Ragged Trousered Philanthropy

I have been reading Robert Tressell's "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists" (about survival on the underside of Edwardian life) in odd moments, a fascinating look at times past but with, as so often, specific polarised perspectives. It is true that we often fail to interpret Jesus' words as we should, even if we are not as extreme as some of the examples in the book, referring to "disciples" who reinterpret some of those inconvenient things that Jesus said. For instance, "... when Jesus said, 'Resist not evil', 'If a man smite thee upon the right cheek turn unto him also the left', He really meant, 'Turn on him a Maxim gun; disembowel him with a bayonet or batter in his skull with the butt end of a rifle!' When He said, 'If one take thy coat, give him thy cloak also,' the 'Christians' say that what He really meant was, 'If one take thy coat, give him six months' hard labour.' Let us be sure that we are sufficiently radical in the opposite direction!