Evangelicals for Human Rights

From the home page of the Evangelicals for Human Rights (EHR):

Evangelicals for Human Rights (EHR) seeks to reaffirm the centrality of human rights as an unshakable biblical obligation fundamental to an evangelical Christian social and moral vision. We oppose the weakening of these commitments by the United States—especially (but not exclusively) in relation to the practice of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of persons detained by the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere in the war on terror. This initiative is offered by Christians who agree that the threat against our nation’s security is real and who support our nation’s legitimate interests. We do not agree, however, with those who believe that national security may be secured by any and every imaginable means, such as the torture or cruel treatment of detainees. We believe that human rights protections apply in any and every situation, including the one we now face, and that the seeming necessity of weakening such protections in just this one exceptional case should be perceived as a temptation requiring determined resistance. We believe that any resort to torture is a violation of God-given human rights which Christians must strenuously resist.

EHR resources:

• EHR has an Evangelical Declaration against Torture which you can sign. It is well worth reading and passing along to others.
  
• There is a whole page of church resources, including articles, essays, links, and a Bible study on torture and the cross.
• David Gushee, the head of EHR, has an excellent page on “defining torture” and why the EHR has decided to not use a definition.
• There is also an excellent discussion of the so-called “ticking time-bomb” scenario that comes from Gushee’s article in Theology Today.