Where does the Bible absolutely condemn torture? Romans 13 authorizes the State to use violence to protect its citizenry and to establish order. If one framed the Golden Rule as the question in the article did, then one would have to condemn any punishment since I (inconsistently) would not want to go to prison or be executed if I committed a crime. Kant's positive formulation of the Golden Rule in the form of the Categorical Imperative authorizes the State to inflict a comparable pain on the perpetrator as he inflicted on his victim. Rationally, he must agree to the punishment in order to be consistent--if I murdered another, then I should be killed. The difference between a terrorist and an American soldier should be obvious. Americans do not deliberately target civilians for attack. If they do so, then they should be punished.

There are sound reasons for torture. In some cases, valuable information can be gained to prevent the deaths of innocent people. A guilty terrorist and an innocent non-combatant are not on the same moral plane due to the choices each has made in respecting the rights of others. Terrorists forfeited their rights when they freely chose to attack non-combatants.

I do not know how familiar Achilles is with the Bible, but primarily you can look at sayings of Jesus like - THE GREATEST commandment is to LOVE God and the second is EQUAL to it - LOVE your neighbor. This becomes all the more evident in the LIFE OF CHRIST. He advanced His agenda, not by way of torture, but sacrifice. It worked. 2000 years later on a different continent we still know what He taught and stood for. Paul, in telling Timothy about how to set up a church reminded him by saying that the goal of our instruction, in all that I am giving you to have these churches do, is LOVE. For Christians, whether they be American Christians or Iranian, or Iraqi, they are called to walk as Jesus walked. The apostle John, who once had a terrorist mind himself with his brother James sought to call down fire from the sky to kill unbelievers . Fortunately, he repented and came to his senses. He converted and changed so drastically he became known as the apostle of love. He wrote a very good treaties on how we as Christians should behave (1 John). He said if we are going to call ourselves Christians or followers of Christ, then shouldn't we walk as He walked? He spoke much about love in that letter.
Don't get me wrong. You can torture, just don't claim to be a follower of Christ – it is contradictory and no one will understand the true Christ that has been revealed. You will be conveying a picture of a false Christ, and what good will that be?
The state is not the church. The state has a sword to conduct its business. The state will torture, thinking it doing the world good, but we know all they do is perpetrate injustice that constantly calls out for more acts of violence. That is why the founders of our country sought to limit its power. Switzerland does not give any power to the president to conduct war and everyone is required to be armed. Consequently, they stay out of wars. They have gone where we should be.
God forbade king David from building a house of worship. Do you know why? Wasn't he a man after God's own heart? He was in a sense, but not in fulness. God forbid him because his hands were BLOODY. David had much dirty work to do (government), yet he loved God because He knew God was a loving, merciful, gracious Father (read the Psalms). This is the conflict that we in America have. We have a government that ideally turns to us and asks, "What do you think?" "What should we do?" We get involved and to the degree that we do we get confronted with issues like torture. We see on one hand the necessity, but our calling from above says take a different route. It is not easy to work out the conflict.
I suggest you study your beliefs about the benefits of torture. I believed like you but found out that it isn't effective compared to other techniques. In addition, it harms far too many innocent people along the way. And ask why there are terrorists in the first place and what the difference between an insurgent and a terrorist is. These are questions not being asked, but should be, due to the nature of the subject itself and our history in the Middle East.
Well, I could say more, but I believe this article is telling us that not all is well in the churches of America. We need to wake up to this fact before we have another Germany on our hands.

Thanks for your comments. I think the key point in your analysis is when you distinguish between the church and the State. I think your distinction here is insightful. The State, as you say, is empowered by God to administer justice by force. The individual and the church defer to the State to fulfill this mission. But then you go on to say, "The state is not the church. The state has a sword to conduct its business. The state will torture, thinking it doing the world good, but we know all they do is perpetrate injustice that constantly calls out for more acts of violence."

You seem to be saying two things here, both of which I believe to be false. The first is that inflicting pain on terrorists is unjust. I fail to see the injustice in coercive interrogations of people who have murdered innocent people or are working with others to do so. By choosing to commit such acts or assist others in committing such acts, terrorists have forfeited their rights.

Second, you seem to be saying that inflicting pain on perpetrators is more likely to provoke future attacks. I would disagree here, too. Economic theory teaches us that if we lower the costs of an activity, say committing acts of terror, then people will engage in it all the more if they are otherwise so inclined. Conversely, if we raise the costs of engaging in terror, then people will engage in it less. Robert Axelrod, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, has shown through game theory and historical evidence that a "tit-for-tat" strategy works best to foster cooperation rather than one of unilateral forgiveness or some related strategy. Here is a link to his website with links to discussions on his research and related material. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~axe/ His book on the subject is *The Evolution of Cooperation.*

I do think that if we see the terrorists simply as poor, disempowered people who need to be accommodated and given assistance, then they are more, not less likely, to attack the U.S., Europe, and Israel. They perceive such overtures as weakness, and advocates of such an approach make them more likely to attack.

Reading over the rest of your comments it sounds as though you are conflicted on this matter. You seem to agree that violence can be required at times. For example, "you say, What should we do?" We get involved and to the degree that we do we get confronted with issues like torture. We see on one hand the necessity, but our calling from above says take a different route. It is not easy to work out the conflict. " I agree that we should not lunge into violence without care. It can be addictive and corrosive to the soul. Wars can be unnecessary, costly, and destructive of our liberty. I agree with you on these concerns. But I do think that a humanitarian view on torture is at least equally dangerous as well as being unjust. We do have to protect the innocent from the aggressive. That is why we have the State and an impulse for justice.

At the same time, of course, we should pray for all people including the terrorists that they will receive Jesus as their Savior and turn from their unjust violence and hatred of Israel (which lies at the heart of their motives). God has changed the heart of many Arab Muslims. But this personal concern should not affect governmental policy since, as you say, the State has a different mission and set of motivations from the church.

Christian nations do not torture or terrorism others. You can detect ones theology by the way they treat fellow human beings. Liberals treat dogs like people, and fundamentalists treat people like dogs. Amen. -Wendell Franklin Wentz

Let me clarify. When I said,

“The state will torture, thinking it doing the world good, but we know all they do is perpetrate injustice that constantly calls out for more acts of violence."

All I meant to say here really was what our founders said of government; it IS a necessary EVIL. It is a destructive force and we should handle it that way. See Fredrick Bastiat’s The Law for further information on that. You can listen to or read it here.

You seem to be saying two things here, both of which I believe to be false. The first is that inflicting pain on terrorists is unjust. I fail to see the injustice in coercive interrogations of people who have murdered innocent people or are working with others to do so. By choosing to commit such acts or assist others in committing such acts, terrorists have forfeited their rights.

I completely agree with you here if we limit torture to terrorists and not suspects and not detainees.

Second, you seem to be saying that inflicting pain on perpetrators is more likely to provoke future attacks. I would disagree here, too. Economic theory teaches us that if we lower the costs of an activity, say committing acts of terror, then people will engage in it all the more if they are otherwise so inclined. Conversely, if we raise the costs of engaging in terror, then people will engage in it less.

CBS news reported in 2005 that “At least 108 people have died in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, most of them violently, according to government data ...Some 65,000 prisoners have been taken during the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...”
Earlier in 2004 MSNBC reported, “The agency alleged that arrests tended to follow a pattern. “Arresting authorities entered houses usually after dark, breaking down doors, waking up residents roughly, yelling orders, forcing family members into one room under military guard while searching the rest of the house and further breaking doors, cabinets and other property,” the report said. “Sometimes they arrested all adult males present in a house, including elderly, handicapped or sick people,” it said. “Treatment often included pushing people around, insulting, taking aim with rifles, punching and kicking and striking with rifles.” It said some coalition military intelligence officers estimated that “between 70 percent and 90 percent of the persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake. They also attributed the brutality of some arrests to the lack of proper supervision of battle group units.”
The picture I get is ...

Thanks for the clarifications, Robert. I very much admire the writings of Frederic Bastiat. So, it sounds like we share a similar philosophical perspective on the role of the State. I also love French philosophy and culture. On the very nature of the State and its coercive powers, I would agree that these powers are inherently dangerous as well as necessary as you say, but I would agree more with Locke who saw the State's police and military power as force for justice if its powers are applied properly. Restrictions on "liberty" to do evil by individuals are not limits on true liberty. Such governmental power makes liberty possible for all. We have to distinguish 'liberty' from 'license.' Washington's famous dictum holds true, I believe. "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

I would agree with you on your final comments. We do have to be careful who we round up and apply coercive interrogation techniques to. I would agree that we are creating enemies when we go into Iraqi homes and humiliate the men in front of their families. The way that the aftermath of the invasion has unfolded is a mess. The U.S. military should have maintained enough troops in Iraq to re-establish order after they knocked the governing authority out of commission. What we saw in Iraq was what would happen anywhere, some places more than others, if there are no governing authorities. People have to be threatened with violence to respect others' rights, again some people more than others.

But the cases you raise here are different from the detainees at Guantanamo who were picked up on the battlefield in Afghanistan. There may have been some innocent people caught up in the process. There needs to be some sort of sifting procedures set in place to determine who was a combatant and who was not. But a number of people the U.S. has released from Guantanamo have been picked up again fighting against the U.S. So, it sounds like we are being too lenient in our sifting process. When we are, then we are endangering fellow Americans. We need to realize that in a war, sometimes innocent people suffer. At the same time, we have to do what we can to focus on actual terrorists and their supporters. I do think that Supreme Court erred in their recent ruling granting constitutional rights to due process to terrorists held by American authorities. That is going too far in practice and in principle. Only people who are parties to the social contract governing the United States are protected by its special protections ( I would loosen many of those procedural safeguards such as the Miranda decision even for Americans).

To sum up here, I would agree that we should have been more careful in establishing order in Iraq, and how we treated civilians there. Not being forceful enough up front by refusing to impose marshal law and having an insufficient number of troops to provide order and justice created the pressure to crack down indiscriminately as terrorists hid behind civilians. But that is a separate issue from picking up people on the battlefield who were, in all likelihood, involved in terrorist activities. Some lesser standard than the full protections of the U.S. Constitution should be employed to distinguish between the guilty and the innocent.