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Does Religious Fervour Kill Compassion?

By Jim Taylor

14 May, 2009
Countercurrents.org

I cringe at the thought of torture. I cannot imagine deliberately inflicting pain -- on any creature, let alone another human.

When I was a small boy, I probably pulled legs off spiders. As a teenager, I read books that included descriptions of torture devices used in the medieval ages – racks and cauterizing irons and “Iron Maidens” that impaled victims...

Today, when I encounter a book or magazine the revels in cruelty, I quit reading.

In a supposedly Christian civilization, I believe we are called to be compassionate, caring, and sensitive to the suffering of others.

So I am appalled to read that overt religion – at least in the United States – has exactly the opposite effect.

Disturbing survey

Torture has ranked fairly high in news columns ever since President Obama's administration released those CIA memos authorizing the use of torture on suspected terrorists.

The Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life asked: “Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can often be justified, sometimes be justified, rarely be justified, or never be justified?”

The answers indicated that 62 per cent of white evangelical Protestants approved of torture, either “often” or “sometimes.” That correlates fairly closely to a similar Mercer University study last year, which found that 57 per cent of white Southern evangelicals believe torture is justified.

By contrast, only 46 per cent of white mainline Protestants approved. And only 40 per cent of those unaffiliated with any religious body approved.

The Pew survey could probably be faulted – it interviewed only 742 persons. But statisticians say that sample size will be accurate within 5 per cent – far, far less than the 22 per cent separating evangelicals from unaffiliateds.

Sorted a different way, similar results emerged. Among those who attended religious services at least weekly, 54 per cent endorsed torture; among those who seldom or never attended, only 32 per cent did.

Intentional cruelty

To be fair, not all white evangelical Protestants support torture. Partly in response to the Pew survey, Dr. Richard Land, chair of the Ethics Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest American denomination, said flatly that waterboarding of suspected terrorists was torture, and “violates everything we stand for.”

Waterboarding makes victims feel they're drowning. According to recently released federal memos, federal agents drowned two suspects 266 times!

The UN Convention Against Torture defines torture as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person...”

“Intentionally inflicted” – that's the key phrase.

Some years ago, I researched instances of torture around the world, as reported by Amnesty International. Iran (in the days of the U.S.-supported Shah, before Ayatollah Khomeini's rise to power) strapped dissidents onto automotive hoists and crushed them against the ceiling. The U.S.S.R. injected drugs to drive victims mad. Pinochet's Chile applied electric shock to the genitals. Brazil's military practised beating by immersion, which ruptured internal organs without leaving any visible marks, or made captives rock back and forth while riding a knife edge...

I hope those examples make you wince, too.

Because they were all done intentionally. To inflict pain and suffering. Most of the victims had no information worth collecting. They were not part of some vast conspiracy. They merely disliked their governments.

What would Jesus NOT do?

Former vice-president Dick Cheney claimed that torture had prevented repeats of 9/11. But he was unwilling to support that claim with evidence.

Interrogation experts generally agree that torture rarely produces useful information. Rather, you get whatever the victim imagines might end the torture.

“Since Jesus wouldn't let Peter use a sword to defend him from arrest,” Susan Brookes Thistlethwaite mused in the Washington Post , “why wouldn't those who follow Jesus oppose the violence of torture?”

Thistlethwaite, a former president of the Chicago Theological Seminary, suggests that “for Christian conservatives, severe pain and suffering are central to their theology.”

She cites Mel Gibson's 2002 movie, The Passion of the Christ – a favourite of evangelical audiences. The flogging of Jesus by the Romans goes on for fully 40 minutes.

By the extreme violence inflicted upon him, Jesus is supposed to have “atoned” for the past and future sins of humanity.

Thistlethwaite rejects that interpretation. So do I. But, she explains, it affirms for some conservative Christians “that torture is OK, maybe even more than OK.”

I think she's being too kind. Like Richard Land, I consider support for torture a contradiction of all that Jesus lived and died for.

Too close to step back

I suspect that torture is endorsed by fervent Christians precisely because they are so fervent.

The more committed people are to a cause, the less willing they are to consider contrary evidence. Cynthia Tucker, who won a Pulitzer prize as editorial page editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution , put it well: “Any narrative, no matter how factual, that challenges a set worldview is seen as a threat to be battled...”

Probably “white evangelical Christians” who support torture, and government officials who authorized torture, are both standing too close to their subject to step back and take a sober second look at their attitudes.

Copyright © 2009 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.

Please tell your friends about these columns. To send comments on this column, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, send an e-mail with Sharp Edges in the subject line to [email protected]

 

 

 


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