| Christian, other faith leaders urge Congress to close Guantanamo |
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| By Bob Allen | |||
| Friday, November 13, 2009 | |||
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WASHINGTON (ABP) -- More than 40 religious officials signed a letter Nov. 12 to congressional leaders -- and copied to all members of Congress -- urging immediate action to close the United States' military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"Guantanamo is the symbol of our country's violation of our deepest values," said the letter, drafted by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. "Regardless of how it is operated now compared to how it was operated in earlier years, it stands, in the minds of hundreds of millions of people in our nation and around the globe, as a place where America broke faith with itself and used torture as an interrogation technique." One of President Obama's first policy decisions in office was to set a timeline for closing the controversial camp designed to detain terrorist suspects outside the reach of U.S. law. Faced with missteps and setbacks by Congress, however, it is unlikely the administration will meet its original deadline of Jan. 22, 2010. "We in the religious community believe that closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay is a necessary step in the campaign to end U.S.-sponsored torture forever," Richard Killmer, executive director of NRCAT, a membership organization representing more than 260 religious groups, said in a press release. "Closing the detention center quickly can help restore the U.S. as a respected member of the global community." The letter from religious leaders said symbols are important in the spiritual life of both individuals and a country.
"Our government must close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay now to help us heal spiritually and to put an end to this dark and errant chapter in our history," they said. "For those detainees that must continue to be incarcerated, we believe that appropriate alternative sites can be identified." The religious leaders contended that "torture is immoral, illegal, and never justifiable -- without exception." Signers of the letter include David Gushee, president of Evangelicals for Human Rights and a professor of Christian ethics at Baptist-affiliated Mercer University in Atlanta. He writes a regular column for Associated Baptist Press. "Closing Guantanamo's detention center is a major piece of unfinished business for the Obama administration," Gushee said. "It is a toxic symbol. Various pressures threaten to prevent President Obama's shutdown of this site in the one-year time frame the president initially promised. It seems timely to me to encourage the president to keep that promise." Another Mercer faculty member, Timothy Floyd, also added his signature. He is director of the school's law-and-public-service program and a professor in Mercer's School of Law on its main campus in Macon, Ga. Another signer, Glen Stassen, a professor of Christian ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary, formerly taught at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. -30- This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.                 Comments (7)
 Two different starting points
written by Big Daddy Weave, November 13, 2009
You are correct. It is an assertion. However, it is an assertion based on the sincerely held religious convictions of the men mentioned in the article.
The difference here is that while Gushee/Stassen - both Christian Ethicists - ultimately appeal to the Bible in their opposition to torture (see Kingdom Ethics by Gushee/Stassen), you appeal to Social Contract Theory in your pro-torture (in some circumstances) argument. what is the reasoning exactly?
written by Xenophon, November 13, 2009
Big Daddy, thanks for your focusing my attention on the philosophical and theological sources of the differences people can have on whether torture can be justified. I am still not clear about the basic reasoning of those who categorically oppose torture. Torture does not seem to be unequivocally prohibited in the Bible. So, what is the rationale for such a biblically based opposition as you suggest?
Is it something like this (I am just asking)? Jesus wants to establish his Kingdom in this world through the actions of Christians so that over time human institutions and practices improve to the point that Christ himself returns to take over where we have left off in realizing a perfect world. Until he returns, we Christians should serve as a shining example of Christ's love and unconditional forgiveness so as to lead others not simply to personal salvation but to a world-wide social, economic, political, and spiritual transformation. On this view, torture and other practices that do not reflect a humanitarian ethic should be discarded due to their playing on and amplifying our sadistic impulses that we need to work ourselves away from. Over time, human nature can be altered to become much more Christlike even before we are fully glorified. Am I somewhere in the ballpark in describing the outlines this scenario? I suspect that many differences that we might have on political, social, economic, and legal controversies centers on what humans are capable of here on earth as we know it. For example, referring back to our last exchange on controversies over the origins of First Amendment, some who took the position of separating law from religious belief and practice in order to justify separation of church and state came to that issue with a meliorist orientation. Those who saw the necessity for a more overt religious influence in society were less sanguine about human nature. Personally, as you may gather, I am very pessimistic about human nature until we are glorified after our deaths or raptured. As I suggested to another interlocutor on this site as we exchanged views on a similar issue, such differences among Christians might also reflect different understandings of what the Bible teaches on eschatology. Water boarding torture?
written by mcskinny, November 13, 2009
Strap a man securely in a seat. Send the vehicle the seat is bolted to down a steep incline into a pool of deep water where it suddenly stops and flips upside down under water.
Tie a sack over the head of a man, tie the man to a board, tip the foot end up, and pour water over the blindfold. One is accepted emergency training and the other is college hazing, neither is torture. Ask anyone who was a POW under the Japs or North Koreans. Both are scary, but torture? Sounds more like college hazing to someone who has experienced some of these. ....
written by Big Daddy Weave, November 14, 2009
I was going to respond to McSkinny with a quote from John McCain condemning waterboarding as torture.
Then, I read McSkinny's entire comment and couldn't believe what I read. The use of ethnic slurs has no place here. Pretty sure that McSkinny knows better. Extremely poor taste. Politically Correct? Nuff Said.
written by mcskinny, November 14, 2009
Nope, do not give me credit where no credit is due. I knew the word "Jap' was derogatory. During my growing up the Japanese military earned a reputation which made the word derogatory. I did not know it was considered as an ethnic slur in the same category as the "n" word, IE not used in polite company. After reading the definition from Wikipedia of the word below I will choose to take a little leeway and classify it as acceptable because some of us still living remember when the Japanese political military machine earned it.
Had McCain not been running for a political office I personally doubt he would have said what he did. I, as many Americans are, am just a little tired of be having to be politically correct all the time. Fact is waterboarding, sleep deprivation, threats, and other mental games can and is classified as torture by some. Some college hazing practices are close, if not just as difficult, to endure. (Ever had your head held under water in a commode?) Many Americans have endured much much worse physical 'torture' at the hands of enemy combatants. "Jap is an English abbreviation of the word "Japanese." Today it is regarded as an ethnic slur, though English-speaking countries differ in the degree they consider the term offensive. In the United States, Japanese Americans have come to find the term controversial or offensive, even when used as an abbreviation.[1] In the past, Jap was not considered primarily offensive; however, after the events of World War II, the term became derogatory.[2]" Leaders written by Bobby McCord, December 03, 2009
Just because men like Gushee claim to be leaders doesn't make it so. They may be liberal leaders but not Christian leaders.
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The claim that torture is always immoral is merely an assertion on the part of the leaders quoted above. I have never heard anyone provide a clear justification for this absolutist position.
Certainly it is always immoral to torture people for reasons of conscience (in attempts to suppress or change the religious or political beliefs of the victim), but torturing people who have forfeited their rights due to their own decision to violate the rights of innocent people is morally defensible on grounds of social contract theory. If a person freely chooses to violate the rights of others who pose no threat to himself or others, then that person has, in effect, chosen to have inflicted on himself what he has planned or has done to others. If torture is always immoral, then how would these folks quoted in the article countenance war when attacked by another country, self-defense, incarceration of the guilty, or any other violent defensive or retaliatory action against attackers? Torture can be effective in gaining information to save innocent people's lives. Why not use it in appropriate cases? I have never seen a clear answer to this question.