Where in the World is Jesus Christ? Finding Jesus in a Christian Nation’s Acts of Brutality & Torture

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Christians commonly represent their religion as being one of peace, love, and kindness. At the same time, Christians don’t appear to be any less likely to engage in cruelty, brutality, or evil than anyone else. What gives? How can both of these be true? The answer lies in the fact that as a belief system, Christianity isn’t solely defined by the highest ideals which it might express. Christianity is also defined by the actions and attitudes, however low, of actual Christians. In effect, Christianity is what Christians do — for better and for worse.

So, what’s the “Christian” position on torture and brutality? If there is any ideal within Christianity that should encourage people to treat others better, it’s the one which says that however we treat our fellow human beings is effectively how we are treating Jesus — and therefore also God. If we help, care for, and love each other, then we are helping, caring for, and loving Jesus and God. If we harm, humiliate, and brutalize each other, then we are harming, humiliating, and brutalizing Jesus and God. No sincere Christian believer should want to harm or brutalize Jesus and God, so this should inspire them to treat fellow human beings with the highest possible compassion and kindness. Right?

Well, that doesn’t always seem to be the case. If we are to take this injunction from Jesus seriously, then Christians should have treated the detainees at Abu Ghraib — and should be treating all current detainees at Guantanamo Bay and sundry secret prisons — as if they were Jesus. Did the guards at Abu Ghraib welcome the strangers and clothe them? No, they stripped them, beat them, and worse. Have the CIA interrogators at secret prisons done any better? No, Jesus didn’t encourage his followers to waterboard him.

And what of the reactions from vocal defenders of conservative Christianity and Christian morality back home? How many of those who commonly lash out at abortion or homosexuality as incompatible with Christian morality said anything negative about the mock executions, human pyramids, sexual abuse, waterboarding, and other forms of humiliation or torture visited upon detainees? I can’t remember any; instead, it was standard to deny that the abusive treatment was “true” torture (as if that made it okay), to deny that the abuse was really all that bad, or to insist that complaints about the abuse are a sign of feminine weakness.

It does no good to rationalize that such people aren’t “real” Christians because being a Christian isn’t dependent upon being perfect in upholding all the highest ideals that one can locate within Christian traditions. Moreover, as I explain above, Christianity isn’t solely defined by those ideals — Christianity is a diverse belief system with diverse people and ideas. Christianity is defined to a great extent by what Christians actually say and do, even if those statements and actions conflict with various traditions and ideals.

So where is Jesus in the above poster? According the words attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is every one of those people being brutalized and humiliated by American Christians. According to words of Rush Limbaugh, it’s a sign of weak feminization that we would even be concerned with such a question.

I know that this evening's "sermon" has a similar theme this morning’s, but this doesn’t mean that it’s the only thing I’ll ever post. It’s simply a coincidence that it worked out this way. I guarantee more variety in the future, assuming people would like to keep seeing more. You can see other posters I’ve created in this gallery on my site: Christian Right Propaganda Posters