Torture in the name of Christ?

"Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name Lord our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright." - Psalm 20:7-8

As I assume most of you know, (if you watch the news you should) Mr. Obama released information explaining the techniques and uses of torture by the United States government on terrorist detainees. These techniques include: Diet Manipulation (replace solid foods with liquid), Slapping (both in the face and the abdomen), Walling (standing a prisoner against a wall and slamming him back against it, repeatedly), Nudity, Dark Confinement, Water Flicking (flicking water onto their face), Sleep Deprivation (cuffing their hands in a standing position for more than 48 hours to prevent them from sleeping), and Waterboarding (tying them down to a board, putting a cloth over their face and pouring water on them to simulate drowning).

All these techniques which are specifically described and outlined are to "startle, irritate, humiliate, or to cause temporary insult" - US Department of Justice. The documents can be found online from various news agencies.

Obviously, this is a hot topic of debate in our country. Surprisingly (or not) a large amount of people in our country support the use of torture. What surprised me even more was that yesterday, while driving to work I stumbled across a station in which the radio commentator was advocating for the use of torture and proclaiming the name of Jesus Christ on the same radio show! Even worse, he had listeners nation wide who were all in aggreeance with him. This fact put me in distress all day and saddened me. How can we as Christians justify torture when our Savior tells us to pray for our enemys?

I decided to call in (he was taking live callers to give their oppinions on the topic). Surprisingly, I was able to get through the phone lines and he put me on the air, to speak my mind. (for those of you who know me, I love to debate things I am passionate about) I began to remind him that Jesus Christ was coming again, and according to my bible he will seperate the Sheep from the Goats and to the Goats he will say "Depart from me you cursed...for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger, and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me." When they ask when they saw him like that Jesus replies, " Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of your brothers, you did not do it to me" - Mathew 25:31-46

After I reminded him of that statement from Christ, I then asked him a question: "Will Jesus also say, when I was in prison, you tortured me?" He explicitly tells us that we are to clothe the naked, not submit people to nudity to embarrass them. He tells us to feed the hungry, not substitute their food with bland liquids. He tells us to visit the sick and imprisoned, not subject them to torture and humiliation. The radio announcer then replied with what I knew he would, the "smoking gun" situation. It goes like this: There is a nuclear bomb/another Sept 11 (or something else drastic) that is about to happen, and you have a guy in custody who knows information to stop it. Do you torture him to get the information so you can save thousands/millions? It is the simple, "do the ends justify the means" question. He gave me 10 seconds to answer this question (and he was furious with me at this point) so I quickly found a bible passage and stated: "You unfaithful people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." - James 4:4 I then said "When faced with a loaded gun I would gladly take death, than disobey a commandment of God." He then hung up on me and told the listeners that I was living in a fake world.

The point of my passage is this: God gave us his son Jesus Christ, to suffer torture and die for us, so that we can conquer death ourselves and live with Him eternally in heaven. This means that the ONLY thing we should have to fear is God. To fear God means to reject friendship with worldly solutions, traditions and practices which contradict with those of God; knowing that it is God, and God alone who will secure everlasting life for you.

This means that we ARE capable of breaking the circle of violence, even if it means our own death. This means that after Sept 11 we could have prayed for the terrorist and sent a message of forgiveness to the world (as Jesus asks us to) instead of a message of vengence and rash decision making. We could have set a bright example for the world to follow, instead we pursued an archaic solution. Around 3,000 Americans died in Sept 11th and that could have been all the American lives lost, but instead we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and caused the death of over 4,000 more Americans and over 1 million innocent civilians in both countries. Not to mention all the orphans we created who will grow up hating our government because our missiles destroyed their home. Thus, creating futur terrorist. This is the circle of violence our unfaithful world perpetuates. When we begin to put our faith in God alone and not color coded security systems, unmanned airplaines, laser guided missiles and nuclear weapons, we will begin to live a life of pure Joy. We would fear no evil because we know the worst that it can do to us is kill our fleshly life and deliver us to an everlasting life with Christ. This is a marvelous thing to realize.

In a book called "Non-Violent Resistence" ( a collection of writings by Gandhi) page 95 has this quote, " The only weapon of the Satyagraha (the equivalent of a non-violent activist) is God, by whatsoever name one knows Him. Without Him the Satyagrahi is devoid of strength before an opponent armed with monstrous weapons...he who accepts God as his ONLY Protector will remain unbent before the mightiest earthly power." When your only Protector is Jesus Christ, there will be no use for torture because when you follow his commandments, the need for war ceases to exist and the circle of violence is broken.

We as Christians need to ask ourselves, "What do I put my faith in?" "Do I call the ideals of God fake? or Impossible?" and when we come to the realization that God is our strong tower we will be able to accomplish things that the world deems impossible or unreasonable.

Peace and Love,
Jordan and Jess