As We Torment Those who Trespass Against Us

To paraphrase D.H. Lawrence's paraphrase of Hebrews 10:31, It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God, and a worse thing to fall into the hands of his followers.

Yesterday, Andrew Sullivan noted a Pew poll which found that American Christians are more likely to condone torture than their secular compatriots. Among the general public, 63% of survey respondents approved of torture in at least some circumstances. 66% of white Protestants condoned torture, though Roman Catholics left them in the dust with a whopping 72% supporting the use of torture. Among those identifying themselves as secular, 52% approved of toruture in some cases. Besides that 41% of secular respondents said that toruture should never be used, while only 32% of the general public, 31% of white protestants, and 26% of Catholics agreed. (Catholic teaching, BTW, holds that torture is never justified. There are times when blindly obeying the Vatican wouldn't be such a bad thing.)

It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that the godly advocates of torture also rail against moral relativism in contemporary culture.

As a Christian, I find this depressing, but not surprising. There is, of course, no shortage of evidence that religiosity doesn't necessarily coincide with humane behavior, and that religion can be bent to the service of nationalistic or factional ends. These are truly ecumenical sins.

As undeniable as these things are, I still wrestle with them. For as long as I've participated in Christian communities, I've heard the preaching and the scriptures and come away wondering "Is ANYBODY actually listening to this?" Even as a kid, I couldn't help thinking that the world, starting with the church, would be a much different place if people did. Of course, many biblical writers wondered the same thing. I don't know whether that is a consolation or a cause for deeper frustration.

Obviously some people pay attention, and I think they make the world a better place. I know too that no one's faith is perfect, and that we all may twist it to serve our personal agendas. But you would hope we would have learned something from occasions when nations comfortably balanced the gospel in one hand with slavery, genocide, or imperialism in the other. As Paul says at one point, people may argue about what is or isn't sin, but there are some acts that are sinful beyond any question. I believe torture is one of those.

I find myself agreeing more and more with this remark by a poet friend: "The Bible is a wilderness. No one has ever read it."