"No Exceptions"

Here's the cover to the latest issue of Christianity Today.

Good for CT.

The full title of that lead article is "Five Reasons Torture Is Always Wrong: And why there should be no exceptions."

It's by Southern Baptist ethicist David P. Gushee, who was also an endorser of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. That campaign's initial statement reads, in part:

Torture violates the basic dignity of the human person that all religions hold dear. It degrades everyone involved –policy-makers, perpetrators and victims. It contradicts our nation's most cherished ideals. Any policies that permit torture and inhumane treatment are shocking and morally intolerable.

And goes on to call for specific action, including:

We urge Congress and the President to remove all ambiguities by prohibiting:

* Exemptions from the human rights standards of international law for any arm of our government.

* The practice of extraordinary rendition, whereby suspects are apprehended and flown to countries that use torture as a means of interrogation.

* Any disconnection of "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" from the ban against "torture" so as to permit inhumane interrogation.

* The existence of secret U.S. prisons around the world.

* Any denial of Red Cross access to detainees held by our government overseas.

We also call for an independent investigation of the severe human rights abuses at U.S. installations like Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.

Nothing less is at stake in the torture abuse crisis than the soul of our nation. What does it signify if torture is condemned in word but allowed in deed? Let America abolish torture now –without exceptions.