Living in our age of rage

By Robin Schumacher, Exclusive Columnist Monday, September 14, 2026

Back in the early 1990s, there was a sitcom starring Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt called "Mad About You."  It was your typical comedy about relationships, love, marriage, and the drama that comes with all that.

I think if you and I developed a new show about all the current cultural drama we see every day, we’d call it "Mad About Everything." People today are mad about everything.

Data centers? Hate them! MAGA folks? Off with their heads! Woke lefties? Deep six ‘em! Disagree with me? You’re canceled!

In his book The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, law professor and author Jonathan Turley notes that today's hostile climate is nothing new. Observing that “we have become a nation of rage addicts,” Turley explains that this addiction is driven in part by a psychological lure: for many, “rage is liberating.”

That may be true, temporarily, for the “rager,” but it sure isn’t for their targets. Turley correctly observes that “rage is often found at the furthest extreme of reason,” and that any attempts to bring things back down to earth are viewed as disagreement, which unfortunately only escalates the situation: “If one disagrees with those views, it [the rage] takes on a more threatening and unhinged quality.”

You pretty much see “unhinged” all the time these days. Whatever is not right with the world is the fault of Trump, the Jews, all of whom are fascists. Or it’s the Left, the woke, the ones indoctrinated by the communist-overrun universities.  

Bad politicians have learned that rage can be more politically useful than reason. An angry voter is often a highly engaged voter, far more likely to donate, share, protest, vote, and rally around a candidate who promises to defeat the perceived enemy.

Knowing this, politicians amplify fears and grievances, paint their opponents as threats rather than fellow citizens, and keep supporters emotionally activated by presenting every new controversy as another battle in an ongoing war. Rage turns politics into tribalism, and tribalism turns opponents into enemies, which can be very profitable at the ballot box.

But such rage-baiting politicians often forget how the crowd they whip into a frenzy can turn on a dime and attack them. That’s been highlighted even by the most unlikely of groups, such as the rock band Black Sabbath and their song “The Mob Rules”:     

Close the city and tell the people that something's coming to call
Death and darkness are rushing forward to
Take a bite from the wall
You've nothing to say, they're breaking away
If you listen to fools, the mob rules
The mob rules

So, given all that, what do we do? Fortunately, the Bible has a good compass we can use to navigate our current age of rage.

Be angry but don’t sin

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the Bible is filled with angry crowds. It gives us repeated pictures of what happens when rage becomes collective.

And just like today, most of the people caught in those crowds weren’t violent criminals. You find religious people, political people, businesspeople, ordinary citizens, all of whom became convinced that their anger and subsequent lashing out was justified.

A couple of my favorite examples involve the apostle Paul. First up we have, in Acts 14, Paul healing a guy at Lystra who had never walked. The crowds were so blown away they start calling Paul a god and are ready to make sacrifices to him (Acts 14:8–19). Just the opposite of a rageful mob, right?

Then, the very next verse reads: “But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having won over the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead.” Same people, same Paul, but in an instant, they go from adoring fans to murderers.

Then you’ve got another perfect illustration of what we see today in Acts 19. A guy named Demetrius gets irked because Paul is wrecking his idol-making business. He whips up a crowd, telling them their god is getting besmirched, and the result is a rageful mob where “a single outcry arose from them all as they shouted for about two hours, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (Acts 19:34).

2 hours?! Geez.

My favorite part of the story is that many in the crowd weren’t clued in on the specifics of the issue but raged anyway. Scripture tells us: “So then, some were shouting one thing and some another, for the assembly was in confusion and the majority did not know for what reason they had come together” (Acts 19:32).

Just like today. How many times have you seen modern-day protesters getting confronted by news media as to why they’re in a demonstration, and they can’t articulate the details?

Turley talks about this in his book and argues that rage can blind people and provide a kind of license to abandon the normal restraints of reason and civility. Once the crowd is sufficiently angry, the question ceases to be “Is this true?” and becomes “Whose side are you on?”

So how can we avoid errors like these?

Let’s start with what James tells us: “Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger” (James 1:19). Notice how opposite this is to the psychology of a rageful crowd. They’re quick to speak, slow to listen, and quick to anger. James tells Christians to reverse all three because, “the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God” (James 1:20).

Next, when we do speak, we follow what Proverbs tells us: “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Prov. 15:1). The Bible recognizes something that modern social media algorithms seem to understand extraordinarily well: rage is contagious.

One harsh statement provokes another; one insult demands another; one accusation produces another; the temperature rises and, eventually, people are no longer discussing the original issue but fighting because they are angry about being angry.

Paul echoes what Proverbs says when he tells Timothy: “The Lord’s bondservant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, skillful in teaching, patient when wronged” (2 Tim. 2:24). That “patient when wronged” part can be hard to obey, especially today when the culture is reflecting the absolute opposite.

Does this mean we should never get angry and act? Not at all.

The Bible says simply, “Be angry and do not sin” (Eph. 4:26). We’re called to fight evil without becoming evil, defend truth without abandoning love, and confront falsehood without surrendering self-control.

And when the other side acts in the exact opposite way, we’re called to remember the one who, “while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously” (1 Pet. 2:23).

In our age of rage, all the above allows us to demonstrate something the world desperately needs to see — that it’s possible to hate evil without hating people, to defend truth without despising opponents, and to stand firmly without becoming consumed by rage.