How valuable is independence?

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to attend some training for youth workers. The keynote speaker was the Vice-President of Baptist Bible College. This is not the first time I've heard him speak, and I was once again appreciative of his heart for young people and his heart for the gospel.

In the last session of the day, we discussed accountability, specifically, the injunction in Galatians 6:1, where Paul exhorts the believers with this:

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.

This process of trying to help a brother or sister who has fallen is one that is not practiced much anymore, it seems. When the speaker asked for possible reasons why we don't do this, one of the members in the group made what I think was one of the most astute observations: we value our tolerance too much. These days, we prize our "tolerance" above adherence to a biblical standard. We don't want to confront someone with his sin because we don't want to "judge" him or be hard on him. Is that love? Well, according to I Corinthians, love rejoices in the truth and righteousness, so how loving is it to let someone stew in his own juices without ever saying anything? No, they may not want our help, but if we never offer, what does that do?

Then, another apt observation was made: we have a love of independence in our culture; so much so that we don't realize that the sin of one member of the body of Christ actually hurts the whole body. There is no such thing as an isolated sin. God sees it, grieves over it, and it injures the body. A body's parts cannot be independent. We are such a "self" oriented society, it's hard to remember that INTERdependence is what is called for. It's the old "I'm okay; you're okay" line of thinking.

We have become confused between the meaning of "tolerance" and "mercy." If we are confused, how about gettingn a dictionary?