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If you are going to call yourself a Christian-and I don't-then you have to ask yourself a fundamental question, and that is: Whom would Jesus torture? Whom would Jesus drag around on a dog's leash? How can Christians tolerate it? It is unconscionable. It has put our young men and women who are over there, fighting a war that they should not have been asked to fight- it has put them in greater danger.

Ron Reagan#3

EthicsReligionTortureWar

About this quote

What does it mean?
Reagan criticizes torture, asking how Christians can condone it given Jesus’s teachings, and links it to soldiers’ moral risk.
In plain terms
Torture contradicts Jesus’s teachings.
What can you take from it?
Align actions with moral and religious principles.

Where it applies

  • policy debate
  • ethical reflection
  • religious discussion

Putting it to work

  • advocacy
  • moral leadership
  • policy reform

Questions to consider

  • What would Jesus authorize?
  • How do you weigh security and ethics?

Another view

Some argue security needs may override ethical constraints.

More from Ron Reagan

  1. In private, you got what you got in public. He treated everyone the same. He was just a very warm man, and he worked hard to impress upon his children the valu…

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  2. I would be unelectable. I'm an atheist. As we all know, that is something people won't accept.

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