RLC Wake Up is a short weekday email devotional published by Red Letter Christians and read by thousands of people each day. Each devotional begins with a short Scripture followed by a quick reflection, then concludes with a practical and tangible call to action. Sign up HERE to begin your day right.
“Don’t use violence to resist evil! Instead, when someone hits you on the right cheek, turn the other one towards him.” – Matthew 5:39 (NTFE)
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls his followers to use creative nonviolence to resist evil. A strike on the right cheek was meant to demean and degrade. Turning the other cheek isn’t passive—it’s a bold, public refusal to accept the humiliation. It exposes injustice without perpetuating it. Don’t worry about the loss of dignity. It is no big loss to lose dignity in the eyes of systems of empire.
Where can you sacrifice your dignity for the purpose of resisting evil?
Red Letter Christians
Red Letter Christians is a non-denominational Christian movement founded in 2007 by progressive evangelical authors and activists Tony Campolo and Shane Claiborne. The movement emerged as a counter-cultural reaction to the American religious right, seeking to distance faith from partisan politics and shift the evangelical focus away from a narrow set of dogmatic issues toward Jesus’s radical lifestyle commands. Guided primarily by teachings like the Sermon on the Mount, Red Letter Christians emphasize active social justice—specifically advocating for the poor, ending capital punishment, promoting racial reconciliation, protecting the environment, and practicing peace and nonviolence.