Dr. David P. Gushee is Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University and author of The Future of Faith in American Politics: The Public Witness of the Evangelical Center . This is his reflection on the answer Senator Obama gave to his question at Sunday night’s Compassion Forum for the presidential candidates. The full exchange between Gushee and Senator Obama is below.

I was very pleased with Senator Obama’s answer to my question on torture. He spoke with passion and clarity in offering what sounded like an absolute rejection of torture: by our military, by our intelligence services, by our allies, or by anyone. He rejected torture as bad morally, bad for our troops, and bad for national security.
Of course, President Bush says he rejects “torture” too. But we now know that the way he makes that statement is by having administration lawyers redefine his actions so that by definition they cannot be defined as torture. This evasiveness and redefining of the meaning of terms is one of the great and terrible casualties of the descent into torture by our government. One of its implications is that just hearing a candidate say an absolute no to torture still leaves one wondering if he is saying no to torture or to “torture” as redefined by this administration.
If I had more time Sunday night, I would have asked specific questions such
as: will you bring our nation back into full compliance with the Geneva Conventions, will you release and then publicly repudiate all the Administration’s torture memos of the last seven years, will you require the CIA to abide by the Army Field Manual interrogation standards and/or the principle of the Golden Rule (do unto your enemies as you would have them do unto your troops), will you end the indefinite detention of detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere, and so on.
Finally, the original plan was that I would have asked that question to Senator Clinton. There was not time, and my question was almost bumped from the program altogether. Therefore I now ask both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton what their answers are to all of the questions I have just posed in the last paragraph.
The turn to torture has stained the honor of our nation. It must be repented and repudiated, utterly. We can and must defend our nation without it.

The Compassion Forum exchange:
David P. Gushee: Senator Obama, recently yet another disturbing memo emerged from the Justice Department. This one said that not even interrogation methods that, quote, “shock the conscience” would be considered torture nor would they be considered illegal if they had been authorized by the president.
Senator Obama, this kind of reasoning shocks the conscience of many millions of Americans and many millions of people of faith here and around the world. Is there justification for policies on the part of our nation that permit physical and mental cruelty toward those who are in our custody?
Senator Obama: We have to be clear and unequivocal. We do not torture, period. We don’t torture. Our government does not torture. That should be our position. That should be our position. That will be my position as president. That includes, by the way, renditions. We don’t farm out torture. We don’t subcontract torture.
And the reason this is important is not only because torture does not end up yielding good information — most intelligence officers agree with that. I met with a group — a distinguished group of former generals who have made it their mission to travel around and talk to presidential candidates and to talk in forums about how this degrades the discipline and the ethos of our military.

It is very hard for us when kids, you know, 19, 20, 21, 22 are in Iraq having to make difficult decisions, life or death decisions every day, and are being asked essentially to restrain themselves and operate within the law.
And then to find out that our own government is not abiding by these same laws that we are asking them to defend? That is not acceptable. And so my position is going to be absolutely clear.
And it is also important for our long-term security to send a message to the world that we will lead not just with our military might but we are going to lead with our values and our ideals.
That we are not a nation that gives away our civil liberties simply because we’re
scared. And we’re always at our worst when we’re fearful. And one of the things that my religious faith allows me to do, hopefully, is not to operate out of fear.
Fear is a bad counsel and I want to operate out of hope and out of faith.