Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Digital Elenchō: A Reformed Theological Critique of Ukraine’s OSINT Accountability and the Sovereign Justice of God

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The Digital Elenchō: A Reformed Theological Critique of Ukraine’s OSINT Accountability and the Sovereign Justice of God · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reform Thinking. It is Thursday, February 19th,
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  2026. I am your host and it's good to
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  be back in the studio. I am joined as always by my good
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  friend and our resident expert on well on thinking through
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  these complex topics from a solid theological foundation.
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  Good to be here with you. It is wonderful to be here.
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  And as always, just so you know where we're coming from, we are
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  two Protestant Christians. We hold to Reformed theology and
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  the Westminster Confession. And you know, for us, that means
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  we believe that the Bible speaks to every single area of life.
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  Every area. Yes, and that includes some
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  pretty grim realities like Modern Warfare and the
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  technology we use to try and understand it.
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  And today's topic is, it's honestly quite heavy, but it
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  feels necessary. We're going to be looking at the
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  intersection of the war in Ukraine, this thing called open
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  source intelligence, or OSINT, and then bringing a reformed
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  theological critique to the whole idea of accountability.
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  It is a heavy topic, but it's also, I think, a fascinating 1.
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  I mean, we are living in a time that is just unprecedented in
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  some ways. Modern technology lets us see
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  things alleged war crimes and near real time.
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  Yeah, you can be scrolling through your phone and see
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  things that you know a generation or two ago would have
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  been hidden for decades, if they ever came out at all.
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  Exactly. And yet, here's the tension.
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  Despite seeing everything, we still seem to struggle so much
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  to find any kind of real justice.
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  That's the paradox, isn't it? That's what we really want to
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  unpack today. Our mission, if you will, for
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  this deep dive is to examine what's being called the new
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  Accountability Toolbox. This is what's being used in
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  Ukraine, but we don't want to just look at it as a technical
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  marvel. We want to run it through the
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  grid of Scripture. Specifically, we're going to be
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  focusing on Ephesians 5.11. And just to be clear for you
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  listening, we're drawing our analysis from 2 very different
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  kinds of sources today. On the one hand, we have a
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  technical paper, it's called Ukraine Osent and the new
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  Accountability Toolbox. So that gives us the, you know,
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  the nuts and bolts of how all this intelligence stuff.
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  Works the what and the how. Right.
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  And we're pairing that with a theological paper and its title
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  is the Digital Elenschu. And this piece offers a let's
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  call it a reformed critique of the limits of human
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  accountability. So we have the how, and then we
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  have the why, or maybe the why it matters.
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  Let's let's start with that theological framework.
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  I think it really sets the stage for everything else.
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  We're going to talk about the theological source.
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  It starts with a pretty bold premise.
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  It basically says we're living in an age of secular delusion.
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  It does. It's a strong claim right out of
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  the gate. The author argues that as a
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  culture, we are sort of drunk on this idea of of evolutionary
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  progress, this belief that humanity is, on the whole,
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  getting better and better. Right, this upward curve that
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  we're ascending towards some kind of enlightenment and
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  technology is our engine. Precisely.
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  But then the author says, you look at the blood soaked soil of
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  Ukraine, you look at what's happening on the ground there,
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  and that brutal reality just cries out against that kind of
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  modern arrogance. It's hard to argue for human
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  perfectibility when you're seeing images that look like
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  they're from the First World War.
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  You see the trenches, the artillery strikes, it looks like
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  1917, but you know, with drones. Exactly.
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  And for the Reformed theologian writing this paper, the war in
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  Ukraine isn't an anomaly. It's not a glitch in the system.
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  It's proof of a doctrine we talk about a lot, total depravity.
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  The idea that sin effects every part of us.
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  And that the unregenerate human heart is capable of immense,
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  breathtaking evil. So as we discuss all this
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  technology today, we have to refuse to view it as a savior.
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  We cannot look at OSINT as the thing that's going to finally
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  usher in utopia. Right, It's not a Messiah, the
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  paper says. It's a mirror.
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  It's a common grace mirror. That's the term.
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  It exposes human sin. It reflects it, but it has
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  absolutely no power to cure it. And keeping that distinction in
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  mind is, I think, vital for everything else we're going to
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  discuss. OK, so with that theological
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  foundation laid, let's unpack the what and the how.
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  Let's get into the weeds a little bit.
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  We keep using this term OSINT for anyone who's not familiar
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  with it. What exactly are we talking
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  about here? So Osense stands for Open Source
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  Intelligence, and the technical paper we're looking at defines
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  it as the rigorous use of publicly available data to
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  document events. So we're talking about satellite
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  imagery. You can buy social media,
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  videos, digital traces, public records, anything that's you
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  know, out there in the open for anyone to find.
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  This is such a massive shift from how we used to get
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  information about wars, isn't it?
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  I mean, in the past, if you wanted to know what was
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  happening on the front lines, you had to wait.
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  You waited for an official press briefing from the military.
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  Right. Or you waited for a journalist
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  who was embedded with a unit to file their report.
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  Yeah, the information was controlled.
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  It was gated. It was.
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  But in Ukraine, you have civilians filming missile
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  strikes from their apartment balconies.
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  You have soldiers posting, you know, frontline footage to
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  Telegram channels. You have commercial satellite
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  companies capturing these incredible before and after
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  images of entire cities being leveled.
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  And the technical source calls this the paradox of real time
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  war. And the paradox is that the
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  evidence is absolutely abundant, but accountability is incredibly
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  scarce. That is the whole problem in a
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  nutshell. We are swimming in more data
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  than at any point in human history.
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  But translating that visibility, that mountain of data, into
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  actual legal consequences for the people responsible, that is
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  an incredibly difficult task. Yeah, I think that's a point we
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  need to spend some time on because I think most people have
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  this assumption that, well, if you have a video of it, case
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  closed, you've got a conviction. But the technical paper
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  introduces this concept. It calls the accountability
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  stack. And this seems to be the bridge
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  from I saw a clip on Twitter to this person is actually being
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  held accountable in a court of law.
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  It's a really, really helpful concept.
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  The stack, as they call it, shows the progression.
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  It moves from just raw visibility all the way up to an
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  actual consequence, and it starts at the bottom layer with
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  visibility. OK, so visibility, that's just a
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  smartphone video itself, the raw material.
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  That's it. Something is observed, A missile
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  hits a building and someone records it.
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  But that's just step one. It's just the raw material like
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  you said. Right, because anyone can post a
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  video and claim it's something that it's not.
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  I mean, I see this constantly. A video pops up on my feed, He
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  claims to show some new offensive and then, you know, 10
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  minutes later someone's figured out it's actually a clip from a
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  video game. Happens all the time.
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  So that brings you to the next layer of the stack verification.
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  You have to test the claim. Is this video actually from
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  today? Is it from the city?
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  Has it been edited? Is it, like you said, a clip
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  from Arma 3 being passed off as real combat footage?
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  This is where the real analytical work begins.
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  So how does that actually work practically?
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  I mean, how do you verify a shaky video of an explosion in
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  some random field? Well, you start looking for
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  clues. You look for landmarks in the
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  background, a specific water tower, a unique looking guiding
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  the line of trees on the horizon.
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  You look at the weather. If the video claims to be from
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  Tuesday at noon, but the metadata from weather report
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  shows it was raining heavily in that area all day, you have a
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  problem. And shadows.
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  I've seen people do amazing things with shadows.
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  Shadows are huge. You can use the length and angle
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  of shadows to calculate the time of day with incredible
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  precision. So it's all about cross
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  referencing the claims in the digital file against other
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  sources of real world verifiable information.
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  So once you've verified a piece of media is authentic that shows
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  what it claims to show, what's next?
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  Next up the stack is attribution.
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  This is a huge leap in difficulty.
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  Attribution is about connecting the event to a responsible
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  actor. OK, we have verified that a
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  missile hit this apartment building at this time on this
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  day. But who fired it?
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  Which military unit was operating in that area?
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  Who gave the order? This is where it gets incredibly
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  tricky. And I imagine even if you think
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  you know who did it, you have to be able to prove that in the
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  future, maybe years from now. You're jumping ahead to the next
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  layer, which is preservation. That's exactly right.
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  You have to keep the data safe and untampered with for future
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  courts. If the social media platform
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  dilutes the video or if the user's account gets banned, that
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  crucial piece of evidence could be gone forever.
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  So investigators use specialized tools for archiving and
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  something called hashing to lock that data down.
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  Hashing. OK, that's a technical term.
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  Can you break that down for us? What does that mean in plain
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  English? Think of a hash as a unique
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  digital fingerprint for a file. You take any digital file, a
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  video, a photo, a document, and you run it through a
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  mathematical algorithm. It spits out a long, unique
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  string of letters and numbers. That's the hash.
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  Now here's the key. If you change even one single
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  pixel in that video or one letter in that document and run
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  the hash algorithm again, you get a completely different
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  result. OK, so you can prove it hasn't
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  been altered. Precisely.
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  If I'm an investigator and I download a video from Telegram
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  today, I can hash it and record that hash.
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  Then, five years from now, when I'm presenting that video in a
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  courtroom at The Hague, I can run the Hatch again right there
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  in the court. If it matches the original hash,
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  I can prove mathematically that this file has not been altered
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  in any way since the moment I first collected it.
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  That's that is incredibly useful.
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  It's like a digital chain of custody.
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  That's a perfect way to describe it.
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  And that leads to the very top of the stack translation.
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  You have to make all of this useful for a court of law.
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  You have to translate it from the language of social media to
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  the language of jurisprudence. A judge doesn't want a link to a
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  TikTok. They want a report with a
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  verified chain of custody, the original metadata, the
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  geolocation analysis, the expert testimony explaining why this
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  video is authentic and what it shows.
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  It's a much more rigorous process than I think people
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  realize, and the theological paper we're looking at, it makes
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  this interesting point. It refers to these methods,
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  these meticulous technical processes, as examples of God's
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  common grace. Yes.
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  And just to refresh, common grace in our theological
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  tradition refers to those gifts God gives to all of humanity,
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  not just to believers. It's the rain that falls on the
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  just and the unjust. It's the sense of morality or
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  order that allows society to function and restrains the worst
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  effects of our fallen nature. So, the author argues, these
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  technical methods are a form of common grace.
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  They are gifts given to humanity to restrain lawlessness and
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  bring evil to light. Take geolocation for example.
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  Oh man, I filled down a rabbit hole the other night watching
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  people do this online. It is absolutely amazing.
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  They'll take one frame from a video of a missile strike, and
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  they'll match it to a specific street corner in a city just by
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  looking at like the pattern of the tree lines or the silhouette
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  of a building in the far background.
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  It's incredible detective work or chronic location.
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  That's where analysts use the length of shadows, or the
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  reported weather conditions, or even the specific pattern of air
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  raid sirens that were going off in a city that day to determine
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  the exact time of it was shot down to the minute.
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  It really is like detective work, but on a global scale done
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  by regular people sometimes. It is.
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  The source mentions organizations like Bellingcat or
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  Mnemonic, which are full of these highly skilled digital
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  investigators. And the paper says they use
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  these tools to strip away the proverbial fog of war.
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  They're acting as a digital witness, and theologically, as
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  Christians, we can and should appreciate this.
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  It's a powerful way of bringing truth to light in a world that,
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  as Scripture says, loves darkness.
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  And that brings us right to the heart of our scriptural focus
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  for today. You just mentioned bringing
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  things to light. Let's turn to Ephesians 5.01.
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  It says take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness,
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  but instead expose them. This is the key text for the
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  whole theological paper. The author does a really
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  insightful deep dive into the original Greek here, and the
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  word used for exos a is a lensho.
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  Lensho that sounds intense. It's a very strong, powerful
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  word. It doesn't just mean to, you
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  know, point at something or to reveal it.
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  It has a strong legal flavor. It's connected to the language
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  of cross examination, of refutation, of conviction.
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  It means to bring something into the light for the specific
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  purpose of reproving it, of showing its true sinful nature
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  so that it can be judged. So when the author calls his
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  paper the digital Elinchus, he's making a direct connection.
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  Exactly. He's arguing that what these
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  Osen investigators are doing is a modern digital fulfillment of
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  this biblical mandate. When an analyst uses satellite
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  data to prove that a mass grave exists where a government denies
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  it, they are performing an A linkus.
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  They are exposing the hidden, unfruitful works of darkness.
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  But the verse, it has two parts, doesn't it?
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  Before we get to the exposing, there's a negative command.
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  It says take no part. Yes, take no part in the
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  unfruitful works of darkness. The Greek there is most
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  cinquenchinitate and it literally means do not have
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  fellowship with or maybe even better do not be Co participants
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  with. It sounds like it's drawing a
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  line in the sand, a boundary marker.
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  It's absolutely a covenantal boundary that also really
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  emphasizes this. As believers, we are citizens of
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  a different Kingdom. We operate under a different
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  king, so we are not to share in the nature of darkness.
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  And this isn't just about avoiding the obvious big sins
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  like murder or theft. In this context, it's about
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  refusing to participate in the spirit of the age that minimizes
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  sin or tries to justify atrocity.
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  The paper makes a connection to baptism here that I found really
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  compelling. Yeah, it ties this command
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  directly to our identity in Christ.
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  Baptism is a public sign, a declaration that the believer is
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  no longer a Co participant in the world's darkness.
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  We have been separated from that Kingdom and brought into the
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  Kingdom of light. So to apply that practically in
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  the context of the war in Ukraine, this means we refuse to
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  participate in the propaganda campaigns.
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  We refuse to justify evil actions for some kind of
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  political expediency. We don't verify the lie, we
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  don't pass on the disinformation.
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  We stand apart from it. Precisely.
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  And that separation, that refusal to participate is then
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  gives us the moral high ground to obey the second part of the
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  verse, the positive command, but instead expose them.
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  And the author makes a very strong point here that I think
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  is countercultural. Even in the church today, he
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  says neutrality is not an option for the Christian.
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  Meaning you can't just look at a war crime and say, well, you
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  know, it's complicated, or there are good people on both sides,
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  or I'm just going to stay out of.
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  It exactly that the believer is commanded to actively bring sin
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  into the light. The paper draws a sharp contrast
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  between this idea of exposure and the modern church's emphasis
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  on bridge building or being winsome.
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  Yeah, that really stood out to me.
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  We hear so much about being nuanced and seeker sensitive.
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  And the awful is quite critical of that mindset when it's
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  applied to clear, objective evil.
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  He argues that the goal of Ephesians 5.11 isn't to be
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  nuanced about an atrocity. It's not about finding a gentle
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  middle ground with darkness. It is about offering a factual
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  conviction. When Osin reveals a mass grave,
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  that is an indictment. It is not, and it should not be
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  treated as a matter of opinion to be politely debated.
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  It's black and white. This is a work of darkness.
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  It is, and the church, the author argues, needs to be
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  comfortable with that kind of moral clarity.
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  We are not called to smooth things over with the world.
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  We are called to be children of light, and light by its very
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  nature exposes darkness. OK, but shining that light
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  accurately, that requires a ton of discipline, right?
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  We can't just run around retreating everything we see
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  that makes us angry. We have to circle back to the
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  technical side of things. How do we make sure that this
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  exposure, this elinkus, is actually truthful and not just
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  adding to the confusion? This brings us right back to
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  that crucial layer in the stack, the discipline of verification,
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  and the technical source warns about a number of dangers here.
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  The first one is context stripping.
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  Context stripping. That's when you see a video, but
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  it's been separated from its original caption or the metadata
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  is gone, so you don't know what you're really looking.
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  At exactly a video of a tank firing its main gun might be
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  100% real, but if you strip the context, you might not know that
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  it was firing on a designated military target in self-defense.
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  Or, and this is a huge problem, you might not know that the
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  video is actually from five years ago in a completely
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  different conflict. This is the risk of what the
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  paper calls recycled media. Old footage gets passed off as
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  breaking news all the time. I've seen that happen so many
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  times. A video goes viral, thousands of
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  people get outraged, and then it turns out it was from a training
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  exercise in another country three years ago.
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  And every time that happens, it damages the cause of truth.
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  It creates cynicism. If we as believers are going to
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  obey the command to expose darkness, we have to be
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  absolutely committed to accuracy.
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  We cannot, under any circumstances, bear false
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  witness in our attempt to expose sin.
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  That's a contradiction in terms. Another major hurdle the paper
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  talks about is the problem of attribution.
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  It's one thing to say a crime happened, it's a whole other
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  thing to say definitively who did it.
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  This is incredibly difficult. The technical paper highlights a
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  fallacy it calls weapons signature overreach.
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  You might be able to identify the type of missile from the
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  wreckage, but knowing the gun doesn't always identify the
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  shooter, particularly in this war where both sides use a lot
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  of the same Soviet era equipment.
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  That's a really good point. Just because it's AT72 tank and
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  a grainy video doesn't automatically tell you whose
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  flag is painted on the side. It doesn't.
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  And then there's another logical trap called the presence to
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  culpability leap. Just because you can prove using
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  cell phone data or something that a specific military unit
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  was in a village on the day a war crime was committed, that
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  doesn't automatically mean they gave the order or pulled the
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  trigger. Theologically, this all comes
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  back to the 9th commandment. We must be precise.
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  We cannot accuse based on assumptions or probabilities.
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  The standard is high. The source also lists some
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  specific failure modes that investigators, and really all of
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  us as consumers of news, need to be watching out for.
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  One of them is confidence inflation.
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  That's the temptation to claim more certainty than the evidence
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  actually supports. It's the difference between
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  saying the evidence suggests Unit X may have been responsible
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  and saying Unit X definitely did this.
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  In the rush to get an answer to find a villain, it's easy to
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  overstate your case. We have to have the intellectual
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  humility to say we don't know for sure yet.
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  And then there's something that sounds a bit scary.
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  Adversarial adaptation. The enemy learns.
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  They do. They know they're being watched
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  by the whole world, so they adapt.
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  They might stage footage to create a false narrative.
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  Or, and this is the really frightening frontier, they start
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  using AI and synthetic media deepfakes to create entirely
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  fabricated events. That's a terrifying thought.
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  If you can't trust video evidence anymore, how do you
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  expose? Anything, it's going to become a
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  massive problem, and it will make that verification layer of
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  the stack even more critical. And finally, the paper talks
• 18:51
  about the accountability gap. This is the gap between what we
• 18:54
  can see and what our institutions can do about it.
• 18:57
  The technical source notes that while we can see more than ever,
• 18:59
  institutions like the International Criminal Court
• 19:02
  move very, very slowly. Justices often delayed, and
• 19:06
  sometimes it's denied altogether.
• 19:08
  And that reality, that gap, brings us to the theological
• 19:11
  limits of all this. Because even if the technology
• 19:14
  worked perfectly, even if we could verify every video and
• 19:17
  attribute every single shot, human justice still has a
• 19:20
  ceiling, doesn't it? It does, and this is where the
• 19:23
  theological paper really presses in.
• 19:25
  Let's talk about that chasm between the human witness and
• 19:28
  the divine witness. We have the digital witness of
• 19:30
  Osent, but then we have the divine witness of God Himself.
• 19:35
  And the digital witness is limited.
• 19:36
  It's limited epistemologically. That's a fancy philosophical
• 19:40
  term that just means it has limits on what it can possibly
• 19:43
  know. Osent sees the rubble of the
• 19:45
  building. It can see the body in the
• 19:47
  street, but it cannot see into the human soul.
• 19:50
  It cannot know the intent of the commander who gave the order.
• 19:53
  It can't see the hatred or the fear in the heart of the soldier
• 19:56
  who pulled the trigger. It is always, always looking
• 19:59
  from the outside in. But God.
• 20:01
  Doesn't have that problem. No, he does not.
• 20:03
  The theological source brings us to Hebrews 4.13, and this, the
• 20:08
  author says, is the ultimate accountability toolbox.
• 20:11
  The verse says, And no creature is hidden from his sight, but
• 20:14
  all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give
• 20:17
  account. Naked and exposed.
• 20:19
  The Greek word there is Tetracheal's mana, right?
• 20:21
  Yes, and you have to understand what that word meant to the
• 20:24
  original audience. It's a brutal, visceral term.
• 20:28
  It was used to describe a sacrificial animal having its
• 20:31
  head pulled back violently to expose its throat for the knife.
• 20:35
  It means being utterly defenseless, completely
• 20:37
  vulnerable and laid bare with no possibility of hiding.
• 20:41
  That is a terrifying image for an unrepentant center.
• 20:44
  It should be. The point is, God doesn't need a
• 20:47
  satellite image. He doesn't need a geolocated
• 20:49
  video. He is omnipresent.
• 20:51
  He is omniscient. He knows the thoughts and
• 20:53
  intentions of the heart. He knows why the order was
• 20:56
  given. He knows the secret
• 20:57
  justification, the hidden racism, political calculus that
• 21:01
  fueled the trigger pole. There is no fog of war for God.
• 21:04
  Everything is crystal clear. Disconnects directly to the
• 21:07
  author's eschatology, his view of the end times.
• 21:10
  The source mentions he holds to a premillennial view.
• 21:12
  Right. And this is so crucial for
• 21:14
  managing our expectations as Christians.
• 21:16
  The Reformed theologian writing this paper fundamentally rejects
• 21:19
  utopianism in all its forms. He is saying unequivocally that
• 21:22
  better data and more advanced drones will not create a heaven
• 21:25
  on earth. We are not going to take our way
• 21:27
  out of the fall, no. The Bible tells us that the
• 21:30
  mystery of lawlessness is at work in the world.
• 21:33
  Evil will continue and in some ways intensify until the
• 21:36
  personal return of Jesus Christ. The civil magistrate, that is
• 21:40
  the government, the courts, The Hague, they have a God-given
• 21:44
  role. They are meant to restrain evil
• 21:46
  and punish the evildoer. They can punish the ACT, They
• 21:49
  can put a person in prison, but they cannot cleanse the
• 21:52
  conscience. They cannot fix the human heart.
• 21:54
  Only the Gospel can do that. That's a hard truth, isn't it?
• 21:58
  Especially when we see these terrible things that we want
• 22:00
  justice and we want it now. It is a hard truth, but in
• 22:04
  another way it's a freeing truth.
• 22:06
  It means we don't have to fall into despair when the
• 22:08
  international courts move slowly or when a perpetrator dies of
• 22:11
  old age before facing trial. We don't despair because we know
• 22:15
  there is a higher court and it's session is coming.
• 22:17
  The Great White Throne judgement described in Revelation.
• 22:20
  Exactly the final, perfect, all knowing court.
• 22:24
  Human evidence can be deleted, a server can be wiped clean,
• 22:28
  metadata can be spoofed or faked.
• 22:31
  But you cannot delete anything from the memory of God.
• 22:34
  And the author gives a very stern pastoral warning to the
• 22:37
  unrepentant here. He says, and I'm paraphrasing,
• 22:40
  you might escape justice at The Hague, but you will not escape
• 22:43
  the judgement of the Lamb. That is a deeply sobering
• 22:46
  thought. But the discussion it doesn't
• 22:48
  just end there in judgement and and doom and gloom.
• 22:52
  We have to move from the evidence of the crime to the
• 22:54
  only possible solution. The theological paper has a
• 22:57
  section titled From Evidence to the Cross.
• 22:59
  And this is the pivot. This is the gospel turn.
• 23:01
  Why does God command us to expose darkness?
• 23:03
  Is it just to condemn people and feel superior?
• 23:06
  No. From a biblical perspective, the
• 23:08
  purpose of exposure is to drive the Sinner to the cure.
• 23:11
  This is the second use of the law, as we call it in reformed
• 23:13
  theology. Right.
• 23:15
  The first use is to restrain evil in society.
• 23:17
  The second use is to act as a mirror.
• 23:20
  The law shows us God's perfect standard and it shows us our
• 23:23
  filth. It shows us how far we fall
• 23:26
  short. It's meant to crush our self
• 23:28
  righteousness so that we realize we can't clean ourselves up.
• 23:32
  We need a Savior. So in a way, OSINT is a form of
• 23:35
  law. It shows us the unvarnished evil
• 23:38
  of the human. Heart and the author connects
• 23:39
  this idea so powerfully to the Cross, he calls the cross the
• 23:43
  ultimate accountability toolbox of God.
• 23:46
  It's a connection that really makes you stop and think, isn't
• 23:48
  it? Think about it.
• 23:49
  At Calvary, Jesus was publicly exposed.
• 23:51
  He was geolocated on a hill outside Jerusalem.
• 23:54
  He took on the public shame. He was strip naked.
• 23:56
  He was laid bare. That same word to trachis, manna
• 23:59
  before God and man to take the full wrath that we deserved for
• 24:02
  our sins. So in a very real sense, Christ
• 24:04
  took the ultimate O sinned investigation upon Himself.
• 24:07
  All the verified evidence of our sin was attributed to Him.
• 24:10
  Yes, that's the doctrine of imputation.
• 24:12
  He became the sin bearer. He was identified with the
• 24:16
  unfruitful works of darkness that we committed so that
• 24:19
  through faith we could be identified with His perfect
• 24:23
  righteousness. And for the believer, for the
• 24:25
  Christian, this changes everything about how we respond
• 24:28
  to that command. In Ephesians 5.
• 24:30
  We don't expose darkness in order to earn our salvation, no.
• 24:34
  That would be legalism, trying to be saved by our works.
• 24:37
  We expose darkness because we are already saved.
• 24:40
  We are now children of light. As Paul says in that same
• 24:42
  chapter, this is 1/3 use of the law.
• 24:44
  It acts as a guide for our gratitude.
• 24:46
  We obey God's commands because we are so thankful that we have
• 24:49
  been rescued from the Kingdom of darkness.
• 24:51
  The paper also makes a Sacramento connection here that
• 24:53
  I thought was a really unique and beautiful angle.
• 24:56
  It talks about the Lord's Supper as a kind of physical osent.
• 24:59
  I loved this analogy. Think about it.
• 25:01
  The bread and the wine. They are physical evidence.
• 25:06
  They are tangible, verifiable proof that the war against sin
• 25:10
  has been won by Christ. When we come to the table and we
• 25:14
  partake, we are holding the evidence of our own
• 25:16
  justification in our hands. It's the visible word assuring
• 25:21
  us that our case has been settled, our debt has been paid.
• 25:24
  That's a beautiful thought. It grounds all this high level
• 25:27
  abstract theology and something you can literally touch and
• 25:30
  taste. It does.
• 25:31
  It's a recurring reminder that our ultimate hope isn't in a
• 25:33
  digital archive or a clever investigation.
• 25:36
  It's in a broken body and shed blood.
• 25:38
  So we've covered the technology, the theology, the problem, and
• 25:41
  the ultimate solution in Christ. Where do we go from here?
• 25:44
  We have these powerful tools. We have the theological
• 25:46
  framework. What does the future look like?
• 25:48
  The technical paper talks about the need for maturing the
• 25:51
  toolbox. Right.
• 25:52
  If Osense is going to continue to be a credible force for
• 25:54
  truth, it has to grow up a little bit.
• 25:56
  It can't just be the Wild West of the Internet forever.
• 25:59
  It needs clear methodological standards.
• 26:01
  You have to show your work. You have to be transparent about
• 26:04
  your process. You have to be willing to admit
• 26:07
  what is unknown or what is only possible versus what is certain.
• 26:11
  And ethical governance. We can't just be throwing raw
• 26:14
  information out there that can get innocent people hurt or
• 26:17
  killed. Absolutely.
• 26:19
  Things like not doxing victims or bystanders, redacting
• 26:23
  sensitive information to prevent reprisals, and crucially,
• 26:26
  institutional translation. This is about building bridges
• 26:29
  between the online investigation world and the formal legal
• 26:32
  world, packaging evidence in a way that courts can actually
• 26:35
  accept and use it. It's about moving from a viral
• 26:38
  tweet to a legal verdict. OK, let's bring this all home
• 26:41
  for the listener, the learner, as we like to call them.
• 26:44
  How do we apply all of this? The theological source hopefully
• 26:47
  breaks it down for three distinct groups.
• 26:50
  First for the unbeliever. For the unbeliever, the warning
• 26:53
  in the paper is stark, but it's offered out of love.
• 26:56
  And it's this. You are being tracked right now
• 26:59
  by a divine intelligence agency. There is no VPN that can hide
• 27:04
  your heart from God. Every thought, every word, every
• 27:07
  deed is being recorded and the call of the gospel is to repent.
• 27:12
  Don't wait for all that evidence to be presented at the final
• 27:14
  judgement. Settle out of court, so to
• 27:17
  speak, by fleeing to Jesus Christ for mercy now and.
• 27:20
  What about the weary St. The person who is just exhausted
• 27:24
  and overwhelmed by seeing all this war and destruction on
• 27:27
  their news feed every single day?
• 27:29
  For the weary Christian, the call is to find hope and rest in
• 27:32
  the doctrine of Providence. God is sovereign over all this
• 27:34
  chaos. He is not surprised by the war
• 27:37
  in Ukraine. He is not wringing his hands in
• 27:39
  heaven. He is not surprised by the
• 27:40
  technology. The command for us is.
• 27:42
  Do not despair at the news. The mystery of lawlessness is
• 27:45
  truly at work. But the King is still on the
• 27:47
  throne, and he is working all things together for his glory
• 27:49
  and the good of his people. And finally, a word of
• 27:52
  application to the Church as a whole.
• 27:53
  Yes, practice internal accountability.
• 27:57
  Don't just part fingers at the evil in the world.
• 27:59
  Do not participate in the pragmatism and the compromises
• 28:03
  of the age. If we are going to have the
• 28:05
  credibility to expose darkness out there, we have to be
• 28:09
  ruthlessly committed to exposing it in here, in our own hearts
• 28:13
  and our own families and in our own pews.
• 28:16
  The Church must be a place of light and truth.
• 28:19
  And a final warning on idolatry. I think this is so crucial for
• 28:22
  us, especially those of us who are comfortable with technology.
• 28:25
  It's so easy to fall into this trap.
• 28:27
  The paper warns that technological transparency is
• 28:29
  not salvation. That's the prosperity gospel of
• 28:32
  Silicon Valley, the idea that if we just build better tools,
• 28:36
  collect more data, and make everything transparent, we will
• 28:39
  save ourselves. And as Christians, we must
• 28:41
  reject that these tools are useful gifts of common grace.
• 28:44
  But they are not, and they never will be our savior.
• 28:46
  Well, we have certainly covered a lot of ground today.
• 28:48
  We've gone from satellite imagery and geolocation all the
• 28:50
  way to the Greek New Testament. We've gone from the front lines
• 28:53
  of Ukraine to the Great White Throne of judgement.
• 28:56
  It's a powerful reminder that there is no area of life, no
• 28:59
  matter how modern or technical, that Scripture doesn't touch and
• 29:03
  speak to with authority. Absolutely.
• 29:05
  So to just briefly recap, OSUND is a powerful tool of God's
• 29:09
  common grace. It's a gift that helps restrain
• 29:12
  evil by making it visible. But it is temporal.
• 29:15
  It has profound limits. And true ultimate justice, the
• 29:18
  kind that satisfies the soul and makes all things right, is found
• 29:21
  only in the return of the King Jesus Christ, and in the
• 29:24
  finished work He accomplished on the cross.
• 29:26
  I want to leave you, our listener, with a final thought
• 29:29
  to Mull over this week. We've talked a lot about
• 29:31
  tracking missiles and verifying videos, but here is the
• 29:34
  provocative question I want you to consider.
• 29:36
  If human beings, with our limited fallen technology, can
• 29:40
  now track a war crime from halfway across the world using
• 29:43
  nothing but publicly available data, how much more visible, how
• 29:47
  much more transparent is your own heart to the God who made
• 29:50
  it? The digital age kills the myth
• 29:52
  of secrecy. Let that reality drive you to
• 29:55
  the only truly safe hiding place, the finished work of
• 29:59
  Jesus Christ. Thank you for joining us for
• 30:01
  this edition of Reformed Thinking.
• 30:03
  We will see you next time.