Spending three days talking about torture may not sound like much fun. It’s not. But about sixty people came together at Columbia Theological Seminary, in Decatur, Georgia, from Sunday evening, Feb. 3, through noon on Tuesday, Feb. 5, to do just that. Nearly half the participants were students, mostly at Presbyterian-related colleges and seminaries, looking for ways to act against something that seems to betray all they believe in about the Christian life, and about the values of the United States.

The conference was sponsored by Presbyterian-based No2Torture and the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, along with the denomination’s Presbyterian Peace Program. Three seminaries also joined in sponsoring the event: Columbia, which provided generous hospitality, along with Princeton and Fuller. All three were represented by faculty members and/or students, and there were students also from Harvard Divinity School, Union Theological Seminary (both of them, in New York and Richmond), San Francisco Theological Seminary, along with Austin, Dubuque and New Brunswick.

The meeting was held with one specific goal: finding ways to help Presbyterian congregations deal with an urgent issue which most of them seem desperate to avoid. Various participants spoke of their experiences in trying to deal with U.S. use of torture, whether in sermons or in less “weighty” situations. And the general reaction has been “We just can’t talk about that here.”

The conference began Sunday evening by plunging into the lived reality of torture: We heard harrowing presentations, the first being from a woman who was a victim of genital mutilation and torture in her native Kenya, and is now a refugee in asylum in the U.S. The second presentation was by a former police officer who then served in the U. S. Army as a linguist, and then was sent to Iraq with a private contractor, interrogating detainees using “enhanced interrogation techniques” such as sleep deprivation, that were approved in the Army manual. He did that for a short time, until “after three or four hours I had to stop,” because his spirit rebelled so strongly at what he was being told to do.

On Monday there were presentations looking at the issue of torture first in the context of America history, then in light of theological reflection, and finally in relation to the “complacency, complicity and denial in our American churches.

Tuesday morning was spent in small group discussions on possible strategies for helping our churches and people get beyond the complacency and denial.

We’ll bring you more detail on the presentations as soon as we can process them. But in the meantime —

A note from your WebWeaver:

I am writing this on the evening of Ash Wednesday. I discovered in the service of imposition of ashes at our church this evening that a ritual of penitence was indeed appropriate for me, as one who is complicit in the terrible deeds our nation is doing.

And an invitation:

If you were at the conference and have thoughts to share, please send a note!

by Doug King  [2-7-08]

Lucy Mashua was the first to confront us with the realities of torture – not as someone from Iraq, but as a woman born in Kenya, who was promised as a bride when she was three years old. At the age of nine she was subjected to the process of genital mutilation – a kind of culturally sanctioned, traditional form of surgery, performed on young girls to “preserve their virginity” for the men to whom they will eventually be married. She is still undergoing surgical procedures, years later, to repair at least some of the damage that was done to her. At age 12 she was married to a 52-year-old man as his fifth wife; he forced her to undergo two abortions.

By the time she was 21, she was helping young girls escape from mutilation and forced marriage. When the administrative police and tribal chiefs learned what she was doing she was arrested – detained for a total of 25 times, she said. In detainment she was raped and tortured many times. She still relives those times. “I see it all as in a movie,” she said, “going through it all again.”

After her release, a minister in the Kenyan government threatened to kill her, and she felt she had to leave the country. She fled to Tanzania, and then to the island of Zanzibar, where she found Muslims torturing Christians. (But she added that on many occasions she has seen Muslims protecting Christians, too.)

She finally did make it to the U.S. as a refugee seeking asylum. She continues her campaign in the U.S., working to help women in Kenya gain decent treatment. She still feels threatened, though, and explained gently to us that she still does not feel safe enough to let anyone touch her. Even so, she bears witness constantly to the faith that has enabled her to survive for some 30 years through so much pain and loss.

by Doug King  [2-7-08]

Eric Fair spoke to the group on Sunday evening following the talk by Lucy Mashua. He is currently a student at Princeton Theological Seminary pursuing an M.Div., and seeking ordination in the Presbyterian Church (USA).  He spoke – slowly, quietly, with utter seriousness – as one who has been on the other side of the problem. After graduating from Boston University in 1994 he enlisted into the U.S. Army.  He studied Arabic, and was assigned to the 101st Airborne (Air Assault) Division, working in military intelligence.  He deployed to Israel and Egypt as a member of the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) in 1999, receiving an honorable discharge in 2000.  [For Eric Fair's photo >>]

In 2001, Fair was hired as a police officer in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.  He left the department in 2003, in order to serve in the war effort in Iraq.  “I’ve changed since then,” he said, “but then I felt I needed to be involved.” He was hired as an interrogator by a private contractor and was assigned to interrogate detainees in Baghdad, Abu Ghraib, and Fallujah. 

It was in Fallujah that he was asked to help in the interrogation of a prisoner using sleep deprivation to get him to talk. In the process, he realized he was doing something to another human being that he simply could not do. “After three or four hours,” he said, “I had to stop.” He came back to the U.S., but was still haunted by his experience. “My wife and I fought almost every day,” and he began writing as a kind of therapy.

He resigned his position with the private security company in 2004, and was hired by the National Security Agency (NSA), which sent him back to Iraq in 2005 as an intelligence analyst.  He left NSA in early 2006.

But writing was still his therapy, and later that year he wrote a piece about the use of “enhanced interrogation methods” which he sent to the Washington Post. Thinking about the very grave consequences that might bring down upon him, he withdrew it, but then sent it again, and it was published.

He then read that essay, and we commend it strongly to your attention.

There were many questions for Fair when he finished his presentation.

The first question was about the justification for “enhanced interrogation techniques” that “they save lives.” Fair responded, “I believe that it does work. You can make people talk.”

On the use of contractors by the Department of Defense, Fair said that the practice saves money. While he was paid $125,000 a year, the DOD has no long-term costs beyond his term of service – no continuing salary, no health benefits, no pension.

Asked how he “had the sense” that he had to quit, Fair explained that “abusive interrogation is intoxicating. It’s a great feeling to have such power over another person. From what I’ve been told about heroin, it’s similar to that highly addictive drug, for it gives you a great high, and you keep chasing it the rest of your life.”

One participant noted that in his Washington Post essay he wrote, “I will never forgive myself.” Fair said with utter seriousness: “I have not forgiven myself, and I’m not sure how I can.”

On prospects for the war in Iraq, he said with equal brevity and soberness, “The war in Iraq will get worse. Mark my words.”

I think many of us had the sense that in listening to Eric Fair, and in conversations with him over the next two days, we were in the presence of one who has visited very dark places, to which most of us have never come close. And for that we may be thankful.

Speaking for myself at least, we were in the presence of a human being whose painful struggles will probably never end. To apply a label to him would be easy. But wrong. The policies of the U.S. government have hurt him perhaps as deeply as they have the detainees who have been and are being subjected to the treatment he describes with such fierce honesty.

by Doug King  [2-8-08]

The first session on Monday morning focused on the issue of torture in European and U.S. history, and considered ways our present situation both reflects and differs from our past.

The presenter for this vast subject was Scott Horton, who is an attorney and a partner with the law firm of Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler LLP in New York. He serves as adjunct faculty at Columbia Law School and is author of over 100 publications, as well as contributing to Harper's Magazine and writing the online column “No Comment” for their website. He is known for his work in emerging markets and international law, especially human rights law and the law of armed conflict. A life-long human rights advocate, Mr. Horton served as counsel to Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner, among other activists in the former Soviet Union.

Horton began by calling our attention to Paul of Tarsus, whose arrest and threatened torture at the hands of the Roman Empire is recorded in chapter 22 of Acts. Paul’s claim to be a citizen protected him from torture, because under Roman law that process was supposed to be limited to use only on non-citizens. Even as a proponent of a subversive religious movement among the followers of Jesus, he was to some degree protected.

Horton noted that the U.S., like the Roman Empire, compromises its standards on the use of coercive techniques, for “torture is by its nature both contagious and corrosive, and history knows of many efforts by states to contain it, but none of them have been effective.” Citing a recent study on the history of torture by Darius Rejali, Torture and Democracy, Horton said that from the Romans through the Nazis in World War II, the Soviets, the Communist Chinese, the Iranians under the Shah and after his overthrow, to the U.S. under George W. Bush, the use of torture always eludes control. “If permitted at all, it will undermine the integrity and worth of humanity in any society in which it is let loose. It is the ultimate social agent of corrosion.”

He added that the situation in the U.S. today is complicated by the fact that “the authors of the torture policy have hidden in the shadows and have manipulated the levers of power to shield themselves from public scrutiny and from accountability in any form. And they have successfully evaded accountability to this day.” He sees hope, however, in the emergence of three candidates for the presidency who have all made clear their “commitment to end torture.”

The situation, though, is still perilous, for the Bush Administration has established the precedent that the president can be the “decider” in the matter of using torture, and has made many judicial appointments that will provide support for this presidential prerogative (and protect the current Administration from accountability) for years to come.

Perhaps even more serious, the struggle over the use of torture is not simply a matter of law and policy, but is now “a struggle for the soul of the nation.” Pointing to the common portrayal of torture on popular TV programs (most notably “24" and other Fox Network shows), Horton noted that now for the first time in U.S. history, torture is shown as both legitimate and effective; even more threatening, those “naïve liberals” who question it are clearly pictured as enemies of the nation.

So, said Horton, we are being driven into a false choice between the use of torture and the nation’s security. In fact, he said, the use of torture undermines our security by providing false information, and by isolating us from the rest of the nations of the world. “In country after country—including many of the nations which have historically been our tightest allies–our government’s approval level is within the margin of error. That’s right. The percentage approving may actually be zero. ... This is a very heavy price, and most of it has to do with torture policy.”

So clearly, “torture is a moral issue.” But as Rick Ufford-Chase noted in opening the conference, many in our churches fear the very mention of the word as divisive and “political.” But in concluding his talk, Horton offered a positive example of religious leadership for change. In Britain, torture had been an accepted practice – though carefully limited – until the period of religious conflict from the mid-sixteenth through the mid-seventeenth century, when it was practiced more widely against dissenters.

But John Donne, best known to us as a poet, was also the dean of St. Paul’s in London, “the first church in the land.” Partly because members of his own family, as Catholics, had been imprisoned, beaten, and at least one had been tortured, he was fiercely opposed to torture as evil in itself, and something which could never be justified. On Easter Sunday of 1625, at a time when Dunne was being considered by King Charles for a possible appointment as a minister at Whitehall, he preached a two-hour sermon naming torture as an intrinsic evil.

Those who torture, said Donne, “oppose God in his purpose of dignifying the body of man, first who violate, and mangle this body, which is the organ in which God breathes, and they also which pollute and defile this body, in which Christ Jesus is apparelled ...” Horton went on to suggest that this sermon may have contributed to steps taken by the King and the judges of England which finally “marked the beginning of the sunset of legally sanctioned torture in the English-speaking world.”

So it was that the founders of the United States considered the prohibition of torture as a defining characteristic of the new nation. “George Washington was emphatic in prohibiting it, issuing standing orders for the punishment of any soldier who mistreated a prisoner. In fact, Washington said that the death penalty might be a suitable punishment for a soldier who abuses a prisoner ... The current George W. has entirely different ideas, of course.”

Horton concluded: “Remember the courage that John Donne mustered in speaking out. He spoke from the heart and he spoke from the need to make plain to his audience that the church could not be indifferent to torture as a practice. This is a model for emulation today. Can the community of the faithful make a difference on this issue? Yes, they can. They must.”

For Scott Horton’s full presentation >>
 

Tell Your Senator to Support Section 327 of H.R. 2082

from Witness in Washington Weekly, from the Washington Office of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)     [2-11-08]

by Doug King   [2-9-08]

On Monday afternoon the focus shifted to theological reflection about torture. The session was opened with a reading from the Barmen Declaration, which reflected the struggle of the Confessing Church in Germany as they stood against the demands of the Nazi state that

Christians conform to the national ideology, including Nazi symbols in their sanctuaries and much more. The declaration of the Confessing Church, led by Karl Barth, was a resounding affirmation of Jesus Christ as the Word which we must hear, and an equally clear No to the false faith proclaiming by the Nazis.

The first speaker, Dr. George Hunsinger, is Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, and was the founder of the founder of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT). An ordained Presbyterian minister, he has broad interests in the history and theology of the Reformed tradition and in “generous orthodoxy” as a way beyond the modern liberal/conservative impasse in theology and church. He has recently edited Torture Is a Moral Issue (Eerdmans, 2008), which will lift up various moral aspects of this issue from a variety of faith and academic perspectives.

Racism enters into the situation today as it did in Nazi Germany, for now “racist stereotyping is migrating to the Muslims,” like the anti-Semitism of the Nazi era, justifying whatever abusive treatment may be visited on them.

Speaking briefly about resources for work with the issue of torture, Hunsinger, like Scott Horton earlier in the day, recommended Darius Rejali’s Torture and Democracy as providing a major contribution, with its 600 pages, plus 200 pages of notes. Intimidating though that may be, he said, “it’s something you should know about.” Another resource, he added, is the NRCAT website (www.nrcat.org), suggesting that people encourage congregations and individuals to become participating members. The home page always lists four “things to do” as a helpful way people can become actively involved.

Returning to Rejali’s book, Hunsinger said he makes two major points. First, torture simply does not produce reliable information, and second, there is no such thing as “torture light,” which is what the Bush administration has been claiming. The U.S. government has tried to distinguish between “torture,” and “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” The latter it has claimed as a kind of gray area, and not a real violation of long-standing bans in U.S. and international laws banning all such actions. It has been seen as including (and permitting) forced standing for long periods, sensory deprivation, hypothermia, and waterboarding. And these “enhanced interrogation techniques” are used not singly, but clustered, so their effect is extremely coercive.

Rejali calls these techniques “clean torture,” because they don’t leave marks on the body – so they tend to be adopted by “democratic” governments. But they are just as destructive of the human personality as physical torture, “and the trauma lasts for a lifetime.”

Noting that the phrase “enhanced interrogation techniques” (or EIT) is a direct translation of the German word used by the Gestapo, Hunsinger warned that “we are now moving toward the normalization of torture – as we heard in the confirmation hearings of Michael Mukasey for Attorney General, who insisted that “reasonable men can differ” about the circumstances in which such treatment is permissible. But, he went on, “torture fits in the same category as rape and slavery. There are no circumstances in which it can be acceptable.”

Turning to ways of influencing more people in our churches to stand against the use of torture, Hunsinger acknowledged the tension that we sometimes feel between faithfulness and effectiveness. But, he said, “the Bible doesn’t distinguish between them. We have to be faithful, and sometimes we can be effective too. But torture is neither faithful nor effective.”

Even in terms of effectiveness, he said, torture is not making our world any safer. In fact, our policies are legitimating the use of torture in places like Uzbekistan. They are alienating the moderate Muslims whose support against terrorism will be absolutely essential. Rather than creating security, we are creating a climate of deepening fear, which leads to secrecy, destruction, torture, extra-judicial killings, and a police state.

Healing for survivors

Bucher began by speaking of her work in the exhuming of massacre sites in Central America. “The motivation of the people I work with,” she explained, “is asserting the right to truth, under international law that says you have the right to know what happened to your family.” The talking the goes on through the process, she said, helps the survivors and others as well.

If torture is used as a way by which a government can tear apart social groups, then confronting that torture helps to rebuild the torn social bonds. Therefore much of her work is devoted to “finding safe places where communities of healing can happen. Part of that process, too, is providing support systems for the care-givers of the survivors of torture.

Bucher then raised the question of how we will provide support in the years ahead for military veterans, as they begin dealing with the deep pain and guilt of what they have been through.

As an example of how this process might, she told of a visit to a community center in Colombia when she and Dr. Phil Gates were acting as accompaniers to help protect members of the Protestant Christian community from threats of violence from government and other forces in the long-running civil war there. She was listening to a woman who had survived a massacre in her village; part of her helping was to massage the woman’s hands and feet. As she and the woman talked, Phil Gates was communicating with her through body language and in other non-verbal ways, since he does not know Spanish but is very sensitive spiritually. When Bucher massaged one of the woman’s feet, she clearly was touching a very painful spot. “Why does it hurt so much here,” she asked. The woman explained that “it hurt with a deep hurt in the heel of my foot” since the day of the massacre in her village, when she watched as so many of her own family were shot to death.

So, she said, “to heal, our communities will need to learn that it’s OK to pay attention to our bodies. ... We need to learn to ask permission before touching any survivor,” because they carry pain and fear so deeply in their bodies.

And listening is a large part of the healing process. She mentioned a priest in Colombia, Padre Rafael, who had dealt with the deaths and torture of many in his parish, and was devastated by all he has seen and heard. But he spoke of spending time with Rick Ufford-Chase, who was so good at simply listening to him. That was, he said, a true “blessing.”

So this kind of intimacy, she added, “is where accompaniment can take us.” She urged people to try accompaniment, “but I warn you, you can’t go for just one month. But you’ll gain a whole new family,” because of the deep connections, even nonverbal ones, that will be created.

Bucher told also of her experience in torture counseling with Rufina Amaya, a survivor and witness of the El Mozote massacre which took place in December of 1981 in Morazán, El Salvador. As a peasant member of that community, she offered a new perspective on war and sin. “The sin of the prodigal son,” she said, “was not in spending his money, but in leaving his community. The purpose of war is to make us sin – to leave our communities.” And so, concluded Bucher, “when we are threatened by violence, we must stop, be quiet, wait, analyze what’s going on, and consult with one another, so were are not separated.”

by Doug King  [2-11-08]

The two final presentations in the conference were aimed at moving the group toward finding ways to deal with the resistance that seems at be present in many churches and educational institutions, to dealing with the issue of torture.

The first speaker was Dr. Edward Leroy Long, Jr., who is the James Pearsall Professor Emeritus of Christian Ethics and Theology of Culture of Drew University. He taught at Virginia Tech and Oberlin College prior to his tenure at Drew, and has served on many task forces of the Presbyterian Church since the 1960s, including the one that authored “The Presbyterian Church, Conscription, and Conscience.” He also helped to shape “Peacemaking: The Believer's Calling,” “Religion, Violence and Terrorism,” and background papers for the Church's action on Iraq. His most recent book is Facing Terrorism: Responding as Christians. Rick Ufford-Chase, introducing Dr. Long, mentioned that book as one that “touched me deeply,” and that led to numerous conversations during his moderatorial term, which “convinced me that he is one of the important seminal thinkers of the church.”

Long’s talk focused on “the way in which social witness and social action can best take place in a changed ecclesiastical and political climate.” He sees two approaches to dealing with social issues, one being “institutional social witness,” and the other “movement-oriented undertakings.” These are not entirely different, but each approach has its strengths and weaknesses.

Jesus probably founded a movement, he said, but we find ourselves gathering now because the movement became an institution, which has kept the movement going and brought its fruits to us.

Back in the 1950s and early ’60s, Robert McAfee Brown foresaw the loss of influence on the part of the mainline churches in the society, and we continue to see the effects of that important shift toward a more secular culture. So now we see a quite different situation in the church and the society: Churches do not have the influence on social and political issues that they once had. International affairs have not received steady, scholarly attention from the faith communities. No religious periodical highlights these issues, except perhaps for Sojourners. Liberation theologies no longer give the same attention to structural issues in social and political matters as neo-orthodox theologies once gave. There is a loss of idealism, and Reinhold Niebuhr’s “realism” has been replaced by a hard-headed realpolitik.

So our nation has been morally impoverished, and our prophetic witness has been weakened by the fundamental theological splits within our churches.

Thus, people who are concerned about issues such as torture find themselves working not through the institutional structures of the churches, but through special, issue-focused advocacy groups. They no longer focus their efforts on transforming their churches, but rather aim to impact the society directly.

Despite these involvements, there is no movement today dealing with war issues that has anything like the breadth and cohesiveness of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s.

Nevertheless, said Long, the social witness of the church has not ben entirely ineffective. As one example, that witness helped prevent the post-World War II peace from being entirely vindictive. And advances in civil rights were made possible partly because of the long-time social witness of churches against racial segregation.

But the need now is to think creatively about how to do our most crucial tasks: opposing torture, dealing with terrorism, and moving toward peace. Which model should we follow – developing policy within our institutional churches, or building movements aimed directly at achieving change in society?

Long then offered observations on the strengths and weaknesses of the two approaches.

Denominational and ecumenical social witness, he said, has the virtue of drawing upon a long tradition and heritage, aims to enlighten people, and thus move them to act out of their own long-held faith to effect change. In doing this, the social witness approach draws on resources of scholarship in social ethics, and offer careful analysis rather than simply stating positions.

But there are limitations. With the loss of consensus in mainline religious bodies, there is often no willingness to take the issues seriously. Also the “managerial model” of leadership in the churches views the prophetic model as a threat to the “unity” and “peace” of the church, and therefore tries to avoid it.

In contrast, the movement approach to change, in which groups come together voluntarily to advocate for a particular agenda, is aimed at achieving direct changes in society. Movements don’t need to worry about building long-term constituency support, protecting their tax status, and such things. And with a specific agenda, they don’t have to deal with broader cultural tensions.

But movements too have their weaknesses. They may have trouble gaining attention for their causes. They may arouse resentment because they tend to be confrontational. And they can be infected “by a self-congratulatory narcissism” that views the rest of the world as evil – and this too may cut them off from much potential support.

As an ethicist, Long then turned to consider the issue of torture itself, which is being supported by the argument that it is effective, and is being justified by the war ethic of a crusade. One problem, he said, is the “just war theory can be applied too simply.” Further, the related “doctrine of last recourse” (that a war may be justified only if it is undertaken after all other means of resolving a conflict have been tried) needs to be used more carefully. Further, he asserted, we must argue against the assumption that violence is the best response to violence. Rather, he argued, we should view terrorism as a criminal action, and respond to it appropriately with some form of police action.

Behind all of this, he suggested, we need to deal with the ways in which our culture (including sports, the media, and so on) are encouraging recourse to violence as a legitimate (or even preferred) way of solving problems. 

Finally, Long wondered aloud why Rick Ufford-Chase’s call (during his moderatorial term) for the church to renounce violence got so little response from the Presbyterian Church as a whole. We may, he suggested, be “essentially deaf to questions like that,” because we have not been dealing in our churches (or our colleges and seminaries) with the fundamental root causes of war. As a doctor aims both to ease the symptoms of an illness and to eradicate the cause, we must look deeper than the immediate symptoms of our time to deal with the causes.

That, he said, “would require a major intellectual effort ... much greater than any of us is doing at the present. And it would have to take place all across the church, in its bureaucracies, in its colleges and seminaries, in parishes and in publications.” And, he concluded, “perhaps this is just the time when something like this might just happen.”

Facing our complicity, needing conversion:  More questions

by Doug King   [2-12-08]

The evening discussion continued with Dr. Mark Douglas, Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at Columbia Theological Seminary, who began by agreeing with what others had said: that people in congregations are reluctant to talk about torture. But the reason, he said, is that “we don’t have the language to talk about it.” Some churches have tried to deal with the painful subject, but they don’t have the theological tools that we need.

Douglas, who received his M.Div. and Th.M degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. from University of Virginia, has written a number of articles including "Changing the Rules: Just War Theory in the 21st Century," "Theological Argument and the Case Against Capital Punishment," and "Resistance and the Sovereignty of God." He also wrote Confessing Christ in the 21^st Century. So he brought to the discussion a history of dealing with questions related to the one at the center of the conference, and he proceeded to set out a string of questions, listing some of the possible answers to each of them, leading finally to the question of the churches’ complicity in the use of torture today.

First, he asked why Christians are not raising more questions about the U.S. use of torture. One answer may be that they just don’t care, or that they don’t want to risk offending others. Perhaps people feel they do not have “permission” to question such actions by the U.S. government, or they may feel mute in the face of such a huge problem. Or perhaps, he suggested, we don’t even know how to begin asking questions about this matter. His talk would be aimed at moving further into thinking theologically about these questions.

Then Douglas asked why, even so, Christians do ask questions. We ask questions to get answers, for starters. And we do need to gain knowledge. But seeking to know without allowing ourselves to be known in the process, allowing ourselves to be changed, means we really cannot receive authentic answers. Asking questions is not enough if we are not open to the personal implications and demands that might come to us through the answers.

Christians also ask questions, he continued, to give a basis for our faith. But he then asked whether faith is itself the goal of our questioning, or is to be a starting point for our relating with God and with the world. And we ask questions to keep ourselves open to “the new” in the world, to escape the trap of thinking everything must fit into some universal order in our view of the world. In other words, authentic questioning involves an attitude of skepticism – but there is always the danger that it can degenerate into cynicism. And “we can’t really live as cynics.”

The process of asking questions, he went on, is really part of our life-long process of conversion and sanctification. Our questions, then, open us to our proper ends as God’s creatures: a sense of ourselves as a mystery, and the giving of wonder and praise to God. This process is not a solitary one, though; our questioning must be done in the community of the church – whether as an institution or a movement. Douglas concluded his thoughts on the process of questioning by remind us that “the God we worship says ‘ask,’ and ‘seek,’ and ‘knock.’”

The next question for Douglas was “what do we know about torture?” His answers were brief, and sharp: We know it is not effective. We know it is immoral on biblical and theological grounds. We know it’s illegal, under national and international bans. It’s a horror. And we know 45% of the American people think it is often or sometimes justified. And finally, we know the U.S. is doing it – in our names.

So he came to the next question – why is it going on? Douglas mentioned a number of answers that are given to this one. The media are promoting it. (But that is a symptom, perhaps an exacerbating factor, but not the cause.) The Justice Department has been too weak to rein it in. (But it is much more than that.) The events of 9/11 require a new set of rules. (But no single event can never change all the rules.) The current administration is evil. (But if you say yes to that, what do we mean by evil here? And could they have manufactured public support out of nothing?) We prefer honesty to hypocrisy. (The idea here is that it’s always been going on, and now we’re just being honest about it. But Douglas said this answer is just too awful to entertain.) We the American people are just ignorant. (But it seems more likely that we are choosing not to see the reality that is painfully visible.) 

Or – and now Douglas seemed to be moving toward more plausible answers to the question of what’s going on – it may really be not about gaining information, but all about the gaining of control – control of the individual person’s body, and control of the social body as well. We find ourselves in a world where we’re not sure of our control, so we need this reassurance that we’re in charge. We do it, then, “to preserve the fallacy of our own invulnerability.” The sad paradox here, though, is that our sense of control inevitably grows shakier than ever in a world where torture can happen.

So torture arises not out of our need for knowledge – not out of our ego. It is rooted in our need for control – our id. So our turning against torture will come not from what we know about torture, but about what we feel about it. Opposition to torture will come not just from education, but from conversion.

This brought him to his final set of questions – about our complicity and what kind of conversion it will take to deal with it.

First, should we be trying to get away from our complicity in the use of torture, by making ourselves holy, by separating ourselves from this profane reality? But then we would be trying to escape the reality of our own sin, to sanctify ourselves apart from God.

Or should we be “realists” and surrender to our complicity in the use of torture as simply a part of an immoral world? But that would be simply to give in to sin.

Or should we learn from this terrible situation? But what are we to learn here? Douglas offered these possible learnings:

We might learn how we are shaped by our own understandings of sin, and by our own relationality, which lead us into the “demonization” of those we see as our enemies.

And we might learn that our connectedness, our empathy with other persons, is powerful, but that it has limits – so we know we can never enter completely into another’s shoes, and our efforts to help survivors of torture may just exacerbate their problems.

Further, we might learn that “what we oppose ‘out there’ we can also face ‘in here’” – the anxieties and hostilities that we carry within ourselves. So we need to get in touch with what we’re most deeply afraid of.

This leads to an even more challenging question: What does fidelity look like in such a complex and fearful situation? What does it look like if we love our enemies in such a situation? And if we love our neighbors? How do we love both? Who are our neighbors – and our enemies?

After his talk, Douglas was asked to say more about the virtue of patience, and what it may tell us about living in our time. He responded: “Most of us have a desire to see things right, to see problems solved. ... [but] torturers are ultimately impatient people,” he said , “doing the most they can to make the world the way they want it to be.”

Rick Ufford-Chase responded to Douglas’ call for patience by saying that he has spent the last 20 years focusing on four critical issues: “the economic injustice in the midst of globalization, massive migrations of people, peacemaking and the challenge around the war on terror ... and now the question about torture. ... And I’ve never been more depressed than I am now. So ... I’m having a hard time living in the questions right now. ... I sense that the next 30 years of my life will be about resistance.”

Douglas responded that “every time I despair, I have to remind myself that despair is a sin, that God’s work is so powerful. ... I need to practice learning to see what God is doing even in the broken systems.” He went on to say that some people move too quickly from optimism to despair, because they rely on what they can do, rather than placing hope in what God can do.

Ufford-Chase responded by saying “I don’t disagree,” but added a question of his own: “So what is my relation to the Church? Do I work there for change, or do I go to the edges of the church?”

Archbishop Oscar Romero said it best, he added: “‘Try not to live on hope, because unfulfilled hope leads to despair, and we have no need of a despairing people.’ And in the transition he tries to be faithful. My question is theologically, where should the church be, not just where should I be? Do we go into the heart of the institution and try to make changes, or do we work at the edges?”

AND  they are asking for help to generate $10,000 in prize money.
[2-21-08]

Starting April 1^st  No2Torture will begin soliciting submissions on the popular site Youtube, of 60 second videos that address from a No 2 Torture perspective the question, "What's the big deal about torture?" They will collect these submissions to be judged by a panel of prominent activists in the Anti-Torture movement. The ten best videos will be awarded $1,000 prizes. The money for these cash awards must come from you, our No 2 Torture supporters. All of these videos will then become the property of No 2 Torture to be used in future information campaigns online and on television to continue conscience raising in this nation. They have already been given a $1,000 matching gift and $300 towards the match.

PVJ's Facebook page

Mitch Trigger, PVJ's Secretary/Communicator, has created a Facebook page where Witherspoon members and others can gather to exchange news and views. Mitch and a few others have posted bits of news, both personal and organizational. But there’s room for more!

John Shuck’s new "Religion for Life" website

Long-time and stimulating blogger John Shuck, a Presbyterian minister currently serving as pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton, Tenn., writes about spirituality, culture, religion (both organized and disorganized), life, evolution, literature, Jesus, and lightening up.

Click here for his blog posts.

John Harris’ Summit to Shore blogspot

Voices of Sophia blog

Heather Reichgott, who has created this new blog for Voices of Sophia, introduces it:

Got more blogs to recommend?