{"id":34233,"date":"2025-04-04T00:54:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T00:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/righteous-anger-can-produce-moral-courage\/"},"modified":"2025-04-04T00:54:00","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T00:54:00","slug":"righteous-anger-can-produce-moral-courage","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/righteous-anger-can-produce-moral-courage\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Righteous Anger\u2019 Can Produce Moral Courage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a 2022 behavioral study, researchers explored the connection between anger and moral courage. While participants were supposedly waiting for the study to start, they overheard two experimenters plan, and then execute, the embezzlement of money from the project fund. (The embezzlement was staged.) The participants had various opportunities to intervene, including directly confronting the experimenters, involving a fellow participant, or reporting to a superior.<\/p>\n\n<p>Depending on your perspective of the events of the last few years, you may or may not be surprised to learn that only 27% of participants intervened. (Other experiments confirm the natural human inclination towards passivity). Interestingly, researchers found that the more an individual reported feeling angry, the more likely they were to intervene, showing that anger can serve as an important catalyst for moral courage.<\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\"><em>Possible Preaching Angle: <\/em><\/h2>\n\n<p><em>Often the anger of man does not achieve God&rsquo;s purposes, but there is a place for &ldquo;righteous anger&rdquo; at what is wrong and evil.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[446],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3376,3414,3477,3672,3701,4174,4274,4281,4491,4567,4766,5005],"tax_ctp_topics":[396],"class_list":["post-34233","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-action","tax_ctp_tags-anger","tax_ctp_tags-behavior","tax_ctp_tags-confusion","tax_ctp_tags-courage","tax_ctp_tags-human-anger","tax_ctp_tags-intervention","tax_ctp_tags-involvement","tax_ctp_tags-morality","tax_ctp_tags-opportunity","tax_ctp_tags-reactions","tax_ctp_tags-social-action"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>\u2018Righteous Anger\u2019 Can Produce Moral Courage - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/righteous-anger-can-produce-moral-courage\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018Righteous Anger\u2019 Can Produce Moral Courage - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In a 2022 behavioral study, researchers explored the connection between anger and moral courage. While participants were supposedly waiting for the study to start, they overheard two experimenters plan, and then execute, the embezzlement of money from the project fund. (The embezzlement was staged.) The participants had various opportunities to intervene, including directly confronting the Read more...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/righteous-anger-can-produce-moral-courage\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/12\/ogimage.png?resize=1200,628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CTpastors\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/righteous-anger-can-produce-moral-courage\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/righteous-anger-can-produce-moral-courage\/\",\"name\":\"\u2018Righteous Anger\u2019 Can Produce Moral Courage - CT Pastors\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-04-04T00:54:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-04-04T00:54:00+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/righteous-anger-can-produce-moral-courage\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/righteous-anger-can-produce-moral-courage\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/righteous-anger-can-produce-moral-courage\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"\u2018Righteous Anger\u2019 Can Produce Moral Courage\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"name\":\"CT Pastors\",\"description\":\"Timeless wisdom for pastors with forward-thinking solutions\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Christianity Today\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"caption\":\"Christianity Today\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/CTpastors\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\u2018Righteous Anger\u2019 Can Produce Moral Courage - CT Pastors","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/righteous-anger-can-produce-moral-courage\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\u2018Righteous Anger\u2019 Can Produce Moral Courage - CT Pastors","og_description":"In a 2022 behavioral study, researchers explored the connection between anger and moral courage. 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