How can a follower of Jesus the Christ believe that some people just need water boarding?
Mr. Santorum, I am speaking to you.
In the play I recently saw, The Circumference of a Squirrel, the protagonist, reflecting on an incident from his childhood, where his father led him and his brother in the brutal killing of a squirrel in the house, he says that for the first time, “I understood the difference between the executioner and the torturer,” referring to his father’s jubilation at the chasing, cornering, and bashing to death of the hapless squirrel unlucky enough to have taken up residence in the family’s chimney.
Now can we finally talk about the national policy of torture? Now can we begin to understand that it has always been a fool’s errand to focus the national dialogue on efficacy rather than morality?
If the conversation is about what works, the efficacy of torture matters. Ultimately, however, efficacy is beside the point.
The point is that torture is wrong. Morally wrong. Even when it works.
In the case of the location and killing of Osama bin Laden, maybe torture worked. Maybe it did not.
But that is beside the point.
For a person of faith, isn’t the locus of the conversation on what we should do rather than on what we can do?
Thus I am still asking, still wanting, Mr. Santorum, or someone, or anyone, to explain to me how a follower of Jesus the Christ becomes an advocate for torture?
I really want to know.
I want to know how a thinking faithful fellow Christian comes to the conclusion that some people need or require water boarding and all the other tools in the torturer’s kit. I know how the Inquisition came to its conclusions. But how do you? What biblical text do you refer to? What teaching of Christ do you rely upon? What doctrine or maxim of your faith underpins your beliefs as to torture? What Christian teaching leads you to the unspoken premise that the greater good for the many requires the disregard of the humanity of the one? What do you do with the fact that the man you follow was himself a victim of torture by the state? Or that the cultural and religious leaders of his own time believed they were acting for the greater good?
I do not claim that there are no answers to these questions. I simply do not know what they are. And I want to.
Please, won’t you tell me.
Hey Beth!
ReplyDeleteTwo Christian approaches I can think of to this:
1. First, even a utilitarian might argue that allowing torture does a greater harm to us as a nation than the “good” of whatever intelligence we might get from torture. As you suggest, it leads us to willingly dehumanize the torture victim, and I would argue that this will subtly affect all our attitudes towards other people we may be tempted to dehumanize, whether Muslims, the elderly, the unborn, illegal immigrants, people with disabilities, or whoever. The damage is gradual and subtle, but real.
2. Second, I think too many Christians remove “costly self-sacrifice” from the list of viable possibilities in the face of a moral dilemma.
This is not to say that Christians should *only* self-sacrifice, but I do think that when people weigh the immorality of torture against the possible cost of their loved ones being hurt, they often consider the latter to be unreasonable, unthinkable, cowardly, or simply outside the realm of something a person might consider risking.
And yet the cross is precisely an example of costly self-sacrifice. How can I love my enemy? Only if I concede that it might cost me dearly, that that enemy might hurt or kill me regardless of what I do. How can I oppose the use of torture? Only if I concede that it might cost my country dearly.
I’m not sure I can imagine this argument winning over an electorate, because self-preservation is simply what most people always do. And I also have to admit it's morally difficult for a politician to make a decision that potentially forces other people into self-sacrifice.
But I think that Christian politicians should be ashamed of advocating torture. I think they should oppose it unequivocally, and if the cost is that they lose their office next election to someone who supports torture, then maybe that is simply the cost of trying to be a Christian politician.
If Christian politicians and other leaders aren’t willing to risk their own livelihood for the sake of following Jesus, where are the public examples of how a Christian is to live?
Scoots - just posted a wonderfully articulate response, only to have it disappear into the blogosphere - sigh. Here we go again:
ReplyDeleteThank you for entering into the conversation in such a thoughtful, challenging and reflective way. I was particularly struck by your comments about the absence of a dialog on the place of sacrifice and counting the cost as followers of Jesus.
And you've given me something to think about in terms of how a national leader calls others to make a sacrifice on those grounds (especially those who do not share that same belief). But leaders of nation-states often call the citizenry to sacrifice - it seems that they often define the cause to be 'sacrificed' to as self-interest (which makes it interesting to consider how what I do for my own self-interest could possibly be considered 'sacrifice') or cloak the pretext of transferring resources and wealth to those who already have much from those who do not and call that a necessary sacrifice. (I'm way too young, even at 56, to have become so cynical).
I was heartened the other day to hear a Fox News interviewer comment at the end of an interview with Dick Cheney, who kept referring to 'enhanced interrogation techniques', that the term was 'torture'. Language matters so much and we continue to self-deceive by not looking squarely at what we do.
Blessings
Thanks for the response. By the way, this is Scott Haile from PTS –– I just realized that my face pic is tiny and my handle doesn't say my name. I saw your post on facebook.
ReplyDeleteI hadn’t really thought about what you say about politicians talking about self-sacrifice, but they really do, don’t they? And it’s definitely true that higher income people make far less real sacrifice (i.e., their kids don’t usually die in war) for the national interests than do people from a little lower income bracket.
Now you’ve got me imagining a politician standing up and saying, “Every president who asks the country to go to war asks the people to sacrifice, and Americans have forever sacrificed their children to fight wars overseas. Well I’m asking you today to make a different kind of sacrifice. We could go to war and probably do a lot to protect the economic interests of our country, but instead I’m asking you to stay out of this war and try to save a lot of lives--and it will cost us in economic interests, but it’s the right thing to do.”
It’s a pipe dream I’m sure, plus I’m naive and have never been to war or studied politics. But still, I like the image.
Wouldn't it indeed be amazing and wonderful for a politician to do that, and to say those things? A lovely thought. Perhaps - if we all live long enough as a species - there will be growth to that. I hold onto that thought. GB Shaw's 'Man and Superman' - have you read it?
ReplyDeleteJust a vagrant thought....
Scott - you'll laugh - when I looked at your pic, I thought you were Jason Wells - then said to self - 'no' - then kept thinking, I know this face - can I plead old age as my defense?
ReplyDeletePerhaps more than a pipe dream, the vision of self-sacrifice as a nation is a prayer. I'm still enough of a Calvinist to believe that fallenness will always get in the way. Yet for reasons I can never articulate, I still believe that it is possible that visions of the peaceable kingdom be enacted into reality. So, friend, if we be dreamers, we be in good company. Off to order 'Man and Superman'.