Responding to CIA Torture Program

Brief Comment on my [linked here] Letter to Congress Responding to CIA Torture Program
Rev. Douglas Olds
10 December 2014



Internal forces for good government won a very difficult, 5 year struggle to put this SSIC report on CIA torture and torturers into the hands of the public. 

It is a kairos moment for the public trust.

If the people accept torture, including the new revelations of its expansion to include anal rape (and other "weird," unusual cruelties in the report) under indefinite detention, it seems that the era of public transparency suffers grave injury and the forces of good government currently working on the inside won't feel the call to risk years of imprisonment for whistleblowing to a distracted and apathetic citizenry incapable of outrage or protest. And regulators and elected overseers will reflect the apathy.

How can anyone miss that Jesus validated his messianic calling by words and healings? Many 1st C Judeans were expecting a military deliverer and/or a purifier of the temple if they were expecting a messiah at all. Roman Historian Josephus notes at least 12 messianic claimants of these sorts between the death of Herod and the Fall of the Temple. Jesus was a messiah unexpected: his messianic consciousness was to release captives, feed the poor, and heal. Mt 13.15. For which he became the Jewish messiah imprisoned and tortured to death by empire. HOW can torture be anything but anti-Christic? Torture does not heal, it creates trauma. Torture was was used anti Christ, on his person. 

I can't see a more urgent task for the church of the tortured Lord who came to free prisoners, though I am also aware of the need to confront the racist brutalization by police forces linked to this political moment.