Torture Debate Prompts Evangelical Soul-Searching

FILE - In this June 26, 2006 file photo, reviewed by US military officials, a foot shackle is bolted...

FILE - In this June 26, 2006 file photo, reviewed by US military officials, a foot shackle is bolted to a floor covered by a decorative carpet, inside Interview Room 1, where prisoners are interrogated, inside Cell Block A at Camp 5 maximum security prison, Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)

(AP)

Among evangelical leaders, debate over the use of harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists has prompted introspection about faith, ethics, the Golden Rule, just wars, Jack Bauer and Jesus.

A number of evangelical leaders have made opposition to torture without exceptions a moral cause over the past three years, part of a broadening of the movement's agenda beyond traditional culture war issues. Others in the movement, including many Christian right leaders, have largely resisted or stayed silent.

Now, President Barack Obama's release of Bush administration memos justifying harsh interrogation techniques and a new poll showing white evangelicals more sympathetic to torture have leaders taking stock of whether evangelical opinion has shifted on the topic.

"I have said before that torture is like a bone caught in our throat — we can't swallow it and we can't spit it out," said David Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University in Atlanta and president of Evangelicals for Human Rights. "I think we're still there."

The poll data from a survey of 742 U.S. adults released April 29 by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found 62 percent of white evangelical Protestants said torture of a suspected terrorist could be often or sometimes justified to obtain important information.

By contrast, 51 percent of white non-Hispanic Catholics, 46 percent of white mainline Protestants and 40 percent of the religiously unaffiliated held that position.

Those who attend religious services at least once a week were more likely than those who rarely or never attend to say torture is sometimes or often justified in that scenario — 54 percent to 42 percent.

The findings immediately prompted questions for evangelicals: How exactly did poll participants define torture, since the survey did not? Did evangelicals reach their conclusions because of their religious beliefs, or their politics or ideological leanings? How do you untangle those factors from each other?