How much goodness is around. It is spreading in the world and it is becoming more active, visible, courageous than ever before. How many individuals I meet every day, who faithfully and reliably do their work, take care of their children or students or patients or clients, working diligently and making no compromise with conscience. Working together with others every day.
One of the topics of our time – as in Biblical times – is this: How do we really want to live together and work and prepare together for a future? Evidently to go for winning is not enabling the togetherness to unfold. To think that winning will eventually make the losing side disappear or agree is a thought that has proven to be wrong, and Jesus’ never thought that togetherness would ever go out of style. His teachings are infused with inviting people to work together, for example through a shared mission of healing (see Matt 28:19-20), through mutual service in telling us to wash one another’s feet (see John 13: 14-15), through agreements of desires and needs (see Matthew 18:19-20) , through reconciliation and binding together (see Matt 18: 15-18) and even through the oneness as witnesses of the unifying presence of divine Love (see John 17:21). Together.
What seems to be a mighty obstacle in the way of world peace is the unclarity what objectivity truly is. The notion that we cannot take sides but must be objective and neutral is shaping our time. I am hearing this in the context of war zones (like Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan), of zones of inner conflict and political division (like the US, Iran and others), and in the context of zones of rising instability and conflict (Venezuela, Haiti, the Kashmir region). In conversations the question of objectivity versus taking a side is a question that is looming in the minds of many.
Some time ago, in the middle of the very same question, but in the microcosm of the academia, I was given this insight while reading again about the crucifixion of Jesus. The cruxifion as a brutal event with global, historic repercussions as we know now, seemed to be a fitting model how to deal with different sides. I saw in front of me a Roman soldier, driving nails into Jesus’ hands and feet, fixating them on a wooden cross. Part of this image were people around this event: spectators, thousands and thousands of them. Historically probably not correct, but metaphorically true. Humanity sitting on the fence and watching. I was seeing that I had to overcome the illusion that there is a fence. It is an illusion. When it comes to the cruxifion of Jesus, no Christian but also no one with a heart can be neutral. Do we not intuitively understand that this scene is not just about Jesus and a roman soldier in conflict, if you may call it that way, but about all of us? At the very least it is asking us to prepare for a response. Can we remain objective and neutral – and is being objective and neutral the same? And even the right and noble thing to do?
This moment has never left me. When the question is life or death, torture or peace, the Christian response is obvious, and the obstacle in the way seems to me to be a compromising attitude that does not want to disturb power and leave it alone, hoping that no one will ever find us sitting on the fence. But divine Love is All-in-all and in divine Love there is no fence.
Mary Baker Eddy wrote in the 19th century: “Go, if you must, to the dungeon or the scaffold, but take not back the words of Truth. (…) Love’s labors are not lost.” (see her book Miscellaneous Writings, p. 99/100)
So are we meant to pick a side? Are we called to have an opinion? I am reminded of the stellar work of the war reporter Carlos Hernández de Miguel, who passed on this month. He had reported from Kabul, Bhagdad, and Jerusalem and had focused on Gaza, in the last years. I am quoting from his last article, published in the newspaper The Guardian (February 2026): “I learned, from veteran colleagues, what I consider to be the two principles of journalism. The first is that objectivity is not the same as neutrality. If there is an aggressor and a victim, a liar and an honest person, a corrupt individual and an honorable one, then your task is to describe all that clearly and forcefully. I’m sick of those who believe that being a journalist means reporting both sides’ versions, without filters, without challenging their veracity, especially – and this is worse and all too common – when you know that one side isn’t telling the truth. The second principle is that to be a good journalist, it’s vital that you’re a good person.”
To understand the difference between objectivity and neutrality will move forward the project of establishing peace and togetherness like nothing else. There is objectively a side and this side is not neutral: It is the side of peace and justice, the side of good. Mary Baker Eddy writes: “Your influence for good depends upon the weight you throw into the right scale. The good you do and embody gives you the only power obtainable. Evil is not power.” (Science and Health, p. 192) We can be objective, but neutrality doesn’t follow objectivity.
The side of good is not an opinion, neither a political nor a religious one. It is a standpoint. A standpoint that understands that there is no fence from which to watch what happens to others – either understood through quality news, or through conversations, either in the practice of healing or in community work. Here the neutral observer is no thing. Our entire mental weight is thrown on the good side. The side of good is objectively the only one that carries weight and reflects Life, and it is never neutral. It can never be or we ought to find a new word for God, which in so many languages has this shining, magnificent and triumphant meaning: Good.
“Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem – in my opinion – to characterize our age.”
– Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years, 1950.
