{"id":518,"date":"2008-02-29T15:01:27","date_gmt":"2008-02-29T15:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2008\/02\/united-methodists-join-antitor.php"},"modified":"2008-02-29T15:01:27","modified_gmt":"2008-02-29T15:01:27","slug":"united-methodists-join-antitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/united-methodists-join-antitor","title":{"rendered":"United Methodists Join Anti-Torture Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brittani Hamm
\nReligion News Service<\/em>
\nWASHINGTON — The United Methodist Church’s social policy office is circulating a petition that tells President Bush, a fellow church member, that torture is immoral and ineffective.
\nThe petition cites the Methodists’ Book of Discipline, which says, “The mistreatment or torture of persons by governments for any purpose violates Christian teaching and must be condemned and\/or opposed by Christians and churches wherever and whenever it occurs.”
\nThe Methodists’ General Board of Church and Society was one of 10 groups that sent a letter to Bush urging him to sign the Intelligence Authorization bill, which would effectively ban the CIA from using waterboarding or other interrogation techniques that many consider torture.
\nPresident Bush has threatened to veto the bill, but more than 1,600 signers of the petition are urging him to sign it. Bush has frequently butted heads with Methodist leaders, especially over their opposition to the war in Iraq.
\nMeanwhile, leaders of four other groups have asked to meet with Bush as he decides whether to veto the bill. A joint letter brought together the National Council of Churches, the Islamic Society of North America, the Union for Reform Judaism and the president of evangelical Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.
\n“Our Scriptures couldn’t be clearer in their condemnation of cruelty and abuse,” said the Rev. Michael Kinnamon, head of the NCC. “The letter we have sent sums it up very succinctly: Torture is an intrinsic evil.”
\n
\n\u00ad\u00ad\u00adCopyright 2008 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brittani Hamm Religion News Service WASHINGTON — The United Methodist Church’s social policy office is circulating a petition that tells President Bush, a fellow church member, that torture is immoral and ineffective. The petition cites the Methodists’ Book of Discipline, which says, “The mistreatment or torture of persons by governments for any purpose violates…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nUnited Methodists Join Anti-Torture Campaign<\/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\/news\/2008\/02\/united-methodists-join-antitor\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"United Methodists Join Anti-Torture Campaign\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Brittani Hamm Religion News Service WASHINGTON — The United Methodist Church’s social policy office is circulating a petition that tells President Bush, a fellow church member, that torture is immoral and ineffective. The petition cites the Methodists’ Book of Discipline, which says, “The mistreatment or torture of persons by governments for any purpose violates…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/united-methodists-join-antitor\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-02-29T15:01:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"United Methodists Join Anti-Torture Campaign","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\/news\/2008\/02\/united-methodists-join-antitor","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"United Methodists Join Anti-Torture Campaign","og_description":"By Brittani Hamm Religion News Service WASHINGTON — The United Methodist Church’s social policy office is circulating a petition that tells President Bush, a fellow church member, that torture is immoral and ineffective. The petition cites the Methodists’ Book of Discipline, which says, “The mistreatment or torture of persons by governments for any purpose violates…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/united-methodists-join-antitor","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2008-02-29T15:01:27+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/united-methodists-join-antitor","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/united-methodists-join-antitor","name":"United Methodists Join Anti-Torture Campaign","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-02-29T15:01:27+00:00","dateModified":"2008-02-29T15:01:27+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/united-methodists-join-antitor#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/united-methodists-join-antitor"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/united-methodists-join-antitor#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"United Methodists Join Anti-Torture Campaign"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. From fashion to faith and the journey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/nsymmonds"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}