I don’t mean to single you out here–a lot of other people are making similar arguments that I think would also fail the “taste test.” I suppose that’s not surprising given the rhetoric in our country over the past several decades. And this isn’t even an American problem–it’s always been a temptation (at least always after Constantine legalized Christianity) to connect Christianity with secular power. Even that’s not necessarily a bad thing… But it is a bad thing when we blur the lines between the secular (what I call “political” in my last post) and the sacred so much that the 2 seem to become interchangeable. Because then it’s easy to claim that God hates the people my country hates and loves the people my country loves, and that ain’t necessarily so (isn’t that the lesson Jonah learns, in part?).

It just seems to me that we’re called to be a people set apart, a people who are salt and light, a people that others can look to and see Christ. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ll always arrive at different conclusions from those of nonchristians, but I think it does mean that our methods, strategies, and rationales–how we think about things–will be different than theirs. I also think it’s that difference of thinking (in part) that will draw them to the God we serve.

So this isn’t really an argument about “difference of opinion.” I certainly don’t expect everyone to agree with my opinion, and I know that the church will always be comprised of people who differ (which is a good thing). But what worries me about so much of what’s been posted on this thread is that there’s a difference in methodology–some people are thinking about this as an extension of our Christian faith while others are thinking about this purely from political expediencies (”What will protect ‘our’ nation?” “What will protect ‘our’ people” “How can we keep ‘their’ people out?” etc.). And it’s not even that such political thinking is wrong; it’s just that it’s, well, political–it has nothing to do with Christ, it makes no access to issues of faith, it doesn’t call us to the death of self or to the life of sacrifice required by faith in Christ.

And hear what I’m saying here. You yourself and the others who have made these “political” arguments may spend a lot of time thinking about, serving, and sacrificing for Christ. I can’t speak to any of that, and I don’t mean to impune your Christian walk. I’m in no position to judge any of that. But I can say that your arguments here don’t show any evidence of that faith; faith is irrelevant to the arguments.

Think about your posts on this thread: your first is about vengeance and punishment; your second is a lightly veiled threat about elections; your third seems to make an argument about the “sanctity of life,” but it’s not about the sanctity of all life–just the lives of people in “our” group versus the lives of people in “their” group; the fourth post involves some backing away from the apparent message of your first posts but is once again about protecting “our” people at the expense of “their” people; the fifth clarifies your position on torture, but does so exclusively from a legal standpoint–and once again returns to the value of “our” people over “theirs”; and the last post says “I won’t attempt to turn this into a political debate.” The one theme throughout your messages is “us” versus “them,” and how you define those groups is exclusively political–Americans versus nonAmericans. So I guess I’m a bit stumped that you’re unhappy when I refer to your arguments as “political” when politics is the only thing you’ve written about. And I don’t even necessarily want to deny your right to make political argument. I just think it’s important to call a spade a spade.

So, if you’ve got some arguments to make about the nature of Christ and how that interfaces with your position on torture, or if you’d like to respond to my arguments about how I see Christ connected to the issue of torture, then I’d be glad to hear them. In fact, if anyone who posted on this thread can make a genuinely Christian argument in favor of torture (rather than a political argument clothed in Christian terminology or imagery), then I’d be happy to hear it…

Seems simple…to understand that is…not necassarily simple to live in obedience to.

I won’t attempt at all to turn this into a political debate (as much as you would love to), but politics don’t affect a bit how I feel about any issues.

If a canditate hold the values I do, I vote for them. If not, I don’t try to use any smokescreen I can think of to justify voting for them.

One thing it reveals is this: it’s clear that Texaswheels’ argument is purely political. I’m not saying that Texaswheels or others aren’t Christians–I’m in no place to judge that. But their arguments–the way they think and talk about these issues–owe more to what’s politically expedient (more to protecting our borders, more to preserving our American way of life, more even to protecting our people at the expense of their people) than to an argument from faith. Many others’ arguments here (even if they mention issues of faith) are similarly political.

An important question 77 makes us ask of many of the messages in this thread is how much we’ve worked to align faith with politics rather than aligning politics with faith. One might ask how a number of entries in this thread would look any different if the people writing them weren’t Christians. Would there be a difference? One could make almost all the same arguments–even many of the moral ones–without any faith stance whatsoever.

But Christianity teaches one thing that cannot come without faith–the way of emptying, “kenosis,” or the “via negativa.” The way of the Master is the way of emptying self and trusting to God. The discussion of torture is not a discussion of emptying; it is an attempt at control, an attempt to take up power.

Here’s how I think Christ would answer 77’s final question. Christ would look at the situation of the city and the suspect and he would indeed pick someone to torture and kill: it would be himself.

Our citizenship is not really American; we’re citizens of the true kingdom. The US will pass away as all earthly kingdoms do–such a thing may already be underway. But God’s kingdom endures forever, and it transcends borders and boundaries and cutlures and languages. If I’m making decisions based on earthly citizenship, then I’m making a wrong choice.

And I’m not saying this naively. I know that it means many will die. But isn’t this the same choice the early Christians faced? They were willing to die not to protect themselves, but to witness to the truth. The real question, then, is how can we die in this situation? How can we witness to the truth (that is, after all the definition of “martyr”)? I promise you, it’s not by trying to take up power. It’s by relinquishing. This is the one context where we can say without question what Jesus would do. He would die.

He’s the one we’re called to follow–even if it seems like foolishness. God will work his power through our emptying, and the world will be changed. It has already happened.

” Some electric shocks to the sensitive parts? Pulling out some fingernails? Breaking a few bones? Sodomizing him with a chair leg? Causing a few permanent head injuries? Making it so that person’s a quadriplegic? What if the person still won’t talk?”

I don’t think you’ll find many people that wouldn’t condemn any of these. Committing acts like these are prosecutable (some have been prosecuted), but I never said anything about this. What the topic seems to be about is interrogation techniques either grey or not considered illegal as the article stated.

“Among the sometimes approved measures have been prolonged standing, removal of detainees’ clothing, sensory deprivation, hooding (often with smelly hoods), prolonged interrogations, use of dogs, forced shaving of beards, grabbing, poking, pushing, sleep manipulation and deprivation, and waterboarding (which refers to a variety of techniques designed to make a victim feel as if he were drowning).”

I think if someone threatened (or followed through) with shaving the beard, failed to offer him a chair, kept him awake, or made a terrorist who knew where the next bomb was going off listen to some music he didn’t like would be a good tradeoff if it saved a lot (or even a few) innocent lives.

You think you know how I think, but you are a long way off. Your hatred toward the president and his administration (or something similar) has evidently blinded you into putting words in my mouth that I had never even thought about. I’m sorry you have to feel that way.

In your scenario if there’s a bomb about to go off, shouldn’t you do whatever it takes to get that information–even if it means a few worthless terrorists or their worthless friends have to die? Isn’t that terrorist’s life–or the life of the terrorist’s pal or spouse or 6-year old kid–just small change in comparison to the thousands of lives to be saved in that city?

Plus, the terrorist is going to hell anyway, so what does it matter if you kill him now or let him have a few more miserable years of “life” after you’ve tortured him? There’s no way God would ever forgive somebody like that, and after all, if you let him live and let him go, he’s just gonna go out and make more terrorists and do more bad things because he’s mad and he wants revenge–he’s the embodiment of evil, so what else could you expect him to do? I haven’t seen people say it in so many words, but I think a lot of people here would agree with me: killing that terrorist is a Christian mercy. It saves him from doing more sinful things. Plus, if you don’t kill him, and obviously you can’t let him go once you’ve tortured him, then you’re just stealing the money for his room and board out my pocket and the pockets of all the other taxpayers, and that, friend, is bad stewardship. Didn’t Jesus say it’s better for one person to die than for thousands to be lost?

So I guess you and maybe a bunch of the other people here haven’t really thought through this whole scenario thing. You and a bunch of others on this thread keep going on about “imagine what if…” but I’m beginning to think maybe none of you have the guts I thought you did. Maybe you’re not really my kind of people after all. So let me ask you this: if you’re going to torture somebody to save all those people in that city, where are you gonna stop? Some electric shocks to the sensitive parts? Pulling out some fingernails? Breaking a few bones? Sodomizing him with a chair leg? Causing a few permanent head injuries? Making it so that person’s a quadriplegic? What if the person still won’t talk? Come on: all those people are depending on you. Are you going to let them down? And you guys have said Jesus wants you to save all those people. Are you going to let HIM down?

Question is, are you committed to those thousands of people in the city or not, cause if you’re willing to stop at just “torture” and are gonna get all holier-than-thou when it comes to killing, then you don’t really care about them and what you’re saying about whether or not Jesus applies is irrelevant. You guys are just lukewarm…

Plus, I guess y’all haven’t kept up with the stuff coming out of our government. In 2002, our President commissioned his legal counsel (Alberto Gonzalez) to produce a clear definition of torture so he could use it in Iraq. Gonzalez and his people said that the pain caused by interrogation must include “injury such as death, organ failure, or serious impairment of body functions — in order to constitute torture.” In other words, if the person doesn’t die, it’s not really torture. He did such a good job that our President rewarded him with the post of Attorney General–the highest legal authority in the land. Problem is, the Supreme Court (with all of those activist judges on it) struck it down because the stupid constitution says we’re bound to fulfill treaties we sign–and we signed the Geneva Convention in 1948 and our Republican brothers (not realizing how it would come back to bite us) pushed through a reaffirmation in 1996. But don’t worry: Snapshot’s right. The President just needs another clear definition like the one Gonzalez gave him that we can apply to the Geneva Conventions, and the game’s back on!

So you tell me Texaswheels: if Jesus could choose to torture and kill one guy or let thousands of people in the city die, what would he do? I think the answer’s obvious… Are you gonna follow him or not?

Nobody ever said anything about killing anyone, making up stories about Al-Queda, or whatever else you were rambling about. The topic of discussion is “torture” of suspected terrorists that may know where the next bomb is going off which thousands of people may die next. Besides, nobody’s even defined what torture means.

Nobody said anything about KILLING anybody, anyways.

I’ll ask you: What do you suspect we do if we have reasonable suspision that a terrorist knows when and where a bomb is about to go off?

I appreciate your comments very much.

I think 77 was trying to be sarcastic.

Many of us have relatives who are on the front lines of the war on terror (BTW - Iraq may not have started as a war on terror, but not it is). Somebody close to me who is fighting terrorists about as close as a person could get (sort of like Jack on 24), said that Americans have limited information to how much in danger America is. It is like the proverbial iceberg. There is so much we do not know about those who want to totally destroy our way of life. My question is, what does God want us to do?

If you don’t believe in fighting a war - don’t join the military services.

If you don’t believe in protecting country - don’t do so, and by all means, hamstring anyone that would even consider doing so.

If you feel you have the judgment of everyone else all figured out - don’t, by any means, allow the King of Kings a seat on that throne of judgment.

I have a question for you. When do you leave for the Middle East in order to witness Jesus to the terrorists, thereby turning their murderous hearts to Jesus? Isn’t that also something we should be doing?

We are a body - each part of that body has a different job to do, and yes, there are some of us that serve in the military, some that serve in the head of governments, and some that serve on their knees lifitng petitions to God for guidance and safety for the first two mentioned. All of have one thing in common - we want to proclaim Jesus and Him crucified to the whole world. So let’s be at it and leave the tearing down of the body to the unsaved - there are plenty of them at work trying to do so. They really don’t need our help.

Let’s say that we did “turn the other cheek,” and eventually America was taken over by radical Islam. Would that be the Christian thing to do? I understand the arguments about “a just war.” Is this what God wants from us?

But this friend–this former friend now–said “Jesus didn’t think you had to kill or be killed. In fact, he thought his death and self-sacrifice would be the thing that attracted peole to him: ‘And I, if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all people to me.’ Furthermore, it’s why he said we should all ‘take up our crosses’ and follow him–because sacrifice, not power, is the source of the Christian’s life.”

Like many of you here have already done to peole making this claim, I want to tell that guy he’s an idiot. And even assuming Jesus did say something like that, well–and again, I’m in full agreement with a number of you who’ve already been saying this throughout this thread–then that’s just proof that Jesus was nuts, and there’s no way you should follow somebody like that. At the very least, it’s proof that Jesus has nothing to do with how we should live our daily lives or govern our country or treat our enemies. (And I know I’m preaching to the choir here since so many of you have already pointed this out).

So I’m really glad that a bunch of you have already defeated this twerp’s stupid and naive argument that “if you’re a Christian, Christ should be the center of your WHOLE life and not just what you do on Sundays.” That’s the kind of thinking that will destroy our whole American way of life, and I’m glad that a bunch of you here, with me and with the President and his administration (Karl, Rummy, Condi, Dick, “the Hammer,” etc.–go team!), know that being a Christian isn’t something that should ruin your whole life. Just because you go to church and talk about God and tell people you’re a Christian, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to do whatever you need to do to get the job done. And if you’re a Christian, whatever you do–even if it’s “corrupt,” or a “lie,” or “immoral,” or “illegal”–is God’s work and is helping to establish his kingdom.

So long as it’s done in God’s name, then God sanctions it–and that’s not a claim any of those filthy terrorists can make.

(Not that any of those dogs in the Middle East would even have time to think about it since their plates are full 24 hours a day plotting how to kill us because they hate our freedoms… In fact, the world would be a better place if we just nuked the whole lot of them–and especially the kids, who are just going to grow up to be terrorists. At least, that’s what my personal Lord and savior would do).

Anyway, thanks to a whole bunch of my new friends here on this thread. It’s clear that this is just the place where a Christian like me can find true community.

Texaswheels and Snapshot and the others, let’s show ‘em how it’s done come November!