Ok, I understand your concerns about turning the other cheek in terms of if Jesus had simply been a human but, presumably he was the son of God and anything that happened to him was preordained. It seems he'd have been slaughtered no matter what his teachings were.

My own feelings are certainly not to allow myself and my family to be murdered by using only cheek turning methods. That would be absurd. I'm just curious how Christians square this obvious message that came from their Savior (who you'd expect to be the final word on life rules given the chronology of the writings) that peace, forgiveness, and charity is how life is supposed to be lived verses this militaristic and materialistic style that seems prevalent in Christian societies since then.

Something's just askew in this picture. The impression to an outsider to the faith is that "The Word" just gets picked over to fit whatever the needs of the faithful are on any given day. When one feels threatened, it's simple to remove the "turn-the-other-cheek" importance and go back to the vengeful warrior God of the Old Testament. When gays get under your skin, it's convenient to ignore the fact that Jesus didn't attack homosexuals or scorn the lepers. He seemed to be inclusive in his messages. Of course the good OT is there to bail out the unease once again.

One would simply think that the book, if accepted on faith, is a history of God's evolution in how man is to be dealt with. It feels like the wars, pestulance, and judgmental behavior simply weren't working and the message changed to a more mellow one as time went on. How in the world can a Christian find justification to challenge that obvious timeline without invalidating the later books and teachings? If that's possible to just blow off the NT, then why aren't the people that can rationalize that simply just Jewish?

Logic and Christianity have real compatibility problems for me.

Art