A new Washington Post/ABC News poll finds that Americans, by a 59-31% margin, believe that CIA “treatment of suspected terrorists” in detention was justified. A plurality deemed that “treatment” to be “torture,” by a 49-38% margin. Remarkably, the gap between torture supporters and opponents widens between voters who are Christian and those who are not religious. Just 39% of white evangelicals believe the CIA’s treatment of detainees amounted to torture, with 53% of white non-evangelical Protestants and 45% of white Catholics agreeing with that statement. Among the non-religious, though, 72% said the treatment amounted to torture. (The poll did not break down non-Christian religions in the results.) Sixty nine percent of white evangelicals believe the CIA treatment was justified, compared to just 20% who said it was not. (Those numbers, incidentally, roughly mirror the breakdown of Republican versus Democratic voters among white evangelicals.)
I offer this for your consideration because I’m frankly stunned by it. Not only are Americans OK with torture, not only are they not concerned with the idea that doing so is illegal (never mind immoral and ineffective), but among the groups MOST supportive of torture are those who self-identify as “Christian.”
WTF??? Who Would Jesus Waterboard? Who Would Jesus Place In Stress Positions?
Think about that for a moment. Christians supporting torture, the gross mistreatment of another of God’s creatures, because…well, I honestly have no explanation for it. I get that Evangelicals overall tend to be far more Conservative, authoritarian, and focused on law and order than the general population, but overwhelmingly supporting something as clearly illegal and immoral as torture? To my way of thinking, reconciling that would seem to require a truly impressive (and disturbing) degree of cognitive dissonance…or hypocrisy, because a Christian would have to willfully ignore most of what Jesus Christ taught.
The National Religious Campaign Against Torture, for example, would suggest that religious people mostly oppose torture. UPDATE: The National Council of Churches tweets: “Wrong,@sarahposner, @NRCATtweets is fully aware that religious ppl are more likely to support #torture, and laments. bit.ly/1DH4XUE”
I’m not writing this to criticize or pass judgment, though I suspect there are those who would see merely broaching this subject as yet more “Christian bashing.” Nothing could be further from the truth. I simply want to understand how someone who calls themselves a Christian, one who purports to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, can with no sense of irony or hypocrisy support torture. If someone could explain it to me, I’m willing to listen…because no matter how hard I try, I can’t begin to understand how a Christian might reconcile what seems to me an obvious contradiction. There’s just no way I can wrap my pointy li’l haid ‘round this one.
If someone cares to edumicate me on this, I’ll allow any respectful, on-topic comment. I seriously want to know how a Christian can justify torture.
Discuss. Please. Because I’ve got nothing.
