It's a decent article explaining how evangelicals have been shown to be more in favor of using tortures than the rest of the public. It also includes some pretty sober responses from a diverse set of Christian leaders.
Right in the middle though, is this incredible quote from someone insisting that waterboarding is not torture, and thus it's OK for Christians to support and do.
Labeling certain techniques as torture without doing the hard work of applying consistent moral principles distorts the debate, said Pavlischek, a former Marine lieutenant in Iraq and now director of EPPC's Program to Protect America's Freedom.Yes, trying to ask what Jesus would do does create an incredible mess.
Simple slogans don't help, either, he said, because the debate itself is not simple.
"If your first question is 'What would Jesus do?' you get a mess," said Pavlischek. "The reason evangelicals are confused (on torture) is because evangelical leaders are confused."
Because, frankly, loving your enemies is messy. It raises all kinds of questions about our safety, our allegiances, and our hope for the future. It forces you to stop labeling your side as good and the other side as evil. It challenges the notion that our motivations, our means, and our ends are pure, and "theirs" are evil. It requires real sacrifice and real risk. It might not even be practical in the least.
Waterboarding our enemies requires making them into an "evil other". They are bad, we are good. They are not worth love, not worth care, not worth redemption. It makes it ok to blur the line between torture, rendition, waterboarding, sleep deprivation, etc.
But if we really think Jesus loves all of humanity, and loves even those people over there enough to die for "them", and clearly commands us to love "them", how can we torture them?
If the assertion is that Evangelicals don't understand the distinction between torture and waterboarding, then "who would Jesus waterboard?" sounds like a perfectly good question to me. ["Who would Jesus deprive of sleep?" or "who would Jesus send to another country so someone else could torture them?" don't sound too bad either.]
Asking "what would Jesus do?", however cliched, seems like the first thing we should be asking about torture. Mess included.
4 comments:
This ickily reminds me of a philosophical argument I read made by Charles de Secondat, aka Montesquieu, who, when discussing race and slavery in 1748 said: "It is impossible for us to supposed these creatures (Africans) to be men, because, allowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow that we ourselves are not Christians.”
It's pure logical fallicy and not to mention appalling. Will this current otherization eventually fall out of favor, and at some point in the future will people look back at these present arguments with equal disdain? I hope so, but I also hope this isn't another change that takes centuries to take effect...
That article, or at least the original version, misrepresented the views of the guy being quoted, and the news service has issued a correction.There's some background here
"If the assertion is that Evangelicals don't understand the distinction between torture and waterboarding, then "who would Jesus waterboard?" sounds like a perfectly good question to me." --well-said, kenny! thank you for writing well on a needed shift in perspective...Jesus certainly does make things tricky when we have to figure out where we stand on all things moral and not. what a perfect mess. i'll take the mess and get dirty wading through the hard questions any day.
I like what you're putting down.
I love you bro.
Post a Comment