Would Jesus Torture?
My Dear
People,
Would Jesus torture?
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According to a new Pew survey, 49% of Americans think torture is sometimes justifiable.
And how did the survey responses break down in regard to religious affiliation? The group least likely to support the (limited) use of torture? The religiously unaffiliated, 40%. The group most likely to support the (limited) use of torture? White evangelical Protestants, 62%, by far the strongest supporters.
In a column this past Sunday, syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts, asked, "How Do Christians Respond?" The Nazi genocide of the Jews. Slavery. The AIDS epidemic. And now Torture. Pitts, a Christian, says,
"What we see so often in people of faith...is an imperfect love that embraces fear, that lets us live contentedly in our moral comfort zones, doing spiritual busy work and clucking pieties, things that let you feel good but never require you to put anything at risk, take a leap, make that lonely stand."
Pitts' trenchant words bring to mind something said by one of the moral giants and great spiritual leaders of our age, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, "Christianity is political, or it's not Christianity." In other words, Christianity by its nature calls us into political engagement and action.
Why? Because politics, government, laws, and all the rest of it, affect the real lives of real people, real people who are the very real children of God. And the lesson of the Incarnation is that God loves his children and cares deeply about them (us) and their (our) lives. And God asks us to love his children with that same love.
It is sometimes said that "politics and religion don't mix." This is said, of course, because of the countless examples of where the "mix" of the two has resulted in things ungodly, sometimes horrifyingly so. Examples of this are numerous and well-known.
On the other hand, if our Christian faith doesn't have political implications; that is, if our Christianity is somehow sealed and kept apart from our politics, then what real meaning does our Christianity have? That is what Archbishop Tutu is saying. And that is what we saw in his leadership in South Africa, in the anti-apartheid movement and in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Leonard Pitts closes his column asking us to consider a certain "Middle Eastern man who was arrested by the government, imprisoned, and tortured. Eventually he was even executed, though he was innocent of any crime." That man's name was Jesus.
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No. I don't believe Jesus would torture. And I don't believe we should either.
We do not all agree about this. That being said, any suggestion that torture is somehow not a religious (and deeply spiritual) concern is not credible. Nor is it Christian.
Your brother in Christ,
Wallace+
