I was not surprised by the revelations coming out of Abu Ghraib. I've been reading about similar incidents associated with the CIA and the School of the Americas, and those that have become almost policy at many American prisons and jails for nearly twenty years. This is one of those issues that is a sticking point for me. I have been waiting in vain since last April for a massive reaction of revulsion and repudiation from the moral values crowd, who claim to be the spokesmen for God and Jesus. The fact that they have not stood up and roundly condemned this atrocity with the same passion they promote prayer in school, chunks of chiseled stone in courthouses, and fetus rights, brings me about that close [] (picture a piece of paper between my thumb and finger) to renouncing my own Christianity and giving back the gift of eternal life. If (please note the if) I must believe that God and Jesus and the Gospel have any part in any theory that justifies such things as torture, I have no wish nor desire--even an active repulsion--at the thought of spending eternity with such a pack of bloody handed, bloody minded, soul-sucking hypocrites or any god who desires or requires their love and praise.

I have been equally disappointed in the response from the progressive values crowd since April's revelations from Abu Ghraib. For the most part, their dissent has been timid and their chatter insular, a preaching to the converted that has yet to reach a critical mass that will force the mass media to take notice. And thus, the closest thing to representation we progressives have in government--the Democrats in Congress--are about to confirm the architect of Abu Ghraib as the arch law enforcer in America. They could not do this if they had been getting enough heat from their constituents on the issue. Ever since the election the Democrats and Progressives have been dissecting their campaign and there has been much talk about needing to champion values. Well, if this isn't a value worth championing, what is? And isn't the cause of victims everywhere one of the values they have always claimed as their own? It is the perfect value with which to challenge the moral values cadre on their own turf--to confront them with the hypocrisy of their purported compassionate conservatism.

It's not like there isn't plenty of scripture to support a stand against such abuse of power, such egregious injustice. Matthew 25 has Jesus say that �what you do unto the least of these you have done unto me.� He is referring to the good deeds--the giving of a drink of water to the thirsty, clothes to the naked and the visiting of the imprisoned. The logical corollary of the proposition that showing kindness to a prisoner is the same as showing kindness to Jesus, is that abusing a prisoner would be the same as abusing Jesus.

Jesus didn't differentiate between the guilty and the innocent which implies that neither should we. In the world-view of Jesus and his followers and of most Christians today there is no such thing as human innocence anyway. But this can be viewed from within two different contexts and the real world application of the logical consequences of each view are diametrically opposed--matter and antimatter. The first, rooted in the ancient Law of Talion--retaliation, vengeance equals justice, eye for an eye--requires revenge and punishment and cruel coercion to enforce conformity to standards of behavior and it encourages seeing ones own sins relative to another's and taking solace and even pride in being guilty of only �lesser� sins and not of those �heinous� or �evil� crimes of ones neighbors or enemies.

The second, rooted in the gospel and the parables, sermons and life of Jesus and espoused by his early followers, is a leveler of hierarchy. It emphasizes that �all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.' That all sin is equal. That all sin disconnects us from our Source. It encourages forgiveness, bowels of mercy, empathy or compassion, and posits the possibility of repentance or change of heart. It proclaims that only the sinless can cast the first stone, which implies that only the sinless can enforce death penalties. It requires us to forgive, even the same individual, beyond 70 times 7 times. It warns that we must not judge if we do not wish to be judged, that we must remove the lumber from our own eye before we attempt to remove the sliver from our brother's eye. It affirms that kindness, patience, forgiveness, humility, gentleness and joy are among the highest virtues with which to engage life. It constrains us to think of each other as a brother or sister or even better as one's self and thus to treat one another as we would wish to be treated and to refrain from treating each other as we would dislike being treated. And, most relevant to my thesis, it enjoins those who claim to love Jesus to conduct every encounter with another as though it were with Jesus himself.

So here we are 2000 years after Jesus walked the earth celebrating the advent of the Prince of Peace, and we are bombing the manger in Iraq and applying electrical shock to Jesus' testicles. All in the name of bringing peace on earth and security to the children of Empire. Rome REDUX. And just as in the age of Constantine, those who claim to be disciples of Jesus are espousing the values of the oppressor and glorifying the empire, trading the gospel of Jesus back in for the law birthed from a belching volcano. Jesus would say to those who perpetrate and perpetuate these things--whether they commanded, carried out, condoned or complacently sat by thinking �What is it to me?�: "I never knew you ye workers of iniquity!"