Here’s a great article about Jesus’s teachings in terms of non-violent resistance. It looks back at the original social context surrounding the whole admonition to “turn the other cheek” when someone strikes you. It effectively shows how this is not an act of cowardice, but a means of reclaiming power from an oppresor.

Matthew 5:39 says:

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

The author goes on to talk about just how you go about hitting someone on the right cheek. If you’re right-handed, you’re going to make contact with the left side of somebody’s face if you punch them. Unless you punch with your left hand. But in traditional Jewish society, you only used your left hand to wipe you ass, or whatever, so that would not have been done. So the only way you could have hit somebody on the right side of their face is by backhanding them - better known today as a “pimp-slap.”

The very notion of a pimp-slap implies a power relationship. The pimp is giving his “hoes” the back of his hand in order to “keep them bitches in line.” Similarly, in Jewish society, you could only legally backhand somebody who was of a lower caste than you socially. Fist-fighting was reserved for those of equal status, and if you pimp-slapped somebody of equal status to you, it was seen as a tremendous insult, and the fine for it was ten-times greater than a punch.

So how does this relate to Jesus? As pimpin’ as the Lord might have been, he was on the side of the poor, the oppressed and the downtrodden in Jewish society (Mary Magdalene was supposedly a prostitute, after all). For people in that social class, they only had two options with which to face oppression. They could fight back (in which case it would become worse) or they could take it and cower in submission. Jesus, however, gave them a third option, a way out of the destructive cycle of fighting or submission. When a social superior tried to humiliate you with a pimp-slap, you turned your other cheek, so that he might hit you again. This isn’t because you were a pussy. The author of this article states:

Why then does Jesus counsel these already humiliated people to turn the other cheek? Because this action robs the oppressor of power to humiliate them. The person who turns the other cheek is saying, in effect, “Try again. Your first blow failed to achieve its intended effect. I deny you the power to humiliate me. I am a human being just like you. Your status (gender, race, age, wealth) does not alter that. You cannot demean me.” Such a response would create enormous difficulties for the striker. Purely logistically, how can he now hit the other cheek? He cannot backhand it with his right hand. If he hits with a fist, he makes himself an equal, acknowledging the other as a peer. But the whole point of the back of the hand is to reinforce the caste system and its institutionalized inequality.

Another good modern example I thought of: you know that part in Fight Club where the owner of that bar, Lou, that big fat guy in a suit, finds out they have been illegally holding fights in the basement of his bar. He gets all pissed off, and Brad Pitt ends up getting hit by him. Brad Pitt’s response here is a close parallel to what’s being described in the “turn your other cheek” passage. He makes Lou hit him over and over again, to show that he is beyond the power of Lou to punish and humiliate him. Eventually, Lou just gets so freaked out by the whole thing that he agrees to let them have their way and keep using his basement.

The article also goes a bit into the other two parables which Jesus includes in this teaching. One is about how if a man sues you for your coat, give him your shirt as well. And the other deals with the Roman occupation, and being pressed into service by soldiers. When you look at these in the light of their original context, it’s a million times more interesting. And it really helps to give a sense of how non-violent resistance is all about using strength in creative rather than destructive ways - and how it can do much more to disrupt power structures in a society. I recommend checking this article out.