Our nation needs a Truth Commission on the issue of torture because we need to know exactly what happened. We need the truth, and we need it from multiple perspectives. Minimally, such a body needs to gain access to all government documents in which policies related to detainee interrogation were debated and articulated. The commission further needs to talk to the policy-makers who developed the policies, at least some of the people who implemented them, and some who were on the receiving end of that implementation and are willing to speak about it. If there are surviving videotapes of these interrogations, these also need to be examined by any Truth Commission.

The Bible teaches that truth is central to God’s character, to a community’s well-being, and to the way of life of God’s people. Many people who know the Bible only minimally think of truth primarily in terms of a moral obligation not to bear false witness. But the Bible at least as often emphasizes truthfulness as an aspect of character -- both personal and national character. Believers are called to live in truth, to walk in truth, to stay on the path of truth. And it is recognized repeatedly in Scripture that truth is essential to healthy public life, and that lies corrode life in community.

It has been very difficult to have an honest public debate about exactly what our nation has done to those in our custody because we have never been given full information. We have half-debated what has been only half-revealed. We need to bring what has been done in the shadows into the full light of day, and see how it looks when exposed to that cleansing sunlight.

Those who have defended these policies as both moral and essential to national security would be given full opportunity to make their case in light of what was actually done, to how many people, with what results, and with what effects on everyone involved. If the policies were truly defensible, they will reveal themselves as such in the process of exposure to the sunlight of public scrutiny. If they were not defensible, that will also very likely be obvious in the course of public examination.

Finding out exactly what happened could be the first step toward a process of national and international reconciliation. In Scripture, reconciliation is a fundamental theme. It is God’s goal in relation to humanity, and should be the goal of Christians (and all people) in relation to one another. It is sufficiently important to fractured societies and to international relations that, in many cases, lives depend on it.

Biblically, reconciliation generally involves truth-telling, repentance and forgiveness. Unpacked a bit further, reconciliation includes the wrongdoer’s acknowledgment of responsibility, confession of the act as sin, expression of grief for any harm done, serious commitment to a new course of action and request for forgiveness. It sometimes also involves some concrete form of recompense offered to the one harmed by the one who did the harm.

Of course, forgiveness then needs to be extended by the aggrieved party for full reconciliation to be experienced. And in situations in which wrong has been done by both sides, both parties need to walk through this process and extend forgiveness to each other at the end of it.

Is it too much to dream that the United States of America could walk through a process like this in relation to our detainee policies? Once our nation’s acts have been exposed to the clear light of day and we see that the facts merit repentance, I dream that we would demonstrate the moral courage to acknowledge responsibility for wrong acts, confess them as sin, express real grief for the harms done, commit ourselves to a new course of action (and solidify that commitment in concrete legislation and executive policies), offer recompense to those whom we have harmed where that is appropriate and ask our victims for forgiveness.

There is much discussion about whether punishment of wrongdoers is appropriate as an aspect of a Truth Commission process, or as one possible outcome of such a commission. It partly depends on whether our goal is fundamentally a truth-and-reconciliation goal or instead a justice-and-punishment goal. I fear that the inevitable result of a commission of inquiry that might lead to prosecution is that everyone will “lawyer up” and the truth will remain buried in layers of legal maneuvering and refusal to testify.

Probably the full truth will be revealed only if everyone is granted immunity from prosecution for their actions in relation to detainees. No one would be prosecuted for anything other than for refusing to tell the truth about what they knew and what they did. This decision not to prosecute would not be because any crimes committed were insignificant, but because getting the truth out for the sake of healing and reconciliation was judged the higher good. This is probably the best way forward.

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David Gushee is distinguished university professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University.

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