One of the things that religious folks like to say in support of their churches/whatever is that they are a voice for morality. When the secular folks get too far “out there” the churches reel them back in with appeals to basic values.
Except, where are our religious leaders on the little matter of torture? Seems to me that they ought to be out front in condemning the practice of torture in the US. Torture’s widely known to be wrong by religious types, right? Right?
I’m confused, see, because I haven’t read any newspaper headlines saying “Religious Leaders Call For End to Torture By US!” Or “Religious Leaders Blast ‘Black Sites’”
Of course, I don’t really follow religious activities all that closely, but it seems to me that if there had been any such condemnations they’d have made the news, since the Bush Admin. so loves to torture people.
I’m sure there’s some minister out there somehow who had condemned torture, but have any of the leaders of large, established US churches, temples and whatnot done any condemning of torture lately? Cause if they haven’t, I’m afraid they don’t deserve a lot in the way of respect as moral leaders.
Excellent point! Are the right wing churches so into supporting the Administration that this doesn’t matter to them? Are the liberal churches scared that coming out against torture would be considered political, and the IRS would start looking at their tax exemption?
Even an old atheist like me thinks that this is an excellent place for churches to show the moral leadership they are claiming.
But I suppose somewhere, somehow two gay people are happy, so there are higher priorities.
Well, here’s a press statement from 2004 from the National Council of Churches, which watches with “growing sadness and indignation the devolution of the crisis in Iraq into increasing chaos”, one example of which is “devastating reports of the humiliation and torture of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. military personnel”, and says that our obligation to be in the world community “also requires shared commitments and rules of legitimate behavior, as expressed in international law and agreed upon by the community of nations.”
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued an action alert, urging people to support the Senate defence apporpriations bill which will limit landmine use and prohibit torture. The USCCB notes:
The Rabbinical Assembly, which is the major organization of Conservative Rabbis, in their 2005 conference, issused a resolution saying:
[quote]
WHEREAS President Bush and the United States of America have undertaken the furthering of freedom and democracy around the world;and
WHEREAS we support the troops and coalition forces who are in harm ’s way to achieve this end;and
WHEREAS Jewish history and tradition teach that justice must triumph over violence;and
WHEREAS serious questions have been raised about the ethics of torture by any nation as a means of gaining information,even under emergency circumstances;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Rabbinical Assembly support the troops and coalition forces who are in harm ’s way to further freedom and democracy;and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Rabbinical Assembly affirm that only by preserving the rule of law and the rights of the individual does any nation earn its place as a moral leader on the world scene.
The Religious Action Center, which is the political/social lobbying group of Reform Judaism has issued an action alert asking Reform Jews to urge the House of Representatives to ban torture, stating in part:
OK, official groups have issued papers and press releases against torture, which are apparently mouldering in piles of unread faxes on Capitol Hill. Woo-hoo.
And by “woo-hoo” I mean I don’t see any church groups campaigning against torture with the same unfettered glee and directness with which they campaign against porn or raunchy stuff in the media. Or is it only the “red” churches that have the attention of the media any more?
Well, the Catholic Bishops , the NCCC, and the Religious Action Center have issued Action Alerts, which are of the “Hey, Catholics/Protestants/Reform Jews, call your congressman and let him or her know you don’t like torture” variety, and the NCCC has lobbied Congress on a bunch of Iraq war issues, and is part of the “United for Peace and Justice” coalition, who are doing a lot of anti Iraq war stuff generally.
I’m a bit confused as to what you expect them to do -
Speak out against torture? They’re doing that.
Issue press releases against torture? They’re doing that.
Make formal organizational policies against torture? Yep.
I also get the near constant “write your congressman/senator/the president and tell them that Christian Americans don’t want torture” emails from various political/religious groups.
The messages are being sent - and the religious leaders should be called on the carpet if they were not. But I cannot understand why you seem to be blaming them when their voices are ignored.
I dunno. I just think I’m not seeing the same level of enthusiasm that some churches use to condemn porn or whatever. ISTM that torture is a particularly nasty form of evil that churches should get exercised about. Even when we were training Latin American dictators’ henchmen in torture techniques at the School of the Americas back in the 80s, it was just isolated preists and preachers chaining themselves to the fences down in Columbus, Ga., there was no massive organizational push from the churches, like the one that created the League of Decency. It’s like churches know torture is evil, and formally disapprove of it, but their heart just isn’t in it, like it is for stuff like abortion and birth control and so forth.
You seem to be continuously moving the goalposts here. First you want religious groups who have condemned torture. When you’re given that, you want religious groups that campaign against torture. Then, when ytou’re given that, you want “the same level of enthusiasm that some churches use to condemn porn or whatever”.
Religious groups are going to concern themselves more with stuff like abortion or pornography, or whatever, but so is everybody, first, because they’re more controversial subjects, and second, because they affect American’s daily lives a lot more. I can bet you that in the 2006 election, issues like abortion and gay marriage, for example, are going to be bigger isses than torture.
If there was an abortion bill on the Hill, you’d see the churches organizing rallies and busing people in to protest/support the bill (depending on whether it restricted abortion or not). When it comes to torture or the death penalty, the churches send out a few weak “action alerts.” Whatever. It’s a rightwing administration so they won’t criticize too loudly. Otherwise the Bush Administration might not appoint the proper justice to implement their semi-theological agenda.
Evil Captor, I’m confused. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that you generally thought that churches should largely butt out from politics. Again, I could be mistaken, but I could swear that you’ve weighed in before against spreading politics from the pulpit, especially as it relates to those “public morals” type of things.
Now, it seems you’re taking the exactly opposite tact: the religious organizations are not involved ENOUGH in this particular political issue.
So, my question: Can you elaborate on what you think the proper role of churches should be in influencing public policy? If you argue that they aren’t vocal enough on torture, isn’t that an endorsement of churches taking activist positions on public morals type of issues? Is that really where you’re going with this?
I’m not moving the goalposts, I never had any goalposts to start with. I began with wondering where the religious response to US involvement in torture was. Several posters provided helpful links showing that religious organizations had indeed roundly condemned torture and issued calls for their membership to contact their Congressmen about torture legislation.
Still, the question I asked in the OP was why didn’t I see any headlines about all this? Someone suggested the media were ignoring the calls to action, etc. But it occurs to me that generally when big religious orgs want media play, they generally get it: witness the bishops who threatened to deny John Kerry communion during the election campaign. Didn’t see THEM getting ignored. And look at the way the FCC took up the banner of the 50 or so folks who wrote to complain about Janet Jackson’s tit. Didn’t see THEM getting ignored.
Then I remembered the previous problem we’ve had with torture in the US, the School of the Americas, and all the local preists and protest groups who chained themselves to the Army base in Columbus Ga. where the school was housed, with very little play outside the Georgia media (who were delighted to have something even vaguely interesting to cover outside Atlanta). I remembered how few big orgs got involvedin THAT in a direct sort of way.
So I gotta wonder about our church “leadership.” They sure don’t take the lead in opposing torture.
Actually, I’m not entirely sure you have cause and effect the right way round here. I’m not really that interested in what religious types get up to, but in general there does seem to be a fairly steady consensus amongst most mainstream religious leaders that all types of torture is immoral. If anything, torture is much more widely and strongly condemmned than sin or abortion or other ‘hot topics’.
You can’t really blame them for the fact that the average follower (and the media/entertainment industry that provides the headlines) doesn’t pay attention to 90% of the message. The Kerry thing probably got lots of headlines because there was a giant political machine spending hundreds of millions of dollars to make sure it got headlines. The titty thing got picked up because there were many millions of dollars to be made in the controversy, and a constituency that wanted to be outraged about it. No-one likes to hear about torture, and there’s not much money to be made in opposing it and/or annoying the government.
I think you might be better off asking “why do my fellow citizens get all steamed up about little things when our government is torturing people?”. Probably because it’s easier to be sanctimonious than a dissident.
It took literally 30 seconds of Googling to find religious groups opposed to Alberto Gonzalez’s views on torture, a Christian publication condemning Abu Ghraib ringleader as being unchristian, the religious leader of Bush’s church buying TV ad time in the Mideast to apologize for Abu Ghraib, and so on, and so on.
I really wonder what more you expect these religious groups to do? It seems pretty clear that they are speaking out, and its seems more likely that the press just isn’t covering it for some reason. But that’s a poor test of whether a group is politically active: I don’t think I’ve read a single newspaper story about Ralph Nader or Pat Buchanan in a year, but that doesn’t mean that they have retired. It just means that the press isn’t covering them.
And I’m still curious about my previous question, EC.
