Not an ordinary enemy

To begin with, I must admit that I fundamentally agree with The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission President Richard Land’s position on the issue of torture as referenced in the article “‘Waterboarding’ is torture and never ethical for intelligence gathering, says SBC’s Land” in the May 21 issue. We as a civilized society and as Christians should normally take the higher moral ground in war, and we can normally afford to wage war by our own ethics and the Geneva Convention rules. However, we do not fight a normal or ordinary enemy in the Islamic terrorists — our culture and the terrorist culture are coming from widely divergent ethics and worldviews. We do our best to minimize innocent deaths in war, yet this enemy rejoices in the death of men, women and children who have no way to defend themselves. They are the kind of people who truly relish and enjoy the culture of death that they have created for themselves.

Against such an enemy, I would say it is unethical to allow them to continue to secretly plan their terrorist acts that target our cities and our civilians. I do not think that such a position contradicts my faith in Christ or the Bible’s teachings — there are lives at stake, lives that are precious to God, lives that have been entrusted to our care for protection. Do not misunderstand me; I would rather the terrorists came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ than a knowledge of our country’s power and muscle. However, we do live in a sin-sick world where we must sometimes take an all too human action against a human problem — I believe the Bible shows us that God works through the human agencies of free will and action to accomplish His purposes.

I think this could be a situation where satanic forces must be opposed with might, and since so much of the hatred is focused on our Western civilization, perhaps God has given the Western world the responsibility for trying to prevent or hinder Satan’s schemes. Enhanced interrogation and its use in this context does not necessarily mean we have gone down that “very slippery slope to dark and dangerous places” as Dr. Land is quoted as saying, in my opinion. As Christians, we should pray for our leaders and that we can do what is right in this world and that we can be a people strong enough to put limits on ourselves and not descend into barbarism as our enemies have done.

Rob Palmer
Jemison, Ala.