Favorite Religion Story of the Day

Pew: Church-Goers Like Torture More

They were told not to damage the grass of the earth or any green growth or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were allowed to torture them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torture was like the torture of a scorpion when it stings someone.
-Revelation 9:4,5, NRSV

According to a new study from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, those who attend church at least weekly are more prone to say that torture is justifiable. Suffice it to say that, in the eyes of those who support the use of torture, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and Abu Zubaydah do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

A combined 54 percent of at-least-weekly church-goers say torture is either often or sometimes justifiable; for those who attend monthly or a few times a year, that figure is 51 percent; for those who do not attend, it is 42 percent.

Evangelicals, according to the survey, are more prone to saying torture is justifiable than members of the nation's other two main Christian groups: so-called "mainline" Protestants and white, non-Hispanic Catholics. Unaffiliateds--a conglomerated group of atheists, agnostics, and those who say their religion is "nothing in particular--support torture the least: 40 percent say it's justifiable often or sometimes.

How could this be? What happened to forgiveness and the other cheek? The Lamb of God's teachings stop at the walls of Guantanamo?

I have some questions for Mark Ambinder who wrote the piece above:

• Have you ever heard an clunky out-of-tune piano and a wheezy organ play together?
• Have you ever heard a fat lady warble a screamingly high soprano solo she never should have tried?
• Have you ever sat in a hot sanctuary as the sermon went 20 minutes longer than usual?
• Have you ever stood through an altar call that went on for 15 minutes because nobody would respond?
• Have you ever watched 200 slides of poor people some missionary took in Guatemala?
• Have you ever watched a worship service drama skit?
• Have you ever heard people with no discernible talent try and sing contemporary Christian music?
• Have you ever heard contemporary Christian music?

Churchgoers know torture.