Torture: the problem

So I was watching Battlestar Galactica (yeah, that's right...I admitted it) and they were torturing this "cyborg" if you will. And I got thinking about it ethically. Combine with it the amount of violence going on today in North Africa and the Middle East, stirring in our own issues as Americans whether it be global terrorism or domestic, as in the case of Tucson, and how we treat criminals is an extremely pervasive and hot issue. And so, today, I'll simply state the problem...let you think on it, and we'll go from there...


American Evangelicals claim to be a people of the Word. They most often also claim to be strong patriots, eager to defend and promote the American way of life at great cost. In this particular context, the topic of torture will be explored in the American context, defining torture as a physical, mental, or emotional affliction enacted by a captor on a defenseless prisoner. The problem in American Evangelicalism centers on the question of which viewpoint reigns supreme when pragmatism and Scripture conflict?
This question may be divided into two sub-categories: “Is torture wrong” and “What defines torture?” Since the events at Abu Ghraib were first exposed, evangelical leaders have opined that the inhumane treatment of prisoners is wrong, yet very little has been put forward to set Biblical parameters for what defines inhumane treatment. The Christian community seems aware of the issues of torture, but are we willing to risk our national “security” to define a strong stance against it?
Unfortunately, the secure notion of “it’s them or us” has crept into the Christian perspective, replacing the Biblical stance of “love your enemy” with a pragmatic approach to observe the letter of the law regarding torture - while bending and pushing the law to permit whatever means necessary for the obtaining of information from prisoners of war. A proper Biblical position, however, dictates that while civil society has the right to, and indeed should, detain and restrain those who seek to destroy innocent life, criminals should be treated lovingly as image-bearers of God and, therefore, civilly and without any form of coercion, questioned and not tortured.