All in all, there’s probably nothing wrong with being “nice”… as long as it is properly defined. But too many people have been taught to live their days striving for a sort of niceness that undermines culture, morality, and even the necessary work of self-government. Among that crowd, it is considered nice not to condemn the contemptible. It’s nice to tolerate what should be intolerable. It’s nice to overlook egregious sin.
It is a niceness that thinks itself immune from a hostile world by being all smiles, exuding a syrupy sentimentality toward those who do evil.
At best, our cultural embrace of being “nice” is a soothing form of self-righteousness.
In scripture, we don’t find this modern version of “nice” that so many church leaders and secularists push rank-and-file Christians to embrace. What we do find in scripture is love. We find generosity. We find kindness. We find sincerity. We find patience.
But this gooey, saccharine-sweet “niceness” is nowhere to be found.
On nearly every page of the Gospels, you find Jesus dining with that culture’s untouchables, healing the infirm, and instructing the weak—but He isn’t “nice.” Jesus is firm, honest, truthful, patient, and—most of all—loving. More importantly, He tells them the truth about their sin.
But, critically, He is just as honest with and about the ruling elite of the day. He calls them “serpents” and a “brood of vipers.” He blasts them as “whitewashed tombs.” He condemns them as murderers. And, to be clear, those descriptions weren’t directed at the occupying Romans, the atheists, or adherents to other religions; they were pointed at His fellow Jews!
You can imagine the “nice” people of the day being horrified when He turned over the tables of the money changers in the Temple and drove them out with a whip. Nothing about that was “nice.” It was the correct thing to do. And it was a kindness to those who were being exploited by the ruling elite.
No doubt, many just wanted Jesus to find a way to get along, to be tolerant, to be nice. You can almost hear them demand, “Do more of the ‘water into wine’ and ‘free bread and fish,’ Jesus, and less of the viper-talk!”
It is no different today. I can only speak to the experience of Republicans, but those who yell the loudest for citizens to be “nice” to politicians tend to be the ones undermining the values and principles for which conservatives stand.
We can be nice serfs, or we can be effective citizen-leaders. We can smile pleasantly as our Republic is run into ruin, or we can fight for the inheritance of self-governance meant for ourselves and our posterity.
Rather than be “nice,” let us first and always strive to be passionate citizens faithfully committed to the cause of liberty.
