Episode #22. John Dear on the Most Revolutionary--and Most Disobeyed--Teaching in the Gospels: Mt. 5:39

“Offer no violent resistance to one who does evil” (Mt. 5:39)--the most revolutionary—and most disobeyed—teaching in the Gospels, says John Dear

This week, I take a deep dive into Jesus’ specific commandment on nonviolent resistance in the Sermon on the Mount, Mt. 5:39-43. I tell how Leo Tolstoy learned the power of this verse from the Abolitionists, and then wrote his classic text, “The Kingdom of God Is Within You, or Christianity not as a mystical teaching but as a new concept of life.”

There, on the first page, Tolstoy declares that Christianity has totally failed Christ because it ignores and disobeys Matthew 5:39. He asks: Did Christ want us to put this teaching into practice or not? Tolstoy hoped to disarm the Russian Orthodox Church. Instead, he inspired Gandhi to la ...