Torture is a Moral Issue Sign the Statement of Conscience
Study Resources for Congregations

Study Materials for Faith Groups
Audio Video
Books
Print Materials

These materials could be used in an ongoing education class, a special event for your congregation or an interfaith study with people from your congregation and other faiths.

Study Materials

Featured Resources

Christian Resources

Jewish Resources

Muslim Resources

Audio Video

Recommended Films

Other suggested films and reviews

More viewing resources

  • "The Response" is only 30 minutes long and a bit under-stated compared to the box-office hits with which it must compete, but the courtroom drama should be mandatory viewing for high school current affairs classes.  The film, researched and shot at the University of Maryland School of Law and adapted from actual transcripts, re-creates a hearing in which three military judges must determine if a four-year detainee at Guantanamo is rightfully being held as an “enemy combatant.”  After the evidence (or lack of it) is laid out, viewers are left to decide for themselves which way the judges should vote.
  • "Torture on Trial" is a Link TV original production that investigates the history of interrogations in the "War on Terrorism", and the growing movement calling for accountability for those who authorized and participated in torture.  Featured guests include George Hunsinger, NRCAT’s Founder.
  • "Next Steps in Ending U.S.-sponsored Torture," 90-minute webcast of NRCAT workshop at Ecumenical Advocacy Days (3/14/09), featuring George Hunsinger, legal scholar Scott Horton and former military interrogator Matthew Alexander.
  • "Torture, Conscience and the Catholic Moral Tradition," webcast of conference at Catholic University, March 19, 2009.
  • "Torture is a Moral Issue," a presentation by George Hunsinger at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, CA.
  • "The Torture Question," by Frontline, PBS, 2005.
  • No2Torture's 2007 LA Gathering, featuring keynote address by Richard Mouw, President of Fuller Seminary - order a free DVD
  • Torture is a Moral Issue, PowerPoint Presentation compiled by Jean Athey, WRRCAT.

Audio resources

Books

  • Liberty: Rethinking an Imperiled Ideal, Glenn Tinder, Eerdmans, 421 pp., $27.00. Reviewed by: Timothy Renick, chair of the department of religious studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta and director of a two-year project by the American Academy of Religion and the Teagle Foundation to study the undergraduate major in religion.
  • Torture and Democracy, Darius Rejali (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007).  849pp. $39.50.Reviewed by: George Hunsinger (To be published in Theology Today, October, 2008). This book is quite simply the most authoritative study of torture ever written.  Twenty-five years of painstaking research in the making, it will serve the human rights movement for decades to come.  The author, whose mother was an American Presbyterian and whose father was an Iranian Muslim, grew up in Tehran under the reign of terror instituted by the U.S.-installed Shah of Iran.  He saw at first hand the effects of torture on a society in which it was meted out.  He has devoted his scholarly career to doing whatever can be done to prevent it.

Print Materials

Websites
  • www.interrogationscentral.com is a website created by Matthew Alexander (former interrogator and author of How to Break a Terrorist) that serves as a central knowledge bank for all things related to interrogations. The art of interrogations is more than a skill; it is a discipline with deep historical roots and remarkable achievements. Trained, certified, and professional interrogators are dedicated to improving their craft, advancing the use of non-coercive interrogation techniques, and value continued learning and research.