³⁹If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn and offer him the other also

Matthew 5:39– The Revised English Bible

¹⁹They handed him a silver piece. ²⁰Jesus asked ‘Whose head is this and whose inscription?’ ²¹’Caesar’s,’ they replied. He said to them ‘Then pay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.’

Matthew 22:19b-21 – The Revised English Bible

⁸He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

Micah 6:8 – The King James Version

¹²for the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are towards their prayers, but the face of the Lord is against those committing evil things’.’

1 Peter 3:12 – The Keys of the Kingdom Holy Bible

⁹Love in all sincerity, loathing evil and holding fast to the good.

Romans 12:9 – The Revised English Bible

“It’s so unfair!” Every parent of a bolshie teenager has at some time experienced this phrase. I can’t remember a specific incident in my teenage years when I used it against my own parents, but I clearly remember that I had a well above average sense of justice and injustice, as I grew up, which probably caused my parents no end of pain. I’m not sure why I had this sense of justice nor where it came from, but it indirectly led to my applying to Voluntary Service Overseas to spend year in French West Africa when I was 18. I had previously decided that I wanted to be a lawyer. That ambition rapidly faded as I came into head-on collision with the fact that that the law has virtually nothing to do with justice, but is instead about process. Based on the number of disillusioned law undergraduates I’ve spoken to in recent years, it’s still, amazingly, a common misconception. I remember the sense of outrage I had as a young man, when I discovered that instead of legal cases being as shown in the film To Kill a Mockingbird, the reality was that clever, crooked arguments secured ‘not guilty’ verdicts, for many who were certainly guilty.

In passing, I’ve recently found myself wondering whether this leads to lawyers at the top of government becoming unacceptably used to manipulating facts and abusing truth and justice, in order to secure the judgement they want? If so, is that a healthy situation for us as a nation? We scarcely need answer that.

Where does Christianity fit into this?

I’ve previously written that I feel Jesus has been ‘neutered’ by an incorrect reading of the Bible stories. We’re all used to singing from a young age ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild.’ But is this hymn anywhere near a fair reflection of Jesus?

It’s hard to unveil where, historically, this depiction of Jesus originated. If you ask many churchgoers ‘Why did Jesus die?’ you will, as like as not, receive the reply: ‘To save us from our sins.’ My own view is that this is a complete travesty and that instead, Jesus died as the Bible makes clear, because he was directly challenging the authority of the Jewish and Roman authorities of his day.

Two of the above Bible quotations support this supposition. ‘Turn the other cheek’ for example, which has entered our language, underpins the claim that Jesus was a ‘meek and mild’, submissive person. But if you read St Matthew’s version of this story shown above (St Luke’s is different), he says: ‘If anyone slaps you on the right cheek…’ That one little word is significant, if we imagine ourselves in the position of those who first heard these words. Most people are right-handed. For such a person to slap someone on the right cheek, they have to use the back of their hand. Such a slap, in antiquity, was the way people treated their slaves and inferiors. Once you know this, then ‘offer the other cheek’ does not mean meekly concede, but rather demand that your adversary treats you as an equal, because a right-handed person cannot slap someone with the palm of the hand, without hitting their left cheek. Thus, the meaning changes totally, from one of submission, to one of defiance. How might this change our historical view of Jesus?

Also, when Jesus is asked by the Pharisees in Matthew 22:19-21 whether people should, under Jewish law, pay taxes to the Roman Emperor, Jesus asks for a Roman coin and then uses the phrase: ‘then pay to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what belongs to God.’ His Jewish hearers were only too aware that in Judaism everything belonged to God. This is the answer of a courageous man, not a compliant, submissive, obedient one.

Recently, I came across an English/Israeli woman called Kay Wilson, also known by her Jewish name, Tal Hartuv. I cannot recommend her book, The Rage less Traveled’ too highly, albeit it makes for tough reading. I’m shortly going to write a very overdue blog about her, but the reason for mentioning her here is that she believes that Christianity needs to be more robust and that we should totally reject evil and not tolerate it (see the Romans 12:9 quotation above). She draws on her Jewish teaching in doing this, but very perceptively she challenges us to consider whether there is anything in the Christian Bible that suggests that Jesus would actually wish us to be tolerant of evil? This brings to mind the quotation of Dr Gavin Ashenden (with whom I do not agree on everything): ‘The worst sin is not exclusion.’

Act Bravely

In May 2024, I wrote an article in these pages about my friend Dexter Taylor, also known as ‘Carbon Mike’, the creator of the philosophy of ‘Foundationism’. For those reading this who didn’t see it, you can find my article here:

Update on Carbon Mike/Dexter Taylor

He has now been in Cocksackie Prison in New York State for 21 months. There are a number of us who count Dexter as a friend, who are continuing to support him in various ways. Recently, we exchanged emails with each other about what we might do that would encourage him to believe that he has not been forgotten. The main idea was for each of us to write an article focusing on one of the principles of Foundationism, which are these:

See Deeply

Listen Closely

Speak Clearly

Act Bravely

Deny the Self

Defend the Individual

Respect Tradition

Face the Present

Cultivate the Future

I’ve written before that the ‘match’ between these principles and Christianity is profound. I chose ‘Act Bravely’, for reasons I’ll explain.

During the course of this correspondence, a number of people, being aware of the fact that Dexter had been offered a ‘plea bargain’ under the US system, which could have meant that he would have been released from prison in not much more than a year from now, expressed their sadness that he hadn’t opted for that, rather than stand on his principles and serve for another 8 years.

I need to admit that I fully understand why these views were expressed. We all miss his company and feel for his family, as the months tick past. Not quite two years feels like a very long time; the next eight years will surely feel interminable. But these comments have caused me to reflect on the fact that ‘plea bargaining’ is not (in that sense) a part of the UK legal system. What do I feel about it?

Before directly answering that question, it’s worth reflecting on what this case was always about and why some of us have no reservations in describing Dexter as a political prisoner. The case was about the possession of firearms which, whether we agree with it or not (and in the UK many people do not) is entirely legal under the US Constitution (the so-called ‘Second Amendment’). Dexter’s premises were raided in the middle of the night, after his details had been ‘extracted’ from one of his suppliers outside New York State. He was charged and sent to prison for, effectively, failing to follow New York state law, which is in this case completely at loggerheads with the US Constitution. Dexter’s point, which he argued in his case, was that the New York authorities did not have the right to remove a Constitutional right and replace it with a conditional ‘privilege.’ It’s essential to add that this was a ‘victimless’ crime – none of the firearms in question had ever been fired, advertised or used in any way. Even those close to him didn’t know that he possessed them. He has a fascination for ‘making things’ and wanted to prove that he could make firearms.

Dexter saw this as exercising his legal right, granted under the US Constitution. It was a matter of principle; he fought more than partly so that others would not also be imprisoned in the future. Judge Abena Darkeh, who sent him to prison for the maximum term permitted of ten years, (for a victimless crime, remember), forbade Mike’s defence attorney from bringing the Second Amendment into ‘her’ courtroom. The arrogance implicit in this statement is staggering.

In saying this, Judge Darkeh unintentionally acknowledged that in some US states, Dexter could not have been convicted, whereas in others, the state law ignores the very existence of the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. For those of us in the UK, this seems complete madness – justice by postcode lottery.

So where does this leave me? I must admit to having some mental qualms about automatic or semi-automatic rifles being in the possession of the general public, despite the fact that for many years, I was licenced to own rifles and shotguns in the UK. But then, it’s not a ‘legal, Constitutional right’ in the UK.

I’m also uncomfortable about the ‘plea bargain’ system. To me, it sounds like a system that’s designed to bribe those accused, to obtain a shorter sentence. And in Dexter’s case, by accepting the plea bargain being offered, I believe that, morally at least, he would to all intents and purposes have thus accepted that he was guilty of a serious offence. The problem is that under US Federal law, he was not guilty. Should he have accepted the plea so that he, his family and friends, could have suffered less?

After much reflection, I think Dexter took the right decision. I’m sorry to say that my experience has been that injustice flourishes in silence. And that there is no justice without bravery.

So, is it reasonable to expect the man who wrote ‘Act Bravely’ and ‘Deny the Self’ to ignore these two principles when his back was against the wall? I don’t think so. Which is why my admiration for this man, who I consider to be a political prisoner, is greater than it ever has been. And it’s why I shall continue to support him in my own very modest way, and encourage him to take his case all the lengthy, painful and expensive way to the US Supreme Court, if possible. And I pray that when someone in the US eventually sees sense and releases him, I can be there in person, to tell him that I have unbounded admiration for the fact that he has stood up bravely for justice, so that others and their families don’t have to suffer as he has.

Heavenly Father, in this season of Lent, we ask you to look down in mercy on all those serving prison sentences, and particularly those who have been singled out for long sentences for political reasons. Grant him strength and continued courage, Lord, and give him daily a sense of your love for him. Amen

PS If you feel you can, please support his campaign for justice via the following Give Send Go link:

https://www.givesendgo.com/dtaylor_2a_legal

It would be dreadful to think that his appeal might be hampered by a lack of funds.