Witch Hunts and Torture

Witch Hunts and Torture
Western religious history can shed some useful light on today’s discussion of ‘enhanced interrogation’ — or as they referred to such practices back in the 15th century, torture.
By Mary Zeiss Stange | USAToday

Former POW John McCain knows torture, and he has consistently condemned its use by government agents. Nonetheless, in April he warned that any probe into the Bush administration's use of harsh interrogation techniques would amount to a "witch hunt." The senator was surely unaware of the considerable historical irony involved in his invoking this phrase.

Viewed objectively, the original witch hunts shed significant light on the current debate about the uses of torture. Conducted under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church, the Inquisition, and more particularly that aspect of it known as the Witchcraze, was the most spectacular case of systematic torture in Western religious history. It lasted roughly from the 15th through the 17th centuries in Europe, and it offers definitive proof that if reliable information is what you are after, torture is not a good way to get it.

If invoking religious precedent seems an odd way to resolve the question of whether torture is ever acceptable, it is sobering to note that according to a recently released poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, a majority of regularly attending American churchgoers say it is. Questioned by the Associated Press as to whether Jesus would condone torture, conservative commentator Gary Bauer has speculated that Jesus himself, being the Son of God, probably wouldn't be a torturer, but that he'd regard as "morally suspect" any of his followers who shrank from torturing for the sake of the greater good. Read more.