To understand how as a nation we have abandoned our constitutional laws, I encourage people to read the 2006 Platform of the Texas Republican Party (pdf file) . This is a document of extremism put out by arguably the largest and most inflential state political organization in the United States. A thorough analysis will have to wait, but I would like to highlight two statements made on p. 21 of the Platform:
1)" The United States is a Christian nation."
2) "The separation of Church and Sate is a myth. "
So the Texas Republicans identify themselves as primarily a "Christian" organization, and at the same time they have been among the most vocal supporters of President Bush as he secures the right to incarcerate and torture detainees in the Great Crusade against IslamoFascism (aka "The War on Terror").
Unfortunately, the Texas Republicans are hardly alone. A survey from the Pew Research Center shows that a MAJORITY of self-identified evangelical Christians approve of using torture.
The writer Randall Ballmer – himself an evangelical Christian -has written an excellent book on how the Republican party has annexed the American evangelical movement and in the process has distorted the faith into a grotesque parody of Christianity as it is revealed in the Gospels. In the book, Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America: An Evangelical’s Lament, Ballmer specifically deals with the torture issue:
"The torture of human beings, God’s creatures — some guilty of crimes, others not — has been justified by the Bush administration, which also believes that it is perfectly acceptable to conduct surveillance on American citizens without putting itself to the trouble of obtaining a court order. Indeed, the chicanery, the bullying, and the flouting of the rule of law that emanates from the nation’s capital these days make Richard Nixon look like a fraternity prankster.
Where does the religious right stand in all this? Following the revelations that the U.S. government exported prisoners to nations that have no scruples about the use of torture, I wrote to several prominent religious-right organizations. Please send me, I asked, a copy of your organization’s position on the administration’s use of torture. Surely, I thought, this is one issue that would allow the religious right to demonstrate its independence from the administration, for surely no one who calls himself a child of God or who professes to hear "fetal screams" could possibly countenance the use of torture. Although I didn’t really expect that the religious right would climb out of the Republican Party’s cozy bed over the torture of human beings, I thought perhaps they might poke out a foot and maybe wiggle a toe or two.
I was wrong. Of the eight religious-right organizations I contacted, only two, the Family Research Council and the Institute on Religion and Democracy, answered my query. Both were eager to defend administration policies." – Randall Ballmer Thy Kingdom Come
And yet, Christians are called to condemn torture – without exception. After all, Jesus was tortured on the cross, and His suffering informs the compassion that is the foundation of Christian doctrine. The Christian writer David Gushee has come up with 5 reasons Christians reject torture. I’ll summarize here:
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Torture violates human dignity. Christianity – and indeed all the great religions – teach the sanctity of life and the reflection of the sacred in each human being.
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Torture mistreats the vulnerable and violates the demands of justice. Bringing compassion to the least of us is the Christian imperative.
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Authorizing torture trusts government too much. Human beings are weak and fallible: the requirement to torture is always based on false assumptions.
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Torture dehumanizes the torturer. Solzehnitsyn on the Soviet Gulag: "Our torturers have been punished most horribly of all: They are turning into swine; they are departing downward from humanity."
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Torture erodes the character of the nation. As Colin Powell remarked in a recent letter, the world now doubts the moral basis of America’s battle against global terrorism.
If America were truly a "Christian Nation" as the Texas Republican Party states in its platform, there would be a huge outcry against torture and anger at any political leader who would countenance torture. But that has not happened. Instead, these Republican "Christians" violate the basic tenets of Christianity in order to line up behind a policy that permits torture.
