In the February issue of Sojourners, Kimberly Burge’s review of the documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell recounts a fantastic, biblical, and successful strategy used by women activists. After 14 years of civil war,

…the women stepped in, Christians and Muslims together. They prayed. They sang. They planted themselves in daily protests across from President Taylor’s palace. They pushed for peace talks and traveled to Ghana to monitor them when they finally began. After those talks stalled, one of the movement’s leaders threatened to shame the all-male participants by stripping naked if they did not return to the table….

You can’t escape the comparison to Matthew 5’s advice that, if someone takes your coat, you should give them your inner garment as well. As Walter Wink unpacks it,

to give over their inner garment as well … would mean stripping off all their clothing and marching out of court stark naked! Put yourself in the debtor’s place; imagine the chuckles this saying must have evoked. There stands the creditor, beet-red with embarrassment, your outer garment in one hand, your underwear in the other. You have suddenly turned the tables on him. … Nakedness was taboo in Judaism. Shame fell not on the naked party but the person viewing or causing one’s nakedness (Genesis 9:20-27)… This … offers the creditor a chance to see, perhaps for the first time in his life, what his practices cause — and to repent.

Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee’s threat to disrobe succeeded in forcing the Liberian peace talks to continue and succeed, paving the way for the democratic election of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Now there’s biblical exegesis in action!

Elizabeth Palmberg is an assistant editor of Sojourners.