Christian silence on torture troubling

[babylonsister]

Silence on torture troubling
Cynthia Tucker
Sunday, May 10, 2009


At long last, a prominent Christian conservative has called waterboarding what it is: torture. Last week, Richard Land, an official with the Southern Baptist Convention, said the practice is unethical and “violates everything we stand for.”

“There are some things you should never do to another human being, no matter how horrific the things they have done. If you do so, you demean yourself to their level,” said Land, president of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

His comments, though belated, are welcome. He breaks a telling silence about torture among the most politically active leaders of the religious right, who had a tendency to endorse all decisions and embrace all practices of former President Bush. Indeed, Land had nothing to say about waterboarding when Bush was still in office, though many reports confirmed the administration’s use of the practice years ago.

Land’s comments follow a poll showing that evangelical Protestants are less ambivalent about torture than their fellow citizens. The Pew Center for Research found that, among all Americans, about half believe torture can often or sometimes be justified. Pew says 62 percent of “white evangelical Protestants” believe so. (Pew’s sample was too small to identify groups other than “white evangelical Protestants,” “white non-Hispanic Catholics,” and “white mainline Protestants.”)

It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Conservative Christians tend to be conspicuously pious, loudly proclaiming themselves moral, righteous, just. Yet, their support for torture — even against an avowed enemy, even in times of peril — seems oddly out of step with the radical gospel of a carpenter who preached peace, forgiveness and mercy: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

more...

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/05/10/tucked_0510.html

[Demeter]

1. Had to Take an Opinion Poll, first

Can't go spouting off without the congregation behind you. that's a good way to lose that congregation, and all those lovely dollars.

[donco6]

2. The roots of Inquisition run deep.

It just takes a scratch on the surface to expose the rot within.

[Chulanowa]

3. A few weeks ago really hit it home for me

I was riding the bus home from work, and saw something new in front of the Lutheran church on the island. A big banner, right at the very edge of their private property, as close to the road as they can legally get it, was a big printed banner.

"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them (Matt. 7:12) STOP TORTURE NOW!"

What really hit me wasn't so much the fact that they're saying something... I've got a pretty liberal little island here, and even the more conservative churches have a pretty hip congregation - But so more that it even needed to be said. Here! In the United States of America, we're torturing people. I mean intellectually I knew - pretty hard NOT to now - but for some reason this banner struck me rather viscerally. To see a church, pleading to whoever's driving by, to press for our country, of all the nations in the world, to cease torture.

[JDPriestly]

7. The Golden Rule -- Choose. It's either the Golden Rule or

torture. Can't have both.

[Yavapai]

9. Sure you can have both,

All you need to do is take DICK cheney, and pour molten gold down his throat. It would be
called "gold-boarding" for the man with the Midas touch!

Just think, people would say "you sure have a pretty smile for such a big DICK!"

So many Dicks, so few Richards.....

[liberal N proud]

4. They only do what they are told

And no one has told them torture is bad.

Also remember, this is the crowd where most if not all the right to birth bunch come from and justify bombing clinics to keep those births coming.

[Chemisse]

5. Then what are they good for?

The only benefit I could see to having a troublesome and meddlesome Christian movement in America is to have a group that will stand up for some basic moral values we all would do well to remember, like don't kill or steal or lie (or torture!), a group that would cry out against things like torture, preemptive war, and executions, that would be a strong voice for the poor and the sick.

Unfortunately for the Christian leaders, politics trumps Jesus's teachings every time. I can understand them being hypocrites in their daily lives; it is hard to live up to 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' But to put out a public face that is completely contrary to their supposed beliefs is frankly disgusting.

[JDPriestly]

6. Thanks. I'm shocked that Christians are not calling for prayers

of forgiveness and repentance about this. I am quite serious. Torture is incompatible with the teachings of Jesus.

[Chulanowa]

10. Christianity is incompatable with the teachings of Jesus

Now I know there's lots of "good" Christians, by whatever criteria one might decide to use, as the good Dr. Dawkins points out... they're not the ones doing all the moving and shaking. Further, Jesus' own teachings seem quite anathema to organized religious practice. Mass prayer like, well, mass? Direct contravention of Jesus' teachings.

[burning rain]

8. Makes me think of something Antonin Scalia said.

He speculated that greater US support for capital punishment (as compared with other well-off countries) has to do with America being especially religious -- hey, there's an afterlife, so offing people ain't so bad.

And yes, I know there are decent, humane religious liberals, so -- present company excepted. However, I disagree with my religious liberal friends regarding the social consequences of religion.

[Davis_X_Machina]

11. Let's face it....

...they don't ask themselves, "Faced with this choice, what would Jesus do?", and guide themselves accordingly. They ask themselves "What pisses off the liberals the most?", and guide themselves accordingly.

They don't belong to a church -- they belong to a team, a party, a side.

Throw away the gospels and get a big foam "We're #1" finger instead.

[MikeH]

12. Accepting torture is consistent with the belief that some people will be condemned to hell

Christian conservatives, i.e. especially evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, typically believe that those who, for whatever reason, do not "accept Christ" as savior in this lifetime, are condemned to hell for all eternity. They believe that because the Bible says so, and they accept it as being God's privilege and prerogative to condemn people to hell. They do not, and typically dare not, question what is said in what is considered to be the "Word of God", aka the Bible.

Some psychological factors would work to make those who believe that some people are going to hell to also accept torture.

Psychologically it is really no different to go along with political authorities who say that torture is acceptable, or for that matter to go along with Hitler's regime in Germany, than it is to unquestioningly accept that some people are going to be condemned to hell for all eternity because the Bible, the so-called and so-considered "Word of God", says so.

Also I think there is a psychological tendency to become like that which one worships.

Bob Altemeyer, associate professor of psychology at the University of Manitoba, has an http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/">online book about authoritarians and the authoritarian personality, which includes a http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/chapter4.pdf">chapter on Authoritarian Followers and Religious Fundamentalism.

The Swiss writer and psychotherapist http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php">Alice http://www.naturalchild.com/alice_miller/">Miller, especially in her book http://www.nospank.net/fyog.htm">For Your Own Good (a phrase my father used very often), describes the process by which people come to unquestioningly accept what they are told they are supposed to accept by whatever authorities, namely the person's upbringing. Here is a http://www.nospank.net/fyog10.htm#central">telling quote from her book For Your Own Good:

This perfect adaptation to society's norms--in other words, to what is called "healthy normality"--carries with it the danger that such a person can be used for practically any purpose. It is not a loss of autonomy that occurs here, because this autonomy never existed, but a switching of values, which in themselves are of no importance anyway for the person in question as long as his whole value system is dominated by the principle of obedience. He has never gone beyond the stage of idealizing his parents with their demands for unquestioning obedience; this idealization can easily be transferred to a Führer or to an ideaology. Since authoritarian parents are always right, there is no need for their children to rack their brains in each case to determine whether what is demanded of them is right or not. And how is this to be judged? Where are the standards supposed to come from if someone has always been told what was right and what was wrong and if he never had an opportunity to become familiar with his own feelings and if, beyond that, attempts at criticism were unacceptable to the parents and thus were too threatening for the child? If an adult has not developed a mind of his own, then he will find himself at the mercy of the authorities for better or worse, just as an infant finds itself at the mercy of its parents. Saying no to those more powerful will always seem too threatening to him.

Finally, it was http://thinkexist.com/quotation/as_long_as_people_believe_in_absurdities_they/186698.html">Voltaire who said, “As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities”. Or accept atrocities, or advocate in favor of them.

[fasttense]

20. The problem with this argument is that the Bible itself, in Jesus's own words

says the absolute opposite about torture. If these authoritarian personalities take the bible at face value then how could they miss such a huge part of it? The part where Jesus says love thy neighbor. The part where Jesus says turn the other cheek. The part where Jesus says forgive thine enemies.

How can they claim to accept Jesus as their savior and yet do the opposite of majority of what he taught. It seems to me these people are not following Jesus or the bible, they are following greedy, immoral, religious leaders.

It is an insult to Christ for them to call themselves Christians.

[Cherchez la Femme]

13. "The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture

of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified -- more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did."

Entire article at:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/30/religion.torture/index.html

[pmorlan1]

14. Establishment Media Not Covering Church Leaders Statements

I don't know where Cynthia Tucker has been but I've seen a lot of religious leaders speaking out about torture. Maybe she just isn't seeing them because the establishment media is not covering their statements. If you look online there is a huge fight in the evangelical community on torture if we could only get the establishment media to cover it. By the way I'm a non-believer so I have no reason to defend church leaders.

[bemildred]

18. Well, that's a sound point, but I assume Ms Tucker is addressing the high profile

big-money religious types, the ones that have a bully-pulpit and do not use it. If such have been outspoken on torture and the US governments use of it, then I will be happy to give them praise for their courage and integrity.

[skepticscott]

15. For that matter

I haven't seen much condemning torture from leaders on the religious left either. Of course, the religious left spends too much time celebrating how warm and fuzzy they are and trying to distance themselves from fundamentalists to lead on an important issue like this.

[Bluenorthwest]

16. Typical

The entire co called religion has been heavily redacted to remove all trace of decency, and their dogma has been reduced to 'hate thy gay neighbor' and the so called 'good' ones have spent decades on end cravenly allowing the likes of Phelps and Bush to define them.

[bemildred]

17. Word. nt

[MasonJar]

19. Why is anyone surprised that mankind has deleted the teachings

of Christ from the Christian religion. Ditto all the other great religions. Man is a cruel creature and has been throughout his history. Only the few have fought the tide: Jesus, Gandhi, perhaps Mohammhed, any others?

[SkyDaddy7]

21. Seriously, what do they expect from Christians?