Christians Are Called to Be Kind
Christians are commanded to be kind by Sts. Peter and Paul, St. Seraphim of Sarov, St. John of Kronstadt, St. Silouan the Athonite, St. Gabriel of Georgia, and St. Paisios of Mount Athos, among others.
For the last ten years, Christians have been bombarded with this message: “Nice” is not a Christian virtue. But is that true?
Well, it depends on what you mean by nice.
When Christian influencers talk about the dangers of niceness, what they’re usually saying is, “Don’t be a pushover.” They’re rejecting the idea that Christians must never do or say anything that might offend politically-correct sensibilities. (I’ve never met anyone who thought that, but apparently they’re out there, somewhere.)
So, maybe we don’t have to be nice. But we do have to be kind.
In his letter to the Church of Ephesus, St. Paul the Apostle commands us: “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:31-32).
In his second epistle, St. Peter the Apostle also enjoins Christians to treat each other with kindness: “Add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love” (2 Pet. 1:5-7).
Many of our greatest saints have also commanded us to be kind.
St. Seraphim of Sarov: “You cannot be too gentle, too kind. Shun even to appear harsh in your treatment of each other. Joy, radiant joy, streams from the face of one who gives and kindles joy in the heart of one who receives.”
St. John of Kronstadt: “A Christian must always be kind, gracious, and wise in order to conquer evil by good.”
St. Silouan the Athonite: “Be severe to yourself but kind to others.”
St. Gabriel of Georgia: “If you cannot love everyone, at least treat everyone with good will. Kindness will open to you the gates of Paradise, humility will lead you there, and love will reveal God to you.”
St. Paisios of Mount Athos: “Spiritual love is superior to the love between natural brothers and sisters… Those who possess this pure love are full of kindness, because they have Christ inside them and the Godhead is depicted on their faces.”
St. Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia: “Deal with everything with love, kindness, meekness, patience and humility. Be rocks. Let all the waves break over you and turn back leaving you untroubled.”
Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnika: “We are the sons of light and love, the sons of God, his children. As such we must have His qualities and His attributes of love, peace, and kindness towards all.”
And we could go on.
Kindness is a virtue that many Orthodox Christians today struggle with—myself first and foremost. We live in a culture that punishes the meek and the gentle while rewarding the arrogant and the cruel.
Yet in his letter to the Galatians, St. Paul names kindness as a fruit of the Holy Spirit (cf. Gal. 5:22). So, the unkind person does not possess the Holy Spirit. He or she has no credibility as an Orthodox Christian.
I write this as a naked hypocrite. For all the times I have been unkind: Forgive me, a sinner.
