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This all started when I was reading about the remarkable series of events that transpired in the Bush White House, as the President and his leaders debated how to continue a programmatic approach for torture. Reading through the articles, it occurred to me that one of the primary groups to support Bush’s second term were evangelical Christians. I looked it up, just to be sure, and found a Pew poll that confirmed my assumption. After Bush’s second election, Pew reported that “Bush received 78% of the vote among white evangelicals, up 10% from 2000.” So I’m thinking, “I bet those people sure feel bad today!” Bet they quietly slipped into their two car garages, leaned over the back of their SUV, and shaved off the blue and white Bush/Cheney bumper stickers, carefully placing all the sticky evidence into a black bag. No Christian would ever support torture. No way. I should have stopped there. I should have quietly walked away with the vision of a repentant man, tears in his eyes, having come to terms with his folly. But no, I had to look at one more article. It seems that somebody at Mercer College had the same thought I had. So they did a poll to see how evangelical Christians viewed torture today. What they found turned up in the USA Today on April 30th. According to the article, “The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists . . . 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.” Can someone help me out here? A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog after hearing a few well intentioned friends talking about “being in this world, not of it, and “strangers in a strange land, among Babylonians.” I walked away from that conversation with tears in my eyes, because it sounded so dehumanizing, so “us against them,” and frankly, I’m one of “them.” Christians have a long history of dehumanizing others. Some did it in the name of slavery, some did it again during civil rights, and some are doing it now with torture. Not all! I know my history, but I also remember standing quietly before the polished oak table in Columbia, South Carolina’s First Baptist Church, where the Articles of Secession were signed to begin the war for slavery. I remember trying to get my mind around it, wondering “what were they thinking? How did they get to that place?” Today, I wonder if we have changed at all. We say the Bible is our authority, and then we carefully pull out verses that enable us to believe it is a war that we wage. We leverage our relationship with God to create the illusion of being superior, above, not really one of them. Then we are free to act in our own interests and from our own fears, without even considering the God-created human being on the other end. When President Obama begins searching for a new Supreme Court Justice, evangelical Christians will demand someone who is “pro-life.” What will the world say to earnest young Christians standing in front of the Supreme Court, with tape over their mouths and signs in their hands, demanding that America respect the rights of a child? Can someone help me out here? I want to be hopeful and focused on all the beauty that surrounds us. The Church is doing so much good, ministering to so many people! And I’m sick of reading stuff like the USA Today article. Don’t we have to start speaking out? Isn’t it time to lovingly confront those who will use the name of Christianity for their own purposes, for their own pockets, and to alleviate their own fears? What happens if we don’t? |
Comments
These are great questions. Though these days white American evangelicals frequently end up on the side of selfishness and short-sightedness in politics, this endorsement of torture is particularly egregious. Perhaps all this will cause some to begin questioning the blind guides that they've been following.
Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.
Blind guides. Sigh. That's an apt description for where things ended up. Now we need a clear call to truth, to reality, as God has defined it. It is up to us? Where will it come from?
Great insights and haunting questions, Mark. A small group of Christian leaders reduced discipleship to a very limited litmus test. But now those self-appointed spokesmen are either dying or retiring. So the onus is on us (the next generation) to step into the gap and broaden the applications of our Christian convictions.
Another vexing stat comes from sociologist Andrew Greeley. In The Catholic Imagination, Greeley documents how the church attendance corresponds to support for and attendance at concerts, art galleries, theater, etc. For Catholics, the more they go to church, the more likely they are involved in artistic endeavors (as participants or patrons). Yet for Protestants, active church involvement corresponded to a reduction in artistic activity. Seemingly, the more committed a Protestant to the faith, the more indifferent they were towards the arts. That has GOT to change....
Thanks, Craig. I really appreciated your recent blog about "a way forward," especially the point that we should embrace the opportunity to change. I need to be careful not to be bitter or stuck, but to press on in this opportune time.
I need to find that book by Greeley. I'm part of the International Arts Movement, an arts organization headquartered in NYC. We need to learn more of what the Catholic Church is doing, though I think that is also a point of change. I'm part of a church plant in Harlem that embraces the arts deeply. Another example of new leadership, new vision of faith? Hey, I'm getting really encouraged! : )
This is so disgusting but not surprising. The political right has co-opted (American) Christianity in the same way radical muslims have co-opted Islam. The vast majority of Christians are soft-secular, meaning they intellectually acknowledge Jesus Christ but continue live their lives in accordance to society and culture rather than allowing Christ transform their lives into His worldview. Combine that with the propensity to watch Fox news all night every night then you get people that say "I'm a Christian" and "I like torture" without batting an eye. Too many Christians put allegiance to their politics first and allegiance to Jesus second. Who am I fooling? Second is probably way too optimistic.
I continually grow more ashamed to call myself Christian every day. I'm not so sure you're better off trying to follow Jesus on your own instead of getting caught up in a church populated by the useless "Christians" that drive their Escalades with Bush/Cheney stickers on Sunday mornings. Their lives only serve evil as the lost look upon them and see their hypocrisy from a mile away. Satan is laughing at the irony.
Thanks for your thoughtful response. At times, I feel the same way. But really, we are in good company. History is full of such transitions and confrontations. I suspect that it's up to us to engage the issues and work toward change.
I must object when I read or hear the word "torture" so easily thrown about to describe what clearly is NOT torture. There is such a thing as real torture, but like the word "Nazi," its meaning has muddled through dishonest usage by political opportunists. Making somebody uncomfortable by forcing them to listen to horrible music (anybody have kids?) - holding them in a room at a temperature somewhat cooler than what is comfortable (anybody live in Wisconsin?) - keeping them awake (college anyone?) - waterboarding (has no one else served in the military here?) - flashing them a caterpillar because they are afraid of insects, as so many older brothers have done to little sisters: None of these things is torture except for those with a proclivity to burst into tears at the slightest discomfort.
Christianity does not require you hasten your own death so as not to offend those who seek to murder you. There has been no torture of the implied medieval type of anyone by the Bush administration, and only those who seek to murder us have been subjected to the discomfort of enhanced interrogation. No "bad guy" has been maimed or killed, but thousands have been saved from their murderous intent. I feel no guilt for having supported President Bush or any other president who does his duty to defend our nation from those who seek to murder us for our religious beliefs or lack of belief. Indeed, those who support Obama's recent justified killing of three Somali pirates to save a single ship captain's life befuddle me when they object to Bush waterboarding three terrorists to save thousands of innocent lives in Los Angeles. Is there no sense of reason left in American political discourse among those who supported Obama?
Finally, you are troubled by the fact that there were Christians who preached slavery and opposed civil rights. Have you forgotten that the anti-slavery movement was rooted in Christianity? Was John Brown hanged for his beard? What of the thousands of Union soldiers who drew their strength to persevere from their Christian faith and ultimately ended slavery in America through their own deaths? Have you never seen the film footage of Catholic priests and other Christian ministers and Jewish rabbis marching in the civil rights protests, and do you not know that the civil rights movement originated from the churches? Perhaps your disappointment in the shortcomings of Christianity would be more accurately placed in the failings of ordinary human beings.
With that fair consideration and an intellectually honest understanding of what is truly torture and what is simply a political opportunity to bash conservatives by misusing a word with a sinister meaning, you may feel less angst when you see an evangelical with a Bush bumper sticker. You may even feel less compelled to assert that "Christians have a long history of dehumanizing others" if you take the honest and balanced view that Christians have done much to restore human dignity to those who were stripped of their humanity by others. If you can think of a group who has done more to this effect without the assistance of Christian moral values, then please name them. If you cannot, then acknowledge that Christians are people who sometimes fall short in their behavior, as does everyone else of earthly existence. Sometimes you only perceive them to have fallen short when they may occasionally take difficult moral positions. Such positions will require that you be honest and accurate in your assessment of their position lest you engage in the very sin you decry. To not do so dehumanizes them and dismisses the millions of innocent people throughout human history who have been subjected to real torture rather than the imaginary type that currently horrifies America's political left and causes the well-intentioned, but naive, to tear their clothes in horror and shame.
Hiroshima, first I want to say thanks for an incredible post. Love the way you think and how you articulate your thoughts. One point I need to clarify is what you think "real torture" is. That seems to be the root of your concern, and I'm not sure I understand how you define torture. Could you help me out with a definition?