The Pew Research Center surveyed Americans and claim that 54% of people who attend services at least once a week said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. But before getting too shocked, 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed.

The overall result is frankly the shocking part. The reality that nearly half of us think torture is okay, regardless of religious affiliation. I’m hard pressed to believe this means that a significant number of us have sadistic tendencies. I think it just means that as a nation, we are still terrified of the idea of terrorism. I’m going to assume that if the question were changed to ask about torturing suspected criminals, organized crime figures, drug dealers, or even prisoners of war that the answer would be different. Somehow I need to believe that it would be. But then we’re still pretty big on capital punishment, so maybe I overestimate us.

As for the religious twist on the survey, if you read a bit further you see that it is the evangelicals that support torture more than 6 in 10. While mainstream Protestants (e.g. Episcopalians, Lutherans and Presbyterians) are the group most likely to oppose torture under all conditions. So the Religious Right is clearly at work here slanting the results toward the macabre. It would certainly be misleading to lump all church goers together.

Still, this theme constantly amazes me. Those who claim to be such devout followers of the bible, who seem to have a personal relationship with Jesus, seem time and again to be the ones most apt to opt for violence. You’d think they had read the New Testament, right?