December 15, 2005
A UMNS Commentary
By the Rev. Mike Macdonald

Like the biblical prophet Nathan confronting King David, it is time for the church to find its voice and tell our president that in the name of God, humanity and national integrity, he must renounce the use of torture – categorically.

As a pastor serving a local congregation with both Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, I avoid partisan politics. Torture is not a partisan issue. Forty-six of the 55 Republican senators voted to ban the use of all torture by any U.S. government agency. The bill was sponsored by John McCain, R-Ariz., a man of impeccable patriotism, a genuine conservative and a supporter of the war in Iraq, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a former military lawyer and a colonel in the Air Force Reserve, which he still serves as a military judge. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell and a slew of other high-ranking, retired military officers have called for such a ban.

There have been two primary arguments advanced for why such a ban should be in place.

The first is that the use of torture, for any reason, violates everything that we stand for as a nation. We claim to believe in justice for all; torture and justice are mutually exclusive. We claim to believe in the dignity of every human being; torture violates the human dignity of the tortured. But in one sense, the torturer – and the country that sanctions the torture – violates his own human dignity even more profoundly than the dignity of the person he tortures.

The second argument is that not only is torture ineffective, it is counterproductive. Experts claim that torture does not produce a high quality of intelligence, not even in the so-called "ticking bomb" scenario. While producing questionable results at best, there is no questioning the hatred that the use of torture creates for us in the rest of the world. The fact that the administration wants to make an exception for the use of torture by the CIA completely undermines any claim to moral integrity or moral leadership. It is hard to understand why the president will not agree to a policy to ban torture if we do not intend to use torture.

Both of these arguments are completely valid and true. As is most often the case, the moral thing to do is also the wise thing to do in the long term. Torture is both immoral and imprudent.

There is a third reason that torture should be renounced, and why it is the church's place to be a modern-day Nathan. In a debate among Republican candidates for president on Dec. 13, 1999, President Bush named Jesus Christ as his favorite "political philosopher." Since then, he has invoked the name of God in the battle of terrorism and allowed Franklin Graham to conclude his inaugural prayer with, "In Jesus' name." Because of this, it is appropriate to ask the president if he truly believes Jesus would ever sanction torture, even in the name of national security.

The irony is that Jesus himself was tortured to death in the name of national security. The Romans did not crucify Jesus because of his religious beliefs. They held all Jewish theology equally in contempt. Christ's crucifixion was a political execution. And crucifixion was intentionally designed to be used as a form of torture. It is impossible to reconcile the claim to follow Jesus as a "political philosopher" and to justify torture. These two ideas are mutually exclusive – one must be renounced.

It is the church's duty to tell the president, and all who would condone torture while claiming to be Christ's disciple, that they must make a choice: to follow Christ or to abandon Christ.

The use of torture is not morally ambiguous. The call to reject torture is not partisan politics.

United Methodist News Service
Mike Macdonald is pastor of Broad Street United Methodist Church in Mooresville, N.C.