Some psychologists and psychiatrists, following Freud’s lead, point to the Beatitudes as proof of Jesus’ imbalance. Said one distinguished British psychologist, in a speech prepared for the Royal Society of Medicine:
“The spirit of self-sacrifice which permeates Christianity, and is so highly prized in the Christian religious life, is masochism moderately indulged. A much stronger expression of it is to be found in Christ’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. This blesses the poor, the meek, the persecuted; exhorts us not to resist evil but to offer the other cheek to the smiter; and to do good to them that hate you and forgive men their trespasses. All this breathes masochism.”
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Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Pub. House, 1995), 109; contributed by Joel Smith