Survey: Support for terror suspect torture differs among the faithful

"The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey."

This is the most revolting news I've read in some time. How is it that in the U.S.A., church goers are the most likely to deny the teaching and commands of the one they claim to follow? The U.S. churches are becoming the most anti-christian organizations around. Whatever became of "love your enemy?" "Do good to those who hate you?" "Lose you life for my sake?" "Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good?"

It seems the anti-christ has mounted the pulpit and the sheep are devoured by wolves. We need a national year of repentance. (A day won't do.)

Read: Survey: Support for terror suspect torture differs among the faithful and weep.

Bush vetoes bill banning waterboarding

Read the article at CNN.

Bush continues his support for torture. Bush continues to flaunt the U.S. Constitution. Bush continues to ignore international law.

Perhaps Bush and Cheny should submit to waterboarding so that congress can gain answers to questions regarding potentially illegal conduct by the administrative branch of government. Bush supports waterboarding. He denies that it is torture. Let his actions prove his convictions.

How long will it take to restore the integrity of our nation's government? How long will it take to regain the trust of the world, much less the respect of the world?

George Bush will be reviled in history as the man who toppled the United States of America and created the slide to destruction matched only by the decline of the Roman empire.

I am sickened by what a sick man has done to our nation.

Tortured Theology

Brian Kaylor's article, Tortured Theology, at Welcome to Ethics Daily says in part:

Psychologist Carl Jung once argued, "The healthy man does not torture others--generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers."

After the National Association of Evangelicals recently endorsed a statement by Evangelicals for Human Rights that condemns torture, many conservative Christians attacked both the NAE and the statement.

In doing so, these Christians--including some Southern Baptist leaders--proved that Jung's statement is true when it comes to theology. For it is not the theologically healthy that condone the torture of those created in God's image, but those with tortured and perverted theology.

Kaylor is correct to find the roots of the un-Christian conduct and teaching of current Southern Baptist leaders in a "tortured and perverted theology." Somehow in the zeal to gain converts and produce "effective" leaders during the era of their spiritual formation, good baptists failed to disciple these future (now current) leaders and ground them in a biblical and personal relationship with the one we call Lord, Jesus, the Christ. Their theology is perverted.

Anti-biblical Southern Baptists

Once again the SBC leadership has shown itself to be in opposition to biblical teaching. EthicsDaily reports that

Daniel Heimbach, professor of Christian ethics at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, last week in Baptist Press termed an NAE-ndorsed anti-torture statement "a moral travesty managing not only to confuse but to harm genuine evangelical witness in the culture." . . . Heimbach has long argued against an outright ban on torture, saying the United States should instead base interrogation of prisoners on "just war" principles guiding use of force in military conflict.

Now, the Bible I read says

Never pay back evil for evil. Let your aims be such as all men count honourable. If possible, so far as it lies with you, live at peace with all men. My dear friends, do not seek revenge, but leave a place for divine retribution; for there is a text which reads, 'Justice is mine, says the Lord, I will repay.' But there is another text: 'If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; by doing this you will heap live coals on his head.; Do not let evil conquer you, but use good to defeat evil.
-- Romans 12:17-21 NEB

I notice that the passage begins with the word 'never.' No exception for interrogations. It says "If your enemy is hungry, feed him." It does not say, "If your enemy is hungry, feed him unless he is being deprived of food as part of an interrogation process."

Finally, the passage says, "Do not let evil conquer you, but use good to defeat evil." When we return evil for evil, we have been defeated by the evil we are trying to oppose. We have become evil ourselves.

When one supports torture or "aggressive interrogation," one denies the authority of Holy Scripture. How ironic that those who seized power in the Southern Baptist Convention under the guise of defending the authority of the Bible should so blatently act and teach in opposition to it.