Why the Faithful Approve of Torture

Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, former president of Chicago Theological Seminary, has a column in the Washington Post that looks at the disturbing results of a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life that found that the majority of white evangelical Christians supported the use of torture on detainees. As I already noted, this survey finding demonstrates just how perverted the Christian message has become in the hands of fundamentalist who are increasingly defined by who they hate - which is virtually everyone who is not just like themselves - than by their adherence to the teachings of Christ as laid out in the four Gospels. I view this perverted form of Christianity as an evil rather than a force for good in the world. Here are some highlights from the column:

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The more often you go to church, the more you approve of torture. This is a troubling finding of a new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Shouldn't it be the opposite? After all, who would Jesus torture? Since Jesus wouldn't even let Peter use a sword and defend him from arrest, it would seem that those who follow Jesus would strenuously oppose the violence of torture. But, not so in America today. . . . . Instead, more than half of people who attend worship at least once a week, or 54%, said that using torture on suspected terrorists was "often" or "sometimes" justified. White evangelical Protestants were the church-going group most likely to approve of torture.

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I think it is possible, even likely, that this finding has a theological root. The UN Convention Against Torture defines torture as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person..." White Evangelical theology bases its view of Christian salvation on the severe pain and suffering undergone by Jesus in his flogging and crucifixion by the Romans.

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For Christian conservatives, severe pain and suffering are central to their theology. This is very clear in the 2002 Mel Gibson movie, The Passion of the Christ. Evangelical Christians flocked to this movie, promoted it and still show it in their churches, despite the fact that it is R-rated for the extraordinary amount of violence in the film.

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Of course, this is an interpretation of Jesus life, death and resurrection that I reject. It is also an interpretation that I believe has done a lot of harm through the centuries. I think it is impossible, yes, impossible, if you read the Gospels, to make the case that God wanted Jesus tortured for the sins of humanity. But that is an interpretation that has sometimes been made in the history of Christianity and the social and political fallout has been, and is today, that torture is OK, maybe even more than OK. This Pew finding may just be another in a long line of horrible historical examples of that.