THE "GOOD CHURCHGOING KIDS" OF ABU GHRAIB (1/19/05)

Regardless of the kind of force one believes is justified by the exigencies of war, we should still agree on two self-evident conclusions regarding the soldiers who guarded the prisoners at Abu Ghraib:

First, the perverse acts ordered by the guards of their captives were intolerable to any code of military conduct. Second, the sadistic delight to which graphic photos attest betrays any sense of military honor and moral high road for which American values stand.

To the nation’s credit, justice is being done. Whether it will reach high enough in the official chain of command is doubtful. But, culpability has another chain of command: Upbringing. Reports float about that superiors deliberately placed guards in Abu Ghraib who were credulous, poorly schooled, undiscerning. Whether or not they were selected by the “dumb hillbilly” stereotype, this we know: They were certainly compliant, eager to get in their whacks, and not too smart.

We should be careful, though, before we blame a generally corrupt society for the sins at Abu Ghraib. The guards did not come from big, brassy cities, but from insular little communities where moral influences are well confined – parents, teachers, preachers.

Call it vocational prejudice or a projection of my own pastoral mea culpas, but the preacher holds the position of paramount moral persuasiveness, particularly in such insular communities. Residents revere “that old-time religion,” unquestioning compliance with pronouncements from the pulpit and the mantra, "God said it. I believe it. That settles it." These ensure a pastoral mandate that outflanks that of parents, teachers, even the football coach, because it flows from God’s inerrant word and holds the keys to heaven and hell.

Whether this is good or bad is entirely in the preacher’s hands. He can choose to teach that the Bible’s essence is justice, mercy and humility. Both testaments are replete with role models of compassion and courage of convictions. Jesus had much to say to Christian believers about gratuitous violence and disposition to an enemy, as did the prophets of the Jewish Bible. In an inward community, these messages preached unambiguously by a pastor imputed with Divine authority would immunize kids from growing up to perform the perversities of Abu Ghraib and then gloat over them. God said it. I believe it. That settles it.

I cannot tell you much more about their upbringing, but I can tell you this: If, as friends and family are saying, the Abu Ghraib guards were a bunch of “good, churchgoing kids,” the pulpit betrayed them. Strive though it may, the pulpit will never have the influence to prevent every incident of promiscuity, shoplifting and getting crazy at college. But, it has flunked every test known to humanity if “good churchgoing kids” have not internalized the message that forcing captives at gunpoint to perform fellatio while mugging for the camera makes you a barbarian who has mortally desecrated every word of God’s teaching.

I have a sicker feeling that even if the “kids” were listening, their preachers were not preaching. What, then, filled up those precious minutes on Sunday? My conjecture: Diatribes against people and forces “out there.” Biblical and mental gymnastics. Condemnation of lapses in doctrine, not behavior. Xenophobia. Laundry lists of people going to hell. Denunciations of anything modern. Too much wrath. Not enough compassion. Too much triumphalism. Not enough social justice.

This conjecturing is not hard, but it is painful, because I abused too many opportunities in my own pulpit with the same pastoral breach of trust. I, too, frequently failed to use the Word of God for its only worthy purpose, to steer my flock, particularly its kids, out of disaster, not into it. If I attribute to myself any success, it does not come from parishioners complimenting me on a “great” sermon, but from a congregant who now and then thanks me years later for a bit of moral guidance he drew from my pulpit.

As one trial gives way to the next, we who look for big pictures reach for our scorecards to list the myriad influences that led to the giddy atrocities at Abu Ghraib. As much as I would like to be among them, I know that at the deepest level of moral development, it was their hometown preachers who most betrayed these “good churchgoing kids.” At best, they failed to immunize them against barbarism. At worst, their preaching recast the “enemies” of whom Jesus, et al, understandingly spoke into a bunch of subhuman “towelheads.”