My son is eight. Our normal bedtime routine is to read chapters from great novels and have short discussions on them before turning out the light. We recently finished up Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo. The book deals with a lot of grown-up topics, and we used it as a springboard to discuss all kinds of issues, but especially the nature of crime, punishment, and torture.

In the book, Esméralda is accused of killing Captain Phoebus and of witchcraft. Since she refused to confess, she was taken to the dungeon to be tortured into confessing.

Knowing that she was just a young girl, my son sat up and asked, “Dad, who is going to torture her?”

“They’re Catholic priests,” I replied.

“They can't be real priests,” my son replied, “Real priests couldn't do that.”

We keep three icons over his bed - St. Alexander of Constantinople, his guardian angel, and Mary holding Jesus. He stared at these for awhile, obviously thinking about the situation in the book of a small, frightened girl being tortured while men in robes looked on approvingly. Then he added, “They can't even be Christians.”

If adults imbibed Christian teaching with the uncritical acceptance of a child – how much better the world would be! But they don't. This is why so much of the Christian community in the United States now finds itself shorn of all legitimacy.

Once upon a time, moral absolutism was the hallmark of Christianity. Christians regarded some actions as so evil as to be impossible to even contemplate. Some means were so odious, so offensive to God, that no end could ever justify them. This attitude lives on today among American Christians, but only concerning homosexual sex and abortion. In almost all other areas, especially anything involving “national security,” morality is now fully utilitarian.

Individual actions are judged within the overall context of the situation to determine if they are right or wrong. There is no absolute right or absolute wrong, just shades of gray and external context. Nowhere is this more striking than when discussing torture.

The new utilitarian Christian Ethos deems it acceptable to torture prisoners as long as you have a good reason for doing so. In the new Christianity, the ends justify the means, as long as those ends serve American interests. I have read stirring defenses by Christian moralists of stripping prisoners naked to simulate sex acts, of subjecting them to “stress positions,” of enforcing starvation, of administering beatings, and of waterboarding. It appears that no matter how perverse or sadistic, any behavior is moral so long as one of “us” is doing it to one of “them” in the interests of national security.

Nor is this support of torture confined to Christian leaders, writers, and thinkers. Last year, a poll conducted by Pew Research found that fifty-four percent of those who attend weekly services say the use of torture on terror suspects in order to gain important information can “often” or “sometimes” be justified. That's twelve percent higher than the 42 percent of those who seldom or never attend such services who say the same. The highest rates of support for the use of torture were among white, Southern Evangelicals.

This view on torture is exemplified in the following quote from evangelical pastor Chuck Colson, who once served as an aide to President Nixon:

“If a competent authority honestly believes that this was the only way to get information that might save the lives of thousands, I believe he would be justified.”

Conservative Evangelicals, it appears, are the new Grand Inquisitors. Just as the priests in the Hugo novel, they are perfectly willing to justify vile acts against the helpless, if those acts serve a higher purpose. Moral absolutes are only for effeminate, liberal pacifists who hate America and want to see it destroyed.

The new ethos has no time for such concepts as mercy, individuality, and compassion on an enemy. If you think the person in your power might know something that could save American lives or property, then you are justified in doing anything you need to do to make him talk.

Jesus will just have to get over it.

This attitude towards torture is severely harming Christian witness in the United States. The secularists and Atheists have noticed the pro-torture lobby and are positively giddy over it.

As one atheist wrote concerning the claim by many Christian leaders that waterboarding is actually not torture:

Just about every right wing, evangelical, Jesus loving, God fearing Christian in congress, on a radio talk show, or behind the televangical pulpit denies waterboarding is torture. Yet, I do not know of ONE atheist who is familiar with the technique who denies waterboarding is torture.

Fanatical Christians are hypocrites, recognizing torture only when Christians are the victims. It's never torture when they administer it, when it suits their agenda.

The much vaunted “higher ethics and morality” of Christians is a bald faced lie.

Unfortunately, he is right. At this point, the ethics and morality of most Christians in the United States is a bald faced lie. To make ourselves “safer,” most American Christians seem happy to embrace torture, suspension of civil liberties that are part of our American heritage, indiscriminate bombing of foreign cities, limitless invasions, and much more. The same people, who decry any harm to any American citizen, are perfectly okay torturing foreigners on the off-hand chance they might know something useful. The same people, who want to protect every American baby in utero, will loudly demand the deaths of thousands of Iranian children in a mass bombing of Teheran because their government might be developing a nuclear device. That, after all, will teach those nasty Ayatollahs a lesson, won't it?

I am not a pacifist. All nations have the right to self-defense. Christian teaching has always permitted this right, but has always demanded fair treatment of prisoners. As a whole, Christians in America have totally departed from this and now embrace a Pagan concept of total war in which all things are fair.

Some actions are simply wrong in themselves. There are simply things you can not do and can not support, and still remain a servant of Jesus Christ. In the United States, many who call themselves Christians have fallen into sin while proclaiming it rightousness. Those who would see the Gospel destroyed rejoice in the current situation, because the actions of American Christians make it clear that, in the end, they do not believe in Jesus Christ any more than the Atheists do.

Glen Chancy is CIO for corfun.com and publisher of Orthodox Biz. His latest project is an eticket service that lets fans use an interactive seat map to find the best deals to any concert, sporting event, or theatrical performance. Visit seemyseat.com for the best deals in tickets. You can contact him here

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 [Torture and the Downfall of American Christianity]

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