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The issue of government-sponsored torture of suspected terrorists and so-called enemy combatants is one of the great stains on American democracy in the past 5 years. The irony of attempting to spread democracy around the world while undermining it at home has not been lost on journalists and the American people in general.
Several weeks ago my congregation's board voted to endorse the National Religious Campaign Against Torture and to participate in their Banners Across America Campaign in which churches across the country are posting banners like ours on the exterior of their buildings.
I remarked this week to my congregation, as we held up the banner in worship for everyone to see, that it seems ridiculous that we would even need to make a statement as self-evident as "Torture is a Moral Issue," but apparently we do.
If you click here you will see that the Adventist Peace Fellowship is a member organization of the NRCAT and Monte Sahlin is our representative there.
I hope you will consider visiting their site and taking some action on this issue today. You could start here by endorsing a "declaration of principles for an executive order banning torture."
Well done Hollywood SDA!!!
Posted by: Johnny A. Ramirez | July 02, 2008 at 05:36 PM
Great!! Thanks for supporting the campaign against torture. There are now more than 300 congregations who have placed banners as a public witness on this topic.
Posted by: Monte Sahlin | July 03, 2008 at 05:08 AM
What a great witness!
Posted by: Alex | July 05, 2008 at 07:19 PM
I can't wait to come home and see this sign in person! I'm proud of our church.
I saw one of these signs somewhere along the freeway on my eight-hour drive from Asheville, North Carolina to Fairfax, Virginia. I saw the deep black poster with the bright white text, "Torture is a moral issue!" and got all excited. What a departure from so many other churches I saw in the south!
Then I saw that it was a Universalist Unitarian church.
That made me wonder about the perception of justice work for the kingdom of God in the South, amidst deep fundamentalism. Is it seen mostly as the purview of churches so liberal they really aren't Christian any more? And does that leave justice as a perceived option for a fundamentalist Baptist church, or is justice too wrapped up in a liberal agenda?
Interestingly enough, the church were I shot the photo in the other blog post is pastored by a man named "Jimmy Justice." So there is a justice ministry at an independent fundamentalist Baptist church after-all.
Posted by: Scott Arany | July 07, 2008 at 07:50 PM