Reasons Torture Is Always Wrong
David Gushee’s article entitled “5 Reasons Torture Is Always Wrong” in Christianity Today is just excellent. He includes these insightful words from Senator McCain, who remains a voice of sanity in this divided country: “This isn’t about who they are. This is about who we are. These are the values that distinguish us from our enemies.”
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Hope to see some of you in the next few days. I’m teaching a lectureship class at 9:45 — it’s one of 25 classes offered at that time. That’s quite a few!
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Who actually watches infomercials and buys the products, making them worthwhile to the companies? Seriously.
Who responds to junk mail so that it continues to be profitable enough to send?
Who is buying all those zillions of viagra pills in response to spam?
Who is buying stuff in response to marketing calls so that it pays off?
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Wish we hadn’t eaten spinach out of a bag last night. Why do those health warnings always come out the morning AFTER you’ve had what they’re warning you about.
David U,
Are we not at war with the Terriist? If that is the case then the Geneva Convention should apply.
Tim, you’ve just introduced what is known in the business as a “red herring”–a logical fallacy that distracts from the main line of an argument by pointing to or introducing a subpoint or a point not relevant to the main argument. Effectively, your post fails to deal with any of the issues brought up in the various posts, instead arguing that a person’s political status trumps or negates any other argument (no matter how well argued) that person might make. Is that really what you were shooting for here?
I just don’t understand any American and especially president who would think it would be okay to torture.
What message and image does that show to other countries around the world?
Bill: “It never ceases to surprise me how quickly and perniciously fear works. If you scare people enough, you can get them to do anything.”
Exactly, that’s why some support “torture” (whatever that word means).
I personally agree with the majority of your thoughts. I don’t agree, however, that Jesus’ sermon in Matthew was/is intended to apply to govts (it’s open for discussion). That being said, the authority (sermon on mount) with which we’re basing our positions isn’t yet established as authoritative
If you suggest that it is absolutely applicable to gov’t and the gov’t should be subject to it, I’d ask you if you pay taxes. Aren’t we all contributing to the violation of Jesus’ teachings to some extent. So the us/them perspective is invalid.
We’re all in the wrong to some degree. One cannot exist without being in the wrong to some extent. Without admitting this, my generation will never listen to this church.
Tim said “The WWJD is simply a ruse to make you feel better. It cannot, with any sort of intelligence, be used in all situations.”
I agree that it cannot be used in all situations by someone who is unwilling to be a radical Christ-follower before they are anything else (American, Church of Christer, conservative, etc.)
It seems I will have to agree to disagree with some of you on this issue. In the end, I really just think our own fears for country and self trumps our ability to really discern what is loving God and loving neighbor as self. And before anyone says that the greatest command is just a ruse, I’m just trying to sum up the law of God the way that Jesus did when pressed to do the same thing.
Oh, and the purpose of Rush, Coulter, et. al is not to be divisive. It’s to make money. Let’s not kid ourselves.
If bringing people together was lucrative, they’d do it. Or publishers/radio stations would find somebody that could.
One final thing:
I honestly am not all that concerned with what the “US govt.” decides to do about torturing people. I cannot control the govt. and I do not believe that trying to reason with govt. decisions using Jesus and scripture is fair to all those in our country who are not Christ-followers.
What I am far more concerned about is the way of God in this issue and how the people of God choose to treat others.
Would it be better for “America” to torture: Probably so.
Would it be better for the kingdom of God to torture: I think most of know how that questions must honestly be answered.
Col Jessep: You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives…You don’t want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.
We use words like honor, code, loyalty…we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use ‘em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I’d rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to!”
Chris,
Yes you can’t control the goverment. But the wonderful thing you can do is if you don’t like what the government is doing, you can vote in November.
NashvilleMan,
Rush and Coulter are blind leading the blind aren’t they?
Why is it that I’m not surprised that so many people from (predominantly, I presume) Churches of Christ aren’t offended by torture? Or that they don’t understand the importance of the question “What Would Jesus Do?” to our daily walk? Or that they don’t seem to understand that following Jesus is primarily what our lives are about? Or that they’re so very eager to defend this president that they just keep repeating sound bites from Fox New? Or that they somehow think that because we think the people being held are terrorists (same language our opponents are using for us) that frees us from the very agreements that we’ve relied up for so long, even though this president says we’re at war with them? Why am I not surprised?
Bill, I’m not sure Tim was even *trying* to use his short 12:18pm post to “contribute to the development of a syllogism to address the substance of the issue at play” here. As I read him, he’s simply appealing for a bit of evenhandedness in the style and quality of discourse, rather than the political baiting that invariably causes a conversation to degrade. It’s a simple matter of being respectful vs. being condescending toward those who don’t share a certain perspective. Tim, am I anywhere close?
There is, BTW, quite a lot of red-state-bashing that goes on here, I’ve noticed over the few months I’ve been monitoring the comments on Mike’s blog. Sadly, that kind of stuff saps the desire to engage in fruitful, energetic discussion, even if the political ad hominems have no technical bearing on the issues in play. It just makes the whole thing overtly personal and poisonous. We can do better than that, wouldn’t you agree?
This whole question of torture, unfortunately, *does* require that we parse the key words and operate from the same semantic baseline if we can. For example: I’m trying to imagine what it would be like, as a Muslim, to have a slab of bacon rubbed all over me with my wrists and ankles chained to the wall. The only thing I can come up with that would be comparable, as a Christian, would be to be forced to endure some sort of lascivious lap-dance or a steady stream of blasphemous language about my Savior and Lord. But is that torture? I guess I just don’t know, because the moral key in such an instance is the condition of my heart. God is surely merciful enough to forgive me being physically coerced into enduring something I would not otherwise choose for myself, so there is not really any question of being in spiritual jeopardy for being treated that way until/unless I, by an act of the will, decided to find a way to participate in the activity with my heart.
One thing McCain taught us, as did Bonhoeffer and the Jews of Dachau, was that a man can be imprisoned bodily, but his true mind/heart cannot be imprisoned. If the point of torture is to get a person to renounce his faith, then it can be resisted at the level of the will, and even giving in to it is not really giving in because of the coercion involved. Such “giving in” is mechanical and arbitrary. But if the point of torture or ill or demeaning treatment is to get a person to give up information that potentially saves the souls or lives of others, then the matter is far less clear, and the issues are more nuanced, even in light of Matthew 5:38-48.
I have been reading a lot of Hauerwas, a committed and eloquent pacifist in the streamlines of Yoder and the Anabaptists. Even looking deeply into his arguments from Scripture, one has to admit that it is really hard to devise a simplistic YES/NO to any generalized proposition (especially the kind that is required by drafting legislation!) about some nonspecific brand of “torture,” whatever that might mean. Do I give up the identities and locations of 5 Jewish families in a trap-door basement to save my own daughter from being raped by the SS? It seems to me that to be strident and dogmatic about how our president should see these matters (“as clearly as we do,” our modesty comically forbids us to say – out loud, anyway) does not take account of how difficult we would find the equivalent moral quandaries in our own lives were we, God forbid, to encounter them ourselves.
Thank God I don’t have to make such decisions that have the fates of DC or New York or Chicago or Miami riding on them. To paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, more credit ought to accrue to the guys actually in the arena, bloodied but still willing to slug it out on the arena floor of geopolitical ethics.
qb
Amen to Chris Field and Bill. Amen and amen.
Bill, nice red herring yourself when you threw out the names Rush and O’Reilly and Coulter. Why specific names on one side of the aisle only?
QB, you got it.
David – Ahh…now you’re speaking my language (quote from ‘A Few Good Men’) It’s interesting to point out that Col. Jessep was found guilty & the 2 Marines were dishonorably discharged from the service!
QB, I appreciate your thoughts. I must ask, though, whether how we do “not take into account of how difficult we would find the equivalent moral quandaries in our own lives were we, God forbid, to encounter them ourselves” is a relevant question. I don’t think anyone involved would say they would find the answer easy should the situation be laid at their feet, regardless of which point of view they have taken. However, that is simply acknowledging that our human emotions would make the enactment of our moral standard a very difficult task. Nonetheless, it doesn’t mean that a stance, evaluated objectively apart from such emotional stress and intended to be modeled after the author of our faith, becomes less true or right when the decision must be made. It just tests whether we are strong enough to stand by it.
*chuckle* OK, Beaner, game on.
Do you conclude that that dramatic ending tells us more about (a) the apocryphal Marines or (b) the writer of the screenplay? That is, isn’t “how the movie actually ended” something quite apart from “how the story should have ended if it were written to reflect the realities of the kingdom of God?”
Someone brought up the Golden Rule as a quasi-conclusive standard for evaluating this stuff. But that begs a question of the following sort:
Faced with the option to inject a high-leverage prisoner with truth serum or not, with a nuclear guillotine hanging over an entire metropolis of my countrymen, women and children, on what level do I apply Jesus’ Golden Rule? At the level of, “I wouldn’t want someone to do that to me,” or at the level of, “I’d want someone to do that to me if, were I in my right mind, I knew that doing so would save the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocents?” The answer in the first case is probably NO, but in the second case – the situation hasn’t changed at all, mind you, only the level at which I apply Jesus’ teaching – the answer is probably YES.
Anyone wanna play?
qb
Hypothetical scenarios seem to be popular today.
So here’s one: a woman who’s been held may have information that could save many lives. But normal means of “aggressive interrogation” don’t work. But there’s a sense that if she’s gang raped, she might give information. It wouldn’t make her renounce her faith, but it would make her give information. Or, there’s a sense that killing her children one at a time in front of her would make her pass along the information.
Would we do it?
No. Because rape is wrong. Always wrong. Murder is wrong. Always wrong. I believe that’s all the Christian brother was saying in the article we were invited to read.
I can hear the question coming: But in your hypothetical scenario, was she a terrorist or just a normal POW?
It doesn’t matter which way you think of her. If she’s a terrorist and is in our detainment, we are responsible for how we treat her.
Emily 72
Amen! Preach it Girl! These church of Christer’s problemly wouldn’t like that either.
I’d like to play.
People who want to ignore the dramatic teachings of Christ live in the world of such games. Enjoy the games.
Christians never support torture.
Bill, although you had some good points, it’s really hard to get past the “I know the whole purpose of people” part. Really? I would like to “take a stab” at being that all knowing.
If “if’s” & “but’s” were candy & nuts, we’d all have a good Christmas!!!
I hate “always/never” statements unless they apply to God & you can “if” & “but” your way in & out of almost every arguement.
Not saying that there AREN’T any always/never, but we just need to be careful how we apply those!
Yeah, Memphis, you’re probably right about that. But it just seems to me that there’s a bit more moral/ethical certitude and facile chest-beating in evidence here than is warranted, and that that kind of certitude is being used as a starting point for ripping those of a particular political persuasion or those occupying a particular political office (most notably, the White House).
And more than a few of our eminent moral thinkers (of the Christian persuasion, that is) might say to us that evaluating these quandaries MEANINGFULLY in a completely objective, dispassionate way is simply not possible. The first century folks who fancied themselves enlightened enough to do that weren’t the disciples of Jesus, they were the scribes and Pharisees.
Now look: I don’t mean to suggest that the folks in this corner of the blogosphere are morally equivalent to those whitewashed sepulchres. I only mean to point out that anyone can fall into the trap of being a bit more certain of one’s position than the moral-facts-on-the-ground truly warrant — even those who spend a lot of time immersing themselves in the biblical record.
It’s another way of saying, I guess, “all ethics are situational.” Or to cop a geekier approach: that dastardly Heisenberg fella is everywhere, isn’t he?
qb
Did anyone hear the press conference? We want to define “torture” so we can know what we can and can’t do in getting the information we need to protect American’s. The Geneva Convention needs to be left alone. We must always follow it.
Torture is never right.
Is never acceptable.
Should never be permissable. We should never tolerate it. Ever.
Why can’t we see that torture is wrong?
We should be the ones who hold the standard and say we aren’t going to be like our enemies.
Emily, do you really believe…in your heart of hearts, I mean… that yer harmless brother qb REALLY “want[s] to ignore the dramatic teachings of Christ?”
I don’t think this is mere “games” at all. By “wanna play?,” I meant to try to lighten the tone around here a little bit so that we can be serious about serious ethical matters without drifting into the less charitable streams of discourse and blowing the whole thing sky-high. I had enough of that back in the “Ephesians 5:19 don’t say nuthin’ about no infernal pitch-pipes, now, does it?” days, know whut ah mean?
Alas, back to work. Y’all have a great weekend. qb
I have been listening all day, and seems the problem was caused by McCains bill from a while back. It left dubious language that commanaders aren’t sure what can and cannot be done to detainees. The President is just asking for clarity, as the military doesn’t want their men accussed of wrong doing. I have felt since this morning we are being duped by the media’s use of the word torture.
It has been an interesting discussion. But I encourage us to be cautious. The one who said in an earlier comment that someone who had written previously apparently didn’t take following Jesus seriously because he didn’t support the same conclusion about torture very carelessly misjudged, and seems to me to have violated a higher principle – how you regard a brother when you disagree. I know one of these people, and he takes his commitment to Jesus very seriously, I guarantee more than his Americanism. But he disagrees with your conclusion. Are you condemning him, or lovingly disagreeing on a matter of opinion (even a strongly held one)? And I assure you he is not a contentious brother. Email can be a difficult medium of communication, but the words used were defamatory. Caution.
Enough about torture/not torture! Joe Beam! Sex! Blowjobs!
IN THE NATIONAL MEDIA!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13834042/
Chris Field – “I don’t think Romans 13 can be used as justification for decisions by our govt. that are immoral or wrong”….
How immoral or wrong do you think it was of the Roman government to burn Christians on the stake in order to light their orgies? Talk about torture. Paul still says that the governments are established by God. All governments… How much are we going to trust God?
Lisa…very interesting…I just wish it was someone besides Joe. I don’t want to hear that coming from Joe (even though I agree with it)!!!
I was reading it thinking, “What’s the big deal? Good for him!” then I got to the part where it says he pantomimed oral sex and I had to click away. ::shudder::
There IS such a thing as Too Much Information.
T.Sherwood – I’m sorry if you don’t agree. I’m just not buying what you’re trying to sell.
If you want to say that all govt. are established by God, fine. I think there are HUGE problems with that idea, beginning with the govt. in Iraq that the US has recently overthrown. Why did we do that if God established Saddam in that position? But for the sake of this discussion, I will say”fine”, God put the current US govt. in their place as he did the Roman govt. of Paul’s times. But that is not the point here. The issue I have raised is not whether the govt. was established by God or not but if the decisions the govt. is making should be supported by Christian people.
Are you contending that Paul was condoning the burning of Christians at the stake because that govt. was established by God? I would think not. It seems likely that Paul thought that was wrong.
In the same way, even a govt. established by God can make unethical choices. And torturing people is one of those.
Taking your logic to the fullest extent means that all govt.’s are put there by God so we may as well just be fine and dandy with whatever they decide to do even if it goes against our Christian conviction.
Again, I can’t buy that. Sorry.
Mike, on a lighthearted note, you’ve tagged a blog which lists, among other things, a brief infomercial on your 9:45 Lectureship class, under the heading “Torture.”
Glad we know not to take you TOO seriously.
As for the rest of the comments, I didn’t have time to read them today, but since there is apparently something under discussion here today, I’ll quietly bow out with no further insight, and only a disclaimer: “My comment applies ONLY to jest Mike that he applied the label TORTURE to a blog containing an infomercial for his Lectureship class. Any application to anything else mentioned here is unintentional and sheer coincidence, because I didn’t read the comments today.”
(Always wise to post a disclaimer if your comment follows one that discusses oral sex.)
Good day to all.
Chris Field -
Yes, I am going to say that all governments are established by God, because that is what the Bible says! Not me, God says it.
Do I think that every government is doing what they are supposed to do? NO! Do I think that THIS government does all that it should do? NO! Am I trying to convince you of anything? NO!
You are the one wanting to pick verses out of the Bible to agree with or not. If your conviction is to not support the government, that is your decision.
Lisa – call me a prude if you must, but if your TMI and don’t-go-visual-on-me filters didn’t peg until *that* point in the article, you’ve got your threshold settings pretty awful high.
(Heck, qb was blushing by the time he yanked his head around from your first post pointing the article out to us. Talk about “get straight to the point” advertising, gone to seed!)
Mercy. Serves me right for drifting back this way out of innocent curiosity on a Friday afternoon. Is the heater on in here or what?
qb
…er, “meters,” not “filters.” (Mixing metaphors on Benadryl is a really bad idea.)
qb
T. Sherwood-
To be perfectly honest, after reading your two posts to me, I have no idea what you are trying to say. Sorry if I am just missing it here but I don’t seem to be getting what you are after.
A-men, Craig. I’ve heard “How can a Christian be a Democrat?” just about the same number of times as “How can a Christian be a Republican?” People are so very, very different, and I don’t think it’s fair to judge their hearts based on their voting records, their perspectives on the “War on Terror,” or who they listen to or don’t listen to on the radio. Personally, I disagree with some of the tactics used in military interrogations; however, I don’t have a big problem with breaking a murderer’s spirit by forcing them to listen to the Red Hot Chili Peppers for hours on end…
Joe Beam brought his seminar here and it was well received, with a couple of minor hitches. First, he used his upraised forearm and open palm to represent a distinctive part of the male anatomy. Now here in Michigan, we use our open right palm as a map of the state (yes, we actually do refer to part of Michigan as “the thumb”). So when Joe pointed to a place on his hand and asked, “does anyone know what this is?” someone blurted out “Mackinaw City!” Later, he picked up a handheld wireless microphone to demonstrate the purpose and proper use of a different handheld, battery-powered device. Our praise team hasn’t been the same since.
Maybe I am not that old after all. I don’t think that listening to the Chili Peppers would be torture.
Now make me listen to Hoobastank or the anyone who played the Lilith Fair that would be torture, but Flea and Anthony not so much!
Mark-
Great post, maybe only Michiganders will get it, but it was worth it to lighten up this page. I thought Joe was great!
First, information received through “torture” is unlikely to be truth. You say whatever you think your captors want to hear. Secondly, I just cannot understand how any christian can be supportive of torture OR war.
I am sure Joe and his message were good…I just don’t want to hear it from him. It’s like your parents. You know they did it, you just don’t want to talk about it or visualize it.
Now, if one of the Weather Channel hosts want to give that lecture, I am all ears.
Chris Field -
To be honest, I must have missed some of your posts today and therefore missed where you were going. I think I’ll stick to reading Mike’s posts from now on and not the comments. Mike’s posts are enough for me to chew on anyhow.
“Secondly, I just cannot understand how any christian can be supportive of torture OR war.” -Belenda
I thought that conservatives were the only ones that are closed minded, but I stand corrected. Apparently close-mindedness does not discriminate.
Mike — my husband and I recently started attending Highland and love it. Between you and Jerry Taylor we could ask for nothing more!
In terms of the torture issue, the linked article said it all: even our perceived enemies are created in the image of God. Period. They are loved by the Almighty we worship (every bit as much as we are loved), so instead of trying to pinpoint how much we can get away with just short of torture, shouldn’t we be concentrating on what we can do to be LIGHT to the dark world? To our enemies? To those who would persecute us? That sounds oversimplified, to be sure. There’s always a tension between loving our enemies and condemning what is evil, but everything hinges on loving God and loving our neighbour. Right?
I was driving about a week ago behind a small car that had a bumper sticker — I suppose directed toward any would-be terrorists — that read, “God may forgive you. We will not.” It was plastered directly next to another sticker reading, “Jesus Lives.” The juxtaposition was so sad, so sickening to me, that I knew I should not ever justify putting any of my energy into vengeance and punishment. We, as Christ-followers, must be light or we doom ourselves to a world without mercy.
This post definitely opened up a can of worms (or possibly spinach:-), didn’t it? As for me, I HATE canned spinach so that would be torture for me to eat it. However, I love fresh spinach and discovered the bagged variety has been cleaned, as opposed to the fresh which has to be washed over and over again. When we lived overseas we soaked ALL of our vegetables in the sink with spoonful of bleach. Then rinsed so that might work.
My husband ate at Souper Salad today and there was no spinach today. So guess it may become a rarity now.
Was wondering how many watched ‘The Path to 911″ on ABC last week? We had DVRed it and finally watched it all. I thought it was very well done. Made me quite angry with all the beauracracy in our government whether w/Clinton or Bush. Very sad.
As an amendment to my comments above, I am obviously not saying there is no place for punishment of wrongdoing. But I DO believe that the idealogy which would have us believe anything short of torture is “letting them slide” rates dangerous at best. I’m not sure what loving our enemies looks like in the prison system, honestly. But the picture is worth pursuing, I think.
Joe has spoken at our church a few times. I wasn’t impressed then and even less now. Do we have to have this kind of talk in our churches?