An Evangelical Christian Comments

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Its a bit long, but look closely at highlighted paragraphs...

Moral tone shrouds unjust acts

By RANDALL BALMER
First published: Saturday, July 29, 2006

As an evangelical Christian, as someone who numbers himself among the followers of Jesus, my politics point toward the left, a posture that places me squarely at odds with evangelicals aligned with the religious right. I find their unflinching allegiance to the Bush administration and its position on a range of issues -- from the environment to the prosecution of the war in Iraq -- inimical to the Scriptures that we evangelicals claim as our guide.

The Bible contains something like 2,000 references to the poor, and Jesus spoke repeatedly about a believer's responsibility to those he called "the least of these." I've yet to understand how those teachings square with tax cuts for the affluent or the persistent refusal to raise the minimum wage. Jesus made it a habit to hang around with the cultural outcasts of his day, and the apostle Paul insisted in Christ there is no preference among nationalities and no distinction between the sexes. How are the teachings of the New Testament consistent with those who would deny rights to anyone -- or immigrants or Muslims or women or gays?

Jesus, to take another example, expressed concern for the tiniest sparrow, yet the religious right, as evidenced by a 1999 document called the Cornwall Declaration and by their silence on global warming, prefers to sacrifice the natural world on the altar of free enterprise. Wouldn't it be logical to assume that those who claim to believe in intelligent design would seek to protect the intelligent designer's handiwork? I am not among that minority of Christians who believe that the use of military force is never justified. The Allied resistance to Adolph Hitler in World War II, for instance, provides an example of a just war. But is the war in Iraq morally justifiable?

For centuries, Christians have asked certain questions to determine whether or not armed conflict is justified: Is it a defensive war? Is military action undertaken as a last resort, after all other options have been exhausted? Is the armed response proportional to the provocation? Have measures been taken to protect civilians, now perishing at a rate of more than 100 a day?

I've yet to be persuaded that the war in Iraq meets any of these criteria.

I suspect that when Jesus asked us to love our enemies, he probably didn't mean that we should torture or kill them. In the course of writing "Thy Kingdom Come," I contacted eight religious right groups with a straightforward query. Please send me, I asked, a copy of your organization's position on the use of torture. Now, remember that these are groups with detailed position papers on everything from stem-cell research to same-sex marriage (both of which they oppose).

Only two organizations -- the Family Research Council and Institute of Religion and Democracy -- responded to my inquiry. Both of them supported the Bush administration's policies on torture against those it has designated "enemy combatants." These are people who profess to be pro-life, who claim to be able to hear a "fetal scream." Yet they have turned a deaf ear to the cries of those who are being tortured in the name of our government.

What about social issues, especially abortion and homosexuality? Here I find a curious inconsistency among many who claim the Scriptures as the basis for their beliefs. The Bible says a great deal about acting with justice and caring for the poor, but comparatively little about homosexuality and virtually nothing about abortion (we could quibble over a couple of verses). Yet the religious right has fashioned its entire "family values" agenda in opposition to homosexuality and abortion, advocating positions that would seriously compromise personal liberties. (I happen to believe that the surest way to curtail abortion is to change the moral climate surrounding the issue. I have no interest in making abortion illegal; I would like to make it unthinkable.)

I follow a man who called his followers to be peacemakers and who suggested that the meek would inherit the earth. This Man of Sorrows endured torture at the hands of his political enemies. He also condemned the hypocrites: those who were always pointing out the faults of others while failing to recognize their own shortcomings. I won't be marching anytime soon in the ranks of the religious right.

Randall Balmer, professor of American religious history at Barnard College, Columbia University, is the author of "Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America: An Evangelical's Lament" (Basic Books). He was recently ordained a transitional deacon in the Episcopal Church.

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Good one Andy....thanks, this will get passed along......

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the kilted one

but, but, our enemies are "different" from us. it's ok to torture people who are "different" right?

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Nice article, but I do believe that the mimimum wage argument is short-sighted. I don't see how waving a magic wand in a capital society. *poof* minimum wage is $10/hr. How long does it take for the price of goods and services to catch up? My guess is not long. The price of luxury goods goes up and the wealthy start saying "I guess I really don't NEED it" and the economy becomes stagnant.

Another thought is: I wonder how many people with automatic government induced minimum wage increases will put families above the poverty line and for a few more cents or dollars an hour, these families suddenly don't qualify for free health care and/or food.

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Gone Fishin

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I am glad the peaceful religion of Islam is held up to the high standard.

Were the soliders who tortured wrong absolutely. But the prisoner in the USA (US Army) prison is treated 100 times better than a prisoner in a Muslim prison. Our soliders are not beheading people at least. The difference between the US and the Muslim coward combatants is that we prosecute those who do wrong to the prisoners entrusted to the care of the prison. You want moral arguments that is one right there. We punish the actions of those who are wrong, no matter how large or small they seem.

I do not see any Islamic groups condeming the acts of their "brethren" who commit acts in the name of Islam. How many prosecutions have their been in Islamic countries for those atrocities. I doubt very many.

We may not follow the Geneva Protocols to the letter, but I bet a prisoner in our custody eats, worships and is treated more humanely than most PEOPLE in Muslim countries.

A good friend of mine was in charge of a prison in Iraq. He told me untold stories of how much the USA went out of their way to make more than resonable accomadations for the prisoners.

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the kilted one

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