Several months ago I was asked to submit an article to Tabletalk Magazine. The editors had read an blog entry I had written dealing with the subject of accountability and asked if I’d be willing to write a condensed version and submit it for publication. I was glad to do so and the result appeared in this month’s Tabletalk. You may have read a version of this article in the past but, if you care to read it again, you can find it now in a condensed and edited edition. It goes like this:
Admiral Lord Nelson once remarked that “every sailor is a bachelor when beyond Gibraltar.” This was a statement about anonymity, a rare concept even just a few short generations ago. Nelson knew that once his sailors moved beyond the bounds of the British Empire, beyond society’s systems of morality and accountability, they underwent a transformation. Every man became a bachelor and sought only and always his own pleasure. Those who have read biographies of John Newton will see there a vivid portrayal of a man who was a gentleman at home but who was vulgar and abusive while away. Given only a measure of anonymity he became a whole new man.
In days past, anonymity was both rare and difficult. People tended to live in close-knit communities where every face was familiar and every action visible to the community. Travel was rare and the majority of people lived a whole lifetime in the same small geographic area. Os Guinness remarks that in the past “those who did right and those who did not do wrong often acted as they did because they knew they were seen by others. Their morality was accountability through visibility.” While anonymity is certainly not a new phenomenon, the degree of anonymity we can and often do enjoy in our society is unparalleled in history.
We need accountability. Left to our own devices, we will soon devise or succumb to all kinds of evil. As Christians we know that we need other believers to hold us accountable to the standards of Scripture. Passages such as Ecclesiastes 4:12 remind us that “a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” The Bible tells us that “iron sharpens iron” (Prov. 27:17) and that we are to “stir up one another to love and good works…encouraging one another” (Heb. 10:24-25). Life is far too difficult and we are far too sinful to live in solitude. We need community. We need accountability. And God has anticipated our need by giving us the local church as the primary means of this accountability.
Comments (7) »
1. Rachael
April 25, 2009
12:16 PM
I appreciate that you extend the discussion of anonymity outside the realm of the internet.
2. Lori
April 25, 2009
12:27 PM
Thanks, Tim. This is an important topic. I wholeheartedly agree with you, and I am diligently seeking to conform to this standard. My church is presently going through a series on perichoresis, and the idea of mutual indwelling is entirely contrary to anonymity.
I’m wondering if the insatiable desire to unveil every sordid detail of the lives of well-known celebrities and lesser-known reality show celebrities is subconsciously driven, in part, by this increasing anonymity—this perversion of the way man was created to exist. Or even if the growing number of homocide-suicide tragedies is indicative of man’s need to be seen and understood, just before he chooses to end what he perceives as futile. Just thinking out loud….
3. Liz
April 25, 2009
2:00 PM
In some ways we are anonymous, but in other ways we are not. Blogs, social networking sites, search engines, and information about us posted on our employer’s web site all have us “out there” for others to “see.” That should make us feel somewhat accountable for our actions/words. This is kind of a stretch, but perhaps people reveal questionable things about themselves “electronically” in order to be criticized, because they know that they need to be held accountable and no one directly around them is doing that.
4. Reg Schofield
April 25, 2009
6:16 PM
Living within an active and loving Church community has been a blessing for me over the year and a half. I had tried to play it solo for a long stretch , allowing my pride to get in the way of attending a decent local church. All it left me was a life full of self deceit and a life lived to a large degree beyond Gibraltar . As God brought me to a crushing self examination , it lead to repentance and a new found love for His church and the need to make one self accountable to fellow brothers in the faith. I Will never again “forsake the assembly
together”,because that is where loving accountability can help one grow in grace and exalt Christ to the world at large.
5. Gary Morland
April 25, 2009
9:18 PM
That anonymity thing has always seemed to be a good barometer of my true accountability to the Holy Spirit. What does it say about what I really believe and my sensitivity to the Lord if I only behave when I know a flesh-and-blood person sees me? Too often, I’m ashamed of what it says. I’ll always be “in training” and need people to help me, but I hope that training is always growing me in holding me accountable to the one I’m truly accountable to.
6. Marc
April 26, 2009
4:27 AM
Totally reminds me of Heart of Darkness.
7. Steve
April 26, 2009
10:56 AM
Frankly, I struggle with the “human accountability partner” aspect of this for a number of reasons:
1. Is not God sovereign? Does he not see all? Is he not my true “accountability partner?”
2. Is personal discipline not to be embraced and is it not, in the end, far superior to “social” discipline? I will not always be within view of my neigbors, but I am in constant view of my God and my conscience.
3. Jesus, in my reading of the gospels, is all about intentionality. Not only am I to keep my mitts off the neighbor’s wife, but my mind off the neighbor’s wife as well. If my outward behavior is controlled by social discipline only, but the inner man runs wild, what really have I accomplished?
4. Marc’s reference to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is spot on. Kurtz is full of evangelical uplift and lofty ideas, but he completely folds up when he finds himself beyond the bounds of society, never having acquired the spiritual grit to endure solitarily. I think that grit is acquired solely through struggle, and solitary struggle at that.
5. Here is a controversial thought. I sometimes think it is better (not always!) to sin — and learn to hate the sin and grieve over it to the extent that the sin becomes abhorrent and thus avoidable in the future— than to merely avoid the sin by leaning on others and never truly confronting it or mastering it. But perhaps that goes too far.