- Bias and Blind Spots — An Invitation to Awareness
- How Cognitive Bias Creeps Into Code
- Search Me, O God: Naming Our Blind Spots (Ps 139:23–24)
- When Data Misleads Us: Bias in Datasets and Models
- The Logs in Our Own Eyes (Matt 7:1–5)
- Bias in AI: How to Build More Just Systems
- Learning to See as Christ Sees
- Debugging Our Thinking: Techniques for Reducing Bias
- Walking in the Light (1 John 1:5–7)
Truth is something we often assume we already have.
We speak of facts, evidence, data, and correctness as though truth naturally emerges whenever enough information is gathered or the right processes are followed. In technical fields especially, truth is frequently treated as an output — the result of accurate measurement, clean logic, or well-designed systems.
And yet, some of the most serious failures in technology, institutions, and communities do not arise from a lack of information. They arise from a lack of transparency.
Things are known but not disclosed. Risks are understood but minimised. Uncertainty is present but hidden. The problem is not that truth is absent — it is that it is kept out of the light.
March’s theme, Truth and Transparency, invites us to explore this tension. It asks what it really means to live truthfully in a world shaped by complexity, power, and systems that often reward appearance over honesty.
Truth That Remains Hidden
There is a difference between truth that exists and truth that is shared.
A system can be technically accurate while still being misleading. A statement can be factually correct while leaving a false impression. A process can be lawful while remaining ethically questionable. These gaps rarely require outright deception. More often, they are created through omission, framing, or selective disclosure.
Transparency is what bridges this gap.
To be transparent is not simply to avoid lies. It is to resist concealment. It is to allow what is true to be seen, even when doing so is uncomfortable or costly.
This is why Scripture so often associates truth with light.
“Whoever lives by the truth comes into the light.”— John 3:21
Truth, in the biblical sense, is not merely correct speech. It is a way of living openly before God and others.
Why Transparency Is Difficult
Transparency sounds virtuous in principle. In practice, it is demanding.
To be transparent is to admit limits.To name uncertainty.To allow scrutiny.To relinquish control over how we are perceived.
In professional contexts, transparency can feel risky. It may slow progress. It may complicate narratives of success. It may expose mistakes, disagreements, or unresolved questions.
As a result, we often settle for partial honesty. We disclose what is safe. We simplify what is complex. We emphasise what supports our position and downplay what does not.
None of this requires malicious intent. In fact, it often feels reasonable. But over time, these habits erode trust.
Truth that remains hidden cannot build confidence. It creates fragility instead.
Transparency in a Technical World
Modern technology magnifies the consequences of opacity.
Systems increasingly shape access to resources, opportunities, and information. Decisions once made by individuals are now automated, scaled, and embedded in infrastructure. This creates distance between those who build systems and those who are affected by them.
Transparency is one of the primary ways this imbalance is addressed — or ignored.
When systems are opaque, power goes unquestioned. When decisions cannot be explained, accountability weakens. When uncertainty is hidden, trust becomes conditional and fragile.
Transparency does not require full technical disclosure to everyone. It requires appropriate visibility — clarity at the level of impact. People deserve to understand how decisions affecting them are made, what assumptions are involved, and where limits lie.
A Spiritual Discipline, Not Just a Value
Transparency is not only a professional concern. It is a spiritual one.
To live transparently before God is to resist self-deception. It is to bring not only our strengths, but also our doubts, failures, and mixed motives into the light of grace.
This is not a call to constant self-exposure or confession in public. It is a call to integrity — alignment between inner life and outward action.
The psalms model this honesty repeatedly. They name fear, anger, confusion, and longing without sanitising experience. They assume that God does not require performance, but truthfulness.
Transparency before God becomes the ground from which transparency before others grows.
Walking in the Light
The image of walking in the light is important. It suggests movement, not arrival. Transparency is not something we achieve once and then possess. It is a posture practised over time.
Walking in the light means choosing openness again and again:
- explaining rather than obscuring,
- naming uncertainty rather than projecting certainty,
- admitting mistakes rather than defending image.
This kind of living is slower. It resists the urge to manage perception. But it also brings freedom.
When truth is brought into the light, it can be examined, corrected, and healed. When it remains hidden, it quietly shapes outcomes without accountability.
The Cost — and the Gift
Transparency is costly because it involves vulnerability. But it is also a gift — to colleagues, users, communities, and ourselves.
It builds trust not through perfection, but through honesty. It allows learning rather than denial. It makes repair possible.
Throughout this month, we will explore truth and transparency from two perspectives.
On Mondays, we will examine transparency in technical practice — clear logic, documentation, explainability, accountability, and the courage to own mistakes.
On Fridays, we will reflect on spiritual truthfulness — integrity of heart, confession, speaking truth in love, and living without hidden parts.
These conversations are not easy. But they are necessary.
Because in a world shaped by systems and power, truth that remains hidden becomes distortion — and transparency becomes an act of love.
As March begins, the invitation is simple and demanding:
to walk in the light,to choose honesty over control,and to trust that truth, when held in grace, leads not to shame, but to freedom.
