Medeshi 25 Oct, 2008Real Christians Do No Wrong: Brutal Behavior in the War on Terror Isn't Real Brutality When Christians Do It
Although it is technically inconsistent with Christian doctrine for a Christian to regard themselves as incapable of doing wrong, many seem to adopt this on a practical level and especially when it comes to acts designed to further a Christian religious or political agenda. An action committed by governments like those in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, or communist North Korea will be reviled as violations of human rights, but when committed by Christian America in the War on Terror and the War on Islamofascism the same sort of action is welcomed as necessary or even as a sign that the government has our best interests at heart.
Although it is technically inconsistent with Christian doctrine for a Christian to regard themselves as incapable of doing wrong, many seem to adopt this on a practical level and especially when it comes to acts designed to further a Christian religious or political agenda. An action committed by governments like those in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, or communist North Korea will be reviled as violations of human rights, but when committed by Christian America in the War on Terror and the War on Islamofascism the same sort of action is welcomed as necessary or even as a sign that the government has our best interests at heart.
(Original Poster: Northwestern University)
Conservative evangelical Christians in America are very vocal and passionate supporters of both the Republican Party and of George W. Bush. If they think that the Bush administration has done anything "sinful" in the War on Terror, they have been fairly quiet about it. We hear loud denouncements of abortion and homosexuality on a regular basis. We do not hear such denouncements of "alternative" and aggressive interrogation methods, of secret prisons in foreign countries where prisoners can be questioned without oversight, of detaining of imprisoning American citizens without charges or trials, of domestic spying without warrants or court oversight, or of assertions of presidential authority to ignore both the courts and Congress.
We can learn a lot about a person and about an ideology by looking at what sorts of actions they choose to condemn and what they choose to accept, facilitate, or even encourage. Christian Nationalists in America condemn pornography, homosexuality, and gay marriage, They accept, facilitate, or even encourage secret prisons, torture, warrantless domestic spying, imprisoning American citizens without trial, and so forth. They would condemn (and have condemned in the past) such behavior when done by other nations, but it's suddenly not so wrong when done by their Christian president.
The above image was taken from a World War II poster which also stated as its headline "This is Nazi Brutality," but the text was about how Nazi troops had killed the men of Lidice, Czechoslovakia and deported all of the women to concentration camps. The image of a prisoner with a hood over his head is disturbingly close to the iconic photograph from Abu Ghraib, but that may be because brutal regimes keep repeating the same tactics generation after generation.
Ath.Conservative evangelical Christians in America are very vocal and passionate supporters of both the Republican Party and of George W. Bush. If they think that the Bush administration has done anything "sinful" in the War on Terror, they have been fairly quiet about it. We hear loud denouncements of abortion and homosexuality on a regular basis. We do not hear such denouncements of "alternative" and aggressive interrogation methods, of secret prisons in foreign countries where prisoners can be questioned without oversight, of detaining of imprisoning American citizens without charges or trials, of domestic spying without warrants or court oversight, or of assertions of presidential authority to ignore both the courts and Congress.
We can learn a lot about a person and about an ideology by looking at what sorts of actions they choose to condemn and what they choose to accept, facilitate, or even encourage. Christian Nationalists in America condemn pornography, homosexuality, and gay marriage, They accept, facilitate, or even encourage secret prisons, torture, warrantless domestic spying, imprisoning American citizens without trial, and so forth. They would condemn (and have condemned in the past) such behavior when done by other nations, but it's suddenly not so wrong when done by their Christian president.
The above image was taken from a World War II poster which also stated as its headline "This is Nazi Brutality," but the text was about how Nazi troops had killed the men of Lidice, Czechoslovakia and deported all of the women to concentration camps. The image of a prisoner with a hood over his head is disturbingly close to the iconic photograph from Abu Ghraib, but that may be because brutal regimes keep repeating the same tactics generation after generation.
