Agapic Anger: Influencing Change While Navigating Gender

Christian tradition and faith formation often affirm anger as a righteous emotion. However, women and gender-diverse persons typically are conditioned to present themselves as soft and gentle. If they do express anger, they are conditioned to do so in constricted ways. Jan R. Schnell argues that such individuals should, in fact, fully explore anger as a vital part of their Christian vocations.

In Agapic Anger, Schnell explores the religious ethics of virtuous anger to show that expressions of anger can be morally good. Schnell weaves the narratives of four female community organizers alongside key principles of Thomas Aquinas's virtue ethics, as well as practices gleaned from choreographic performance studies, to create a framework that dismantles oppressive traditions regarding anger. Schnell identifies three dance-like movements that instead cultivate a virtuous habit of anger expression that can fuel the work of communal justice. The result is a constructive presentation of a form of anger that is rooted in love, is characterized by hope and courage, and feeds people's capacity to feel well, choose well, and do well.

This book is for community organizers and church leaders who yearn for a liberative, embodied response that attends to the gap between the angering realities of our present world and the vision of God's kin-dom. Readers will find this book an accompaniment and guide that directs anger toward structural issues and nurtures a sustaining participation in systemic change.

Jan R. Schnell is a religious ethicist, liturgical theologian, and pastor. Schnell is also an assistant professor of liturgics at Wartburg Theological Seminary, where she teaches preaching for the Association of Chicago Theological Schools' doctor in ministry program. She studies how women community organizers use anger to bring about positive social transformation. Schnell and her family live on an acreage that depends on solar energy, where they steward land recovering its natural prairie. They share interests in music, reading, theater, and playing outdoors.