In the New Year, resolve to love your enemy
December 26, 2014
Rev. Amanda Hendler-Voss
Citizens Times
I met the accused just once at an event I attended with his sister. Years later I heard the news that he was in prison, for crimes he denied committing. Just 12 days after his wedding in Bangladesh, he was apprehended and brought to New York by the CIA — his family had no knowledge of his whereabouts for days.
And though he is a U.S. citizen by birth, my friend’s brother was held in solitary confinement for more than 1,300 days, subjected to violence on U.S. soil. It just so happens that he is a young Muslim who spoke out against American violence abroad. Regardless of his guilt or innocence, his treatment at the hands of the CIA demonstrates the unraveling of the freedom and values such tactics are said to protect.
The Senate Intelligence Committee’s recently released Torture Report describes acts of torture that have shocked the conscience of America. And during “the most wonderful time of the year,” as we move from celebrations of Christmas to the New Year, waterboarding and forced sleep deprivation are not popular holiday party topics. We’d prefer to steer clear of any mention of medically unnecessary rectal feedings, ice water baths, and the disturbing imprisonment of one detainee’s intellectually challenged family member, whose bitter cries were played on a loop to force the detainee to share information. The report offers no evidence that these torture tactics, which resulted in the death of some detainees and reduced even seasoned interrogators to tears, were effective at producing one shred of otherwise unavailable intelligence. In fact, CIA Director John Brennan stated, “Effective, non-coercive methods are available to elicit such information, methods that do not have a counter-productive impact on our national security and international standing.”
This month, many have urged us to remember “the reason for the season,” the birth of Christ into the world. For those of us who claim to follow in the ways of Jesus, we would do well to remember his command to love our neighbors, even our enemies. Those defending the use of torture will invoke their faith, while also arguing that it’s simply impractical to love our enemies. And yet Martin Luther King Jr. ignited the Civil Rights Movement by loving his enemies. South Africa threw off the shackles of apartheid without spiraling into civil war through the love of enemies. German troops in World War II surrendered themselves en masse to U.S. regiments because they knew we treated our prisoners with basic human decency. Our own U.S. Sen. Burr dismissed the torture report as “a footnote in history.” But in a time when the moral authority of American institutions has hit rock bottom — from the CIA to Congress, from police departments to the NSA — the torture report exposes a terrifying truth. The American ideals that torture claims to protect are denigrated beyond recognition by its very practice.
Today, I join hundreds of groups who make up the National Religious Campaign Against Torture in calling for Congress to put a permanent end to the CIA’s torture program. Congress can ensure that the CIA never uses torture again by passing legislation creating one common, humane standard for all interrogations and allowing the International Committee of the Red Cross access to all prisoners. I call on all who have just celebrated the true meaning of Christmas — when God took on human flesh, even that of a vulnerable infant born to peasant parents in the stench of a stable — I call on you to put down your cup of good cheer and pick up your pen or your phone to love your enemy by holding the CIA accountable.
The Rev. Amanda Hendler-Voss co-pastors Land of the Sky UCC in Asheville, which she co-founded in 2009. She is ordained in the United Church of Christ.
