Where’s the outrage
over the waterboarding?

Speaking of Religion
The Rev. Dr. Tim Griffin

"And, my admirable friend… examine the following statement in turn as to whether it stays the same or not, that the most important thing is not life, but the good life. …And that the good life, the beautiful life and the just life are the same." — Socrates (quoted in Plato’s dialogue Crito).

Socrates has been convicted of impiety and sentenced to death by the city of Athens. However, many Athenians know that the trial was a sham and that Socrates was unjustly convicted.
Crito and Socrates’ other wealthy friends are able to secure his release from prison and safe passage to another city. But Socrates refuses to go. He insists that he must stay in Athens and accept his sentence, however unjust.
To act otherwise, he says, would be to act unjustly in order to save his life, and for Socrates an unjust life — or a life that is saved through injustice — is not a life worth living because life itself is not "the most important thing." The most important thing is a good life.
In other words, according to Socrates, it is better to remain in Athens and die having lived a good and just life than to preserve his life at the cost of his goodness and justice.
Recent events have reminded me of Socrates’ attitude about the ultimate value of life. Much has been said this week about the destruction of videotapes of the interrogation and torture of terror suspects, evidently sanctioned by the administration and by certain members of Congress from both parties, most notably the current Speaker of the House, U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
In this connection, a former CIA employee made the talk show rounds telling us that although waterboarding — and who knows what other "enhanced interrogation techniques" were employed — is torture, it saved American lives. Of course, he offered no evidence to confirm the truth of his assertion.
What I noticed about last week’s discussion, however, is the absence of a sense of outrage on the part of Americans that we have become a nation that tortures people.
What is absent is a sense of outrage that our political leaders in both the executive and legislative branches have authorized the violation of international law (the Geneva Convention) and our Constitution.
What is absent is a sense of outrage at having been lied to. No one is challenging, or holding accountable, those who told us "the United States does not torture people."
Was Socrates wrong? Is it the case that as a nation we now believe that the most important thing is not the good life but preserving life at any cost? Do we no longer believe that justice is the most important thing?
Many of us who are Christian are now observing the season of Advent. Advent is a season of waiting. We wait for the birth of the Messiah, who will usher in the age of God’s peace and justice. It is a time of longing and anticipation.
It is a time of longing because the peace and justice of God are not manifested on this Earth, and it is a time of anticipation because our faith tells us that God’s peace and justice will be fulfilled. And so we wait for God.
However, every year during the season of Advent, I wonder who is waiting for whom. That is to say, I wonder: "Are we waiting for God, or is God waiting for us?"
It seems likely to me that the longing and anticipation that we experience and observe during this season owes to God. It is God’s longing and anticipation. It is God’s waiting for us to finally become who we were created to be.
Socrates seems to have known this. He seems to have known that peace and justice would appear only when we act peacefully and justly. And so he was willing to give his life rather than act unjustly.
Four and one-half centuries later, Jesus would act similarly, giving his life so that we might have life and have it abundantly. And yet here we are, nearly 2,000 years later, still making God wait. And so God waits.
I believe that we can cooperate with God’s grace so that our waiting and God’s waiting comes to end. We can, following Socrates’ model, value ourselves as God values us by refusing to act unjustly. In this way we honor God by becoming who God desires us to be. And we can insist that those who act in our name act justly as well. ••
Father Tim Griffin is priest-in-charge at the St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, at 1946 Welsh Road in Bustleton.