Torture debate stirs evangelical soul-searching

The release of Bush-era memos justifying harsh tactics has leaders taking stock of adherents' views.

By ERIC GORSKI, The Associated Press May 16, 2009

enlarge 2005 Associated Press file photo

This photo shows ankle shackles locked to a chair and the floor in an interrogation room at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. A poll shows white evangelicals are more likely to find torture justifiable.

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 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 culture war issues. Others in the movement, including many Christian right leaders, have largely resisted or stayed silent.

Now, President 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.

The poll data from a survey of 742 U.S. adults>>>