When Christians forfeit moral debates

I'm going to comment on this post:

http://www.reformation21.org/articles/the-christian-torture-and-intercessory-prayer.php

One of the ways in which the papacy discredits itself is when modern-day popes automatically condemn both sides of an armed conflict. They condemn the "cycle of violence." They don't distinguish between unprovoked aggression and self-defense. 

The result is the few people, including many conservative Catholics, take the pope seriously when he condemns "violence." For modern-day popes make no effort to explain how men of good will should be able to defend themselves.

Unfortunately, I see the same knee-jerk reaction among some evangelicals. They render themselves irrelevant because they refuse to offer serious ground-level advice. They retreat into gauzy pieties. This makes Christians look morally ineffectual. 

Take a maxim like "Do good, avoid evil." However, that's easier said than done. Doing good may have harmful consequences. Doing nothing may have harmful consequences. It's not possible to avoid evil at all costs even if we try. We lack the necessary foresight or control over the future. Although we can avoid doing evil, we can't avoid causing evil.  

One problem with this article is the way Draycott stereotypes his opponents. He imputes a simplistic and monolithic mentality to his opponents. 

So the government authorizes, or the apparatus of the state undertakes, torture. So what? We live in a fallen world and we are not surprised that criminal activity insidiously seeps into the highest reaches of public authority and command. 

i) To begin with, to stipulate that the actions of the CIA or American military were "criminal" begs the question.

ii) In addition, legality and morality are two different, and sometimes contrary, principles. Something can be legal, but immoral. Something can be moral, but illegal. Ironically, Draycott lacks the moral clarity to draw that moral distinction.  

Exposed to the discourse of the 'war on terror', from news to TV shows and movies, it is likely that we live as citizens in fear. 

So it's just a matter of "discourse"? What about actually witnessing the behavior of ISIS–to take one example? 

Surveillance, security, screening, and suspicion are the guarantors of our fragile peace. 

Notice how he lumps these together. But one can be more discriminating. One can support terrorist profiling but oppose dragnet surveillance or dragnet screening. 

That revelation is to be attained, so the torture justification goes, at any cost. 

Here he caricatures the opposing side. But it's not monolithic. Some people take a utilitarian position, but others are more discriminating. 

Of course, at the heart of Scripture's apocalypse stands not the security of the CIA, but the peace of the Lamb who was slain. The Christian response to torture in our midst must turn not first to a vision from our position of vulnerable wealth in a geopolitical age of terror, but to one in which Christ is the key.  The tactic that secures the future is not in our hands, not for lack of security technology or intelligence, but because it never has been. Christ really is able to open the scroll where all others cannot. 

So what does that mean at a policy level? Pacifism? Unilateral disarmament? 

Peace rather than technology and control. 

How does the abdication of national defense result in peace?

Torture is always wrong in light of who Christ is.  

Is sleep deprivation always wrong? If so, how so? 

Human life is not expendable, or degradable, or manipulable for intelligence. Human personhood, in the light of the gospel, cannot be subject to dehumanization. Christians are confident that the dehumanizing reality of sin is dealt with once and for all on the cross. Christians will not dehumanize the enemy, but rather love the enemy, because of Christ's humanizing representative authority. Love drives out fear. 

What makes it wrong to "manipulate" a terrorist for actionable intelligence? If it's wrong for a terrorist network to plot the destruction of innocent lives, it is wrong for a captured terrorist to withhold that information. 

How is sleep deprivation "dehumanizing"? Does Draycott have anything beyond the magic buzzwords to back up his strictures? 

Treating a person's human physical, psychological and emotional integrity as so much expendable or disposable material in the procuring of intelligence is to sell Jesus into the hands of his persecutors. 

Why should a terrorist's physical, psychological, and even "emotional" integrity be sacrosanct? Is it wrong to hurt his feelings? How does that outweigh the duty to protect innocent life? 

The extent to which there has been extortion of confession by force is just the extent to which there has been a denial of the conviction and transformation that is the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
But today we are not talking about arcane practices of an ecclesiastical judiciary. Of course we would be up in arms if torture were going on in our church basements. But must we be so troubled by torture by our military, security and intelligence services? 

That assumes coerced intel is morally equivalent to a coerced confession of sin. But Draycott offers no supporting argument to establish his analogy.

Can we expect these officers of the secular state to practice their profession according to the richness of Christian moral principles?

Unfortunately, guys like Draycott make it impossible for officers of the state to consider Christian ethics, for he presents an interpretation of Christian ethics that has no relevance to counterterrorism. In effect, he's telling them: "Hey, don't look to Christians for moral guidance. We have nothing concrete to offer. So you're on your own." 

What if the dilemma at issue is one where the intelligence is overwhelming that a person is stubbornly withholding information vital to eliminate an imminent horrific threat to innocent civilians. This is a ticking bomb scenario, so beloved of television drama. Do not theological niceties stand down at just this point? Surely here, in extremis, the end justifies the means. 

i) To begin with, sometimes the end does justify the means. That's not a universal principle. But there are special situations in which some actions which are ordinarily impermissible are permissible or even obligatory. 

ii) The problem is that Draycott's theological niceties are theologically unsound. Bad theology should stand down.  

iii) It is Draycott's strictures which are generating the gratuitous dilemma. 

But what is the extreme that has been reached? It seems it is the situation where our own security technology has not secured us invulnerability or full control over our fears. Yet this is not so much the exception but the very logic of security all along. If fear drives our security the enemy is already less then human. The enemy is a monster. Monsters cannot be dehumanized, torture is a misapplied category.

i) This is another one of his belittling caricatures. There's no assumption that our technology will render us "invulnerable." Our countermeasures may fail. It's a question of taking reasonable precautions. 

ii) There's such a thing as rational fear. Don't walk in tall grass where venomous snakes reside. Keep a safe distance from the river that's infested with crocodiles. Don't go hiking in bear country without a high-powered rifle. Don't go jogging at night in a public park with a reputation for muggers. Prudence is a theological virtue. 

Should I not address the finding that torture does not yield good intelligence? 

Which disregards evidence to the contrary. 

Or that its use damages the moral authority of the country in the eyes of the international community.

It's always ironic when people who engage in moral posturing invoke the "international community" as their last resort. Is the UN a moral authority?