While addressing the contentious issue of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) using torture for interrogation, Bryan Fischer from American Family Association recently said on his show that God approves of torture, since He has sanctified brutality in the Bible. Acknowledging the Bible does contain some grisly things, Fischer argued that those grisly things are just and people should continue to practice them in times of war, even if not in times of peace.
“Students of Scripture are well aware of some of the grisly things done by God’s warriors in the heat of battle. Ehud, for instance, arranged a private meeting with the king of Moab and ran him through the gut with a sword until the king’s fat folded over the hilt of the sword, which Ehud left as a calling card (Judges 3). He was both an assassin and a war hero at the same time. … And the hero of the war against Sisera was Jael, who lured the commander of Sisera’s charioteers into her tent where she hammered a tent peg all the way through his skull into the ground while he napped. She is not vilified in Scripture for her brutality, she is lionized as a heroine and immortalized in song (Judges 4-5). …The left, if they had enough familiarity with the Bible to even know these stories, likely would be aghast at such behavior and be inclined to throw Ehud and Jael into Gitmo along with throat-cutting Muslims,” he said.
Critics were not only stunned with what Fischer had to say about the CIA’s use of torture, but they were also mindful of the fact that the radio host chose to identify the least mortifying example of violence in the Bible. They believe Fischer did so because people can somehow overcome the ills associated with assassination but they might find it harder to deal with the morbidity of genocide, sex slaves and sexual exploitation, even more so considering terror groups like Islamic State have found themselves in the news for condoning exactly such ideologies in recent times. It was also thought provoking how Fischer tried to imply that it is perfectly alright for the American government to use torture for interrogation but downright unforgivable for any other country to act that way.
“War is, and always has been, a nasty business. … Perhaps this is all we need to know about today’s left: they likely would drag the Bible’s heroes before the courts at Nuremberg and charge them with crimes against humanity. Maybe the American left needs a values adjustment more than the CIA,” Fischer concluded.
What was most astounding about Fischer’s stand was that he recognized many of the acts in the Bible do in fact qualify as crimes against humanity today. Yet, what he decided to take issue with were the values of those who oppose crimes against humanity, by saying if such acts are justifiable to God, they ought to be justifiable to the world’s population.
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