One of the interesting if disturbing issues unfolding before us now is the frenzied defense of torture by many right wing ‘Christians’ and their allies in the media.  Bill O’Reilly who makes more noise as a supposed defender of Christianity than anyone not at a pulpit, defends torture.   Focus on the Family leader James Dobson believes torture is so important  opposition to it constitutes a reason to vote against a candidate.  Pat Robertson found supporting torture a better qualification for President than opposing abortion.   The less said about moral monsters like Sean Hannity  and Glenn Beck  the better.  Senator Inhofe is outraged that people are outraged by torture and Senator Cornyn commits what outside the Senate’s ingrown decadence would be a felony of obstructing justice to defend torture and those who committed it.

I have read many times, and soon will give a more explicit coverage of that argument here, that the moral and demanding ethical content of the monotheistic spiritual traditions of Judaism and Christianity (Islam is presently on the outs) were a step forward from the supposedly simply ritual and manipulation oriented practices of old time Pagans.  Popular as this argument is in many Christian circles, there is no historical support for it.
But we needn’t look to history.  Today we have the supposed guardians of the Christian moral tradition defending practices copied from the techniques of the Soviet secret police.
We are told we need these tactics to learn the truth.  But the Soviets and other dictatorships used these methods to get confessions regardless of what the truth was.  This has been repeatedly shown historically.  In our own case innocent people have been tortured.
The ‘Christian’ right is not in any meaningful sense either Christian or moral.  Ignore the self-professed labels and you have pretty good examples of what, in Christian terms, would be Satanists.  Until the genuine Christian community takes these guys on loudly and very very publicly, they really can’t say much about the morality of other people’s religions.