Christians, Conservatives, and Torture
Rod pronounces the Pew Forum’s finding that Christians – and Catholic, Evangelical, and frequently churchgoing ones in particular – are more supportive of torture than non-Christians to be “shocking”, but of course it’s not that at all. There are plenty of data showing that Christians’ attitudes toward abortion, contraception, and the rest don’t differ very significantly from those of the rest of society; the real factor, of course, lies in political affiliations, and I have little doubt that most of the relevant findings can be explained in terms of the fact that frequently churchgoing Catholics and Evangelicals are especially likely to identify as Republicans.
“What on earth are these Christians hearing at church?!” asks Rod. Perhaps it’s had something to do with there being a moral obligation to support the GOP in the face of the Democratic menace.
Update: Razib’s got the data. He concludes:
Politics & religion matter [in] shaping opinions. But to me it looks like religion has a much stronger independent effect on abortion than the death penalty. If I had to bet, I think torture would be more like death penalty.
Filed under: morality, politics, religion, torture
But isn’t there a case to be made that right-leaning evangelicals’ theology skews disproportionately towards fear, and that torture of outsiders is thus more comprehensible than if the theology focused on obligations, works, mercy, etc.? (The Catholics score uncomfortably high as well, but not even close to church-going evangelicals. Ditto goes for the generally more liberal non-religious.)
Sure, there’s a case to be made. And obviously, disentangling correlation and causation, uncovering common causes, etc. is extremely difficult in this kind of situation: after all, it could be because these people are torture supporters that they end up supporting the GOP. But I’d suspect that - just as with Democrat-leaning Catholics who are effectively pro-choice - political identification, and the way that peer pressure affects it, is as big a contributing factor as any.
Pew Forum, Shew Forum.. blah blah. I find it very difficult to believe that Evangelicals are more likely to support torture. I am an Evangelical Christian and a real Jesus freak, and I do not know anyone who supports torture but then I hardly know evangelical groups who voted en masse for McCain either.
What would be the rationale for supporting an act of violence that is ABSOLUTELY DIAMETRICALLY opposed to our faith???? This is the usual nonsense poll and “research” crap and “media” BS.
Because the far right have co-opted the Republican party and wear the robe of the extremist fork carrying robed intolerants.. does not mean the rest of us believers are standing behind then screaming “AYE” in one united screech. We are not! At least not those of us who know the word,and thus know God.
We, and by we I mean thinking, intelligent and spirit filled Christians not unthinking easily led sheep portrayed by the press, support a Justice SYSTEM which holds criminals accountable for their crimes. We, and I mean thinking Christians,absolutely do not support a “third world/burn suspects in the street” mentality!
I find these so called studies on evangelicals and the largely fabricated findings, distasteful– and a vivid example of how easy it is to sway the perceptions and opinions of the average man by the release of these unsupportable “findings”.
Since (lamentably) “torture” has become a contested word in the public square right now, it’s not especially clear to me what mindset is revealed by this data. That’s not to say it isn’t shameful and a scandal, and certainly party allegiance has something to do with it. But right now it would seem particularly difficult to know exactly what the respondents take the poll to be asking about. Somehow I doubt many of the people who (to their discredit) answered that using torture against terrorists was often or sometimes justified took themselves to be proclaiming their support for bringing back the rack or the thumbscrews. Again, that still doesn’t let them off the hook by any means; it really just shows how insidious the corruption of language and moral sensibility is. But I think it highly plausible that these respondents take themselves to be answering a question about the torture that’s been in the news, about which the most obvious fact to them is that lots of people in their favored party are saying wasn’t torture at all, or was only borderline torture, or a little bit of torture in extreme circumstances, etc.
SUSPECTED terrorists, Joe. But on the whole I think this is right, though note that the term used in the survey question WAS torture, and not “enhanced interrogation techniques” or whatever. So the operative phenomenon seems to be a somewhat different one than what Orwell described.