{"id":156,"date":"2009-01-23T10:37:36","date_gmt":"2009-01-23T10:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/2009\/01\/the-religious-right-torture-and-christianity.html"},"modified":"2009-01-23T10:37:36","modified_gmt":"2009-01-23T10:37:36","slug":"the-religious-right-torture-and-christianity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/01\/the-religious-right-torture-and-christianity.html","title":{"rendered":"The Religious Right, Torture, and &#8216;Christianity&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the interesting if disturbing issues unfolding before us now is the frenzied defense of torture by many right wing &#8216;Christians&#8217; and their allies in the media.&nbsp; Bill O&#8217;Reilly who makes more noise as a supposed defender of Christianity than anyone not at a pulpit, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2009\/01\/12\/christopher-hitchens-deba_n_157341.html\">defends torture<\/a>.&nbsp;&nbsp; Focus on the Family leader James Dobson believes torture is so important&nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.christianitytoday.com\/ctliveblog\/archives\/2008\/04\/what_dobson_did.html\">opposition<\/a> to it constitutes a reason to vote against a candidate.&nbsp; Pat Robertson found supporting torture a <a href=\"http:\/\/slog.thestranger.com\/2007\/11\/backing_torture_more_important_than_oppo\">better qualification<\/a> for President than opposing abortion.&nbsp;&nbsp; The less said about moral monsters like<a href=\"http:\/\/mediamatters.org\/items\/200901080011\"> Sean Hannity<\/a>&nbsp; and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.truthdig.com\/avbooth\/item\/20090113_glenn_beck_cites_24_to_defend_torture\/\">Glenn Beck<\/a>&nbsp; the better.&nbsp; Senator Inhofe is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Qhw-zdpwyfo\">outraged<\/a> that people are outraged by torture and Senator Cornyn commits what outside the Senate&#8217;s ingrown decadence would be a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.samefacts.com\/archives\/torture_\/2009\/01\/cornyn_holder_torture_and_the_obstruction_of_justice.php\">felony<\/a> of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/pete-cenedella\/the-torture-memos-are-the_b_159796.html?page=2&amp;show_comment_id=19965618#comment_19965618\">obstructing justice <\/a>to <a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/leading-the-news\/republicans-ask-for-more-time-on-holder-vote-2009-01-21.html\">defend torture<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/2009\/01\/21\/cornyn-holder-torture\/\">those who committed it<\/a>.<br \/>\nI 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.&nbsp; Popular as this argument is in many Christian circles, there is no historical support for it.<br \/>\nBut we needn&#8217;t look to history.&nbsp; Today we have the supposed guardians of the Christian moral tradition defending practices copied from the techniques of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/06\/03\/weekinreview\/03shane.html%20\">Soviet secret police<\/a>.<br \/>\nWe are told we need these tactics to learn the truth.&nbsp; But the Soviets and other dictatorships used these methods to get confessions regardless of what the truth was.&nbsp; This has been repeatedly shown historically.&nbsp; In our own case <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/09\/25\/world\/americas\/25arar.html%20\">innocent people <\/a>have been tortured.<br \/>\nThe &#8216;Christian&#8217; right is not in any meaningful sense either Christian or moral.&nbsp; Ignore the self-professed labels and you have pretty good examples of what, in Christian terms, would be Satanists.&nbsp; Until the genuine Christian community takes these guys on loudly and very very publicly, they really can&#8217;t say much about the morality of other people&#8217;s religions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the interesting if disturbing issues unfolding before us now is the frenzied defense of torture by many right wing &#8216;Christians&#8217; and their allies in the media.&nbsp; Bill O&#8217;Reilly who makes more noise as a supposed defender of Christianity than anyone not at a pulpit, defends torture.&nbsp;&nbsp; Focus on the Family leader James Dobson&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Religious Right, Torture, and &#039;Christianity&#039; - A Pagan&#039;s Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/01\/the-religious-right-torture-and-christianity.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Religious Right, Torture, and &#039;Christianity&#039; - A Pagan&#039;s Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of the interesting if disturbing issues unfolding before us now is the frenzied defense of torture by many right wing &#8216;Christians&#8217; and their allies in the media.&nbsp; Bill O&#8217;Reilly who makes more noise as a supposed defender of Christianity than anyone not at a pulpit, defends torture.&nbsp;&nbsp; Focus on the Family leader James Dobson&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/01\/the-religious-right-torture-and-christianity.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"A Pagan&#039;s Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-01-23T10:37:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gus diZerega\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Religious Right, Torture, and 'Christianity' - A Pagan&#039;s Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/01\/the-religious-right-torture-and-christianity.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Religious Right, Torture, and 'Christianity' - A Pagan&#039;s Blog","og_description":"One of the interesting if disturbing issues unfolding before us now is the frenzied defense of torture by many right wing &#8216;Christians&#8217; 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