January 10, 2010

Evangelicals and Torture revisited

And this is rather stunning. Via slacktivist, I read of the National Association of Evangelicals'year-end survey on the top moral issues facing America. No one will be surprised to read that abortion made the top moral outrage, but the other two are really ironic, yet clear that the evangelicals are completely irony impaired.

Number 3 is "misstreatment of others" which includes "our blindness and silence to injustices here and around the world. Social ills like poverty, malnutrition, homelessness, human trafficking, and so many other..." Kudos to evangelicals (seriously) for mentioning poverty and malnutrition, as well as homelessness. I am reminded that their favorite President BW (before W), Ronald Reagan dismissed the homeless in the 1980s as being mentally ill. I will hope that these evangelicals chided President Reagan, but I doubt it.

No, the irony is that "misstreatment of others" does not appear to include torture. And that is highlighted by moral issue number 2: moral relativism. When I read that I had to close my mouth manually. Moral relativism? You mean like deciding that something is ok because the other people are worse? Or deciding that torture is acceptable for us because we are in a vicious fight with people lacking morals or Christ?

I just searched the NAE website for the word torture. "Total: 0 results found."

Sigh

2 comments:

leighton said...

I like Fred Clark's take on this. As you and he both point out, it's funny how these surveys always conclude that the problem is all these pesky non-evangelicals.

leighton said...

...And I notice just now that you linked the very link I linked. Well done, me! Way to read.