Moral Force

 

The Erinyes hound Orestes

Comrade Xerxes writes recently that power corrupts. 

           “Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Government… Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu… In the U.S., white evangelical males… All lash out at perceived threats. All double down on preserving their own power, whatever it is.”

I find it interesting that he identifies “white evangelical males” as the power in the US, parallel to Vladimir Putin in Russia and Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel. A white evangelical male is not in charge in the White House, as Putin is in the Kremlin, or Netanyahu in the Knesset. Nor has been, since Jimmy Carter. And before him? Can’t think of anyone. It is conspicuous fact that, even though it is America’s largest Protestant denomination, there have been few even nominally Baptist presidents. And none from any other “evangelical” denomination.

So why does he come to perceive “white evangelical males” as the real power in the US?

It is not that they are such a large voting bloc. They come in at 9% of the population, according to Pew Research; fewer than blacks or Hispanics, both at 11%. And they are less inclined to vote as a bloc.

It is not that they have overwhelming economic power, that might buy or command influence over policy. Evangelicals are disproportionately the rural poor—the “hillbillies.”

Is it because they are especially fierce in defending their power? Doesn’t work, if they don’t have significant power to begin with. What weapons do they have? Banjoes? Church organs?

Nor, speaking of church organs, are they overrepresented in the media or the arts, another way a minority might punch above its weight. There’s country and gospel music, and Christian fiction, but this is proverbially unpopular outside the ranks of the evangelicals themselves; there is little “crossover,” only preaching to the choir. Your typical current American journalist or artist is urban, middle or upper class, female, and irreligious.

So why Xerxes’s perception that white evangelical males wield great power in the culture?

And it is not just his perception. Everyone is aware of the evangelicals, and what they think about a given issue, and everyone talks about them as though they have influence and either must be taken into account—or resisted at all costs. Why?

This demonstrates what “soft power” is, also known as moral force. It is the weapon wielded so effectively by Martin Luther King Jr., or by Gandhi or O’Connell to defeat the military and economic might of the British Empire. It is what has given the Jews immense cultural influence, though a small minority, wherever they have lived. It is the tactic Jesus advised, in cases of facing overwhelming force, as “turn the other cheek.”

It is the spiritual authority that comes of being right, and in the right. 

Ultimately, everyone recognizes the difference between right and wrong. When they realize they are in the wrong, their conscience pursues them like the hounds of heaven. Subjectively, it feels to them like an overwhelming force.

Because it is. Over the longer term, it is indeed the strongest force of all.

On Turning the Other Cheek

The second Biblical quote commonly used like a dagger by non-Christians against Christians is “turn the other cheek.”

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, don’t resist him who is evil; but whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. If anyone sues you to take away your coat, let him have your cloak also. Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks you, and don’t turn away him who desires to borrow from you.”

This seems unambiguous.

Yet here again, Jesus apparently does not follow his own commandment. Luke 22:35:

“He said to them, ‘When I sent you out without purse, and wallet, and shoes, did you lack anything?’ They said, ‘Nothing.’ Then he said to them, ‘But now, whoever has a purse, let him take it, and likewise a wallet. Whoever has none, let him sell his cloak, and buy a sword.’”

This is clearly preparing for resistance.

The passages are perhaps reconciled by the fact that striking a social inferior on the cheek was apparently a standard way at the time of asserting dominance; the demand for one’s coat is described as the result of a lawsuit, with the authority of the court behind it; and compelling someone to carry freight for a mile was a privilege held by the Roman soldiery over the local population.

In other words, these all seem to refer to situations in which the persecutor has the backing of social authority.

In such a situation, open physical resistance seems likely to lead to dire consequences for the victim. Resorting to shaming instead seems wise advice for purely strategic, not necessarily moral, reasons.

Nevertheless, there is a moral argument to be made as well. Even if the social authority is evil, or allowing evil, upsetting social authority leads to chaos, and allowing evil a genuinely free rein. It would mean everyone going about doing whatever they want. Accordingly, civil disobedience is a grave act requiring special justification.

When the apostles return having managed to purchase only two swords, Jesus declares that this is enough. Then, as Jesus is seized by the authorities in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter cuts off a soldier’s ear. Jesus tells him to stand down.

This seems to confirm the interpretation suggested: so long as the assault is individual, one has the right to resist with violence. If it involves the use of more than a couple of swords, it probably has social repercussions that outweigh the injustice to the individual victim.

In sum, Martin Luther King Jr. or Mahatma Gandhi, or Daniel O’Connell, had the commandment right: not that one is accept evil in silence and obedience, but that one should not oppose the social power, if evil, with violence. The wisest and best course is to attempt to shame them.

It is perhaps also worth noticing that this requirement to turn the other cheek is one of a list of commandments that seem hyperbolic. If you look at a woman with lust, you have committed adultery; if you call someone stupid, you have murdered them; if you make a solemn promise, you have lied.

The string ends with the phrase:

… Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

In other words, if you keep these commandments, you are godlike, perfect.

It is necessarily impossible for any of us to be perfect. It is gravely blasphemous to suppose so. The point of the list, then, is to cite legitimate moral goods that are beyond the human capacity to achieve. The point is not to feel self-justified.

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.