orgs rake in funding.

I’m angry that truth-tellers are painted as divisive while the real damage gets buried and perpetuates harm.

I’m angry that powerful male leaders blame advocates for standing with survivors instead of taking responsibility for their own blindness. I’m angry that even when confronted, leaders of systems that have been complicit in abuse refuse to take responsibility for it. I’m angry that silence is condoned. I’m sick and tired of leaders who align themselves with abusers, who profit from their connections and networks and systems who offer private words of encouragement but refuse to speak up publicly.

I’m angry that churches spend more on legal teams and image control than on restitution. I’m tired of male leaders who act like strategic geniuses until abuse is exposed—then suddenly become clueless. I’m tired of defending the clear biblical witness that Jesus sides with victims. I’m sick and tired of watching scripture twisted into a shield for predators and a stick to beat vulnerable people with. 

I’m sick of economic systems that are built through the genius and creativity of gifted women that continue to profit men and then protect them at the expense of those same women. I’m tired of people assuming that those who speak the truth have some ulterior motive and are not simply doing the right thing WHILE those who defend themselves, deny and twist the truth to cover up any implication of wrongdoing are somehow behaving normally. I’m sick and tired of thinking I’ve lost my mind because I’m asking people who say they follow Jesus to deal with their sin like Jesus suggests we should. I’m sick of having to explain what confession is. What repentance looks like.

So yes, I’m angry. And yes, I’m tired. And I will not apologize.

Because this anger?

It’s not hate.

It’s love refusing to be quiet.

Holy anger is not the enemy. It’s the engine of justice. It’s what turned prophets into revolutionaries. It’s what turned over temple tables. It’s what tells the truth when everyone else is pretending.

And like Fannie Lou Hamer and so many others before me, I won’t be silent about it. I refuse to shove it down and pretend all is well when it isn’t. I will not repress my anger until my body has to say no. I’ll channel it into creative energy for good. I’ll let anger move me. I’ll keep having uncomfortable conversations. I’ll stay open to those who suffer. I’ll keep speaking truth. I’ll walk 500 miles if necessary to help move it through my body. It’s anger that will overflow as tears unleash my deep sorrow and honest lament. Anger will awaken me to God’s heart for those who are abused and God’s intention to make wrong things right. Love does a perfect job, but I’m going to be honest enough to embrace anger as one of the deepest forms of Love. Because that anger, which is also grief, is fueled by Love and becomes courageous hope to make things better. I’ve heard that “Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”

My prayer for anger.

And I’m praying for every woman who has been told she should stay quiet, be nice, and “keep the peace” - may you be released to feel the full weight of your experience, the cost of your pain, the deep sorrow and grief at the oppression and injustice of your sisters and brothers. May anger awaken you to the God who hears the cry, sees and finds Hagar, speaks truth to power, confronts Kings, chooses Mary, identifies as a victim, is crucified outside the gates, and whose resurrected body bears the scars of oppression. May anger at the idolatry of power lead you to experience the overwhelming Goodness of God. And may God’s Holy Spirit move you to speak up against injustice. May you be angry enough to ask uncomfortable questions, hold space for awkward encounters, and insist on truth over comfort. May you be both undone and unwilling to settle for less than what is Good and True.

May our collective anger disrupt the status quo of misogyny and abuse, uproot the deep roots of oppression in systems that perpetuate harm, hold abusive leaders and toxic systems accountable, bind the wounds of the afflicted, and protect the vulnerable. And may our anger at injustice do what the Franciscan’s have consistently prayed it would, “help us to work for freedom, justice and peace”.

I guess what I’m really praying for is that we’d all be sick and tired of being sick and tired, and stop apologizing for feeling the holy fire of righteous anger.

Lord, hear my prayer.

1. (Footnote: Born in 1917 in the crucible of Mississippi oppression, Hamer became a beacon in the Civil Rights Movement—a fierce advocate for Black voting rights and economic justice. Her famous 1964 declaration, spoken during the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party’s challenge at the DNC, didn’t just reflect her own pain. It echoed the exhaustion of generations—especially Black women—who carried both personal trauma and public resistance in their bodies.)

2. When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress (Knopf Canada, 2003), p. 32