July 21, 2006

Prophetic Acts

When your government as a routine matter engages in torture, you're in trouble. It does affect you, and every other citizen. It should provoke outrage. We often ask why, during the Nazi era, more German clergy didn't speak out, as Karl Barth did. Or why greater numbers of ordinary Germans didn't speak out. I update such questions, in that form, with the Reverend Dr. George Hunsinger, Professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and founder of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. When a gentle, brilliant and high-minded man like George Hunsinger, who because of his academic specialization is anchored in a tradition with a unique understanding of the Nazi example, begins to use that analogy to discuss moves towards a presidential dictatorship and the evolution of the Constitution into a dead letter, we must consider ourselves warned. Bringing considerable passion to these issues, Dr. Hunsinger also shows us a way out—a radical way out, possibly the most subversive I've heard. And it is an adventure to learn something about the on-going, fragile process of creating a national grass-roots campaign from scratch. It was very kind of Dr. Hunsinger to speak with me so candidly and for that I feel a real debt of gratitude. This podcast runs an hour and twenty two minutes. Listen twice, disseminate widely.