Let Them Bake Cake

Daniel O'Connell, the Great Emancipator

The good old “turn the other cheek” quote from the Sermon on the Mount has, predictably, surfaced as advice to Christians on the recent controversy over the RFRA in Indiana. It always does; usually in the mouths of Christianity's opponents. Someone is saying that, in the spirit of Jesus's words, true Christians, now required by law to bake cakes for gay weddings in violation of their consciences, should instead bake two, the second one presumably for free.

Now—this leaves us with a bit of a dilemma. As atheists are the first to insist, atheists can be just as moral as the religious; there is nothing about being religious that automatically makes you more righteous. Yep; agreed. Any properly Catechised Christian could tell you the same. That is just the same as saying that morality is objective, and binding on everyone.

But it follows that there are no special rules that Christians must follow and atheists need not. If it is a moral obligation to turn the other cheek when someone hits you, or to walk two miles when required to walk one, this obligation is equally binding on both atheists and Christians; not on Christians alone.

So the proper question is not whether Christians are or should be doing it in this case, but who is doing it, and who is not. Who here is going to the mattresses in defence of their claims, and who is not?

On that one, you decide.

But let's also dig a little deeper here. I think it is evident to conscience, which is innate, that in ordinary circumstances, neither Christians nor atheists in truth have a moral obligation to “turn the other cheek” when attacked. This goes well beyond the golden rule. Doing unto others as we would have them do unto us does not mean we should subjugate our interests, much less our moral judgements, to theirs, but that we should treat the two equally. The right to self-defence (not to mention freedom of conscience) is inherent and self-evident. We can forgive them, or not, later.

Jesus was not, therefore, laying down a general moral requirement. He was, instead, more or less self-evidently, offering practical advice, or speaking of one particular situation.

It is therefore best to examine the context. To whom was he speaking, and in what situation?

The Sermon on the Mount indeed begins with a precise enumeration of whom it is addressed to: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the persecuted, the powerless (Matthew 5:2-11—“the Beatitudes”).

If you are in a situation in which you are oppressed and abused, as here, it is almost certainly futile to fight back. The same considerations apply as in the doctrine of just war: if there is no reasonable chance of winning, one does not resort to arms, because worse harm would only come of it. Jesus makes the same judgement later when he first instructs his disciples to go out and buy swords (Luke 22:36), and then, when he is taken in the Garden of Gethsemane, forbids then to use them (Luke 22:51). Wer have the right of resistance; nevertheless, resistance in some circumstances is futile.

His advice here is plainly for such situations. Saint Augustine points out an interesting detail in Matthew's account. Jesus says, to quote the phrase in full, “if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Why the right cheek specifically?

I challenge you, right now, to try slapping the person nearest to you on their right cheek. I expect that they will escape with little harm.

If, like almost everyone, you are right-handed, you will find it difficult to do. A blow with the right hand will fall on the left cheek. For the right cheek, you will need to slap them with your weak hand. Odd, isn't it?

Unless, that, is, you show your victim, as the idiom goes, the back of your hand. A backhand blow—a deliberate insult. A blow given only by a superior to an inferior.

If not that, the assailant might be attacking backhand with a stick or a whip in his hand.

Now, imagine receiving such a blow, then turning the left cheek to your attacker.

Surely this is a clear example of passive resistance. By turning the other cheek, asking for a straight blow, you are implicitly declaring yourself an equal, in a way that would be awkward for the assailant to respond to. You are shaming him.

St, Francis in later years.

Jesus goes on to say “if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.”

In ancient Judea, a poor man would have only two articles of clothing: his tunic, and his cloak. Handing both over would leave him standing naked before his tormentor—making a public scene that would be calculated to shame him. Similarly, when St. Francis's father pursued him to a church, demanding he return his inheritance over his plan to leave the family business, Francis stripped himself naked in front of the bishop, and handed back even his clothes. Touche.

Jesus next advises “if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.”

Who exactly can force you to go one mile? This seems to be a reference to impressment by the Roman authority. By law, any civilian could be required by any Roman soldier to carry his burden for him for one mile. Simon of Cyrene was so impressed on the road to Calvary. But this was a maximum, not a minimum; soldiers could not require more than this. Accordingly, continuing to carry the burden for an extra mile was actually putting the soldier in violation of the law, perhaps to his peril. Imagine being caught by your superior in this situation, and having to claim that the Jewish civilian insisted on carrying the pack twice as far of his own free will. Right--who was going to believe that?

Jesus's advice is indeed extremely wise, given any situation in which conventional resistance is futile. The early Christians proved the thesis, managing with it to take over a Roman Empire originally bent on their destruction.

Daniel O'Connell, in the first half of the nineteenth century, grasped the same New Testament principle, and used it to force England to give the Irish, and Catholics, political and legal equality throughout the Empire. He had a great deal to do with giving Canada and other colonies self-government as well.

Mohandas Gandhi picked up the same concept of passive resistance in India--without properly crediting O'Connell, but properly crediting Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount. It led to the peaceful independence of India, and probably had a great deal to do with the independence, soon after, of all the European colonial possessions.

Martin Luther King Jr. tried it in the US South, and it worked again to wipe out segregation and discrimination.

But what this doctrine definitely is not is a demand to play dead in the presence of evil. That would simply be cowardice, and completely immoral.

Nor is it called for in the current struggle, involving the various RFR Acts in the US. The religious, after all, still have a vote, and quite possibly majority support. That means they still have conventional means to resist. To start baking extra cakes at their own expense now would therefore only be servile. That would be more like the Uncle Toms, the native Irish converts to Anglicanism, the kapos of the death camps, or the Sanhedrin.

Would such a display of docility attract some to the faith? I doubt it. There would be very little that was attractive about it.