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Being Kind vs. Being Mean: The Christian Approach To Justice

Being Kind vs. Being Mean: The Christian Approach To Justice

Last updated on: November 6, 2025 at 6:55 am by Henry Karlson

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Being Kind vs. Being Mean: The Christian Approach To Justice 2025-11-06T06:55:51-05:00 Henry Karlson

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Ashish_Choudhary: Angry Or Mean Man / Pixabay

Too many Christians seek to justify their inordinate passions such hatred or anger, and the cruelty those passions promote, by pointing to Christ chasing out the money changers at the Temple. They say this shows Christ was mean, and if Christ can be “mean,” we can be mean as well. But, when Christ was in the Temple, he was not being mean; he was not being selfish, petty, or spiteful. He was not using his anger to be cruel to others. Those who read into the story an indication of Christ being mean either do not understand what it is to be mean, or, as is most often the case, they are trying to find an excuse to justify themselves, to justify giving in to their own selfish, small-minded, pettiness. They want to justify cruelty.

Christ is never cruel. It is not how Christ acts. As Christians are to follow Christ, they likewise are not meant to be cruel. They are to seek justice, but they are to do so with loving kindness. At the Temple, Christ was concerned with the injustices which were happening, with the way money and greed was mixed in with the worship of God. He chased people away; he did not hit anyone with a whip (it was being used to direct livestock out of the Temple); he did not hurt anyone; he was not malicious or cruel, but rather, he thought of the well-being of everyone in all he did.

Yes, we are expected, as the prophet Micah said, to be concerned with justice. Cruelty and malice, and the meanness of spirit which follow such, is never justified. We are to engage justice, sometimes stopping people from doing wrong, but we must do so in the proper spirit, one which is kind instead of mean: “He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8 RSV).

Some might suggest justice and kindness do not go together. They will point out that to execute justice against someone being unjust, we will have to stop them from doing what it is they are doing, and they will think we are not being kind to them when we do so. However, that is not the case. We are not seeking to hurt them. We seek to help them, to show them the mercy which they are not showing others with their injustices. That is why when we have to act, when we must stop them, we must do so in the right spirit, and with the right intention, and with appropriate (proportional) means. To be mean goes beyond those expectations. True justice is merciful, not spiteful; it seeks what is good for everyone. If we give into malice, insofar as we do, our actions are imperfect and unjust. This is what those who say that we, or the church, should be mean,do not understand. They think if the end is just, then the means will be just. That is not the case. They are really seeking to justify and promote their own unreformed, sinful way of existence, using others as a scapegoat. They do so by suggesting justice is retributive without mercy, so that they can be without mercy. That is not correct. We are to engage restorative justice, not retributive justice, for that is what God wants in the world.

To be mean requires spite. To suggest we should sometimes be mean is to say there are times we must be petty and cruel instead of being kind and loving. This certainly is not the way to a proper, and healthy, spirituality:

The spiritual person is kind. He never practices cruelty in any of its forms, but is always gentle in his relations with others. Kindness, according to the Apostle Paul, is also a “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal 5.22).[1]

If we seek true righteousness, we must not give in to spite. “He who pursues righteousness and kindness will find life and honor” (Prov. 21:21 RSV). When we are mean to someone, they will resist us and what we want from them; if we treat them with love and respect, instead of malice, they will be more willing to listen to us, as they will sense our care and concern for them. While some suggest being mean can be useful, for then we can scare people into doing what is right; but all that means is they will act in a certain way so long as they feel they have to, and then they will revert back to their own ways when that pressure is taken off of them. Their heart will not be in their actions. They will follow the letter of the law, not the spirit. They will obey out of fear, and what is in their heart will not change, and because of that, they will not be reformed. “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Prov. 15:1 RSV). This is why many saints have said the way to help someone is to nice to them, showing them mercy and kindness, for it is in this fashion the “wiles of the devil” can be overcome:

Nothing is stronger, dearly beloved, against the wiles of the devil than the kindness of mercy and the generosity of love, through which “every sin” is either avoided or conquered. [2]

St. Albert the Great even said that the burning bush which Moses saw represented the kindness of God and how it is what brings about conversion:

Do you not know that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? For this strongly burning kindness should by its merit bring all men to conversion. The fire that appeared in the burning bush signified this kindness. [Ex 3.2] In this [fire] it prefigured this sacrament, in which the fire of kindness and of divine goodness is received in the verdure of the burning bush, that is, in his humanity, vigorous in every virtue, for the communion with Christ, God and man. [3]

Therefore, those who would say they can and should be mean in order to render judgment to sinners are going against God’s ways, indeed, God’s desire for us. “According to the scriptures, God Himself is kind. For all of His anger and wrath over the sins of men, the Lord is ‘kind to the ungrateful and selfish’” (Lk 6.35).[4] We are to seek justice, to work for justice, but not in any way which justifies our malice towards others:

Thus says the LORD of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy each to his brother, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor; and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart (Zech. 7:9-10 RSV).

Throughout Scripture, and the writings and lives of the saints, we find examples of what it is to pursue justice. They show us that when they speak, when they act, they know they are to work for and promote the good of everyone. Yes, it’s not always easy to do so. Even many of the saints, at times, gave in to temptation, and were not always as nice as they should be. But they all knew that we should never become malicious, and if and when we do, we must make recompense for what we have said or done. Thus, as Peter said, instead of trying to justify being mean, we must, having tasted the kindness of God, show that kindness towards others:

So put away all malice and all guile and insincerity and envy and all slander. Like newborn babes, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation; for you have tasted the kindness of the Lord (1 Prt. 2:1-3 RSV).

It is guile and delusion which suggests otherwise. It is such guile which thinks Christians sometimes should be mean instead of nice While, to be sure, we will not always equally nice at all times, if we embrace the love expected of us, we will treat others as we would like to be treated, and who among us like it when people are not nice to us? How do we react when that happens? Once we understand this, we understand the problem behind the narrative which suggest the church sometimes should be mean.

[1] Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith. Volume 4: Spirituality (Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1981; rev. ed. 2016), 84.

[2] St Leo the Great, Sermons. Trans. Jane Patricia Freeland CSJB and Agnes Josephine Conway SSJ (Washington, DC: CUA Press, 1996), 329 [Sermon 74].

[3] St. Albert the Great, On the Body of the Lord. Trans. Sr. Albert Marie Surmanski, OP (Washington, DC: CUA Press, 2017), 39.

[4] Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith. Volume 4: Spirituality, 84.

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