JESUS’ THIRD WAY

Many otherwise devout Christians simply dismiss Jesus’ teaching about

nonviolence out of hand as impractical idealism. And with good reason. “Turn the
other cheek” has come to imply a passive, doormatlike quality that has made the
Christian way seem cowardly and complicit in the face of injustice. “Resist no evil”
seems to break the back of all opposition to evil and to counsel submission. “Going
the second mile” has become a platitude meaning nothing more than “extend
yourself” and appears to encourage collaborations with the oppressor. Jesus’
teaching, viewed this way, is impractical, masochistic, and even suicidal – an
invitation to bullies and spouse-batterers to wipe up the floor with their supine
Christian victims.
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 98)

Jesus never displayed that kind of passivity. Whatever the source of the
misunderstanding, such distortions are clearly neither in Jesus or his teaching,
which, in context, is one of the most revolutionary statements ever uttered: …
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 98)

"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'
39 But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on
the right cheek, turn the other also; 40 and if anyone wants to sue you and
take your coat, give your cloak as well; 41 and if anyone forces you to go
one mile, go also the second mile. (Matt. 5.38-41; see also Luke 6.29).

The traditional interpretation of “do not resist an evildoer” has been nonresistance to
evil – an odd conclusion, given the fact that on every occasion Jesus himself
resisted evil with every fiber of his being.
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 99)

…the gospels does not reach nonresistance to evil. Jesus counsels resistance,
but without violence. The Greek word translated ‘resist’ … is antistenai, meaning
literally to stand (stenai) against (anti). … antistenai means more here than simply to
‘resist’ evil. It means to resist violently, to revolt or rebel, to engage in an armed
insurrection.
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 99-100)

Jesus does not tell us to submit to evil, but to refuse to oppose it on its own
terms. We are not to let the opponent dictate the methods of our opposition. He
is urging us to transcend both passivity and violence by finding a third way, one that I
at once assertive and yet nonviolent. The correct translation of would be the one still
preserved in the earliest renditions of this saying found in the NT epistles: “Do not
repay evil for evil” (Rom. 12.17; 1 Thes. 5.15; 1 Pet. 3.9). The Scholars Version of
Matt. 5.39a is superb: “Don’t react violently against the one who is evil.”
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 101)

For and original and refreshing exposition of Matt. 5.38-41 see pages 101-108 under
the titles:
 Turn The Other Cheek
 Strip Naked
 Go the Second Mile

Jesus does not encourage Jews to walk a second lime in order to build up merit in
 heaven, or to be pious, or to kill the soldier with kindness. He is helping an
oppressed people find a way to protest and neutralize an onerous practice
despised throughout the empire. He sis not giving a non political message of
spiritual world transcendence. He is formulating a worldly spirituality in which
the people at the bottom of society or under the thumb of imperial power learn
to recover their humanity.
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 108)

There is no need to wait until Rome is defeated, peasants have land, or slaves are
freed. They can begin to behave with dignity and recovered humanity now,
even under the unchanged conditions of the old order. Jesus’ sense of divine
immediacy has social implications. …Here was indeed a way to resist the
Powers That Be withought being made over into their likeness.
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 109)

Jesus did not endorse armed revolution. … but he did lay foundations for a social
revolution… and a social revolution becomes political when it reaches a critical
threshold of acceptance; this in fact did happen to the Roman Empire as the
Christian church overcome it from below.
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 109)

Nor were peasants and slaves in a position to transform the economic system by
frontal assault. But they could begin to act from an already recovered dignity and
freedom.
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 109)

Jesus is not advocating nonviolence merely as a technique for outwitting the

enemy, but as a just means of opposing the enemy in a way that holds open
the possibility of the enemy’s becoming just also. Both sides must win. We are
summoned to pray for our enemies’ transformation, and to respond to ill treatment
with a love that is not only godly but also from God.
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 110)

Jesus, in short, abhors both passivity and violence. He articulates, out of the history
of his own people’s struggles, a way by which evil can be opposed without being
mirrored, the oppressor resisted without being emulated, and the enemy neutralized
without being destroyed. Those who have lived by Jesus’ words – Tolstoy, Gandhi,
Luther King Jr., … - point us to a new way of confronting evil whose potential for
personal and social transformation we are only beginning to grasp today.
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 111)

JESUS’ THIRD WAY

Many otherwise devout Christians simply dismiss Jesus’ teaching about
nonviolence out of hand as impractical idealism. And with good reason. “Turn the
other cheek” has come to imply a passive, doormatlike quality that has made the
Christian way seem cowardly and complicit in the face of injustice. “Resist no evil”
seems to break the back of all opposition to evil and to counsel submission. “Going
the second mile” has become a platitude meaning nothing more than “extend
yourself” and appears to encourage collaborations with the oppressor. Jesus’
teaching, viewed this way, is impractical, masochistic, and even suicidal – an
invitation to bullies and spouse-batterers to wipe up the floor with their supine
 Christian victims.
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 98)

Jesus never displayed that kind of passivity. Whatever the source of the
misunderstanding, such distortions are clearly neither in Jesus or his teaching,
which, in context, is one of the most revolutionary statements ever uttered: …
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 98)

"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'
39 But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on
the right cheek, turn the other also; 40 and if anyone wants to sue you and
take your coat, give your cloak as well; 41 and if anyone forces you to go
one mile, go also the second mile. (Matt. 5.38-41; see also Luke 6.29).

The traditional interpretation of “do not resist an evildoer” has been nonresistance to
evil – an odd conclusion, given the fact that on every occasion Jesus himself
resisted evil with every fiber of his being.
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 99)

…the gospels does not reach nonresistance to evil. Jesus counsels resistance,
but without violence. The Greek word translated ‘resist’ … is antistenai, meaning
literally to stand (stenai) against (anti). … antistenai means more here than simply to
‘resist’ evil. It means to resist violently, to revolt or rebel, to engage in an armed
insurrection.
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 99-100)

Jesus does not tell us to submit to evil, but to refuse to oppose it on its own
terms. We are not to let the opponent dictate the methods of our opposition. He
is urging us to transcend both passivity and violence by finding a third way, one that I
at once assertive and yet nonviolent. The correct translation of would be the one still
preserved in the earliest renditions of this saying found in the NT epistles: “Do not
repay evil for evil” (Rom. 12.17; 1 Thes. 5.15; 1 Pet. 3.9). The Scholars Version of
Matt. 5.39a is superb: “Don’t react violently against the one who is evil.”
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 101)

For and original and refreshing exposition of Matt. 5.38-41 see pages 101-108 under
the titles:
 Turn The Other Cheek
 Strip Naked
 Go the Second Mile

Jesus does not encourage Jews to walk a second lime in order to build up merit in
heaven, or to be pious, or to kill the soldier with kindness. He is helping an
oppressed people find a way to protest and neutralize an onerous practice
despised throughout the empire. He sis not giving a non political message of
spiritual world transcendence. He is formulating a worldly spirituality in which
the people at the bottom of society or under the thumb of imperial power learn
to recover their humanity.
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 108)

There is no need to wait until Rome is defeated, peasants have land, or slaves are
freed. They can begin to behave with dignity and recovered humanity now,
even under the unchanged conditions of the old order. Jesus’ sense of divine
immediacy has social implications. …Here was indeed a way to resist the
Powers That Be withought being made over into their likeness.
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 109)

Jesus did not endorse armed revolution. … but he did lay foundations for a social
revolution… and a social revolution becomes political when it reaches a critical
threshold of acceptance; this in fact did happen to the Roman Empire as the
Christian church overcome it from below.
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 109)

Nor were peasants and slaves in a position to transform the economic system by
frontal assault. But they could begin to act from an already recovered dignity and
freedom.
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 109)

Jesus is not advocating nonviolence merely as a technique for outwitting the

enemy, but as a just means of opposing the enemy in a way that holds open
the possibility of the enemy’s becoming just also. Both sides must win. We are
summoned to pray for our enemies’ transformation, and to respond to ill treatment
with a love that is not only godly but also from God.
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 110)

Jesus, in short, abhors both passivity and violence. He articulates, out of the history
of his own people’s struggles, a way by which evil can be opposed without being
mirrored, the oppressor resisted without being emulated, and the enemy neutralized
without being destroyed. Those who have lived by Jesus’ words – Tolstoy, Gandhi,
Luther King Jr., … - point us to a new way of confronting evil whose potential for
personal and social transformation we are only beginning to grasp today.
(Wink, The Powers Be, 1998, 111)