Evangelicals to debate U.S. use of torture

Starting today, Atlanta will host a simmering ethical and religious debate about the United States’ use of harsh methods such as waterboarding in the war on terror.

David Gushee, a Mercer University professor and Baptist preacher, has put himself at the center of that debate. He is leading a push among Christians, and especially among evangelicals, to ban the methods, which he believes are torture.

He faces a tough task.

A poll from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press in early 2008 asked: “Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can often be justified, sometimes be justified, rarely be justified, or never be justified?”

One-fifth of white evangelicals said torture is often justified, and more than one-third say it is sometimes justified.

Half of mainline church members such as Presbyterians were among those approving, as were slightly less than half of Catholics.

“From the moral perspective, to hear that one-fifth of evangelicals think torture is often justified, and that one-third think it is sometimes justified is extremely distressing. It shows we have a lot of work to do,” said Gushee, who also helped found Evangelicals for Human Rights in 2006.

Today and Friday, more than 200 U.S. religious, legal and political leaders will attend the conference that Gushee helped organize at Mercer’s Atlanta campus.

Keith Pavlischek from the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, also an evangelical, will not be there.

He has countered Gushee’s articles on torture in the evangelical flagship publication “Christianity Today.” Pavlischek does not rule out harsh treatment in extreme cases where lives could be saved, and he criticizes Gushee for not defining exactly what torture is.

“I want to push up against the boundary of that. Why, because I am sadistic? No, because I want to protect innocent people,” Pavlischek said.

Painful interrogations ought to be rare, but neither should suspects be simply jailed, he said.

“In between are a continuum of interrogation techniques that I believe are morally and legally permissible, that are aggressive, that are short of torture,” he said.

Gushee has responded to Pavlischek’s criticism, saying quibbling over what qualifies as torture is unseemly in the face of the golden rule and the Bible’s teachings on the sacredness of life. He defines torture as those things we would not want done to Americans and those forbidden by the Army Field Manual.

The disagreements signal evangelicals’ widening political focus.

The gathering in Atlanta is further evidence that evangelicalism is experiencing some growing pains, said Michael Lindsay, a Rice University sociologist and author of “Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite.”

He said evangelicals are moving beyond the abortion and gay marriage issues that traditionally have held them together politically. Particularly since the 2004 presidential election, evangelicals have taken stands on problems such as genocide in Darfur, AIDS in Africa and the environment.

“David Gushee is a very prominent figure in contemporary evangelical life,” Lindsay said. “His organizing and trumpeting of this particular political issue is significant.”

Gushee has forged alliances with other Christians and political leaders and helped persuade the National Association of Evangelicals to sign a statement condemning torture. During congressional hearings and legislative battles in Washington this year, he rallied opposition with the interfaith National Religious Campaign Against Torture.

The Rev. Monte Norwood of Bible Way Ministries in Atlanta says he hears both sides coming from the people in his pews.

“I think most people don’t know what torture is, what it looks like,” he said. “If it’s not done to U.S. soldiers, it doesn’t come home to us.”

Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs at the National Association of Evangelicals, acknowledges the split in the pews, but he said the NAE’s leaders endorsed a statement largely drafted by Gushee in 2007 that condemned torture.

FOR MORE INFO

> www.evangelicalsforhumanrights.org/

> www.nrcat.org/