"Quit Your Meanness" and Other Stuff

Part of our family just returned from a long weekend in Nashville. It was a great time of relaxing, with lots of laughing and lots of eating. Highly recommend!

Pro-tip: Visit the Ryman Auditorium. You won't be sorry you spent the money or the time. In fact, I learned something important during our visit - and I have the t-shirt and poster to prove it.

I learned a new story about how the gospel can change lives, power structures, and the use of a man's wealth.

The story starts at the Loveless Cafe. In 1951, Lon and Annie began serving southern comfort food to the people of Nashville. The food stuck, and an icon was born. My family only "discovered" this place in 2026, but Taylor Swift, Dolly Parton, and Elvis Presley discovered it long ago. The biscuits are about the best I've ever tasted, and the dry rub ribs and sweet tea were excellent choices.

As I drank my tea and enjoyed a biscuit, I noticed two paintings. One featured Johnny Cash, which led to a weekend of non-stop singing of Burning Ring of Fire, which led to plenty of conversations about hell (and super hell and super mega hell, but that's for another time).

Hanging right next to Johnny was a wonderful painting of an urban Jesus declaring, "Quit Your Meanness."

I made that image my social media profile image, I loved it so much!

And I immediately began noticing what happened when people did, in fact, "quit their meanness."

This art is credited by the internet to Howard Finster, described as a fiery backwoods' Baptist preacher. He said of himself, "I'm here as a red light is in the street."

We arrived at our hotel (Gaylord Opryland, which I also highly recommend), and were met by two bellhops with carts for our luggage. My cousin and I went to the registration desk to get checked in while the rest of the family waited with the bellhops and luggage. This is where we encountered problem No. 1. We had rooms on the fourth floor, and I don't take elevators.

No problem. The front desk guy drew a map to the stairs.

We told the bellhops that I would need the stairs, and off we went. This is when we encountered problem No. 2. We couldn't find the stairs.

One bellhop thought for a moment and told me not to worry. I would go up a series of escalators while he took the luggage cart up the elevator to meet me. We walked around and through the Garden Conservatory (also highly recommend) until we found the stairs. Up two flights and I was close to our rooms!

The bellhops were patient and helpful, traits that are opposite of meanness. They likely gave up earning more tips to take the extra time with us. (Postscript to this part of the story - when we called for bellhop service at check out, the same guy showed up. He laughed and asked me if I remembered how to navigate the stairs.)

Patience, helpfulness, kindness, and attention. These traits are opposite of meanness.

On Sunday morning, we attended church. It wasn't a Baptist church, yet we heard about how the gospel changed a lot of lives in Nashville.

We attended church in the Ryman Auditorium. The Mother Church of Music.

Here we heard from the Rev. Samuel Porter Jones, a well-known Methodist preacher from the nineteenth century. To be precise, we heard about how the gospel as proclaimed by Rev. Jones changed a man's heart and thinking, and the fabric of Nashville itself.

Jones had experienced the gospel first-hand. After returning from the Civil War to Kentucky with Union

soldiers, Jones became a well-known lawyer. He also worked at becoming a notorious alcoholic. Raised with Methodist roots, Jones experienced his own conviction, stopped drinking, and was eventually ordained as a Methodist preacher.

The Rev. Jones preached tent revivals in Nashville. It was not uncommon for the preacher to speak against a multitude of sins he thought dangerous for the good people of Nashville. Money was flowing in Nashville for some successful businessmen. Where money flowed, alcohol and other vices followed.

When Jones began preaching out against these dangers, one local (and successful) riverboat businessman, Thomas Green Ryman, took notice. The story goes that Ryman went to a revival service for the purpose of heckling the preacher and shutting him up, but something altogether different happened.

Ryman heard the gospel, experienced his own conviction, and became a Christian.

Ryman was not a Christian in name and self-righteousness alone; Ryman became a follower of Jesus. He started doing what Jesus did.

One of his projects was building the Union Gospel Tabernacle, to move Jones and his preaching from a tent to a building. This project cost the riverboat captain of commerce $100,000 in the late 1800s. This is equivalent to $3,583,333 in 2025, according to Ryman's Wikipedia page.

But there is no telling how many people heard and responded to the gospel of Jesus Christ from this act of radical obedience and service.

When Ryman died in 1904, the Rev. Jones spoke to a crowd of nearly 4,000 people gathered in Union Gospel Tabernacle for the funeral. He proposed that they rename the building the Ryman Auditorium. It is said that all the 4,000 people in attendance stood in agreement.

Self-sacrifice and dedication to helping the people of Nashville hear the gospel are traits opposite to meanness.

One of the Ryman exhibits includes an old book, a collection of the reverend's sermons. It is titled, "Quit Your Meanness." The art hanging in The Loveless Cafe now makes more sense.

After touring the Ryman, we stood in line for a group photo on stage. It was going to be difficult for our moms to get to the top by the microphone. A joy-filled, helpful visitor to the Ryman jumped in and offered to escort both mothers up and down the steps. He said, "this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing."

Kindness, joy, and helpfulness are traits that are opposite of meanness.

Next, we ventured into the gift shop to pick up our photos. My cousin found a poster with "Quit Your Meanness" on it. I had no choice but to buy it! l casually said, "if you find a t-shirt with this on it, I want it." And there it was. A t-shirt with Quit Your Meanness and Go to Church on the back.

I bought it. Of course, I couldn't reach the shirt as it was hanging way above my head. A happy, friendly visitor to the Ryman jumped in and said, "I got you!" and retrieved the shirt in my size.

Kindness, happiness, and helpfulness are traits that are opposite of meanness.

I later learned that Quit Your Meanness was a catchphrase of the good reverend. He didn't like miserly, mean, selfish acts that hurt others.

Our world would certainly be better if everyone treated everyone else with kindness instead of meanness, and if miserly, mean, and selfish acts just went away.

I did a little research on the book of sermons by the Rev. Jones. Here is one excerpt from the sermon titled, "Quit Your Meanness." The sermon was given in 1886, but it could just as easily be preached today.

"A large Church membership does not mean much here now. It does not mean much anywhere, under any circumstances, and I thank God that with the state of things I now find in existence everywhere it doesn't amount to much with this world, to say the least of it. We ought to quit asking the question, "What Church do you belong to?" but we ought to ask, "How do you live now? How have you been doing? Do you pay your debts? Do you live right, and live good, and keep the commandments?" Brethren, an open profession, an outward profession, that isn't backed up by the possession of the principles of Christianity is not worth the paper your name is enrolled on. I want to see the day in this country when Church membership means consecration, righteousness, and Godliness." (Quit Your Meanness)

How we live, how we do life, how we manage our affairs and our finances, and whether we are living and doing right by the gospel standard are the fruit we bear when we follow Jesus. It is not about what church we attend or belong to. It is when belonging to the church means we belong to and follow Jesus.

Here is another great excerpt.

"I'm a natural, innate, constitutional inborn hater of shams and humbugs, and above all humbugs that ever cursed this world, the religious humbug is the biggest. That's so. I will give you a little illustration: At Harvard, I believe it was, there was in the college an old professor, one of those thick glassed old fellows, near sighted, who was a wonderful bugologist. He knew bugology better than he did manology, and he was acquainted with all the bugs from Adam down, and he had all kinds of them in frames hung up around his office. In their mischief and as a joke, the students got the body of one bug, and took the legs of another and the head of another and the wings of another, and put them together just like as if nature had formed it that way, and they all trooped downstairs together into the old professor's room, and one of the boys says: "Professor, what kind of a bug is this?" and the professor stood up and took the card on which the bug was pinned, and he cast his eyes on it, and after looking at it awhile he said: "Gentlemen, this is a humbug.

"Now you have my idea of a humbug. It's a fellow that has a heart that belongs to the Church, and a head that is run by the world, and his hands by the devil, and he's just nothing but a sort of a compound. God deliver us from humbugs in the Church. Let's be only one of a kind, and let that be a good Christian. If I were asked now what is the trouble in Cincinnati - the greatest trouble - trouble you can't over-come as easily as other troubles -I believe I would answer that the greatest trouble in Cincinnati is that you have too many Churches here." (Quit Your Meanness)

What good is the Christian whose heart belongs to the church, but the world controls the head and Satan controls the action?

I am reminded of something Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 5:13-16, NLT

"You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. [14] "You are the light of the world-like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. [15] No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. [16] In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father."

Our lives are meant to reflect Jesus to the world.

Jesus must own our hearts. Our love is motivated by and is a response to his love for us.

Jesus must own our thinking. The Sermon on the Mount shows us how Jesus thinks. Our thoughts and our thought processes are motivated by and ruled by what Jesus says.

Jesus must own our actions. The Sermon on the Mount says a great deal about Kingdom values and how we treat others. Our actions - and this includes our social media posts and our public facing attitudes - must match the attitudes of Jesus.

When we start claiming to belong to this or that church, but we do not reflect Jesus or his values, we are nothing more than religious shams of a humbug. Or that's what the Rev. Sam Jones says, and it seems to be what Jesus is saying, too.

Consider this excerpt.

"I have heard People talk as if they were well satisfied with themselves, but I never found many in their neighborhood who were well satisfied with them. Whenever a man gets more religion than he has sense, he's going to talk foolishness right straight. Don't let anybody come and say I'm only talking sanctification. I am not. Some of the best men on earth practice and live sanctification. But you are obliged to have something more. You must get something. Lord Jesus, Master, help men to see that religion does not consist in what I profess, but it consists in how I live. I have no objection to a man's professing sanctification. It's as much my privilege to confess sanctification as it is justification. I don't quarrel with a man as long as he lives on a level with what he professes, but when he gets down below that, I'm going for him sure." (Quit Your Meanness)

James, the half-brother of Jesus, speaks of a religion that is devoid of meanness.

James 1:26-27, NLT

"If you claim to be religious but don't control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. [27] Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you."

Controlling what we say, caring for others, and refusing to conform to the world's darkness and cultural ideas that do not follow Jesus and His teaching are traits that are opposite of meanness.

I saw patience, kindness, self-sacrifice, joy, helpfulness, and happiness at work in Nashville, and I paid attention to how it made me feel and how it improved my life. These traits are certainly all traits that are opposite of meanness, too.

Jesus and His gospel will change lives, power structures, and the use of a person's wealth.

When we understand what Jesus gives us, without charge or interest, maybe we will become more motivated to Quit Our Meanness.

Our world would indeed be better if we all treated everyone else with kindness instead of meanness, and if miserly, mean, and selfish acts just went away.