Ideas - Turn the Other Cheek: the radical case for nonviolent resistance

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

The Sermon on the Mount is one of the greatest gifts of scripture to humanity; just ask Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Leo Tolstoy. But who's making any use of it today? In a time when an eye for an eye still seems to hold sway, IDEAS producer Sean Foley explores the logic of Christian non-violence, beginning with Jesus' counsel to 'turn the other cheek.' *This episode won a Wilbur Award for excellence in communicating spiritual themes. It originally aired on Oct. 14, 2022.

My name is Graham Isidor. I have a progressive eye disease called keratoconus. Unmaying I'm losing my vision has been hard, but explaining it to other people has been harder. Lately, I've been trying to talk about it. Short Sighted is an attempt to explain what vision loss feels like by exploring how it sounds. By sharing my story, we get into all the things you don't see

about hidden disabilities. Short Sighted, from CBC's Personally, available now. This is a CBC Podcast. Welcome to Ideas, I'm Nala Ayyad. This episode is part of a special series showcasing some of our award-winning programs. This episode is part of a special series showcasing some of our award-winning programs. This episode won a Wilbur Award for Excellence in Communicating Spiritual Themes. It's one of the most famous and misunderstood tenets of the Christian faith.

Turn the other cheek. It occurs just twice in the New Testament, once in the Gospel of Luke, and, with more precise language, in Matthew, in the famous section called the Sermon on the Mount. You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also. What Jesus is talking about is a whole new way of life. Total nonviolence.

It's almost like we're addicted to violence globally. And this is like the AA model. I think applying the principle of nonviolent resistance in a context of violence against women means that anything short of lasting injury or death to one's attacker could constitute nonviolence. We're violence anonymous, and the boundary line is you're not allowed to kill. And therefore, you need God. You have to turn to your higher power and make restitution, and you're on a journey of lifelong sobriety of nonviolence. But in an age rife with personal and global traumas, how can turning the other cheek do anything but turn us all into doormats? And what about that other biblical idea, an eye for an eye? The idea of an eye for an eye is actually a limitation on vengeance.

This isn't saying that this is what you must do. This is saying this is the most you can do. So that if we're in a fight and you gouge my eye out, I can't come back and chop off your arm and then have your family come back and kill me and then my village come and burn your village down and kill everybody. That's escalation. And what Jesus is saying, don't just limit violence. Don't use violence at all. On this episode of Ideas, producer Sean Foley explores the paradoxical power of turning the other cheek. And please just know that some of what you'll hear contains descriptions of violence, and we thought you should just know about them at the outset. You have heard that it was said,

an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also. So Matthew's gospel puts together all Jesus' teachings of nonviolence in these three chapters as like Jesus' basic campaign platform speech. Hi, I'm Father John Deere. I'm living in the central coast of California. I'm a longtime peace activist and author of 40 books on peace and nonviolence and spent my life organizing nonviolent demonstrations against war and justice and nuclear weapons and carrying on today doing what I can to teach Gandhi and Dr. King's nonviolence as the hope for the planet, as the way forward. The only way I can understand

Jesus is through the lens of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. I think they're the people who have taught us the most about Jesus. Gandhi said Jesus is the greatest person of nonviolence in the history of the world, and the only people on the planet who don't know that Jesus is nonviolent are Christians, which is funny and tragic. Gandhi said that the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, are the greatest teachings of nonviolence in the history of the world. And he said, in effect, they're like a handbook of how to be a human being, not just how to be nonviolent, because they're basically everything you need to know for your personal nonviolence, interpersonal nonviolence, and to be a force of love and compassion,

goodness and truth and nonviolence in the world. When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst.

So it begins with the famous beatitudes, which lead up to blessed are the peacemakers, their sons and daughters of the God of peace. So if you want to know about Turn the Other Cheek, and you want to know about the scene, to know about Turn the Other Cheek, and you want to know about the scene, imagine he's by the Sea of Galilee. It's horrible. It's not like it is now. It looks like Hawaii. I was there 10 years ago. I've been going all my life. And it was a horrible outback desert area. These people were desperately poor. The Roman Empire is coming through periodically. They just killed everybody in the other village, and now they're coming in to kill people and rape the women and steal all the goods and make the men carry the goods. Here's this guy organizing a revolutionary movement.

But what nobody understood then or now is that it was nonviolent. Jesus thinks he's Gandhi. Can I say that? Jesus thinks he's Martin Luther King. say that? Jesus thinks he's Martin Luther King. The bottom line teaching is the first sentence. You have heard it said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. That is the Torah. That's the Mosaic law. And Moses is just trying to make some kind of equal justice. Okay, Jesus is saying no more of that. But I say to you, and this is the best translation from the Greek, offer no violent resistance to one who does evil.

So that's the teaching. Now, Jesus, in effect, with this ragtag group, is doing a nonviolence training workshop, which is what Martin Luther King did every single day in the civil rights movement. You couldn't be part of his movement without having undergone a three-hour training. How blessed are those who hunger and thirst to see right prevail. They shall be satisfied. Speak up! Quiet, Mom. Well, I'll call you a thing.

I don't know if you're a Monty Python fan, but, you know, the blessed are the cheesemakers, that whole scene, is kind of imagining what it's like to be on a hill and not really hear very well what Jesus is saying and then kind of drawing their own conclusions. big nose. Could you be quiet, please? What was that? I don't know. I was too busy talking a big nose. I think it was blessed are the cheesemakers. What's so special about the cheesemakers? Well, obviously, it's not meant to be taken literally. It refers to any manufacturers of dairy products. I'm Derek Suderman. I teach religious studies and theological studies here at the University of Waterloo and Conor Grable University College. Theological Studies here at the University of Waterloo and Conor Grable University College. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.

For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. This doesn't sound like a way of getting rid of the Romans. This might not sound very convincing. Even today, if you are standing on the Sea of Galilee near Capernaum, which is on the north side of the Sea of Galilee, you can look across the Sea of Galilee and that is where one of the main Roman towns was. So I think part of what the background is, is a very palpablepable probably power dynamic and power imbalance that everybody's aware of. If you look at all of the different places where the Messiah, the anointed one, appears in the book of Psalms, what you have is a fairly clear picture. You have the

idea of a king who is militarily dominant, is kind of a conquering hero, has power over the nations, at times even has power over nature. And all of this is as an ambassador of God. So God gives the king the power to be able to function in this way. And the word salvation is not life after death. It's talking about military victory. It's the same word, salvation, military victory, liberation. It's the same word. Salvation, military victory, liberation. It's the same word. Yeshua. The Lord lives. Blessed be my rock and exalted be the God of my salvation. The God who gave me vengeance and subdued peoples under me, who delivered me from my enemies. Indeed, you exalted me above my adversaries. You delivered me from the violent.

For this, I will extol you, O Lord, among the nations and sing praises to your name. Great triumphs he gives to his king and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his descendants forever. his descendants forever. If I was a psalm expert in the first century and I was waiting for someone to fulfill these passages, I would expect someone who could come, would hopefully knock out the Romans, re-establish the kingdom, would reign in Zion and Jerusalem, and bring a period of justice and peace. That's the overarching understanding of the Messiah, the anointed one in the Psalms. And so, I think the rest of the Gospels is wrestling with that question. How is it that we got such a weird-looking Messiah? Like, why is our Christ, the person that we see as the Son of God, why didn't he do that? Why did he suffer and

die instead? We tend to think of this as kind of self-evident. This was far from self-evident in the first century. You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also. These sound like opposites. These sound like on the one hand,

it's an idea of vengeance and on the other, it's an idea of nonviolence. But if we remember what the purpose of an eye for an eye is in the law and in ancient law in general, I think that's helpful because the idea of an eye for an eye is actually a limitation on vengeance. This isn't saying that this is what you must do. This is saying this is the most you can do. So that if we're in a fight and you gouge my eye out, I can't come back and chop off your arm and then have your family come back and kill me and then my village come and burn your village down and kill everybody. That's escalation. That's escalatory. And there's a real concern with that in the ancient world. And what Jesus is saying, don't just limit violence.

Don't use violence at all. These aren't opposites, but moving farther in the same direction. Catechism of Non-Resistance by Aidan Below Whence is the word non-resistance derived? From the command, resist not evil, Matthew 5, verse 39. What does this word express? It expresses a lofty Christian virtue enjoined on us by Christ. All this came actually from the abolitionists,

from England and the United States, grappling with this text, okay, we're going to fight to abolish slavery, only we're going to use what they called passive resistance, because that's how they interpreted the text. Ought the word non-resistance to be taken in its widest sense? That is to say, as intending that we should not offer any resistance of any kind to evil? No, it ought to be taken in the exact sense of our Savior's teaching.

That is, not repaying evil for evil. We ought to oppose evil by every righteous means in our power, but not by evil. The Civil War happened in the United States. The whole movement split. A lot of them took up violence to kill the Southerners and the racists. William Lloyd Garrison, for example, the great hero, renounced passive resistance. One person didn't, his lieutenant,

an obscure guy by the name of Aidan Below, who lived in Connecticut up until the 1890s. And he wrote this document summing up the whole thing. What is there to show that Christ enjoined non-resistance in that sense? It is shown by the words he uttered at the same thing. What is there to show that Christ enjoined non-resistance in that sense? It is shown by the words he uttered at the same time. He said, Ye have heard it was said of old, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, resist not evil, but if one smites thee on the right cheek, turn him the other also. The first time anybody had ever done this before,

saying, actually, Jesus was right, path of resistance is the only way. And his son published it as a pamphlet and it sent it to 100 people, the most famous people around the world. Wherein lies the chief significance of the doctrine of non-resistance? In the fact that it alone allows of the possibility of eradicating evil from one's own heart,

and also from one's neighbors, this doctrine forbids doing that whereby evil has endured for ages and multiplied in the world. He who attacks another and injures him kindles in the other a feeling of hatred, the root of every evil. To injure another because he has injured us, hatred, the root of every evil. To injure another because he has injured us, even with the aim of overcoming evil, is doubling the harm for him and for oneself.

It is begetting, or at least setting free and inciting, that evil spirit which we should wish to drive out. Nobody read it or responded, except who's the most famous writer in the world? Leo Tolstoy. He gets it in the mail in the late 1880s and changed his life. And he wrote a book called The Kingdom of God is Within You. And he put the pamphlet, the 50 pages, as the beginning of the book.

And his idea is to convert the horrible, evil Russian Orthodox Church, which is just a servant of the czar and the empire to kill people. And he's a complete failure, and he goes to his death as a failure, except one obscure guy, nobody, named Mohandas Gandhi in South Africa, reads the book and is completely converted and says, I like the word nonviolence better. Let's call it nonviolent resistance, and we're off and running. Then he began to speak and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Imagining the Sermon on the Mount, what would that have looked like?

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. In my imagination, it's women and children, because the men would have been off doing construction or fishing. And I just imagine Jesus speaking to women, mothers, blessed are you poor, blessed are you who hunger now, you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

I just imagine that as words to women in the audience, not as a weapon, but as a consolation. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are you, for yours is the kingdom of heaven. You will receive mercy. You will see God. You will be called children of God. My name is Beth Graybill. I have a PhD in Women's Studies and I've taught Women's Studies at a number of schools over the last 10 years or so. Currently, I direct Pathways Institute for Lifelong Learning, but I'm also a lifelong Mennonite and I bring my Mennonite understanding

about peacemaking and nonviolence to these kinds of conversations. I worked for several years for the Mennonite Church USA around violence reduction, and we did a lot of work around pastoral sexual misconduct. So some of my thinking would draw on those experiences as well. When I worked in colleges, most of the issues dealt with date rape, and that's not so dissimilar from pastoral sexual misconduct, in that in both cases, persons usually know the perpetrator. They are known to them rather than someone who's a stranger. I think that for Mennonites, non-resistance is the older term, and what that meant historically was non-participation in the military, which primarily was directed towards men. historically, was non-participation in the military, which primarily was directed towards men.

The problem with non-resistance, and again that's an older term, is it had a very specific application to men but not for women. I much prefer the term non-violent resistance, partly because resistance is in there, and I think when we're looking at issues of violence against women, that's a pretty important piece to have in there. And non-violence're looking at issues of violence against women, that's a pretty important piece to have in there. And nonviolence being important in terms of how we think about the variety of responses available to us. I'm also a survivor of assault. And in my particular case, my assailant had a knife, and when he put down the knife to undo his clothing, I was able to slide the knife under the refrigerator and flee the scene. We had a bit of a struggle over the knife. People later commended me for my non-violent approach, and I have to tell you in the moment, I was not thinking about that. I was just thinking of getting away from the situation.

But in the context of violence against women, anything short of lasting injury or death could constitute nonviolence. So fighting back, resisting, screaming, running for help, using self-defense, physically fighting. Many women have big dogs or they have pepper spray. Talking to the assailant, yeah, in my particular case I think I had a gag in my mouth and I told him if I stopped screaming will you take out this gag and

he said yes. I was able to tell him that you know my husband would be coming home soon, there are people right outside. I don't know that that made any difference, but at least felt like I was able to establish some sort of a connection with the assailant. And I think that's particularly useful in these kinds of situations. But I just want to add a caveat here, and that is that no woman is ever to be faulted for however she responds in a situation of assault or abuse. Some women choose to submit in the face of overwhelming force.

Other women are simply caught off guard and don't have a handy response. So I think any survivor is to be commended for surviving the assault. You've heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also. For Anabaptists, for Mennonites, we do not read a flat Bible. We really look at the core of the Bible as Jesus' teachings in the gospel. And I think central to that is the Sermon on the Mount,

which is why we've had to come to terms with this passage about turn the other cheek. And for me, personally, it's been helpful to think about theologian Walter Wink. A lot of people have heard this advice as simply be a wimp for Jesus. Who argues that a better translation of that would be do not repay evil for evil or do not resist evil in kind. Resist in Greek anti-stani. It's a technical term meaning warfare. You march the two armies up together and then they took a stand, stani, against each other, anti. So anti-stani refers to the moment when two armies clash. So do not resist one who is evil is not nearly strong enough, a translation. It

should be more like do not resist evil violently. Don't mirror evil. Don't let your opponent dictate the terms of your opposition. So then, particularly for women dealing with issues around abuse, it becomes not a recommendation to submit, but rather an encouragement to find ways of responding that perhaps do not use lethal force, but it encourages this idea of resisting. lethal force, but it encourages this idea of resisting. It boggles the mind. He's the first person in 2,000 years to go into the Greek and explain it to the human race. And what Walter Week has done has changed all the grassroots Christian movements in the last 35 years. It was one of the key factors of converting my friend Archbishop Tutu and leading to the end of apartheid. This stuff works.

Remember the exact words in Matthew. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other cheek. Walter Wink is the first person in 2,000 years to say it's not possible to be struck on the right cheek. Now show us how you would strike him with your right fist. Just give us a sample of a blow. Now that's what most people are thinking of when they hear this text read, but that's the wrong cheek, isn't it?

This is the left cheek. That's right. And the text calls for the blow on the right cheek. Now show us the left hook. The problem with that though is that in a Semitic world, the left hand was used for unclean tasks. You know, you only used it in private. You couldn't even gesture with your left hand.

So you can't use the left hand. How would you hit the right cheek with your right hand then? It's about the only way you could, isn't it? The back of the hand. He's not talking about a fist fight. He's talking about top-down humiliation, which is at the heart of violence, to humiliate somebody. So that means the back of the hand, what we're talking about is a master to his slave, a mean, violent husband to his

submissive, abused wife, the Roman soldiers coming along to these poor peasants. And Jesus is saying, look, in the past you've been told there's only two options. You can fight back, or you can be passive and do nothing. And Wink says Jesus offers a third alternative of active, nonviolent resistance, where you engage your opponent, but you don't use the means of violence that your opponent uses. You are saying to, let's say, the Roman soldier or to your master, hey, you can't humiliate me. I turn the other cheek. Go ahead and try now to strike me with the back of your hand. You can't do it.

Show us the back of the hand blow again. And then he turns the other cheek. Now what will you do? I can't hit him anymore. You can't use that one. You can't use this one. You got a great target for a fist though. But the problem was fist fights were held only between equals.

And the last thing you want to establish is his equality with you. You're trying to get him back down. So he's really got you in a dilemma, doesn't he? And you could actually have him flogged for this kind of behavior, but you still couldn't make him be afraid of you. You still have lost control over this guy's mind. And it's creative, and it's active, and it's daring, and you're engaging your oppressor, and it's so darn scary. And it works, because it's the methodology of God according to the nonviolent Jesus. And I've tried it in my life where I've been hit. People are used to violence, and if you do something nonviolent and disarming, they're like, what? They don't know how to respond. And then it can lead to a human

exchange and the end of the violence, which is the goal. I lived and worked in El Salvador at the height of the Civil War in 1985. And my job in the refugee camp was to be the guy to go greet the death squads when they came in to either kidnap somebody or shoot and kill somebody while we were there. And they eventually did open fire after I left a year later. So there were three instances when I walked out and here are these Salvadoran soldiers, each about 18 years old, with very heavy machine guns, wearing uniforms that say U.S. Army on them, because they're all hand-me-downs. And the guns were from the United States. And I'd walk right up to them. I had long blonde hair and I just played the dumb, stupid white guy from the United States, which I can do. And I said, hi, how you doing? Welcome. Nice to see you. I'm saying this in Spanish.

I was almost like, hey, can I get you a cup of coffee? Ignoring the fact that he's got a machine gun aimed at me. And, you know, they were just kids, just kids. And they would ask me some questions and they go, you know, like, I can't, we can't deal with you. You're nuts. And would walk away and leave. One of them, one time, I'll never forget, this kid, he had the machine gun touching my chest. And remember, I was taught by the six Jesuit priests who four years later were brutally assassinated. So this was really serious.

My friends were killed. This kid's got the machine gun pointed at my chest, and I look at the machine gun while I'm trying to make contact with him and act like this is totally normal so that he won't kill me or kill anybody. And he's got a sticker on the machine gun that says in Spanish, Smile, Jesus loves you. I just thought, great. Oh, good, Jesus. Thank you. I'm glad you're here loving me while I'm trying to do what you said.

You can imagine what would happen. This is the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is talking to a large crowd. You can imagine what would happen if many slaves and servants began behaving like this. You have the seeds of a social revolution. It's part of the nature of the Christian tradition, and indeed any religious tradition, for later adherents of the tradition to reinterpret something within their own context. Walter Wink is kind of doing something similar to what Jesus does. In other words, he is at a yet a different historical context, and he is trying to find what is the good news in this tradition. The idea that this teaching is a teaching to simply be a doormat or simply be a victim or simply give in to oppression, I think he's

suggesting that in our context, that's just unworkable. That can't be what it means. Part of his interpretation there grew out of his context of working in South Africa. In the apartheid regime, how do you go about reading the Sermon on the Mount in a positive sense? One of the things that the apartheid government did was they made sure that Romans 13 was available in every tribal language. From the letter of Paul to the Romans, Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists

authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. Pay to all what is due them, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due. They wanted to make sure that everyone heard that, that everyone understood that.

They didn't put the same diligence into the Sermon on the Mount or other parts of the Bible, but they really wanted to emphasize the idea that you needed to follow the government. You needed to obey the government. If you think of the Martin Luther King Jr. example, people broke the law knowing that they were going to jail. They were submitting to the government even though they were not obeying the government. That's a key distinction. A lot of people translate that as obey the government.

I don't think that's the best way to understand that passage. And Romans 12, again, in a similar way, I think Romans 12 is talking about how should you operate as part of this minority group? What should be different about you? What will make your life strange? I appeal to you, therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and

perfect. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The word transformation there is actually the word metamorphosis. So it's like a butterfly that's emerging from a cocoon to be something totally different. It's an utter transformation. You're listening to Ideas on CBC Radio 1 in Canada, across North America on Sirius XM, in Australia on ABC Radio National, and around the world at cbc.ca slash ideas. I'm Nala Ayyad. Hey there, I'm Kathleen Goltar, and I have a confession to make. I am a true crime fanatic. I devour books and films and, most of all, true crime podcasts. But sometimes, I just want to know more. I want to go deeper. And that's where my podcast Crime Story comes in. Every week,

I go behind the scenes with the creators of the best in true crime. I chat with the host of Scamanda, Teacher's Pet, Bone Valley, the list goes on. For the insider scoop, find Crime Story in your podcast app. We've all heard the saying, turn the other cheek. It may sound like a lofty ideal or a bad idea. But what does it actually mean in the face of real-life violence? Derek Suderman is Associate Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Conrad Grebel University College and the University of Waterloo. Catholic priest and peace activist John Deere has been teaching nonviolent resistance for decades. And Beth Grebel is a women's studies scholar, educator, and lifelong Mennonite.

Resistance is an important concept when we're talking about violence against women. Again, no woman is ever to be blamed for how she did or didn't respond to a situation of abuse or attack. And I think it is particularly difficult when someone you trust is the perpetrator. I think historically, that's been part of the problem in the Mennonite church, that prominent ministers have used that scripture, turn the other cheek, don't resist evil, as a weapon against women that they were in sexual and proprietal relationships with. So there are other verses, there are other themes in the biblical story. I mean, if we look at the whole life of Jesus, his life was about resistance to the principalities and powers. His life really was about resisting what the hierarchy thought he

should be saying and doing. He was killed for that kind of resistance. As the Messiah, Jesus could legitimately have used violence. Like, that's what the Psalms are talking about. The Psalms are not saying that anybody can use violence, but the Messiah can. So what does it mean that in the Christian tradition, the Messiah, the Son of God, the one that people follow as the Christ, even he refused to use violence? That I think is very, very important and often missed. Jesus rejected that possibility as a temptation. And I would suggest that the church has often fallen into the temptation that Jesus rejected. Jesus' suffering and death was a direct result of opposing evil. And his responses in this

passage about turning the other cheek really has overtones of defiance, of reclaiming dignity, really has overtones of defiance, of reclaiming dignity, and reclaiming dignity out of what for many abuse survivors is a sense of shame is crucially important. So I think it really is important to have a new framing of these kind of passages and to look at the goal of Jesus's life as one of resistance to evil rather than non-violently submitting to someone who wants to do you harm. You've heard what was said, an eye in exchange for an eye, and a tooth in exchange for a tooth. But I tell you not to face off against someone malicious. Instead, if anyone slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other cheek to him as well. Martin Luther King said that Gandhi is the first person in history to take the commandment,

offer no violent resistance to one who does evil and apply it to nation states. Nations can nonviolently resist other nations. And he gets the British to leave nonviolently. My dad was a New Testament professor in South America. And we lived in Bolivia under a rotating coups. And pretty much every four months, there was a new president who took over the government. And one president came in and gave a list of banned books. And on the list was the Sermon on the Mount. And my dad was supposed to teach Matthew at the seminary. So they had a whole discernment discussion

of what were they going to do? Were they going to follow the law? What would the implications be? All of this kind of thing. It wasn't a theoretical question. And they decided to go ahead with the course. And interestingly, all of the students agreed that it was dangerous for the government.

If people started living this way, it would undermine the authority of the powers that be. But looking back, to me, one of the things that's the most striking about it is that a military dictator in Bolivia thought that the Sermon on the Mount was dangerous. That military dictator recognized something here in the refusal to go along with the system, the refusal to just adopt violence back and forth and back and forth, and just to reject that whole logic. It threatened the whole system. What Jesus is talking about is a whole new way of life, total nonviolence. It's almost like we're addicted to violence globally. And this is like the AA model,

we're violence anonymous, and the boundary line is you're not allowed to kill. And therefore, you need God. You have to turn to your higher power and make restitution, and you're on a journey of lifelong sobriety of nonviolence. Jesus is saying this is the way God forbids the violence to happen. Because in the scenario of the oppressor and the oppressed, if you use nonviolent resistance, there's not just two people involved. There's a third party for a faithful person for the Jesus way, which is the God of nonviolence. The scandal of the gospel is that God is nonviolent.

And if you actually practice nonviolence, God will forbid it. But violence in response to violence, God can't help you. You're going to kill each other. I've been having this conversation every single day of my life for over 40 years. You know, my whole life has been, well, what if someone came in and was going to shoot your grandmother? Well, and you were there. Well, I would talk to the person and say, why would you kill my grandmother? And don't do that. And the guy would put the gun down and weep and say, I went crazy. And we'd make a meal for them. And the grandmother would be fine. But that wasn't the reality. The reality is my grandmother lived three miles from the Pentagon.

And there were hundreds of thousands of people, nearly every one Christian, And there were hundreds of thousands of people, nearly every one Christian, planning the massacre of billions of people. There's nothing hypothetical about that. That's what we have to resist and work on. Jesus is like Gandhi and Martin Luther King. He's a full-on person of total nonviolence. In a world of total violence and the Roman Empire, that means he has to practice active nonviolent resistance. He's not passive. So he explains everything to his friends in the Sermon on the Mount. And then if you read the fine print, he says, this, by the way, is not

going to work. You're all going to get killed. But in the long run, it's going to work because this is the methodology of God. And this is how the only way how positive social change happens in human history is bottom-up, people power, grassroots movements of nonviolence for justice. So he forms a movement. He doesn't hit anybody, hurt anybody, kill anybody, or drop any nuclear bombs, just to be clear. But wow, is he not passive. He's a daring public revolutionary. And if you do that, you're going to be killed within 24 hours. And that's exactly what happens. And as they come to kill him in the Garden of Gethsemane to arrest him, Peter takes up the sword, according to John's gospel, because Peter's thinking,

they're going to kill our guy. I got to protect the Holy One. And he goes to take the sword, according to John's gospel, because Peter's thinking, they're going to kill our guy. I got to protect the Holy One. And he goes to take the sword. And Jesus says, put down the sword. Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the chief priest's slave and cut off his right ear. And the name of the slave was Malchus. Jesus said to Peter, put that sword back in its sheath. My father gave me a drinking cup. Don't I have to drink out of it? The last thing they ever heard him say, if you think about it, is the men and women around him. And it's the first time they understood how serious he is about nonviolence. Well, when we're looking at the area of violence against women, clearly the perpetrator is the one committing the sin. But sometimes that sin is internalized by the survivors of

sexual assault to a feeling of shame and wrongdoing. So sin, salvation, and atonement really starts with the wrong basis. I think a better theology would be security, resistance, and accompaniment. And security, I mean, I think for survivors of violence, finding themselves able to reclaim a sense of God with them, a sense of security in the world is pretty important. And that's a long-term process. I think the church can help with that. In my own situation, I had church members who were willing to sit with me in my house and do their knitting or do their other projects while I was working on computer upstairs as a way of helping me feel the safety and protection of my church community. In terms of spirituality resistance, I mean, that's really the heart of what I feel is needed here.

And that's where the reinterpretation of the turn the other cheek passage really comes in. The third part is accompaniment. I mean, being there with someone as they walk through the process of accusing and finding justice for them against their perpetrator, who has often been, at least in an online church setting, a leader of some renown. Once he'd taken a seat there, his students came up to him, and he opened his mouth to speak and taught them, saying, Happy are those destitute in the life breath, because theirs is the kingdom

of the skies. Happy are those who mourn, because they will be comforted. Happy are the gentle, because they will be heirs of all the earth. Happy are those starving and parched for justice, because they will have as much as they can eat. One of the most helpful things that was said to me by my pastor after the assault, in answer to my question, where was God when this was happening? My pastor replied, I believe that God was with you in the struggle. And I found that profoundly comforting to visualize a God with me, resisting my attacker at the time of the assault. And that requires rethinking an idea of God as all-powerful and almighty.

I mean, if God had been almighty, this would not have happened to me. But the idea of God with us, Emmanuel, that's pretty profoundly useful, I think, to survivors, at least those of us who approach it from a spiritual background. Happy are those who show mercy, because they will be shown mercy. Happy are those who are pure at heart, because they will see God. Happy are the makers of peace, because they will be called sons of God. Happy are those hounded for the sake of justice, because theirs is the kingdom of the skies. hounded for the sake of justice, because theirs is the kingdom of the skies.

We don't have a place in our liturgy and in our thinking for the importance of lament in the Christian tradition. I think there's a reason why laments make up about a third of the Psalms, far more than any other genre of material in the Psalms. It's saying things are not right as they are now, and they need to change. How long, O Lord, how long is saying, how long are things going to be like they are, and how long will it be until things are set right? Many people think that Psalms are prayers to God, and so therefore laments are prayers, so therefore laments are praying to God, communication with God. And that's not a bad description, but it's an incomplete description, because most laments also speak to a human audience. They're not only addressed to God, and Psalm 55 is a great example. So we'll look at Psalm 55, parts of it. Give ear to my prayer, O God, do not hide yourself from my supplication.

Give ear to my prayer, O God, do not hide yourself from my supplication. Attend to me and answer me, I am troubled in my complaint. I am distraught by the noise of the enemy because of the clamor of the wicked, for they bring trouble upon me, and in anger they cherish enmity against me. Enemies and sickness are the two main elements of problem in laments. When we hear the word enemy, we often think of a danger out there, kind of the boogeyman.

But as we continue in Psalm 55, it's very striking what happens. My heart is in anguish within me. The terrors of death have fallen upon me. Fear and trembling come upon me and horror overwhelms me. And I say, oh, that I had wings like a dove. I would fly away and be at rest. Truly, I would flee far away. So this is a hope for escape. I would hurry to find a shelter

for myself from the raging wind and the tempest. But then I think the key here starts in verse 12, and pay attention. I'll sound like a grammar teacher for a moment, but pay attention to the pronouns. It's very interesting. It is not enemies who taunt me. I could bear that. It is not adversaries who deal insolently with me. I could hide from them. But it is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend, with whom I kept pleasant company. We walked in the house of God with the throne. The enemy is someone who is part of the community. Notice the language. It's not an enemy who taunts me, it is you.

This is shifting from speaking to God to speaking directly to the social audience. This is a direct social challenge. It's not the Babylonians, it's not some foreign adversary. It's someone very intimate. My case was prosecuted and one of the most helpful things that the detective taking my story said to me was, you did nothing wrong here. I think I was talking about, well, I shouldn't have opened the door to this guy. I should have known that this

was not right. And his response was, you are not to blame here, he is. So I think just reminding survivors that however you respond, all you needed to do was survive it, and you did. And now the healing starts. And that involves a lot of steps. It involves anger, it involves tears, it involves working with someone who can help you get to a place of realizing that you are not at fault here. If we're talking about a Christian setting, often survivors are encouraged to, well, just forgive and move on. Forgiveness is used as a club against survivors, and that

completely misunderstands the fact that it is often a life-changing incident. You know, when you're physically attacked as a woman, that's your bodily integrity is compromised. And it takes a while to recover a sense of safety and confidence and feeling bold in the world again. So this idea of an easy forgiveness, what is it, cheap grace. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a theologian who talked about not using cheap grace. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance,

baptism without church discipline, communion without confession. Cheap grace is a grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ living and incarnate. The most important words that every survivor needs to hear is, it's not your fault. You didn't do anything wrong. God loves you. You can forgive yourself. In many traditions, there's a prayer of confession every week within a worship service.

Pay attention to how many times there's a prayer of confession and how many times there's a lament. What you'll find is that there's hardly ever a lament in a worship service. In my own tradition, it tends to be leading up to Easter, leading up to Good Friday. That's when laments start to appear. There are seven traditional penitential psalms, and there's over 50 individual laments, and we don't hear the language of lament. Why might that be a problem? If we say that there is a confession, we're saying that we did something wrong. Where is the possibility for someone to say, I did nothing wrong? When the six-year-old kid is being abused by their father, and they walk into a church, and all they hear is confess, I think that's a huge problem.

I think we live in a post-traumatic stress syndrome world now, where every human being has PTSD. Certainly Gandhi did. Martin Luther King was stabbed. He had 15 death threats a day, and they eventually killed him. My dear friend Archbishop Tutu was under death threats every day since he was 13. You know, he was beat up many times and mocked every day as a black person. I certainly have PTSD. My six Jesuit priest friends were assassinated. I lived with them in 1985. I've

known about 20 people publicly assassinated. I've probably known hundreds killed. And I've been in jail for a year of my life and, you know, been beaten several times. I'm not even getting to my family or the abuse I've suffered from the church. The whole world is violence now. We live in a whole world of total violence. The question is, what are we going to do? I think sitting back and doing nothing is going to continue to traumatize you and me and all of us, the PTSD world, because you're being abused all the time. Just the thought that we could be blown up with nuclear weapons or that we have to watch what's going on in Ukraine every day is another horror.

This is all abusive. And actually, the turn the other cheek teaching is even more helpful in light of this, if you dare, because you are not cooperating with abuse and humiliation and the PTSD world anymore. So I think we all need to be training active nonviolence around the world. Happy are you when they insult you and hound you and say every kind of malicious thing about you falsely because of me. Grow giddy with joy because your wages in the skies will be generous. This, you see, is how they hounded the prophets who came before you. Jesus instructs us on the emotional life in the Sermon on the Mount. He says, whatever you do, don't cultivate these two emotions,

anger and fear. And then he says, whatever you do, cultivate these two emotions, anger and fear. And then he says, whatever you do, cultivate these two emotions, grief and joy. The second beatitude, blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are you when they persecute you, rejoice and be glad. The crucifixion was not the last word. Living and thriving beyond the cross was the message. So when we preach resistance, we focus on not bearing the cross, but on surviving to thrive and rise again. Theology of resurrection promises fresh and abundant living beyond the assault. And I think that's a sense of hope and a sense of justice that needs to be held out for all survivors. What we have in the Psalms is a cacophony of voices. We have the voice of victims. We have the voice of offenders. We have the voice of bystanders.

We have the voice of the priests. We have all sorts of different voices. In our day, we also have many different voices. And the question is, which voices do you honor? We've heard a lot about this since the discovery of the unmarked graves at residential schools in Canada. Whose voices are we listening to? And the irony is that if all we do is confess, all we're talking about is the voice of the offender. We're not hearing the voice of the victim yet.

And I think the lament is the possibility of hearing the voice of the victim and then trying to discern a response. What is an appropriate response in light of this? I had this conversation with Desmond Tutu when I went to see him in Cape Town a few years ago. Because he's a very silly guy and he knows me as a silly guy. He grabbed me by the collar. He's a little time goes, John, you better work for peace and justice till the day you die. And I hit him in the chest. I said, Oh, man, give me a break.

How am I going to do that? How do you do that to to, you know, we were like that. So we could talk. But this was when I was pulled up short. He goes, he got really close. He's an inch from my face. And he looks me in the eye and he goes, I cry. And he bursts into tears. And then I went, oh, right, I forgot. He lives according to the Sermon on the Mount. And he starts this speech. I cry because they're killing one another around the world and here in my country, and they don't get it. killing one another around the world and here in my country, and they don't get it. We're all sisters of brothers of one another. So I'm always in grief, and I practice grief, and I cultivate grief. And then he goes just like that, and I laugh. I'm full of joy. I have cried every day of my life, and I've laughed every day of my life, which, by the way, is what Jesus

advocates in the Sermon on the Mount. And then he goes, the nerve of him, he's bursting to laugh and he goes, and look at you! You're the most ridiculous person I've ever met! And he starts making fun of me and laughing and giggling and he made me laugh. This went on for quite at length, and it was a lot of fun. So I've been trying to do that, to cultivate grief and joy, and not to go into anger or fear or passivity or do-nothingism. I keep speaking out, and I keep trying to be nonviolent, and I keep trying to help build the movement, and I keep trying to take public action. And I really encourage people to get with this. And dare I say, though, that God can work through you, and you can make a big difference. Things can happen. On Ideas, you've been listening to the power and paradox of turning the other cheek.

This episode was produced by Sean Foley. Featuring Derek Suderman of Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ontario. Catholic priest and peace activist John Deere. Catholic priest and peace activist John Deere, and Beth Graybill, director of the Pathways Institute for Lifelong Learning in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Select passages taken from The Gospels, a new translation by Sarah Rudin,

published by the Modern Library. Web producer Lisa Ayuso. Technical producer Danielle Duval with assistance from Austin Pomeroy. The senior producer of Ideas is Nikola Lukšić. The executive producer is Greg Kelly and I'm Nala Ayed. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.