The Sermon on the Mount:

  1. “[…] I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.” Matthew 5:38-42 NRSV
  2. “Jesus offers what the biblical scholar Walter Wink called the ‘third way’: rather than escalate the violence, and rather than lose personal dignity, face the perpetrator by making the violence and so the wrongness of the situation clear. What looks like humiliation to an outside - being slapped, stripping naked, carrying gear - becomes an opportunity of expressing agency. […] [T]he victim resists humiliation by displaying agency and courage.” - Levine, Amy-Jill 2020, Sermon on the Mount: A Beginner’s Guide to the Kingdom of Heaven, ch.2.

To Kill a Mockingbird:

  1. “‘I wish Bob Ewell wouldn’t chew tobacco,’ was all Atticus said about it. According to Miss Stephanie Crawford, however, Atticus was leaving the post office when Mr. Ewell approached him, cursed him, spat on him, and threatened to kill him. […] Atticus didn’t bat an eye, just took out his handkerchief and wiped his face and stood there and let Mr. Ewell call him names wild horses could not bring her to repeat. Mr. Ewell was a veteran of an obscure war; that plus Atticus’s peaceful reaction probably prompted him to inquire, ‘Too proud to fight, you nigger-lovin‘ bastard?’ Miss Stephanie said Atticus said, ‘No, too old,’ put his hands in his pockets and strolled on. Miss Stephanie said you had to hand it to Atticus Finch, he could be right dry sometimes.”
  2. “‘Jem, see if you can stand in Bob Ewell’s shoes a minute. I destroyed his last shred of credibility at that trial, if he had any to begin with. The man had to have some kind of comeback, his kind always does. So if spitting in my face and threatening me saved Mayella Ewell one extra beating, that’s something I’ll gladly take. He had to take it out on somebody and I’d rather it be me than that houseful of children out there. You understand?’”

This is interesting to me:

  • In the first situation, you have somebody in a position of weakness (i.e. the first-century Jewish community) taking a beating as a way to shame the oppressors. In the second situation, you have somebody in a position of power (i.e. Atticus Finch, obviously a very privileged guy) taking a beating as a way to shame himself.
  • However, in both cases the act is the same - refusing to fight back. And the goal is the same - to raise up the person who is in a position of weakness (whether that person is being beaten or doing the beating), as a means to prevent further oppression and violence against the weak.