The Human Heart

Former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld "creeped me out" when he was in the Bush administration and the queasy factor just gets worse as more information about his role in Iraq emerges.

Apparently Rumsfeld and others in the upper echelons favoured cover sheets for daily war reports that quoted from the bible. On March 31, 2003, there was a photo of a U.S. tank roaring through the desert beneath a quote from Ephesians: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” An equal opportunity bible quoter, there were also references to the Old Testament books of Judges and Psalms. While I read about this in the Globe and Mail newspaper, it was Gentlemen's Quarterly magazine that first published an article about Rummy's crusade-like use of scripture to support the war effort. Take a look at the slide show http://men.style.com/gq/features/topsecret .

Lots of people in the Pentagon didn't like it. Some were offended on religious grounds. Others thought it was imprudent because if they ever leaked it would have an Abu Ghraib effect, further igniting the sensibilities of the Muslim world. While this was pointed out it didn't change a thing.

Of course, people have always used the bible to support their preconceived notions. It is one of the nastier aspects of our Christian faith. We can find verses to support and justify all sorts of atrocities and prejudices. The same is true of science. Science has been enthusiastically enlisted to justify racism and slavery. The Nazis claimed to be doing scientific experiments on Jews they tortured in horrific ways. The Japanese hunt whales in contravention of international treaties for scientific purposes.

In the end it is really a matter of the human heart, and isn't that where religion comes back into the discussion?