Since then, evidence of other abuses has surfaced in Afghanistan and Guantanamo, Cuba.

        Melin believes it’s time for Presbyterians to act. “I’m very concerned about (torture) and feel that we need to do something,” she said. “Start somewhere.”

        As a first step, the Wisconsin nurse/paramedic recently traveled to Miami, FL, for a Jan. 6 conference called the “No2Torture Epiphany.” 

        The goal of the two-day conference at Riviera Presbyterian Church was to educate people about the government’s interrogation practices and call for an end to inappropriate practices, wherever they occur.

        “I live in a fairly conservative community,” Melin said of Clinton, which is about 65 miles west of Milwaukee. “I wanted some guidance on how to get people motivated beyond the point of saying, ‘Oh, yes, that’s just really bad.’”

        During the No2Torture event, Melin joined an eclectic mix of about 50 people from around the country and across the political and theological spectrum.

        Most participants were Presbyterians. The group included pastors, church members, military chaplains, college students and seminary professors.

        The fledgling No2Torture group was formed during the 2005 Presbyterian Peacemaking Conference in New Mexico. About 50 Presbyterians concerned about the torture allegations met informally there to organize as advocates for the humane treatment of prisoners held by the U.S. and its allies since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

        “We wanted to make sure it supported the troops and opposed torture,” said the Rev. Carol Wickersham, a Presbyterian minister and sociology professor at Beloit College in Wisconsin, a catalyst for the group’s first meetings. “We are not going to point the finger of blame at the troops. This is not what this is about.”

        Wickersham helped plan the Miami conference, which featured speeches, organizing, strategizing and prayer.

        She said the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has condemned torture, specifically in a statement passed by the General Assembly in 2004, but never “got up above the noise.”

        “This is a moral outrage, and the faith community’s voice needs to be weighing in on this,” she said.

        Conference speakers agreed that the use of torture for any reason — even in the name of fighting terrorism — is immoral and ineffective, a crime against humanity that cannot be justified.

        They said the use of

        “We must react when our nation breaks the moral constraints and historical values contained in treaties, laws and our Constitution,” said Maj. Gen. (retired) Kermit Johnson, a former chaplain who spoke about torture and its implications.

        Torture violates the human dignity of the victim, said the Rev. George Hunsinger, a professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, NJ.

        “All people are created in the image of God and therefore have a dignity that can never be taken away from them,” he told the conference participants. “It’s not earned, it’s given by their status of being a creature of God, and that has to be respected.”

        Hunsinger, who spoke about the ethical implications of torture, is the founder of Church Folks for a Better America, an online peace initiative that co-sponsored a conference this month in Princeton in an effort to launch a national religious campaign against torture.

        People of faith must find their collective voices to speak out to fight unjust and abusive forms of interrogation and incarceration, speakers and participants agreed.

        “We are here because we are Christian and our faith compels us to figure out how to stop this,” said the Rev. Kirsten Klepfer, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Grinnell, IA. “Our faith is the motivator, and then our context and our culture determines our strategy.”

     Klepfer was one of the “conversation starters”at the conference. Others were a lawyer, a staff member from the PC(USA)’s Washington Office and an expert on the psychological effects of torture on victim and perpetrator.

        Brief question-and-answer sessions followed each presentation. Then the participants broke into small groups to talk about how the No2Torture group can work with congregations, college students, young adults and military families.

        In a sense, a torturer and the country he or she represents violate their own dignity more profoundly than that of the person tortured, Johnson said.

        “Whenever (government representatives) are encouraged or ordered to use torture, two war crimes are committed,” he said. “One against them, and the other against the prisoner. The torturer and the tortured are both victims — unless we’re talking about sadists or ‘loose cannons’ who need to be court-martialed.”

        For the torturer, this “violence of conscience” breeds “self-hatred, shame and mental torment,” Johnson said.

        He added that torture is ineffective, even counterproductive, because it usually does not elicit useful information.

        Other speakers said there is no question that the use of torture creates hatred of the United States.

        Because they are not considered prisoners of war, such detainees are not protected under the Geneva Conventions, which were enacted to minimize cruelty and unnecessary suffering during war, said lifelong Presbyterian Gail Brown, a lawyer and mother from Albuquerque, NM, who discussed advocacy and legal issues related to torture.

        “Those values were created by somebody, and they were created for a reason,” Brown said. “They were created to give people a safe harbor for their behavior.”

        Speakers said the government’s policy on torture is inconsistent. Officially, the United States opposes torture and advocates for human rights, but allows coercive interrogation methods to be developed that clearly violate those same standards.

        These tactics include “stress positions,” sleep deprivation and sexual humiliation, said the Rev. Michael L. Spezio, a postdoctoral scholar in social neuroscience at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

        Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and depression are the two most frequent neuropsychological outcomes, said Spezio, who led a conversation about the effects of torture on survivors and perpetrators.

        The Rev. Edward T. Brogan, director of the Presbyterian Council of Military Chaplains, said one reason he attended was to give participants a balanced view of military personnel.

        “They’re thinking, caring, hardworking people,” he said of his military colleagues, “very moral in their ways and very committed.”

        Brogan, a former pastor who served in the U.S. Air Force for 24 years after leading Presbyterian churches in upstate New York, said cruel and degrading interrogation methods are forbidden for all U.S. personnel, at home and abroad.

        “Our military are called to closely adhere to the Uniform Code of Military Justice … and they’re punished when they violate it,” Brogan said. “The military is against torture as much as anybody else is. They may define it slightly differently, but will prosecute their own people pretty quickly when they discover it taking place.”

        Brogan recently joined forces with General Assembly Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase, a conference leader, in calling on Presbyterians to stand against abusive treatment of prisoners through prayer, study and action.

        “I find that Presbyterians across the board are concerned about this issue and how we continue to make sure that our country stands for the best of our values,” said Ufford-Chase, an elder from Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, AZ.