May 24, 2009:

Ponderings of a Pilgrim PASTOR

“Torture:  What Would Jesus Do?”

            “So much for turning the other cheek,” said Chris Good in “The Atlantic Online.”  A recent poll by the Pew Center found that the more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support torture as an interrogation technique.  Some 54 percent of churchgoers who attend church weekly said the use of torture is “often” or “sometimes” justified.  Support for torture among agnostics, atheists, and unaffiliated was substantially lower at 40 percent.  White evangelicals, especially white Southern evangelicals, are more prone to say that the use of torture is sometimes or often justified.

            For those of us who take the teachings of Jesus seriously, this is grim news.  Torturing anyone, no matter even the most base, debases the torturer just as it did the Romans who tortured Jesus.  No matter what the justification, Christianity and torture are profoundly incompatible.

            How ironic that those who decry abortion and stem cell research seem willing to put their fellow human beings at such painful risk.  It is only one more example of what happens when we allow our political and social opinions to cloud our religious convictions.  Can anyone really imagine Jesus participating in the torture of anyone?  I can’t.

Love,

Pastor Dave