Yes, but it could also be because they’re (1) trying to attach a negatively-charged connotation to their opponents’ position in order to (2) win an argument by definition so that they can (3) trigger legal sanctions against those who oppose them.

Waterboarding had been considered torture for at least 500 years. It is not like I am the one that is trying to change the definition. Now that we want to use it for our own purposes, we have Americans that are attempting to reclassify the technique as something else than what it has always been considered to be.

For centuries it has been considered self-evident that waterboarding was torture. Everyone I know who has been waterboarded is quick to tell you that, “Yes, indeed it is torture.” Those who advocate for its use should explain not why it is not torture but why, since it is not, we cannot use it for routine interrogations of civil crimes.

You can quibble over definitions and redefinitions, you may “advocate for its use” or for its ban. But you cannot attach your faith to quibbles and declare the rest of the world faithless. That’s an error that solves nothing, defeats clarity, and creates unnecessary opposition.

Further, you won’t triumph in your cause by winning the right to define torture. The difficulty with your definition is that you have emotionally and semantically linked it to practices that indeed inspire universal condemnation among Christians, and you seem to think that by successfully classifying a certain practice as technically torture, you will have done the full work of persuasion. That is a victory on points but not in hearts.

But even were you to win on points, you are failing to address the reasonable disagreement many have with you, a disagreement whose illegitimacy cannot be declared “self-evident” by citing the history of what had been “considered self-evident.” A practice in the service of proper ends that causes severe discomfort and fear of death but no actual permanent harm is not identical to sadistically damaging someone for evil purposes. The devil is literally in the details.

That’s all people like me want to preserve: a place where we might reasonably discuss those details without being categorized as anti-Christian. Maybe if you had taken the same approach you’d have more people listening to your case. As it stands, I’m inclined to side with pro-waterboarders if only because they haven’t shown themselves to be lacking such confidence in their own argument. They don’t feel it necessary to resort to dogmatic, broad condemnation and dismissal of their opposition to emphasize their point, but rather allow their (very possibly erroneous) position speak for itself.

I wish I said that!

But ‘the definition is too fuzzy’ is only a defense when that’s the problem, not an escape hatch for things that have always been clearly considered within the bounds of the definition.

Consider an analogy with the question of what defines cheating inside a marriage? Does it matter if a man looks at Playboy? Does it matter if he likes to wink at other girls? Does it matter if he looks at good looking chicks on the beach? All those factors may be a in a somewhat fuzzy zone where we may have to admit the definition of cheating needs to be more carefully thought out…..however this ‘fuzziness’ problem with the definition will not do a man much good if his wife comes home and finds him in bed nude with the babysitter! “How can you say I was cheating when we can’t even be sure if looking at a Victoria’s Secret catelog is cheating!” is a defense that is unlikely to go very far. Likewise those here who are clinging to perceived imperfections in the definition of torture are are lot more out on a ledge than they may realize.

Indeed Joe, don’t worry what you see here is just the advance team….the next level will be more than happy to push us all down that slope.

Waterboarding had been considered torture for at least 500 years. It is not like I am the one that is trying to change the definition. Now that we want to use it for our own purposes, we have Americans that are attempting to reclassify the technique as something else than what it has always been considered to be.

For centuries it has been considered self-evident that waterboarding was torture. Everyone I know who has been waterboarded is quick to tell you that, “Yes, indeed it is torture.” Those who advocate for its use should explain not why it is not torture but why, since it is not, we cannot use it for routine interrogations of civil crimes.

But guess what? None of us should stand by while he impugns our Christian commitment and slanders by calling us crypto-pagan.

Listen, if you want to defend torture, that is your prerogative. At FT we welcome all religious views, so if you want to defend pagan ethics that is your right. But you can’t expect those of use who subscribe to a Christian view of morality to agree with you.

Listen, Joe, we are not defending torture. We are disagreeing with your stubbornly emotional definition of torture, predetermined and implacable, with mountains of one-sided citation to make your question-begging appear not just defensible but self-evident to everyone who serves in the name of Christ.

If you insist on insulting our commitment to faith because of our politics, bring something less superficial to the table. Yours are dueling words.

The first thing you can do is presume our good faith rather than our patent moral deviancy, or at least conceal your contempt long enough for us to be compelled to give you a hearing. That’s how a forum that relies on mutual respect operates. There are people you presumably respect for independent reasons — such as Matthew Franck — who have come to a reasonable disagreement. That should be enough for you to think twice about your approach to this issue.

Every facet of Christianity requires an eternal defense until the day the Lord comes again, including and especially the ones you have internalized to such a glorious degree that you have forgotten how radical and presumptuous they are. We proceed under the truth of Christ resurrected, but it is irresponsible to presume that truth is brought to men’s hearts by simple assertion (or even by witness or by faith alone). It may take the full complement of the rhetorical toolbox to convert a soul. It makes a mockery of our duty to evangelize when we assume mere proclamation followed by mulishness will suffice to bring fellow sinners to salvation. We begin in humility, for we too were once lost but now are found.

If your political position on waterboarding is indeed inextricable from the spread of the Gospel, you will need to adopt a different rhetorical method because many (if not most) God-fearing people were not graced with your insight, and temperance is not just a virtue, it’s a requirement of persuasion among your rational brothers in Christ.

Yes, we are called to be jealous protectors of one another’s Christianity, and yes, we must remark upon the straying of sheep. But such a solemn duty must never be used as a cudgel to bloody up political opponents: our good graces with the Redeemer is the paramount concern of our lives. We rely on your judgment to stay true to this most undeserved gift of baptism. Please, for the love of God, be more careful when you call it into question. There is nothing in heaven or earth more serious.

Our consciences are formed. We are not always in shape, but we brothers in Christ are indeed trained to respond to that still, small voice. You can make your case better through an appeal to our conscience rather than an accusation of its comprehensive absence among those who hold a certain opinion. You can trust that we are deeply, mortally concerned with the effect of politics on the trajectory of our soul and do not arrive at disagreement lightly.