A Thinking Reed

State of Emergency

Written by

Lee M.

in

William T. Cavanaugh argues against justifying torture by appeals to the idea that “everything changed” on 9/11. He quotes Walter Benjamin, “the state of emergency is not the exception but the rule in history.”

The Christian counter-story, says Cavanaugh, is this:

…this is not an exceptional nation and we do not live in exceptional times, at least as the world describes it. Everything did not change on 9/11; everything changed on 12/25. When the Word of God became incarnate in human history, when he was tortured to death by the powers of this world, and when he rose to give us new life—it was then that everything changed. Christ is the exception that becomes the rule of history. We are made capable of loving our enemies, of treating the other as a member of our own body, the body of Christ. The time that Christ inaugurates is not a time of exceptions to the limits on violence, but a time when the kingdoms of this world will pass away before the inbreaking kingdom of God.

Comments

2 responses to “State of Emergency”

  1. Marcus

    All right, but I never relied on the idea that everything, or even much of anything, changed.

    If it was only a question of purely domestic terrorism sponsored, say, by looney rednecks who hate the FBI (not without reason, of course), I would still endorse torture.

    Not for confessions. Not for punishment. To find the bomb and save the prospective victims – assuming, of course, that the terrorist is doing wrong by trying to bring about their deaths.

    PS. Saint Augustine approved of torture to get confessions. His was the prevailing view among Christians for a very long time.

    What do you make of that?

    I think, at least this.

    It is absolutely not obvious from anything anywhere in the Bible that Christians ought to oppose torure.

    Nor it is evident to the natural reason that it ought to be eschewed.

    Anyway, not to his. Nor to mine.

    Reply
  2. Lee

    Well, for starters, I don’t think a lot of people would say that was Augustine’s finest moment! (Not to mention the subsequent history of such methods applied to various heretics, malcontents and troublemakers.)

    To me the most persuasive argument is that to make torture official policy is to invite abuse.

    Now, if some enterprising FBI agent violated a policy against torture and as a result saved an American city from being incinerated, and was subsequently pardoned, would I object? Perhaps not.

    Reply

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