THE GOSPEL IN MUSIC — WHY YOU GOTTA BE SO MEAN?
Yes I do. I like a lot of music by Taylor Swift, at least the older stuff. And it started with “Mean.”
I did not come to this song as a fan. I came to it sideways—through my daughter, through a car ride, through a melody I thought I already understood without ever really listening. That makes sense, doesn’t it? We are remarkably confident in our dislikes, especially when they cost us nothing. I had decided, long ago and with very little evidence, that Taylor Swift’s music was not for me. Then my daughter played “Mean” and asked me to really listen. So I listened. Truly listened. And something in me shifted.
I do not follow her personal life. I do not approve of everything she does. That is not an attack; it is simply a fact. But the song itself stood apart from all of that noise. It was honest without being bitter, wounded without being cruel. It named injustice without baptizing retaliation. And that—unexpectedly—felt Gospel-shaped.
The Gospel often comes to us that way. Not always through pulpits and proclamations, but through truth that refuses to harden. Jesus did not deny cruelty; He endured it. Yet He would not become what wounded Him. The Word says, “When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously” (1 Peter 2:23). That restraint—that holy refusal to mirror ugliness—is not weakness. It is the quiet strength of love that knows where history is going.
What struck me about “Mean” is that it refuses to let the mocker have the last word. The song does not pretend that cruelty is imaginary, nor does it pretend that words do not wound. Instead, it looks beyond the present moment and imagines a future where the voice of meanness has faded into irrelevance. That is not escapism; that is hope. And hope, biblically speaking, is never naive. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). Evil is real—but it is not final.
The Gospel teaches us that our struggle is not finally against people, but against the darker currents that move through fallen hearts. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers” (Ephesians 6:12). That distinction matters. When we forget it, we start fighting people instead of resisting sin. We return insult for insult, wound for wound, and convince ourselves that this is strength. It is not. It is surrender—just dressed up as courage.
Meekness, on the other hand, is one of the most misunderstood virtues in Scripture. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). Meekness is not silence born of fear; it is restraint born of confidence. It is the settled assurance that you do not need to crush another soul to stand tall. The cross itself is the greatest refusal to be mean the world has ever seen. Humanity hurled its worst at Christ, and He answered with forgiveness, resurrection, and an open invitation back home.
That is why this song lingered with me. Not because it is perfect, but because it points in the right direction. It reminds me that grace sometimes slips into the world through unexpected doorways—through daughters and dashboards, through banjos and back seats, through songs we had already dismissed without listening. The Gospel has always had a habit of doing that.
We can stop being mean. Not because the world suddenly deserves it, but because Christ has already absorbed the world’s cruelty and answered it with life. The Gospel does not shout back—it sings a better song. And sometimes, on an ordinary drive, you hear a reminder of it where you least expected.
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Lord Jesus, soften our hearts where the world has hardened them. Teach us to answer cruelty with courage, and meanness with mercy. Tune our lives to the melody of Your grace, that we may sing hope into a weary world. Amen.
BDD
