Why Everything Feels Like Outrage Now
- Mike Stone
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
How Losing Moral Grounding Made Us Angry, Fragile, and Afraid
It feels like everything is offensive now.
Disagreement feels dangerous.
Conversations feel tense before they even start.
And outrage feels like the default response to almost everything.
Most people sense that something has shifted—but they struggle to explain why. This isn’t just about politics, social media, or generational change. Something deeper is happening beneath the surface of our culture.
And understanding it matters—because how we diagnose the problem shapes how we respond.
We Didn’t Become Neutral — We Became Fragile
One of the biggest assumptions of modern culture is that removing God leads to neutrality.
It doesn’t.
Human beings don’t become neutral. We are worshiping beings by nature. If we remove God from the center, something else inevitably takes His place.
When shared truth disappears, emotions take over. When truth becomes individualized—when it becomes something we create rather than receive—disagreement stops being about ideas and starts feeling personal.
That’s when fragility sets in.
Fragile belief systems cannot tolerate disagreement.
Fragile identities must be defended constantly. And fragile worldviews respond with outrage because outrage feels protective.
When Identity Becomes Sacred
In the past, identity was shaped by things outside of us: family, faith, community, responsibility, and shared moral frameworks.
Today, identity is often treated as something entirely self-constructed and self-defined.
And once identity becomes sacred, it must be protected.
That’s why disagreement now feels like an attack—not because people are cruel, but because beliefs have become thinner. When who I am becomes the highest authority, questioning an idea feels like questioning my existence.
Outrage becomes a defense mechanism.
Desire Replaced Moral Authority
We used to ask, “Is this right?”
Now we ask, “Does this feel authentic?”
When desire becomes the primary moral authority, boundaries feel oppressive. Discipline feels cruel. Any call to restraint is interpreted as rejection or harm.
This isn’t rebellion—it’s replacement worship.
Whatever replaces God at the center begins to function like a god. And false gods always demand protection.
Why Outrage Feels So Powerful
Outrage didn’t become dominant by accident.
In a world without moral grounding, outrage provides:
Certainty
Belonging
A sense of righteousness
Anger becomes a form of moral currency. Calmness looks suspicious. Listening feels like compromise. Silence gets punished.
In fragile systems, outrage replaces moral confidence.
But outrage is not truth—it’s a substitute for it. And substitutes always demand more and more energy to sustain.
The Quiet Disappearance of Grace
Grace only makes sense when we believe we’re not enough on our own.
But if we are already complete, already right, already self-justified, then repentance feels unnecessary and correction feels insulting.
Grace disappears when no one thinks they need it.
And when grace disappears, outrage fills the vacuum.
This is why conversations feel impossible now. It’s why nuance has vanished. And it’s why disagreement feels like hatred.
Scripture Saw This Pattern Long Ago
The Bible is not surprised by any of this.
In the book of Judges, we’re told that “everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” That wasn’t freedom—it was chaos.
In Romans 1, Paul describes a culture that suppresses truth, not because it lacks information, but because it rejects authority. God doesn’t immediately punish such a culture—He gives it over to confusion.
Confusion isn’t the absence of judgment.
It’s often the consequence of removing truth.
Even at the Tower of Babel, unity without God didn’t produce peace—it produced fragmentation.
Neutral doesn’t exist. Something always takes the throne.
When the Church Mirrors Outrage
Here’s where honesty matters.
Sometimes the Church responds to cultural outrage with… more outrage.
We get louder. Sharper. More reactive. And in doing so, we lose our contrast.
Truth without love becomes cruelty.
Love without truth becomes sentimentality.
But truth with grace brings clarity and hope.
Christians are not called to win arguments—we’re called to bear witness.
Why God’s Word Must Be Bigger Than Us
If everything feels fragile right now, it’s not because truth disappeared.
It’s because we’ve been trying to carry truth by ourselves.
When truth is self-made, it must be defended constantly.
When truth is rooted in us, it’s always at risk.
But God never intended truth to be something we invent.
He gave us something far bigger than ourselves.
God’s Word does not rise and fall with emotion. It doesn’t shift with culture. It doesn’t panic when challenged.
It stands.
And when Scripture becomes our ultimate authority—not our feelings, not our outrage, not our identity—we don’t have to protect truth anymore.
Truth protects us.
A Better Way Forward
The answer to cultural outrage isn’t louder arguments or stronger reactions.
It’s deeper roots.
Roots in something eternal.
Roots in something unchanging.
Roots in a truth that doesn’t need defending—only trusting.
Because truth doesn’t need outrage to stand.
It just needs depth.
🎧 Watch the Full Conversation
This blog post is adapted from the full episode of Behind the Mike Podcast with Mike Stone:
👉 Why Everything Feels Like Outrage Now
(Search Behind the Mike on YouTube)
Why Everything Feels Like Outrage Now
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