The Independent Investigation of Reality
On Justice and Mercy—And Why We Struggle to Get Both Right
This week’s conversations, both public and private, have circled around one of the oldest dilemmas in history: How do we hold each other accountable without losing sight of grace? How do we balance the demands of justice with the call to forgiveness—especially when the stakes are as high as a life lost, or as tangled as a soul’s darkest years? And how do we discern what is just, when we are flawed and subjective?
After last week's episode with Gunner Lindbloom—a man whose past as an organized crime enforcer and whose subsequent journey through prison and redemption unsettled as much as it inspired—several viewers rose with challenging questions. Should a person like Gunner be “held more accountable”? Do we risk “cheap grace” when we extend open arms to those whose earlier choices wrought real damage? Is there danger, even, in platforming such stories without demanding society’s full measure of justice?
These are not new questions. In fact, they run as deep as scripture itself. And several threads of Revelation address different aspects of these questions.
Individuals and Institutions: The Twin Mandates
As I’ve tried to name in the show and in my writings, there’s a difference—one we ignore at our peril—between what we are called to do individually, and how society must act collectively. The Hebrew and Christian scriptures alike are fierce in their calls for justice: the community must wield the sword; wrongs must be named, adjudicated, reparations made. Society must hold us accountable, under the law. They “wield the sword." Gunner did, in fact, serve his time by the judgment of the law.
And yet, the same revelation consistently reserves a different task for the individual heart: We are commanded, as individuals, to forgive, whether the person we are forgiving even acknowledges, much less repents or is punished, for what they did. When Jesus instructs us to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” and also tells us not to judge He draws a hard boundary between the realm of government (with its duty to order, punish, restrain) and the path of spiritual growth (with its insistent, unsettling call to mercy, humility, even love for the enemy).
Are we good at living this out? Rarely. As a culture, as faith communities, as families, we conflate the two, swinging between sentimental forgiveness that ignores justice, and retribution that forgets the possibility of change. That’s why, when Gunner’s story provokes us, we ought to pause a beat longer—to ask if we, ourselves, are able to “judge righteous judgment” or, instead, engage in the devil’s work, because Satan, after all, is “The accuser of the brethren”.
Wrestling with Maturity: Adam, Eve... and All of Us
This dynamic—of blame, projection, partiality—is as old as Genesis. There, in the garden, when Eyes are opened but hearts unsteady, the finger pointing begins. “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree,” Adam says. “The serpent deceived me,” says Eve. No one wants to own their responsibility; everyone’s grasping for an alibi.
Thousands of years later, Paul will laments, in Hebrews, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles... you have come to need milk and not solid food.” He is hearkening back to the genesis of all things when he writes, that the real work of maturity is discernment: “But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil” (Hebrews 5:12-14).
We remain, in so many ways—individually, communally, institutionally—spiritually immature, unable to see ourselves or one another clearly in the light of God’s justice and mercy.
And so, we approach the work of judgment—of truth, consequence, reconciliation—with a staggering array of biases, self-justifications, and blind spots.
Independent Investigation: The Hardest Work of All
Enter Gerry Tostowaryk—“Dry Toast” on his thoughtful podcast—a man who’s wrestled with philosophy, teaching, and the uneasy art of thinking for oneself. When we sat down this week, the theme was the “independent investigation of reality”—can we actually see clearly, or are we always doomed to be “just writing our own autobiography” under the guise of reason?
Pulling directly from Gerry’s insights:
- “A major problem with political philosophies is that they involve the playing out of the abstract thoughts of their authors. Are the differing visions of a state of nature as seen by Hobbes, Rousseau or Locke grounded in empirical studies of the history of stateless societies or only the projections of the life experiences, intuitive speculations, indoctrinations, the collective unconscious, and other internally generated influences upon the mind of the writer? … Is it possible to stand outside our own minds and comment upon the world free of the content of our own thinking?”
Gerry’s experience—chronic pain that baffled doctors, a season of grounding himself anew through hypnotherapy and study—mirrored this theme. Even our most intimate realities are shaped by the “complex interplay of brain, nervous system, the gut”—so much so that, as he put it, “it took me three months, but I’m 110% now... it was an amazing situation.” We are not as rational, not as autonomous, as we like to believe.
Bias, he insisted, is not a moral failure alone—it is the gravitational pull of incentives, trauma, self-preservation, even the paycheck: “One of the hardest things to overcome for all human beings is coming to a conclusion that may cut off my job and I may have to go on unemployment. I can't come to that conclusion.” Whole fields (medicine, academia, media) warp what is “true” beneath the gentle, unrelenting pressure of “incentive structures.” As I shared, echoing my past, “I resigned from the ministry to separate my faith from my paycheck for exactly that reason.”
This is not only theory; it is the lived experience of everyone who’s ever tried—honestly tried—to look into the mirror.
The Limits of Detachment—and The Need for Humility
Gerry read from Our Enemy, the State: “As our understanding of the world is grounded in subjectivity, the same question needs to be asked of anyone engaged in speculative philosophy. Is it possible to stand outside our own minds and comment upon the world free of the content of our own thinking?” Our conversation circled this: the impossibility of pure objectivity, the subtlety of self-interest, and the need for genuine humility when we approach both knowledge and judgment.
“Keep an open mind and go and read things for and against your beliefs,” Gerry urged in closing. “I have no fear of reading and studying science and studying atheist books and that.”
For my part, I stressed asking questions about why it is that those who adhere to “bad ideas” think they are actually good ideas, to try to get to the bottom of it so that we can reach agreement... to take the little piece of truth, try to incorporate it if possible, or at least address the concern.
If we want unity rather than division, if we want to mend what’s broken and not just criticize, we must cultivate this humility—the kind that invites “solid food,” complexity, mutual listening, and the hard work of putting our most cherished assumptions on the table.
Foreshadowing: Journalism, Addiction, and the Next Steps Toward Truth
This Sunday, as our unfolding season continues, we take up the challenge of independent investigation at the level of the commons: “In an age defined by information overload, disinformation campaigns, and outrage-driven algorithms, what role — if any — can journalism play in promoting unity rather than division?” Mehrtash Olson will join us to ask: What if the news were rooted in spiritual principles? What if media could be an act of service, not just a contest for attention?
And next Thursday, we’ll roll up our sleeves again, turning to the ways addiction steers us away from reality. John M.—founder of SoberSpeak—will bring his decades of recovery wisdom to our ongoing theme: the denial, the darkness, but also the stubborn hope that real transformation is possible.
Toward Unity—Rolling Up Our Sleeves
If there’s a through-line to these weeks (and years) of conversation, it's this: we are all “still a long way off,” still learning how to live in the light of justice and mercy. We are prone to excuses, quick to judge, slow to forgive, even slower to take up the hard, daily work of discernment.
But we are, if we choose, also capable of humility. Of asking hard questions, inviting honest answers, and tearing down the walls that bias—personal and systemic—would keep between us and the truth.
As momentum builds around these themes—justice, mercy, maturity, independent investigation—the invitation stands: put your baggage aside, roll up your sleeves, and let’s keep solving real problems, together, “in the light of the Word of God.”
With hope, humility, and the promise of voices still to come,
Wade
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