WWJT?
1 John 4:17-21

            Good morning.  This is not going to be an easy sermon to hear.  It is definitely not an easy sermon to preach.  This morning I am going to be talking about torture. 

            Although I have no personal experience with torture – other than sitting on my sister when I was a kid and tickling the bottom of her feet until she wet her pants J … I have read about it in the history books and seen it depicted on the silver screen.

            When I think of torture I think of what the Japanese did to American Servicemen during World War II or the Viet Cong did to U.S POWs during the Vietnam War.  It was inhuman. 

I couldn’t understand how a human being could do those kinds of things to another human being.  I came to the conclusion that they just didn’t have the same kind of respect for human life that we Americans did. 

            Recently I read about several interrogation techniques.  Perhaps you have heard of some of them … there’s “Long Time Standing.” This technique is where prisoners are forced to stand handcuffed with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours at a time.

Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions. Standing still that long though means that blood can pool and clot in the feet and lower legs, and can even lead to death.

Then there is “The Cold Cell.” In the “Cold Cell” prisoners are left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell, prisoners are doused with cold water to induce hypothermia.

The worst of the bunch is called “Water Boarding.”  Here prisoners are bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Water is poured over their faces. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

Then yesterday I saw a documentary put out by Amnesty International called “Outlawed” which told the story of two men who had been taken off the street and held captive.

Over the course of many, many months and in one case four years - they were beaten, stripped naked, cut, blindfolded, even made to listen to rock music through headphones that were never removed – rock music non-stop 24 hours a day …and this is just a few of the things they endured. 

Although both were of Arab descent, one was a German citizen and one was British. 

The sad fact is – the interrogation techniques and the things that happened to these two European nationals were done by AMERICANS – or at the very least, authorized by the U.S. government. 

I am ashamed.  In the past couple of years you all have seen the photos and heard the stories.  At the 217^th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church held this past summer, they overwhelmingly approved a Resolution on Human Rights in a Time of Terrorism and Torture.  

Let me read just a part of what it says:

Though the headlines have varied, the message has been too often:  TORTURE IS BACK, and in American uniforms and interrogation rooms. 

Press stories worldwide have included: the picture of a hooded Iraqi in cruciform position, mocked by wires attached to his near naked body;  names with new meanings such as Abu Ghraib, Baghram Airbase, Guantanamo Bay; alleged secret prisons in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Eastern Europe, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq; …

… CIA agents abducting suspects in one country and sending them to another (called “extraordinary rendition”); presidential advisors writing legal defenses of the use of physical and psychological coercion; …

… and public strategies to circumvent the Geneva Conventions and US Constitutional law by indefinite detention without trial in extraterritorial military facilities.

What we say about the intentional cruelty of US soldiers, spies, and shadowy “contractors” is what we have said about the same cruelty by others: it degrades us all, and must be renounced and repented of before the Living God, whose eye sees into every hidden cell and secret budget allocation. 

Our basis for speaking:  Jesus Christ, the head of the Church, was tortured to death, first by being flogged, and then by a slow form of capital punishment.

Thus we join countless patriots in saying: “This is not America.” But deeper down we know, too: “This is not Christian.”

We do know that, don’t we???

Admittedly, Christians of good faith part paths when political conflict leads us to consider what constitutes a just and righteous war - or if any war can be just.

This is true even within this congregation. Though we may not always agree on the means, I think we all agree on the need to confront the spread of evil in the world.

To that end, I think, we can all affirm scripture when it says, "Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.... Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:17, 21).

The practice of torture so fully embraces evil it dehumanizes both the torturer and its victim. No just cause can be won if it relies on torture to succeed.

Democracy and freedom cannot result from a war fueled by torture, which is why so many Americans were shocked and angered by the disturbing incidents that took place at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Christians must oppose torture under any circumstance. Consider this: Who would Jesus torture? That may sound like a silly question.  It is the title of my sermon, though.  Goodness knows Jesus was not into torture, though he himself was tortured. 

The truth is, I cannot imagine Jesus finding a single "exception" that would justify such an abuse of any individual made in God's image.  But even leaving Jesus out of it, there are many reasons, faith filled reasons, to speak out against these kinds of abuses. 

First, don’t we believe that all human beings (not just Americans, not just Christians – but ALL human beings) are created in the image of God? 

AND if all human beings are created in God’s image wouldn’t that include criminals, terrorists, and all those we would define as our enemies? YES.

Even when violent behavior has to be restrained or punished, that image of God requires that we respect the basic human rights of all persons, including the right not to be tortured.

Jesus charged us to care for the powerless among us. If ever there were an immediate human situation where the experience of power and powerlessness is unjustly skewed, it is the experience of applying and enduring torture.

Torture, by definition, is something that a government does to a person in its custody. Imprisoned people are vulnerable people. Whatever they did, or may be suspected of having done, once in our hands they are completely vulnerable to us.

Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew, “Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you have done it unto me.”  Do you believe that?  I do. 

How we treat our brothers and sisters whether they live next door to us, are homeless and living on the street, or reside in our jails and prisons, tell a lot about how strong our faith is.

Republican Senator John McCain, a vocal opponent of the drift toward torture, has said, “This isn’t about who they are. This is about who we are. These are the values that distinguish us from our enemies.”

In a November Newsweek article, he put it this way:

“What I mourn is what we lose when we allow, confuse, or encourage our soldiers to forget that best sense of ourselves, that which is our greatest strength—that we are different and better than our enemies, that we fight for an idea, not a tribe, not a land, not a king…but for an idea that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights.”

McCain is saying something very important here. His worry is that any move toward torture also threatens our national character, our shared values, and our goodness as a nation.

He rightly acknowledges that the terrorists bent on bringing the United States to her knees – do not share our commitment to the rule of law, to human rights, to procedural justice, to limits on what can be done for the cause, however holy.

This is tragic, even evil, and it makes them a particularly lethal and insidious threat, but it does not somehow settle the question of how we as a nation should respond.

We often say that as people of integrity we should respond to life on the basis of scriptural principles, not preferences, feelings, or circumstances.

We act on the basis of who we are, not who others are. If someone is ruthless to us at work this does not authorize biblical people to be equally ruthless in return. If someone violates their covenant with us it does not authorize us to do the same to them.

Knowing what our core values are, don’t we expect ourselves and our nation to seek to act in every circumstance in a manner consistent with those values?

If we abandon those values when they are severely tested, it raises real questions as to how deeply such values were ever held.

I don’t think there is any question as to whether or not we should authorize torture – on anyone, no matter how gruesome their crime.  Then why are we so silent?

I haven’t heard many preachers speak out.  I think it is amazing that even the Christian Right – a vocal and demonstrative bunch if there ever was one, has seemingly had nothing to say on the matter.

Why? Torture is not a hard issue for any Christian. It is an unmitigated moral evil. Yet where is the moral outrage? 

I would imagine that James Dobson would have organized a massive phone-in or email blitz to Capitol Hill on the detainee legislation. I would imagine that every theological evangelical would be writing about this every day and night. But nah.

Gays getting married in one state out of 50? Massive, coordinated outrage, sermon after sermon, direct mail blitz after direct mail blitz, and a threatened constitutional amendment.

Our nation participating, even authorizing torture? You can hear a pin drop on the religious right. Tells you something, no?

And the religious middle is not much better. We aren’t marching on Washington.  We aren’t calling our congressmen. We aren’t writing our Senators. 

The terrible stain of torture will not be removed from our nation until we learn to act from higher motivations than blinding fear, narrow self-regard, and ugly resentment — to say nothing of cultural racism.

If torture is not evil, then nothing is evil, for torture is the very essence of evil.

Hear now again our scripture text for this morning:

Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen (I John 4:20).

This verse might be glossed to read: Those who say, “I love God,” and torture their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who torture a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen — and the same holds true for those who turn a blind eye to torture or otherwise condone it.

And once more from Matthew: Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me (Matt. 25:40).

So what are we to do?  I have a petition you can sign at the table in the courtyard. I have sample letters you can take with you and send to our Senators.  I also have a handout that I invite you to take that gives other concrete suggestions.  That’s a start. 

Or we could go on doing nothing, just like we always have.  But, if we do nothing, we are in effect giving tacit approval.  May that not be so.       AMEN!