62 percent of white evangelical Protestants believe the use of torture often or sometimes justified

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Fri May-15-09 03:53 PM
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62 percent of white evangelical Protestants believe the use of torture often or sometimes justified

http://www.abpnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4052&Itemid=9

Opinion: A Christian's lament over the Pew torture poll
By David Gushee
Tuesday, May 05, 2009

(ABP) -- Dear Jesus,

Everyone seems to be talking about the poll put out last week by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. They found that 62 percent of white evangelical Protestants believe �the use of torture against suspected terrorists to gain important information� to be often or sometimes justified. Only 16 percent of this group -- a community that by self-definition is very, very serious about following you -- believes torture is never justified. That number was lower than any other group polled.

I think that what really got people�s attention with this poll, Lord, is that both evangelical identity and church attendance were positively correlated with support for torture. Thirteen percent more evangelicals said torture was often or sometimes justified than in the general population. In other words: The more often people go to church, the more they support torture. So those of your followers who go to church every week support torture at 54 percent, while those who seldom or never go support it at 42 percent.

These results have bounced around the country all week, reinforcing the opinion here that Christianity -- the faith that purports to be related to loyalty to you, Jesus -- leads people to support torture. It would be easy for casual news-watchers to conclude that if you want to end torture in this country, the best thing to do would be to empty out the churches. What a negation of the Great Commission (Matt. 28:16-20)! We could call it the Great De-Commissioning!

But, Jesus, can it be that the problem is that the churches are already empty? Can it be that the institution that you founded to advance your mission in the world is already empty of any understanding of what it might really mean to follow you? Is it already empty of people who take your teachings and example so seriously that they might have the capacity to resist seductive and dangerous ideas floating around our culture -- like the idea that if torture �works� to �protect national security,� and thus is something that followers of Jesus Christ ought to support as good loyal Americans?

Is your church already empty of courageous leaders who are willing to lose their jobs in order to say a resounding NO to a heretical idea like that? Is it already empty of people who understand that if you are a Christian, you cannot serve two masters, like, for example, Jesus and National Security? Is it already empty of people who understand that because all human beings are made in your image, there are some things that we just can�t do to anyone, no matter who they are?

What is this thing called �Christianity� in this country, Lord Jesus? Does it have anything to do with you? It seems a strangely Americanized thing, a disastrously domesticated faith toward which people can nod their heads in loyalty as long as it doesn�t conflict with their full participation in whatever this country feels like it wants to do. snip

Any church -- congregation, parachurch organization, denomination, or group of individual Christians -- that supports torture has violated its confessed allegiance to you and can no longer be considered part of your true church. Let them be anathema.

Jesus, I pray with all my heart for the survival of a remnant of faithful Christianity in this country. It goes far beyond torture. It has to do with whether we are really your people or are liars and hypocrites, just deluding ourselves on the way to Judgment Day.