WWJT? Who Would Jesus Torture?

A news story for you...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

The Washington Region Religious Campaign Against Torture rallied on Capitol Hill in March 2008.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

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.

The analysis is based on a Pew Research Center survey of 742 American adults conducted April 14-21. It did not include analysis of groups other than white evangelicals, white non-Hispanic Catholics, white mainline Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated, because the sample size was too small.

The president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Leith Anderson, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The survey 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?"

Roughly half of all respondents -- 49 percent -- said it is often or sometimes justified. A quarter said it never is.

The religious group most likely to say torture is never justified was Protestant denominations -- such as Episcopalians, Lutherans and Presbyterians -- categorized as "mainline" Protestants, in contrast to evangelicals. Just over three in 10 of them said torture is never justified. A quarter of the religiously unaffiliated said the same, compared with two in 10 white non-Hispanic Catholics and one in eight evangelicals.

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There is no way I can pass this one up. This is the kind of thing that makes me disgusted at American Christians for those of you who want to know. You really want to know why I don't group myself in with the rest of the Christians, this is why. I'm not saying the sentiment resounds in my church, but it would be really unfortunate if only one in 8 of the people I know thought torture was never justified. I guess that one is me. There, now I'm different.

I mean is this really a discussion we need to have? I'm gonna have to go back to Jesus on this one, you got my hands tied behind my back. What was that whole thing about doing to others what you'd have them do to you? Yeah, I think that was the way it went. But now American Christians are adopting more of a "do to others what you think they'd do to you" sort of philosophy. I'd definitely say, that's not what Jesus had in mind.

And you know, the argument that it would save lives is completely null because that's what morals are about. You don't ruin lives to save lives. Ethics and morals are the things you do when no one else is looking, and now everybody is looking and Christians are saying "hey, just dip his head under the water for a while, make him think he's drowning, and he'll tell us where the bomb is." Well, if that's the way it's gonna be, you can officially count me out of the whole "Christian" thing because it's done. The movement is over. They tell us from the pulpit that we are supposed to be different and that people will want what we have, but I'll tell you right now, I don't want what we have. It is morally repugnant to me.

I want what Jesus left us with, the love your neighbor stuff, the stuff that American Christians now think only applies to Americans. One in eight. It's just sad. Do you want to know where I draw the line when I don't think people are really followers of Jesus? When 7 in 8 evangelical Christians think that torture is ok at least some of the time.

At what point do you go to your boss and say "I can't lie to our customers any more."? At what point do you say "This is wrong and against company policy and we shouldn't be doing it." These are ethical decisions. One thing I regret is that I never said these things to my boss when I worked at Total Document Solutions. I've let it go for this long, and now it's out. The same thing goes for the American Church. This is wrong. Torture is wrong. You've sold your soul to a political party, when it didn't belong to you to begin with.

Read your bible, hypocrites. And lets be perfectly clear what a hypocrite is. "Hypocrisy, Noun. The claim, pretense, or false representation of holding beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not actually posses." If you say you are a follower of Jesus and you think torture is even sometimes okay, you are a hypocrite. It's that simple. You are a liar, and you are doing a horrifically poor job of representing your Great God and Savior, Jesus the Messiah. This is not an issue like taxes where your beliefs on the subject don't really matter in the spiritual realm. If you think it is ok to harm a human being to get information, you are a bogus christian.

It is just sad that more atheists, humanists, secularists, and abortionists would say that torture is not ok than Evangelical Christians. That makes me sad. It really grieves my heart. So, that being said, I'm deciding to not be one anymore. I am only a follower of Jesus Christ, not a "Christian," the word was originally an insult anyway. I am a Jesus Freak. He is king, his word rules, and living and walking in his footsteps are the status symbol of choice for his followers.

I have found that the quickest way to win any argument with a "Christian" is to quote Jesus. And boy do I like being right.

WiredForStereo

Black and White Evangelical Voters: A Teachable Moment

by Lisa Sharon Harper 11-06-2008 Reposted from God's Politics Blog

In the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday, November 5, Wolf Blitzer listed “The Losers” in Tuesday’s historic election on CNN. Evangelicals were at the top of his list, joined by trickle-downers and social conservatives.

I wouldn’t have known I was a loser if Wolf hadn’t informed me. I am an evangelical—a black one.

Standing in the voting booth, I was overcome as I scanned pictures of my ancestors and wept before casting my vote.

Grandpop Lawrence stood at attention in his World War II uniform. When Grandpop came home from the war, he couldn’t get a job that matched his skills. So he worked as a door man at an upscale hotel in Philadelphia. Though doors were closed to him, he opened doors day and night for Philadelphia’s white elite.

Six years old, Uncle Richie posed for the camera in his Sunday best about 20 years before his lifeless body would flop to the ground. Richie’s future was swallowed whole by the newly drug-infested ghettos of the 1970s.

Grand-Aunt Martha stood with her back against a wall. She stared past the camera, no smile. She was the one who could pass for white. She died in an alcoholic stupor of hopelessness as the power of color politics pushed her from a third story window in the city of brotherly love.

Martin Luther King Jr. said the arch of history bends toward justice. Their memories were with me and this was their poetic justice.

Then, because of my faith, which aligns with Jesus –- who aligns himself with the ones whose backs are against the wall -– I put my hand to the ballot and said, “This is for you.”

I watched the election results with a diverse array of partners and leaders of New York Faith & Justice that night. When CNN announced “Barack Obama is President-elect of the United States of America!” I was not the only one overcome. There were tears and screams and jumping on furniture, then hugs and more tears, and hands lifted in the air.

Flags waved across America – in Chicago’s Grant Park, in Harlem, in San Francisco, in front of the White House in Washington D.C., and it felt like America was emancipated a second time—this time from the strangle-hold of racism itself.

Then we flipped channels to see how the Christian Broadcast Network (CBN) was reporting the win. Two somber men sat in a quiet newsroom with one small silent graphic in the background. They talked about how “they” (liberals) won because of ”their” ground game. There was no connection to the justice of the moment. No acknowledgement that Obama, too, stood for biblical values.

Evangelicals did not lose on November 4. Evangelicals gained a teachable moment. The majority of the country celebrated, but 74 percent of white evangelicals mourned. Why?

According to Divided by Faith, Michael Emerson and Christian Smith’s landmark study of race and religion in the U.S., these evangelicals likely emphasize individual responsibility, see most things through the lens of relationships and, most important, they see little significance in history and cannot or will not recognize the impact of systems on the plight of whole people groups—systems such as the education, health care, real-estate, or penal systems.

So, when McCain proclaimed in his Convention Speech that individuals can thrive if only government would get out of the way, 74 percent of white evangelicals believed him. It didn’t occur to them that in a democracy, the people are the government.

And when the forwards flew about Obama, the champion of infanticide, 74 percent of white evangelicals believed it, without question, because the forward came from a friend (a relational connection). They valued it because it touched on the most valuable relationship—the family. Righteous indignation replaced reason. It didn’t matter that Obama refused to vote for the law in Illinois because there was already a law on the books protecting viable third-term babies.

And when Obama told “Joe the Plumber” he wanted to “spread the wealth,” 74 percent of white evangelicals believed this meant government wanted to fly in the face of personal responsibility and give their hard earned money to people who didn’t work for it. There was no connection to the reality that it’s not necessary to ask “Joe” for more taxes when ending a war will release billions of dollars with the swipe of a pen.

Black evangelicals, who voted overwhelmingly for Obama, share the values for personal responsibility and relationships, but they live under the weight of broken systems. So, they seek to fix broken systems, changing them into systems that bless.

Emerson and Smith say the deepest divide in U.S. worldview is not between whites and blacks; it is between white and black evangelicals. The isolated evangelical church structure perpetuates the problem of race in America, but white evangelicals immersed in networks-of-color tend to acquire a worldview that includes systems and history.

Here is my hope: the number of white evangelicals immersed in networks of color—who have a value for history and an appreciation for the impact of systems—is growing. Steve Waldman, editor-in-chief of Beliefnet, estimates Obama won 2 million more evangelicals than Kerry. Only 21 percent of white protestant evangelicals voted for Kerry in 2004, but 26 percent voted for Obama this year. That signals a five point increase in evangelicals who value personal and systemic redemption.

Now, imagine the election year 2020. At this rate, by then, 41 percent of evangelicals will have enough contact with people of color to embrace the political needs for both personal and structural redemption.

Evangelicals did not lose on Tuesday night. We gained a teachable moment. And with God’s grace we shall all be overcome … one day.

Lisa Sharon Harper is the executive director of New York Faith & Justice and author of Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican … or Democrat.