Understanding the proper balance between Truth & Justice is key to avoiding the ditches of communism & fascism. It isn’t the road that matters most, but how you walk it.
Editorial from the January, 2025 issue of FreedomTalk Magazine.
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“Though you cannot see, when you take one step, what will be the next, yet follow truth, justice, and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you out of [any difficult situation] in the easiest manner possible.” –Thomas Jefferson
“What is truth?” Roman Governor Pontius Pilate asked a question that has resonated across two millennia. Today, the answer seems more nebulous than ever.
“What was a lie in the father becomes a conviction in the son,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), and “there are no facts, only interpretations.”
Postmodern ethics however, are shifting from relativism to a new redefinition of truth that—while individually subjective—has coalesced into collective dogmas. And, as history presents nothing but new coats of paint on old ideas, the “faithful” are lining up behind the two ideological ditches of communism and fascism.
And here’s why this duality of dogma endlessly cycles like Yin and Yang: Because one is based on justice without truth and the other emphasizes truth without justice. (I use “justice” here to mean treating all people with dignity, compassion and fairness.)
Justice and truth must be yoked together or else society will careen from one ditch to the other.
Justice and truth must be yoked together or else society will careen from one ditch to the other. Justice untempered by objective truth is endemic to socialism and communism; truth without justice, taken to its extreme, grows into fascism. The ditches are not as far apart as they may seem, and the saying “ “narrow is the way that leads to life, and few find it” carries the ring of divine wisdom.
Søren Kierkegaard wrote that, “Worldly wisdom is very willing to deceive by answering correctly the question, ‘Where is the road?’ while life’s true task is omitted, that spiritually understood, the road is: how it is walked.’
If we walk improperly, we can stray from the road entirely, and end up in a ditch.
“Worldly sagacity teaches that the road…goes through some science or other, or that the road is certain doctrines, or certain behaviors,” wrote Kierkegaard. “But all this is a deception, because the road is how it is walked. It is indeed as Scripture says—two people can be sleeping in the same bed—one is saved, the other is lost. Two people can go up to the same house of worship—the one goes home saved, the other is lost. How does this happen except for the fact that, spiritually speaking, it is a deception to know where the road is, because the road is: how is it walked?”
Unfortunately, some so-called “Christian” churches have embraced neo-Marxist social justice ideologies. I say, “neo-Marxist,” because Marx’s class struggle based on economics has been redefined along racial and sexual intersectionality.
Should Christians pursue justice? Yes, of course. “How long will you judge unjustly, and show partiality to the wicked?” asked the Psalmist. “Defend the poor and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and needy; deliver the poor and needy; free them from the hand of the wicked.”
But the biblical view of justice requires an adherence to God’s standards of good and evil, and the problem is that Marxism is an atheist ideology inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus. It fails to acknowledge that God is the perfect balance between mercy and judgment, and so is the standard of all behavior.
It would hardly be just to blame the crimes of the Biden administration on the American people, even if the truth is that the administration represented the nation.
“Social justice warriors” destroy the boundaries between good and evil, “removing the ancient boundary stones” our ancestors put into place as they were led by God. Without the truth that has grown and developed over millennia of human history and collected wisdom, justice warriors become so unbalanced that they come to embrace things like child mutilation and drag-queen story hour that are so far outside of truth and virtue that they make monsters of the innocent and portray monsters as victims.
Yet, truth untempered by justice and mercy holds its own horrors, and inevitably leads to authoritarianism and compelled orthodoxy. One poignant example is the rise of antisemitism in the U.S. Proponents of what is essentially a rehash of Hitler’s Mein Kampf arguments compile facts and anecdotal truths, yet they fail to appreciate the fear and destruction they are sowing into society.
Was it Adolf Hitler or a contemporary influencer who said, “The nations are no longer willing to die on the battlefield so that [the Jews] may profiteer from a war”? The idea is common to them both. (Hitler said it, but it’s said today too.)
There may be truth to the idea that some powerful Jews have been corrupt, yet most Jewish people are simply trying to live in peace and have a homeland. While the perpetrators of antisemitism may deny it, the fruits of their certitude are the same kind of fear and persecution we’ve seen before.
It would hardly be just to blame the crimes of the Biden administration on the American people, even if the truth is that the administration represented the nation.
“The truth shall set you free,” but the truth in and of itself cannot save anyone.
“Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean,” wrote Isaiah. “Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rebuke the oppressor; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.”
Certainly, those enslaved by leftist dogma believe in things that we know to be false. But mocking them, talking about “liberal tears” and the like is tempting, but it does not win people over to the truth. Treating them with dignity and compassion can and does red-pill people “caught in the Matrix.”
Unfortunately the conservative side has been building its own elite class while failing to do justice for many people still suffering from targeting and persecution by the administrative state and the corrupt judiciary. There is a massive focus on the cult of personality, and it needs to be called out, because it is the road the priest and the Levite walked while ignoring the injured man along the way.
Isaiah warned nations that, “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land. But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword.”
What is the nature of that obedience and willingness? It is not being right, having the truth, or anything other than working justice to help others in need.
Jesus laid out clearly the criteria for obedience that leads to life, and disobedience that leads to death: “I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’ “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
“If there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, ‘You sit here in [the VIP seats]’ and say to the poor man, ‘You stand there [outside the velvet ropes],” or, “Sit here [in the cheap seats],’ have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?”
We are not justified by the road we walk, but rather, how we walk it.
I truly believe that our great nation has been given a reprieve from judgment and destruction. But we can blow it and fall under the judgment of our Creator if we do not balance truth with justice.
Truth is the work of freedom and in such a way that freedom constantly brings forth truth. What I am referring to is very plain and simple,” wrote Kierkegaard, “namely that truth exists for a particular individual only as he himself produces it into action. If the individual prevents the truth from being for him in that way, we have a phenomenon of the demonic.
“Truth has always had many loud proclaimers, but the question is whether a person will in the deepest sense acknowledge the truth, allow it to permeate his whole being, accept all of its consequences, and not have an emergency hiding place for himself and a Judas kiss for the consequence.”
In Romans 1, Paul chastises what we would call the Left, based upon “suppressing the truth in unrighteousness” because “they did not like to retain God in their knowledge.” The litany of vile behavior reads like a biography of the Left today.
But then in chapter 2, Paul pulls a fast one! He condemns, perhaps in much harsher terms, what we might call the Right when it is bereft of justice. “You are inexcusable, O man,” he says, “for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself.”
Justice without Truth leads to the ditch on the left, Truth without Justice drives society into the ditch on the right.
Why are they condemned? Because they “despise the richness of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance.” God is patient and merciful to us, but how do we treat one another?
We are not justified by the road we walk, but rather, how we walk it. Justice without Truth leads to the ditch on the left, Truth without Justice drives society into the ditch on the right.
Our Founders rejected the mob rule of pure democracy which elevated majority preference over truth, and monarchy or oligarchy which by virtue of unchecked power inevitably abuse justice. The nation they envisioned is that narrow path.
It is time we get the United States back on that road to greatness that once made us a shining beacon to a world abused by ideologies too far to the left or the right.
We may not be given a third chance.
A balance between Truth and Justice IS the American Way. 
Kelly John Walker is an American statesman, senior writer, author, and entrepreneur. He is Communications Director for Lindell Legal Offense Fund, Founder of FreedomTalk, and Editor-in-Chief for FreedomTalk Magazine.
Kelly’s work has been published in The Washington Times, Gateway Pundit, The Epoch Times, Andrew Magazine, Newsmax, Townhall, Law Enforcement Today, and more. He’s often asked to appear on such programs as The Eric Metaxas Show, Bannon’s War Room, Real America’s Voice, The Alex Newman Show, Conservative Daily, NTD News, the Sam Sorbo Show, and more.
Kelly holds a BA in English & Theology, and a Master of Science degree on a graduate fellowship with the US Department of Defense. He had a distinguished career as a conservation professional, founded two award-winning advertising agencies. In 2020, Kelly joined the fight for freedom as an independent journalist after making a bold stand against tyranny that saw him canceled out of a job and arrested twice for speaking out.
