The Sick Bastard Rate

Here's a depressing bit of polling data.

62 percent of white evangelical Protestants said torture of a suspect could be often or sometimes justified.
51 percent of white, non-Hispanic Catholics said torture could be justified.
46 percent of white mainline Protestants were willing to justify torture.
40 percent of the religiously unaffiliated chimed in to agree to justify torture.

This poll is particularly dismaying for those of us in that category of white evangelical Protestants. It's not like Catholics are going to be proud of these findings either — nearly half of us disapprove of atrocities! Nor is the three-fifths disapproval of violations of human rights among the religiously unaffiliated anything to brag about.

But, jeez, "62 percent of white evangelical Protestants said torture … could be often or sometimes justified." That's colossal failure and shame No. 1.

Colossal failure and shame No. 2 is that this is significantly higher than the Sick Bastard Rate of any other religious group.

And even worse:

Those who attend religious services at least once a week were more likely than those who rarely or never attend to say torture is sometimes or often justified.

The implication here is clear: Being a white evangelical Protestant who regularly attends religious services will likely make you a much worse person than you otherwise would be. It makes you more comfortable with gross immorality.

To use good evangelical language: Devout evangelicals who attend church regularly view sin as justifiable much more often than religiously unaffiliated people who never attend religious services.

Something has gone very, very wrong here.

Consider for a moment who it is that these torture-approving evangelicals claim to follow and remember how he died. The empire had him tortured and then tortured to death. The instrument of that torture has become a symbol that hangs in the sanctuary of every evangelical church. It decorates the pulpits from which their sermons are preached. It hangs from the necks of many of those 62 percent who say that torture is just fine if it makes them feel safer.

What the hell is going on?

The Associated Press article linked above notes that these poll results may simply reflect evangelicals' disproportionately partisan political views:

Did evangelicals reach their conclusions because of their religious beliefs, or their politics or ideological leanings? How do you untangle those factors from each other?

There's no need to "untangle those factors." Whether we ask "Why does evangelical church attendance increase the likelihood of support for torture?" or we ask "Why does evangelical church attendance increase the likelihood of the uncritical embrace of a political ideology that supports torture?" the underlying question is the same.

Something deeply wrong — something evil, malignant and malevolent — is being taught or learned in evangelical churches. This wrong thing contradicts the central symbol of their purported faith, contradicts the teachings of the central figure of that faith, contradicts the sacred text that they say is their only basis for understanding that symbol and that figure.

So, again, what the hell is going on?

I have some theories — some ideas about a differential diagnosis and the corresponding prescriptions, and we'll get to those in a bit (for a particularly odious display of the disease I suspect, see ChristianShirts.net, from which the above image was borrowed).

For right now, though, I can't decide whether I need sackcloth and ashes or a whip of cords. Or both.