September 11-12, 2008 Mercer University, Atlanta, Georgia

The Campaign to Ban Torture marks an unprecedented level of cooperation between religious, political, and military leaders in the struggle against torture. It also helps to blur the boundary lines between these too-neat categories, as many military and political leaders are also people of faith, while most religious leaders care deeply about both political/civic life and the well-being of those who serve our country in the armed forces. And the vast diversity of voices, representing people of every major faith tradition in the United States, signals that opposition to torture reflects very deeply held values that have to do fundamentally with what it means to be human and to respect the humanity of others.

Those who find the Declaration of Principles and the Campaign to Ban Torture important should consider coming to “Religious Faith, Torture, and Our National Soul,” a national summit on torture that will be held September 11-12 at Mercer University in Atlanta. (For full information and registration details, see www.evangelicalsforhumanrights.org).

This conference, co-sponsored by an unprecedented and diverse array of organizations, including the three groups (Center for Victims of Torture, National Religious Campaign Against Torture, Evangelicals for Human Rights) that launched the Campaign to Ban Torture, will offer over a dozen specific sessions exploring the most important questions raised by our nation’s descent into torture after 9/11. Led by political, religious, military, and academic leaders, the conference is organized in a two-day format basically structured around two organizing questions: How did we get here? How do we get out of here?

In other words, how did the United States, one of the world’s leading voices for human rights, end up violating its own values and descending into torture? How do the citizens of the United States band together to pull our nation back to our core values and into a clear and unequivocal renunciation of torture?

Speakers on the first day of the conference include such luminaries as Karen Greenberg, a leading human rights lawyer and scholar and expert on the sad development of U.S. torture policy; Don Guter, dean of Duquesne Law School and former head of the JAG office in the Navy; Doug Johnson, president of the Center for Victims of Torture; Sister Dianna Ortiz, a Guatemalan nun who was tortured and now tells her story so that the world might know what torture does to human beings; Rev. Sam Rodriguez, president of the nation’s leading evangelical Hispanic organization; and Thomas Wilner, Gita Gutierrez, Mark Denbeaux, and John Chandler, four lawyers who have played a leading role in representing detainees held in Guantanamo.

The “where do we go from here” discussions on the second day of the conference are led by such key thinkers as George Hunsinger, who founded the National Religious Campaign Against Torture; Cheryl Bridges-Johns, a leading Pentecostal theologian; Glen Stassen, a Baptist ethicist from Fuller Seminary; a panel of the nation’s leading human rights activists; leaders in international Muslim-Christian dialogue such as Andy Saperstein, Rick Love, Mahan Mirza, and Imam Yahya Hendi; and Rachel Laser and her team at Third Way, a Washington thinktank, speaking on practical steps for winning the hearts and minds of Republican and Democratic legislators in Washington.

This brief summary of primary speakers is just a start, as numerous other leading thinkers are also serving as moderators, respondents, panel participants, and so on.

Six hours of conference time are scheduled for question and answer, along with sessions over lunch and dessert. Important books from conference speakers and others working on the torture issue will be available for sale. Numerous discussions will consider practical grassroots action steps. Co-sponsors will bring materials and be available for discussion of their work. A conference booklet will include extensive materials including a lengthy bibliography of works on torture. Interfaith prayer times will suffuse the entire event in a spirit of reflection and prayer.

Registration for the conference closes at the end of August, and seating is limited. If you want to enter into dialogue with those who are devoting their lives to human rights and the struggle against torture, and want to learn what you can do to end torture once and for all, Mercer University is the place to be on September 11-12, 2008. Register today!

David P. Gushee

President, Evangelicals for Human Rights