Christians defend torture with eye for eye quote despite Jesus condemnations

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In spite of Christ's admonition against dealing with violence with violence in return, many people of faith continue to quote the Old Testament passage "an eye for an eye" that Jesus said was no longer the law.  It is this notion of revenge that Christ specifically examined in his Sermon, something virtually all Christians consider His finest words.


The United States is more than 83% Christian according to the surveys of faith memberships.  Yet 59% of the American people recently stated they approved the interrogation methods, described in infinite detail on news media recently and over many months prior to the revelations made in 2014.  Furthermore more than 45% maintain they would approve these methods being used again.

Torture tactics used by interrogators hired by members of America's elite leadership in many ways are little different than the slow starvation and psychological methods of torture used by the government of Syria to control its people. This makes it difficult for the US to condemn regimes that use torture as a method of power, control and revenge.

Some of the interrogation tactics included allowing a prisoner to freeze to death, keeping a detainee awake for more than six days, beating, kicking and punching prisoners while forcing them to stand on broken legs and waterboarding, which is described as simulated drowning. One might ask, in response to these tactics, if the idea of an eye for an eye was used to extract information, as Dick Cheney and Karl Rove reiterated was the case.  Furthermore it is a quote often used on Facebook as justification for the interrogation tactics.  "After all," one writer posted, "We have to remember 9/11.  They deserved it."

One of the most famous selections in the Bible is a passage where Jesus examined the old laws and responded to them while at the same time underlining His own mission and how he was ushering in a new path for believers to follow.  The famous passage in the Book of Matthew is referred to as The Sermon on the Mount.  One selection specifically examines how people should treat both friends and enemies.

"5:38 You have heard that it has been said, An eye for an eye, and a
   tooth for a tooth:
   
   5:39 But I say unto you, That you resist not evil: but whosoever shall
   smite you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also.
   
   5:40 And if any man will sue you at the law, and take away your coat,
   let him have your cloak also.
   
   5:41 And whosoever shall compel you to go a mile, go with him two.
   
   5:42 Give to him that asks you, and from him that would borrow of you
   turn you not away.
   
   5:43 You have heard that it has been said, You shall love your
   neighbor, and hate your enemy.
   
   5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you,
   do good to them that hate you, and pray for those who despitefully use
   you, and persecute you;
   
   5:45 That you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven:
   for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends
   rain on the just and on the unjust."


The early Christians were tortured by Rome for their beliefs.  Many Christians today take pride in the fact that these early believers did not recant their belief in Christ and instead were tortured and killed.  Therefore the Romans were unsuccessful in their use of torture.
The Church, throughout much of its history, burned people at the stake and used all manner of methods to force them to admit to acts the Church considered heresy or that opposed some decisions made by the religious leadership of the time.  In the United States women were falsely accused of witchcraft, which they admitted under torture, despite the fact that the witnesses against them had lied.  So torture obtained false information and was therefore ineffective.

And religious individuals and groups used torture for many purposes with many examples of the ineffectiveness of it in securing information.  

There are numerous examples in both secular and religious history that show that lengthy interrogations under stressful physical conditions did not often obtain truth from the accused.
While the nation debates the Constitutionality of using torture, whether the methods used to interrogate prisoners was actually torture and whether it served its purpose in getting prisoners to confess, this secular debate is just one side of the issue.  In America where "Under God" is in the country's Pledge of Allegiance and where the phrase God and country is often used as if both words meant an equivalent devotion, the spiritual view is likely reasonable, considering that the words of Jesus directly examine the treatment of enemies as loving and praying for them. 

The history of Christianity is rife with instances of torture, explained away as necessary to rid the church of evil.  Often that evil was defined as simply being in opposition to the church views at the time, which could be holding opinions different from the Biblical teachings in order to justify personal sin.  It allowed papal leadership to explain its own forms of torture.
Every Sunday, or Saturday for some groups of Christians, ministers take the pulpit to examine the Bible and to cite its passages, often reminding Christians that those passages represent the divine word of God.

Yet the words of Jesus the Christ, who is considered by Christians to be the very Son of God,  that are disregarded in the "eye for an eye" quote in defense of torture, something Jesus, whose birthday is celebrated in this month of December during the debate on how enemies should be treated.   Jesus gave the Sermon at a time he knew the authorities were watching him, and knowing how they would react, that He would be crucified, thus speaking against doing evil in the form of revenge even when faced with terrible personal calamity that history records as torture.