Andrew Sullivan, blogger for the Atlantic, is convinced that “the question of torture—and the United States’ embrace of inhumanity as a core American value under the presidency of George W. Bush—remains, in my view, the pre-eminent moral question in American politics. The descent of the United States—and of Americans in general—to lower standards of morality and justice than those demanded by Iranians of their regime is a sign of the polity's moral degeneracy.”

What he writes next is worth careful reflection not only by all those who consider themselves to be conservatives, but especially those of that number who claim to be Christians.

Indeed, much of the American people, especially evangelical Christians, expect less in terms of human rights from their own government than Iranians do of theirs’. In fact, American evangelicals are much more pro-torture in this respect than many Iranian Muslims.

This is what Bush and Cheney truly achieved in their tragic response to 9/11: two terribly failed, brutally expensive wars, the revival of sectarian warfare and genocide in the Middle East, the end of America's global moral authority, the empowerment of Iran's and North Korea's dictatorships, and the nightmares of Gitmo and Bagram still haunting the new administration.

But what they did to the culture—how they systematically dismantled core American values like the prohibition on torture and respect for the rule of law—is the worst and most enduring of the legacies.

One political party in this country is now explicitly pro-torture, and wants to restore a torture regime if it regains power. Decent conservatives for the most part simply looked the other way. Unless these cultural forces in defense of violence and torture are defeated - not appeased or excused, but defeated—America will never return the way it once was. Electing a new president was the start and not the end of this. He is flawed, as every president is, but in my view, the scale of the mess he inherited demands some slack. Any new criminal investigation which scapegoats those at the bottom while protecting the guilty men and women who made it happen is a travesty of justice. If it is the end and not the beginning of accountability, it will be worse than nothing.

Evangelical faith is centered on the evangel, the gospel as expressed in Scripture and revealed in Christ and his finished work. Essential to that gospel is the biblical insistence that every person is created in God’s image and must therefore be treated as such. But what if they have committed heinous crimes? This does not erase God’s image. Justice must be served, but jettisoning basic morality in the pursuit of security is both unwise and unjust. It is noting less than a practical denial of the gospel of Christ.

You can read Andrew Sullivan’s post here.