Over at The Evangelical Outpost Joe Carter tackles the question, "Who would Jesus waterboard?" His answer? No one.
Who allowed our country to succumb to such fear and moral cowardice that we parse the the meaning and definition of "torture?"I blame myself, and implicate my fellow Christians. We have remained silent and treated an issue once considered unthinkable--the acceptability of torture--like a concept worthy of honest debate. But there is no room for debate: torture is immoral and should be clearly and forcefully denounced. We continue to shame ourselves and our Creator by refusing to speak out against such outrages to human dignity.
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As Christians we must never condone the use of methods that threaten to undermine the inherent dignity of the person created in the image of God. ... There is something clearly repugnant about our unwillingness to distance ourselves from the fear-driven utilitarians willing to embrace the use of torture.
I've wondered "Where is the evangelical outrage?" before and its good to see evidence that there is some. However unlike others I don't believe that there is any type of implicit consent amongst evangelicals towards the use of torture. I am of the opinion that they, probably like many Americans, simply have a hard time believing that those charged with leading and defending this great nation are capable of sinking that low and thus passively choose to write it off as improbable. After all its easier to continue believing in the goodness of America than it is to change one's view and then wrangle the ensuing ramifications. The problem is that in doing so too many are giving passive consent to torture by their silence.
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