Jack Bauer Theology….

Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Omar N. Bradley

Sometimes it seems as if we live in a world that has adopted a "Jack Bauer theology.” Jack Bauer is the main character in "24".....an action filled, worst case scenario, the bomb is ticking and you better hurry up and DO SOMETHING about it drama. A "the end justifies the means" kind of show. Great entertainment...but how does that fit with the teachings and directives of Jesus?

In the article I mentioned a few days ago, You Can't Be a Christian and Tolerate Torture, the author says something similar.....

The final, desperate counter-argument I sometimes hear is the theoretical "ticking time-bomb" scenario in favor of torture: "What if your wife or children were kidnapped, put in an underground chamber with only one hour left of air and you had the kidnapper before you. Would you not then torture to get the information in time?"

But this scenario is a chimera. It has never happened and probably never will outside of the fictional world of action movies and the television series 24. If the torture proponents had a real-world example, they would use it. But instances of innocents being tortured are legion, including multiple examples of detainees who were tortured to death.

More to come on these "what if" kind of questions....