Posted on 06/17/2006 10:52:17 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
Evangelicals are joining hands with mainline Christians, Catholics, and Muslims once again to help shape government policies, this time in the area of torture.
Wednesday, Jun. 14, 2006 Posted: 5:06:24PM EST
Evangelicals are joining hands with mainline Christians, Catholics, and Muslims once again to help shape government policies, this time in the area of torture.
Some 27 religious leaders, including Saddleback Church's Rick Warren and the National Association of Evangelicals' president Ted Haggard, have signed onto a statement urging the United States to "abolish torture now - without exceptions."
The statement, published today in newspapers nationwide, marks the official launch of a new organization called the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, which was formed in response to the human rights abuse allegations at U.S.-run detention centers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"Torture violates the basic dignity of the human person that all religions hold dear," the statement starts. "Any policies that permit torture and inhumane treatment are shocking and morally intolerable."
Evangelicals are not known historically for working in inter-religious or ecumenical settings. However, in recent years, they have made unlikely alliances with Catholic, Muslim and mainline Christian groups for wider-ranging social purposes like environmental protection or poverty relief.
The anti-torture campaign may become another point of cooperation. It has received the support of liberal groups like the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and the United Church of Christ, as well as the Islamic Society of North America and the Union for Reformed Judaism.
Dr. Glen Stassen, Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary and another signatory, explained that torture is something every Christian - and especially evangelicals - should stand against.
"Evangelicals are Christ-centered - not that nobody else is, but we are - and the cross was humiliation and torture," said Stassen.
According to the group's website, signatories support a call on Congress and the President to remove ambiguities regarding torture by prohibiting the exemption from human rights standards of international law for any governmental arm and by preventing the existence of secret U.S. prisons around the world. They are also calling on the government to allow Red Cross access to detainees held oversees.
"We also call for an independent investigation of the severe human rights abuses at U.S. installations like Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan," the statement read.
Pauline J. Chang
pauline@christianpost.com
"We also call for an independent investigation of the severe human rights abuses at U.S. installations like Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan," the statement read.
where's the megabarf alert?
These people make me sick...they live in a bubble of stupidity.
The abuses ARE alleged.
Evangelicals are opposed to torture -- alleged or not.
If the allegations prove to be untrue -- good. There's still wisdom in going on the record ahead of time.
Fight the war! Beat the enemies into oblivion. Send the terrorists to hell! But treat prisoners humanely.
Ok, TommyDale, now is the time for all good men to rag on Rick Warren. This kind of thing goes beyond a simple church growth program. If statements like this are the end result of a "Purpose Driven" ministry, then I'd rather people stay home than support ministries like Warren's.
I have defended him in the past but now that he is using his new found celebrity to undermine the mission of our troops, he's off my protected species list.
Have at him. I'm done with him.
To paraphrase Laura Ingram: SHUT UP AND PREACH!
You'll notice they didn't think twice about torture which has been going on for thousands of years in Muslim countries and communist countries, but the second they hear an allegation that some kind of pain is being inflicted upon someone by the United States military, they form a new organization to draw attention to it, solely for the purpose of undermining our military.
They don't care about "torture", they just hate the United States of America and all it stands for.
Exactly. Warren is merely a "front" for the liberal One World policies. He has fooled millions so far. He needs to be stopped. I think I saw this coming about two years ago, but he has gone way off the left end now.
If the mission of our troops is torture, it does not deserve to be supported. As Christians, our loyalty is not to Pres. Bush, or to our nation, or to democracy. It is to Christianity - including Christian ethics, which absolutely forbids torture.
I whole-heartedly support Mr. Warren on this. Finally Evangelicals have stopped being a tool of the Republican party. It's about time.
Actually, a pastor should speak against torture. I say that as an Army Chaplain who has taught some of our finest classes on Battlefield Ethics. We must stand against anything that dehumanizes our troops.
It's bad enough what they legitimately must do and see. Please, let's not send them home with the spiritual baggage of what they OUGHT NOT to have done. The baggage of what they justly have done is a terrible burden. The unjust baggage is a continual, ongoing wound to the conscience.
That said, have we CERTAINLY conducted torture at any of these places?
Not at Gitmo. Nothing I've read convinces me that they've crossed the line.
Abu Ghraib? Unfortunately, they are more indictable for the demented and licentious than for the illegal. However, a very few were convicted of the illegal. In conclusion, it is BEST to say that our troops are in the clear. A group of the demented of less than squad size are guilty of illegal, immoral acts.
Haditha & Hamdaniya? They are innocent.
PREACHERS must know precise information, though, to point fingers. If they don't have it, then they should make front and center, absolutely certain that everyone knows as the most important point that they are engaging in sheer speculation.
What I'd like to see from these groups is the drafting of a new ecumenical statement, stating something like "we will not support the flying of commercial airliners into skyscrapers with the express purpose of killing civilians on the basis of nationality and geographic location, nor religions that stand up and applaud when such actions occur."
No one is IN FAVOR of torture, but these pastors speaking out against the American military and insinuating they are guilty before proven innocent is just plain out of line. If they want to speak out, let it be in generic terms, and include our enemies who practice REAL and EXTREME torture!
None of us are in a position to know. We depend on a biased media and a military who has an interest in minimizing their misdeeds for this information.
That said, the indications are that Abu Gharib was a breakdown of the military command structure; there is scant credible evidence for Gitmo, and no one outside the USMC really knows what happend at Haditha at this point.
Pastors - and Christians in general - have an obligation to demand of our government that, if they wish us to continue our support for the war, then our troops must continue to fight justly. As a civilian, the moment the evidence shows that the war is being fought unjustifiably brutally with unconscionable tactics, that's the moment I join the anti-war crowd.
Well said!
That's because they're American evangelicals. What Muslim fanatics do has no bearing on how we behave. American evangelical pastors have an obligation to ensure American warriors fight morally - even if our enemies do not.
Soldiers from Abu Gharib have already been convicted. Haditha is coming down the pipe. Pastors have an obligation to minister before the horse is out of the barn - and let's not pretend that people are stupid. Any Evangelical warning against torture occurs against the backdrop of Haditha and Abu Gharib. Even if neither is mentioned, every informed serviceman and civilian will be aware of those allegations and know that the pastor's statements are not hypothetical, but lamentably real.
This simply is not true with the army I know.
Maybe I never got to a high enough level to see shenanigans at the top, but I would put my life in the hands of the officers over me (even the ones I didn't like) throughout my entire career. Some of them are still active. A couple of my old commanders are at the highest level of this war....the very highest...IN FACT, they are the ones IN CHARGE.
They are the finest, most decent, most honorable, most exacting men I have ever known....ever. I treasure the time I was with them.
They WOULD NOT lie about their duty. They are a throwback, maybe, but that's who they are. That's from firsthand observation. They TRULY believed that any dishonesty at any level of their commands, including themselves, hurt the FACTUAL, and in so doing hurt the ability of everyone to make adequate decisions.
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