Bad Theology

Text for today: Matthew 5 xxxix

During the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus exhorts His followers not to resist evil, and proclaims that when struck in the face they should offer their other cheek to be struck again.

The Saviour stated that His preaching was intended to hide His true message from all but the elect, thereby condemning the majority of His disciples to eternal torment. The Sermon on the Mount is a particularly clever and cynical instance of that double meaning, and nowhere more so than in the order to turn the other cheek. Superficially the injunction seems intended to promote peace on earth and goodwill among people; however, the mission of Jesus was to set family members against one another and not to bring peace, but a sword.

In fact, the famous command echoes Lamentations 3 xxx, which uses the cheek-turning image to suggest self-abasement before a wrathful and punitive God. The Lamentations were composed to mourn the catastrophic destruction of Jerusalem and its temple by the Babylonians: a paternal chastisement which Jesus openly prophesied as soon to be repeated. The evil that must not be resisted, and from whom Jesus orders us to beg further punishment, is His own Father in Heaven.