A Dialogue:
## The Question
How does Camak’s harsh joke comparing ICE agents unfavorably to cockroaches align with his theology of “Confrontational Non-Violence”?
## The Initial Misreading
The first interpretation saw a contradiction: Camak’s caustic joke seemed to contradict his framework emphasizing interior freedom, loving enemies, and refusing to be controlled by anger. The joke appeared vindictive rather than spiritually liberated.
## The Correction
The dialogue challenged this interpretation by pointing to Jesus’ confrontations with the Pharisees and Sadducees—calling them “vipers,” “whitewashed tombs,” and “blind guides.” This wasn’t gentle or diplomatic, yet it exemplified spiritual freedom.
The key insight: **Confrontational non-violence isn’t about being nice—it’s about being unafraid.** The harsh rhetoric demonstrates interior freedom precisely because it shows someone unconcerned with retaliation, social approval, or worldly consequences.
## The Parallel
Both Jesus’ attacks on religious authorities and Camak’s joke:
– Use dehumanizing comparisons to expose hypocrisy
– Target those in power
– Point to specific contradictions
– Employ shock value as rhetorical strategy
– Demonstrate fearlessness of consequences
## The Deeper Realization
But there was still a subtle misreading in this correction. The analysis treated “turn the other cheek” as the *restrained* element that made harsh rhetoric permissible—as if nonviolence had a “gentle part” and an “aggressive part.”
**This is wrong. “Turn the other cheek” is itself aggressive.**
When you offer the other cheek, you’re saying: “Your violence has no power over me. Strike me again.” That’s not de-escalation—it’s escalation through defiance. You’re refusing to play by the aggressor’s rules, which is more threatening than fighting back. Fighting back at least validates their framework where might makes right.
The whole framework is confrontational:
– **Turning the other cheek** = “Strike me again, I’m not afraid of you”
– **Loving your enemies** = Refusing to grant them the power to make you hate
– **Telling disruptive truths** = Prophetic confrontation without fear of consequences
## The Radical Insight
Interior freedom doesn’t *permit* aggression—**it produces aggression.** When you’re genuinely unafraid and uncontrolled, you become dangerous to power structures in ways that violence never could be.
This freedom makes you **more aggressive, more confrontational, more fully human** by unfettering you to be authentically human. You’re no longer performing politeness out of fear. You’re no longer moderating your speech to avoid consequences. You’re no longer allowing the aggressor’s pathology to set the terms.
Jesus had this freedom, which is why he could be simultaneously at perfect peace and savagely confrontational. The same gospel that records “turn the other cheek” also records “whitewashed tombs full of dead men’s bones.” These aren’t contradictory impulses—they’re the same spiritual freedom expressing itself in different contexts.
## Why Most People Misread This
The common interpretation equates nonviolence with:
– Being polite and diplomatic
– Emotional restraint
– Conflict avoidance
– Pleasing one’s enemies
This interpretation smuggles in middle-class respectability politics, where the goal is maintaining social harmony and avoiding discomfort. It reads “love your enemies” as “be nice to your enemies” and “turn the other cheek” as “don’t make trouble.”
But Camak’s framework distinguishes between:
– **Non-retaliation** (refusing to be controlled) vs. **non-confrontation** (avoiding conflict)
– **Interior peace** (spiritual security) vs. **exterior niceness** (polite behavior)
– **Loving enemies** (denying them control) vs. **pleasing enemies** (accommodating them)
## The Liberation
Confrontational non-violence is liberation to be fully, authentically, aggressively human without fear. It’s not a strategy of de-escalation—it’s freedom from the fear that would otherwise silence prophetic witness or moderate prophetic rage.
This is why it’s more dangerous to power than violence ever could be. Violence can be met with violence. But how do you control someone who genuinely isn’t afraid of what you can do to them? How do you silence someone who has found interior freedom that your threats can’t touch?
You can’t. And that’s the point.
Boyd Camak 