Facebook Infidelity Just as Painful as In-Person Cheating

In olden days secret love letters were sealed with wax and delivered by a third party. Now it’s just a matter of a few keystrokes and clicks to send illicit correspondence as. A group of researchers sought to quantify the pain of cheating over the Internet versus old fashioned communication.

The study by researchers from Texas Tech University’s Marriage and Family Therapy Program wanted to see how people reacted when they found out their loved one was cheating with someone over Facebook. They coded responses from about 90 stories recalling how partners reacted when they found out their loved one was using Facebook to hookup. The study may aid therapists in helping couples heal their damaged relationship and renew their love.

Seeing the Signs

Observant partners noticed specific behaviors that led them to believe their partner was cheating on them:

• When they would walk into a room, their partner would quickly close their browser or turn off the computer.
• Their partner may take the laptop to a private place in the house, rather than use it in rooms where family members would be passing through.
• Some partners had changed the passwords to their e-mail, Facebook accounts and/or smart phone so their partner could not read any of the letters they had sent or received.

Some people in the study found out about the infidelity by accident, while others took the initiative to pry into their partners’ accounts. Some of the cheating partners had accidentally forgotten to log out of their account and their partners saw some questionable on-screen conversations. Others who had suspicions about specific people assumed they could find some evidence of the affair on the computer. One participant used special tracking software to monitor their partner’s correspondences.

Confronting and Avoiding

Nearly all the participants expressed how deeply hurt they were when they found out about the infidelity. Their shock, anger and emotional pain seemed just as severe as it would be if it had been a physical affair. Most of them agreed that cheating was cheating, no matter what the context.

The researchers analyzed what actions the participants took when they found out their loved one had cheated on them:

• Some partners never mentioned their discovery.
• Some believed that it was a one-time harmless flirtation with someone that would never go anywhere and didn’t threaten their relationship and things were better left unsaid.
• Others confronted their partner, letting their anger and pain turn into retaliation by embarrassing their loved one in front of friends, family and coworkers. 

Recovering from the Pain

One common theme that the researchers noticed in the participants who had been cheated on was that a breach of trust had been broken and would require mending. For some an affair may be the result of an underlying problem in the marriage. An infidelity is not how most couples want to find out there is a problem in their marriage, but if they do they can use that pain to make their marriage a happier one. An infidelity may help a couple take a better look at their relationship, find its strengths and weaknesses, learn from them and come out of their pain stronger together.

The study’s authors believe that their findings could be useful in marriage counseling. As technology has allowed instant communication globally, everyone seems to be connected with each other. Finding out whether some of these connections could threaten a stable relationship, or whether they are harmless correspondence, is up to both clinicians and couples to determine.

Posted under Sex Addiction in the News on Thursday, July 3rd, 2014

Help for Couples Recovering from Adultery or Pornography

When sexual sin impacts a marriage there is often a great deal of confusion exacerbated by shame. A couple is not sure what to do and is embarrassed to ask for help. The result is often either passivity (pretending everything is okay or that things will get better without help) or reactivity (taking a bold action with little sense of purpose or intent to follow through). The False Love and True Betrayal series are meant to provide couples with guidance for these difficult times.

These two, complementing seminars are each comprised of 9 steps and are meant to supplement a mentoring or counseling relationship. The presentation material is longer for the earlier steps than it is for the latter steps for two reasons. First, the early steps are the time of greatest confusion and, therefore, require more guidance. Second, once a solid foundation is laid for restoration the latter steps become more self-evident.

These materials are meant to guide a couple through the marital restoration phase — taking a marriage that is broken or in crisis and getting back to basic working order.

The Creating a Gospel-Centered Marriage seminar series is meant to guide a couple through the marital enrichment phase — taking a marriage that is in basic working order and refining it to be increasingly, mutually satisfying. Often it is a misunderstanding between restoration and enrichment that derails a couples sincere efforts at marital reconciliation after the discovery of sexual sin.

NOTE: Many people have asked how they can get a copy of the seminar notebook referenced in this verbal presentation. Summit members can pick up a copy of the notebook in the church office. For those outside the Summit family, you can request a copy from Amy LaBarr (alabarr@summitrdu.com), office administrator over counseling.

TRUE BETRAYAL – STEP ONE

FALSE LOVE – STEP ONE

Six Ways Your Phone Is Changing You

Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone at Macworld Expo 2007, and I got my first one a year later. I can’t remember life without it.

For seven years an iPhone has always been within my reach, there to wake me in the morning, there to play my music library, there to keep my calendar, there to capture my life in pics and video, there for me to enjoy sling-shooting wingless birds into enemy swine, there as my ever-present portal to Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

My iPhone is such a part of my daily life, I rarely think self-reflectively about it. That’s precisely what concerns David Wells, 75, a careful thinker who has watched trends in the church for many decades.

Wells asks Christians to consider the consequences of the smartphone. “What is it doing to our minds when we are living with this constant distraction?” he said recently in an interview. “We are, in fact, now living with a parallel universe, a virtual universe that can take all of the time we have. So what happens to us when we are in constant motion, when we are addicted to constant visual stimulation? What happens to us? That is the big question.”

That’s a huge question. What is life like now because of the smartphone? How has the iPhone changed us? These self-reflective questions may seem daunting, but we must ask them.

The Internet Age

Wells is quick to remind us we are only 20 years into this experiment called “The Internet Age” (or “The Information Age”). All of our digital communications technology is relatively new. One day we will stand back and look with more precision at what our smartphones are doing to our brains, our hearts, and our souls, but we don’t have the leisure to postpone self-reflection for the future. We need to ask ourselves questions now.

We have wise Christian fathers in the faith who are asking important questions, if we’re willing to listen. One such man is Dr. Douglas Groothuis, Professor of Philosophy at Denver Seminary. Groothuis has been tracking the impact of the Internet on the spiritual life since he published his book The Soul in Cyberspace in 1997.

I recently talked with Groothuis about how our iPhones are changing us. He suggested we think about six areas.

Change 1: We are becoming like what we behold.

At first that statement sounds abstract, but it’s one of the most simple (and profound) psychological realities we learn in Scripture: We become like what we behold. To worship an idol is to become like the idol; to worship Christ is to become like Christ. Passages in Scripture abound to this end — Psalm 115:4–8,Romans 1:18–27, 12:1–2, Colossians 3:10, and 2 Corinthians 3:18.

What we love to behold is what we worship. What we spend our time beholdingshapes our hearts and molds us into the people we are. This spiritual truth is frightening and useful, but it raises the questions: What happens to our soul when we spend so much time beholding the glowing screens of our phones? How are we changed? How are we conformed?

One way we become like what we behold shows up relationally, Groothuis warns. Our digital interactions with one another, which are often necessarily brief and superficial, begin to pattern all our relationships. “When you begin to become shallow in your interactions with people, you can become habituated to that.” All of our personal interactions take the same shape. The barista at the coffee counter gets a DM-like response. When we hang out with friends, we offer a series of Tweet-like responses in a superficial conversation with little spiritual meaning.

“The way we interact online becomes the norm for how we interact offline. Facebook and Twitter communications are pretty short, clipped, and very rapid. And that is not a way to have a good conversation with someone. Moreover, a good conversation involves listening and timing and that is pretty much taken away with Internet communications, because you are not there with the person. So someone could send you a message and you could ignore it, or someone could send you a message and you get to it two hours later. But if you are in real time in a real place with real bodies and a real voice, that is a very different dynamic. You shouldn’t treat another person the way you would interact with Twitter.” But we do, if we’re not careful.

Change 2: We are ignoring our finiteness.

Fundamentally I am a finite man, severely limited in what I can know and what I can read and what I can engage with and (perhaps most importantly) very limited in what I can really care about. Yet my phone offers me everything — new news, new outrages, new videos, new music, new pictures, and new updates from all my Facebook friends.

One reason we own smartphones is to avoid being left behind. We don’t want to miss anything gone viral. We track hashtag trends mostly out of fear of being left out. And little by little we ignore our finiteness, we lose a sense of our limitations, and we begin lusting after the forbidden fruit of limitless knowledge in a subconscious desire to become infinite like God.

“A smartphone absorbs our interest because it is so alluring. It can do so many things. And in a sense it is asking us to do so many things with it,” Groothuis said. “But humans are limited. We can only think through so many things at once. We can only feel properly a limited number of things. And these technologies want to stretch us out over the entire globe with Twitter feeds, Facebook messages, and photos shared on Instagram. Instead, we need to embrace our finitude. And if we really own up to our finitude and the fact that a life well lived is a life lived carefully, as Paul says (Ephesians 5:15, Colossians 4:5), we simply have to say ‘no’ to some of these things.”

Change 3: We are multitasking what should be unitasked.

Habituated to shallow friendships, distracted to limited focus, and ignorant of personal finitude, we embrace the multitasking myth. We multitask everything, trying to think in two directions at the same time, trying to be in two places at the same time, trying to live in physical space and virtual space simultaneously.

This modern temptation explains why Groothuis prohibits his students from using phones and laptops in his classes. “I think we are a very distracted culture. We are trying to multitask things that should not be multitasked — they should be unitasked. And that is what I tell my students: ‘You can’t multitask philosophy.’” The study of philosophy cannot be distracted by tweets. And if not philosophy, how much more should we aim to unitask our study of God and our prayer life?

In reality, Scripture calls us to a life of single-minded self-reflection that often gets thwarted by the hum of multitasking. If it’s important, it’s worth being unitasked. Which means there must be priorities that trump our iPhone push notifications.

Change 4: We are forgetting the joy of embodiment.

The Apostle John closes one of his ancient handwritten letters with a line of enduring relevance for those of us who now write with our thumbs: “Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink [modern technology for John]. Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete” (2 John 12).

As Neil Postman suggested, communications technology, like email, is ghost-to-ghost more than person-to-person. There is something of us in an email, but there’s more to our personhood that doesn’t get sent. In an email we send our ghost. The same is true of this blog post. These inescapable limitations of digital communication are rooted in God’s design in creation, said Groothuis.

“Christianity differs from every other religion except Judaism in claiming that the universe is created good. And God puts his blessing on it and God wants fellowship with human beings using the medium of matter. And we have the doctrine of Incarnation. It is something like Jesus turning water into wine — and the best wine — in John 2:1–12. That is embodied, that is people-fellowship, that is enjoying the fruit of the vine, and Jesus blesses that.”

But, I press, why is the Apostle’s own joy bound up with embodied fellowship?

“I think it has to do with the engaging of personalities,” Groothuis replied. “Our personality will come through to some extent in an email message or a tweet. But we are holistic beings. We have feelings. We have thoughts. We have imagination. We have bodies. We look different. We express ourselves differently, for example in our tone of voice. How many times have we miscommunicated with someone online because there is no tone of voice? We were joking and someone took it seriously and got offended. Or we say something serious and people think we were joking. So I think the fullness of joy comes with one personality interacting with other personalities in terms of voice, touch, appearance, and timing. Sometimes it is time just to be quiet with people, or to cry with people, or to laugh with people.”

So social media and email (disembodied communication) can be a very useful extension of our embodied relationships, but not a replacement for them. So I ask my introvert self: Are the conveniences of disembodied communication undermining the joy of embodied communication? Do I truly value the personal, face-to-face relationships in my life over the disembodied relationships I maintain online? Are my face-to-face relationships — with my neighbor, my wife, and my kids — suffering because I neglect the priority and joy of embodiment?

Change 5: We are losing interest in the gathered church.

Inevitably, this lost joy of embodiment manifests itself as empty pews on Sunday morning.

Christianity is rooted in Christ’s incarnation and this profound face-to-face reality shapes our fellowship (2 John 12; 3 John 14), our ultimate hopes (1 John 3:2), and our lives before the face of God, coram Deo. The iPhone offers few advantages here.

“We have the whole dynamic of collective worship, which is very significant biblically because God inhabits the praises of his people (Psalm 22:3). When people come and worship in spirit and in truth there is the presence and dynamic of the Holy Spirit that can’t be repeated though a group Skype call. That will be second best, certainly. The Church, the body of Christ is to meet. We are to be with each other and we are to worship together and confess our sins and have communion and embrace people and show our love for people and weep with those who weep and laugh with those who laugh.”

If we prioritize disembodied relationships we overlook the profound embodiedrealities happening in baptism, in the Lord’s Supper, in corporate musical worship, in the laying on of hands, and even in sermons. As Pastor John has explained in the past, a recorded sermon in the earbuds cannot replace embodied sermons in the pew because preaching is “expository exaltation,” an integral part of the gathered corporate worship experience, embedded in the gathered people. There among the gathered people of God “preaching comes into its own as an encounter with the living God” (APJ 297).

So do we truly value the embodied reality of the local church? And even if we show up on Sunday, are we checking out, fiddling on our phones, and looking for something more promising, more entertaining, more disembodied, than the joy of God offered in embodied fellowship?

Change 6: We are growing careless with our words.

Compounded from all these online issues, we grow careless with words.

Why are we so quick to judge the motives of people online, and why are we so bold to criticize others? Why do we say things online we would never say in person? Why does digital communication draw our scorn so easily?

I was eager to ask Groothuis this question, and he responded by returning again to disembodiment. At a profound level, when we interact with people online, we are quick to forget these are souls, quick to forget “we are interacting with eternal beings,” he said. Disembodiment — distracted minds trying to multitask — makes our language especially flippant and potentially over-critical.

“We need to have integrity when we are online. We should do it prayerfully. We need to resist impulses. And I don’t always successfully do this. I have deleted not a few Facebook posts,” he said. “But remember that we are doing this before the face of God and we are interacting with eternal beings. We are having an effect on people’s destinies, even through a Twitter message. I think if we take that kind of approach it gives us a sense of gravitas and we are less likely to become flippant. Glibness and flippancy are terrible vices in our age. So many times in Scripture we are told to be careful with our words. Proverbs says this over and over again. We are told to be careful how we speak and let our words be few (Proverbs 10:19–21;17:27). These technologies allow us to talk endlessly. It may not be the physical voice, but it is some kind of message.”

“I think we need to edit ourselves more,” he said, “and realize that mediated communication has tremendous benefits, but detriments as well.”

6 Reasons Men and Women Are Drawn to Porn

I used to watch porn a lot. I hated how much I loved it, because I knew it was slowly chipping away at my soul, my relationship with God, and my ability to relate to women.

What fed my love of porn more than anything was the lie that sex was life. I was single at the time, and I had bought into the lie that sex was a basic, fundamental “need” of which I was deprived. To hear that God wanted me to give up porn sounded like God wanted me to give up life itself. I got angry with God for creating me with such strong cravings and then depriving me of what I thought was a basic need.

I had to learn that sex, though good and pleasurable, is not life. The desire for sex and intimacy is good, but even the best intimacy in marriage was designed by God to be a reflection of something greater.

Porn Obsession is About Faith

Nudity isn’t the only reason why porn is attractive. The power of porn is the story it tells: everything from the setting to the words spoken to the expressions on the actor’s faces tell a story.

We chase after porn because it is promising life to us—or at least something we’ve defined as life. We buy into those false promises and get hooked.

In his fantastic book, Closing the Window, Dr. Tim Chester identifies six promises the fantasy world of porn often makes to its viewers.

Below is my summary. This is the story porn feeds to us:

1. Respect

If we feel inadequate or rejected, our sinful hearts often crave respect, and porn offers that fantasy. In the fantasy world, we are worshipped by fantasy women or men. Porn gives us an eroticized world where we are man enough or woman enough to capture the respect of others by our sexual prowess.

2. Relationship

We desire intimacy, but we don’t like its risks. We want to be close to others, but we don’t want to be vulnerable. We want a real relationship, but we want to be the one in control. Porn gives us this illusion: we can feel “connected” but not have all the mess of a real relationship.

3. Refuge

In times of hardship or fear of failure, we want to relieve our stresses. When life is getting hard we want somewhere to escape, we want to pretend to be someone else or somewhere else. Porn gives us a fantasy world where we are never a failure: you always get to have the hot girl or guy, or you get to be the hot girl or guy.

4. Reward

In times when we are bored or when we feel like we’ve made great sacrifices, we often want to reward ourselves. This sense of entitlement drives us back again and again to the world of fantasy where our overworked minds and underappreciated egos can “get what we deserve.”

5. Revenge

In times of frustration and anger, we might turn to porn as an act of revenge against another person (like our spouse who isn’t having sex with us when we want) or against God (who isn’t giving us the life we want). Porn is our tantrum at the world that isn’t catering to our desires.

6. Redemption

In times of guilt and self-loathing, the fantasy world of porn offers false redemption. If we are feeling guilty, pornography says, “You’re okay just the way you are. Nothing about you needs to change.” If we are mired in self-hatred, porn is our way of punishing ourselves. “This is the shameful life I deserve,” we say to ourselves. Porn is a way to indulge our dark world of self-pity.

These are the false promises of porn, and for each person it is a little different. Just one of these might ring true for some people. For others, several or all of them ring true.

God’s Better Promises

But when it comes to breaking free, we need the better promises of the gospel to trump the power of sin. Breaking free from lust is ultimately about faith: will you believe God or porn?

Dr. Tim Chester shows us how the gospel can overcome the power of sin.

1. Respect

If we feel inadequate or rejected, we must remember that God is the one who offers us genuine acceptance through Christ. The men or women in the fantasy do not know you. They do not love you. Christ does. We must repent of needing the approval of others (what the Bible calls “the fear of man”), pursue God’s glory above all (1 Corinthians 10:31), and anticipate the glory he promises to those who trust him (John 5:44). His approval is far better than the approval of men or women made of pixels on a screen.

2. Relationship

When we desire intimacy with others, but we fear the risk, we need to run to God as a Father who is sovereign over our relationships. Relationships are risky. Hearts can be broken. Emotions are messy. But God promises that everything we go through will work for good for those who love Him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). God can and will take all our relationships—even our failed ones—and use them to conform us to the image of his Son (v.29). Knowing this, we can pursue genuine intimacy with others in a godly manner, not run to the fake security digital sex.

3. Refuge

When we are stressed or when life gets hard, God is our true refuge, our rock, fortress, deliverer, and stronghold (Psalm 18:1-3). No matter what our circumstances are, next to the mountain-shaking, thunder-breathing God, our problems are no match for him (v.7-13). Instead of medicating our bruises with fantasy, we can escape into him, casting all our cares on him because he cares for us (1 Peter 5:6-7).

4. Reward

When we are itching for pleasure and excitement, we should run to God who is our living water. The well of porn is empty, and time will tell how little it satisfies, but God is our fountain of living water (Jeremiah 2:13). Instead of rushing to the quick fix of porn, we should cultivate a life of communion with God through prayer, fasting, meditating on his Word, and worship. We should cultivate a longing for the eternal reward of living with him forever, rejecting the temporary pleasures of sin (Hebrews 11:24-26).

5. Revenge

When we are angry that God is not giving us the life we want, we are like the elder brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:29-31). We consider our sacrifices, our obedience, and our devotion, and we believe God “owes” us something. But God does not relate to us this way: he relates to us as a loving Father. We are not God’s servants, but his sons and daughters. When we do not get what we want, we must focus our faith on God who knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows exactly what blessings are best for us in his perfect timing.

6. Redemption

In times of guilt or shame, we need to run to God who freely forgives us of all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). We won’t find redemption by ignoring our sin or by trying to punish ourselves. We need to look to Christ, our perfect High Priest: “by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14). When we are reminded of our guilt and failures, we must repeat the words Jesus uttered on the cross: “It is finished” (John 19:30).

Sexual Morals: The Apostle Paul vs. Alfred Kinsey

Alfred Kinsey is hailed by some as the father of the sexual revolution.

I know many Christians who can identify with Alfred Kinsey’s adolescent frustrations. He grew up in a strict Methodist home where drinking, dancing, and dating were prohibited. I know many Christians who grow up believing that their sexuality is a moral curse: every urge in us wants to experience and experiment, but our moral upbringing tells us to repress it lest we incur God’s anger. The result is failure and frustration.

Kinsey was a man on a mission to break himself and others free from the sexual morals of his Christian upbringing. His pursuit to squash the sexual repression message won him international fame.

Kinsey observed what the apostle Paul observed a couple thousand years before: being told that something is evil doesn’t make us want to do it less; we want to do it more.This much Kinsey got right. But there was something sadly lacking in Kinsey’s understanding of Christianity, and this led him down a path of destructive indulgence. (For an excellent article on this, read “Kinsey: Deviancy is the New Normal.” Reader discretion is highly advised.)

Paul’s View of Religious Morals

Paul explains how he did not know what “coveting”—such as sexual lust and material greed—was until he read, “Thou shalt not covet.” Then the sin in him seemed to come to life. Suddenly, knowing that coveting was evil, created a desire to do it more. Like a child told not to touch the hot stove, he had a greater desire to touch (Romans 7:7-10).

So here the Law of Moses stands, a bedrock of personal morality and social ethics, but all it seems to do is frustrate its readers. Paul devoted his early life to the study and living of this divine Law. In his own words, he was extremely zealous for the traditions of his fathers (Galatians 1:14). He was trained at the feet of one of the most celebrated rabbis of his day (Acts 22:3). No one could blame him of any obvious unrighteous behavior (Philippians 3:6). He saw himself as a guide to the blind—a light to those in darkness (Romans 2:19). Yet brooding beneath the crust of Paul’s heart was secret sin. It seems the better he knew the Law, the more sin seemed to come alive in him.

But something dramatic happened to Paul which completely shifted the way he saw God and the Law of Moses. Unexpectedly, while on a mission to imprison Christians in Damascus, Paul met the Lord Jesus in a blinding light. This experience ushered him into a new life. He would soon readjust his whole theology. No longer was the Law the way in which he approached God. The crucified and risen Messiah became the epicenter of his relationship to God.

Not that the Law was somehow no longer important to Paul. It was. Years later he would still teach how the commandments of the law are “holy and righteous and good” (Romans 7:12). But he no longer believed that the purpose of the Law was to make usbehave well; rather, he believed that the law is so right and so good that it is designed to act as a mirror through which we see our true selves—designed to show us just how sinful we really are and how badly we need to be transformed from the inside out. Try as we might to obey the Law, we will come up very short. Legalistic, ascetic regulations have an appearance of religious wisdom, but Paul said that “they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Colossians 2:23).

Like Kinsey, Paul knew that sort of asceticism and legalism, and it hadn’t worked.

How Christ Changed Paul

Rather, Paul believed that the purpose of the Law was to point to our deepest need—not to better performance, but to God’s forgiveness and a radical, internal change. The Law accuses us as so wicked that we must either give up and reject God (like Kinsey), or sit under the weight of our guilt (like Paul before he met Christ), or find divine mercy and power (Paul after he met Christ). Meeting Jesus in a blinding light cast a new light on a Scriptures he read since he was a boy. Paul said Moses and all the prophets point to a great hope—the coming of a new age when sins will be totally forgiven, when the world will be totally remade. In Paul’s conversion he came to understand Jesus would be the one to bring all that about.

This is what the three pivotal events of the early church are all about. This is why Paul was so fixated on Christ.

1. Jesus’ voluntary death on the cross for the sins of others guaranteed that Paul was no longer under God’s wrath.Jesus took upon Himself the “curse” of the Law (Galatians 3:10-14) when he went to the cross. Then suddenly, the Mosaic sacrificial system took on a whole new significance. All those animal sacrifices had pointed to the ultimate sacrifice, one which God would make. The cross of Christ became Paul’s central message (1 Corinthians 2:1-5).
2. Jesus’ physical resurrection from the grave was not only a sign to Paul that Christ’s death is acceptable to God, but it is also a foretaste of God’s renewal of the whole world. When Paul saw Jesus on the Damascus road it convinced him that Jesus was not only alive, but that God had vindicated Him. He knew (without doubt) that the promise of the prophets was true: that one day God would resurrect the dead and renew the world. He knew Jesus was the first fruits of that final harvest (1 Corinthians 15:3-20).
3. When Jesus sent the Holy Spirit from heaven He started the process of inner transformation for which Paul had been yearning. The prophets before Paul promise a day when God’s Spirit will flood the world and give us new hearts that will delight in God, will be eager to obey God, and will no longer be enticed by sin (Jeremiah 31:33-34; Ezekiel 36:24-27; Joel 2:28-29). The powerful outpouring of the Spirit in Paul showed him that this new age had begun. By the power of the Spirit, Paul sees people healed and hearts changed.

The thing Kinsey never understood was that his moralistic upbringing was not meant merely to make him behave, but something meant to point the way to his need for a Savior who could change Him.

Luke Gilkerson

Only 5% of people say their church does anything to hold them accountable

A Barna Group telephone survey of Christians across the United States reveals some interesting facts about the state of accountability in the church: only 5% of people say their church does anything to hold them accountable for integrating biblical beliefs and principles into their lives.

For those who are held accountable by their church community in some way, the most common approach to accountability is through a small group. But even so, among those who attend a small group, only 7% say accountability is one of the functions of their group.

Why the distaste for accountability in the church?

There could be, of course, many reasons why formal accountability is uncommon. But as I survey the landscape, these are the reasons I see.

1. People hate conflict. The Barna Group states church leaders don’t often engage in accountability (either through following up on members’ tasks, home visits, or church discipline) because they don’t want to to be confrontational. The same is true among church members. Few people want to call out others on their sin.

2. Christians do not understand that sanctification is a community project. Many texts in the Bible assume or state outright that one of the ways we grow as Christians is through gospel-centered conversation with one another. The New Testament places great importance motivating one another to love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:24-25), bearing each other’s burdens (Galatians 6:1-2), and instructing one another (Romans 15:14). Many Christians are never taught that sanctification is a community project.

3. People like their privacy. Accountability is about confessing sin to one another, but few today like the idea of divulging their temptations, sins, and the state of their heart. This is far too personal for some.

4. Christians are not taught (seriously) about biblical accountability. James 5:16 is not a suggestion but a command. “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” Moreover, this is a command tied to our health as Christians. In this text James mentions cases where personal sin leads to a serious physical or emotional illness, calling for the elders of the church to administer healing. Before we get to that point, however, we should be in the practice of the regular “preventative medicine” of confessing our sins to each other and praying for each other.

5. Christians falsely believe accountability is only for behavior modification. Some reject the idea of accountability because they believe it is all about fear or shame-based change. Accountability for them is about staying away from certain taboo sins so they can avoid an awkward conversation in the future. But the Bible says there’s a kind of conversation we can have that actually addresses the heart—not just outward behavior (Hebrews 3:13).

6. Some Christians have experienced unhelpful accountability. For some Christians, their accountability partners and groups simply did not “work” for them. They experienced no change. But what if we used this excuse for anything in which we engage: listening to sermons, praying together, taking communion, engaging in service projects? We don’t give up on any of these things because at times they don’t seem to “work.” Rather, each time we strive to do them better, with a true heart, and with careful thought.

7. Christians falsely believe accountability in the church is only a crutch for when things get really bad. Often we seek out accountability when things have come to a head in our lives, when we are facing a grave consequence. But the various “one anothers” of the New Testament are not just for those facing specific consequences for their sin, but for all Christians.

8. Christians are not discipled. Accountability makes most sense in a context of discipleship: being personally mentored, guided, and directed by spiritually mature individuals, and in the context of a community of disciples. In a church culture that makes true disciples, accountability is the most natural thing in the world.

9. Christians lack quality friendships. Accountability is also most natural in a gospel-centered friendship. We need the kind of friends mentioned the proverbs: men and women who stick with us through thick and thin, who aren’t afraid to confront us, and who compel us to do what is right. Accountability is not only giving an account of my sin to another, but receiving an account of God’s grace in return from a Christian friend.

10. Christians have not tasted gospel-centered accountability in the church. The gospel of Christ is what guides and protects good accountability. Informed by the gospel, a good accountability partner will not be condemning, but gracious. Informed by the gospel, a good accountability partner will treat sin seriously because Christ took sin seriously. A good accountability partner will use the eternal promises of the gospel to motivate us to a higher standard. As Christians, we need to be taught how to do this well.

They brought porn into their marriage, she got hooked, and everything went downhill from there

How Porn Affects the Brain

Boundaries for Couples Facing Porn Addiction

Henry Cloud and John Townsend have written a marvelous book called Boundaries in Marriage. They define a boundary simply as “a property line” between one person and another. They make this statement:

When two people together take responsibility to do what is best for the marriage, love can grow. When they do not, one takes on too much responsibility and resents it; the other does not take on enough, and becomes self-centered or controlling.

That, I think, is a dynamic that so many couples dealing with a pornography addiction can understand. The addict is addicted, and the spouse takes responsibility to “fix” and help.

Now, there’s no shame in trying to fix things. Fixing and helping is what happens when you’ve got a problem in the family. That’s normal. I did it. My friends do it. Every wife I’ve worked with in therapy does it.

Unfortunately, I’ve never seen the fixing and helping actually fix or help anything.

It just leaves everybody feeling frustrated, exhausted, discouraged, and stuck.

The Boundaries Way

When fixing and helping don’t work, there is another way: boundaries. But boundaries are a total paradigm shift, and it takes time for us to be motivated enough—usually by extreme pain—to stop fixing and helping, and get some boundaries in place.

With boundaries, we draw a line between “me” and “you.” We differentiate. Instead of all living in the same lump of a problem, trying to fix it and help it, we step back and breathe a little. Then we start to see what belongs to you, and what belongs to me. We each have God-given freedom and responsibility. We each acknowledge this and make new choices accordingly.

God has given me a free will, and I receive it. With that gift of freedom comes responsibility, and I embrace my own choices, behaviors, and emotions.

God has given my husband a free will, and I allow it. With my husband’s freedom comes his own responsibility, and I allow him to have that as well. Even if he chooses not to take responsibility for his choices, behaviors, and emotions, I won’t carry it for him. It’s his to do with as he chooses.

That sounds simple, but when I talk about this process with women, they often feel scared. They’re afraid their husbands will do terrible things if they stop fixing and helping. What’s more, they feel guilty about considering their own needs and wants. They are sure that boundaries are selfish, mean, unloving, and just too scary.

It is true that, with boundaries, my husband makes choices for himself, and those choices are not always what I want. He says no to my preferences sometimes. That’s hard, and I have to learn to trust that God will be with me, even when I am scared and disappointed and hurt and angry. God will carry me through.

God is my God, not my husband

It is also true that, with boundaries, I make choices for myself, and those choices are not always what my husband wants. There are times when I just say no. I have had to learn to trust that the he will be okay, even if I disappoint him. The way I respect him in that situation is by letting him feel how he feels.

• He might be mad or hurt or disappointed or scared. God will have to carry him through.
• If he tries to push the responsibility for his emotions onto me, by verbal put-downs or angry outbursts, I will remove myself from the situation so that he and God can be alone together and work it out.

God is his God, not me

Here is another thing that I’ve found. When I am first very clear and honest about what I feel and what I need and what I want, I can then make a real choice. I can choose what I want, or I can make a choice that is not exactly what I want, out of sacrificial love for the other person. When I choose to give, it’s a real gift.

When I am not clear and honest about what I feel and what I want, then I will spend a whole lot of my time giving other people what I think they want, hoping that they will in return spend an equal amount of energy giving me what I want.

That’s a “sacrifice” for the purpose of manipulation. And while that might masquerade as love, it’s just control with lipstick on it.

God’s love for us is a sacrificial love, not a controlling love. He loves us, and He lets us choose whether or not to be in a close relationship with Him. I think of the parable of the prodigal son. The Father’s love never wavered, but he let that kid go into the far country and live in a pigsty until he was ready to come home. I don’t think that was a fun time for anybody, but it speaks to me when I think about how freedom and responsibility and love and boundaries all work together.

Here are some example boundaries from Boundaries in Marriage, by Henry Cloud and John Townsend.

Verbal boundaries might sound something like this:

• “If you speak to me that way, I will leave the room.”
• “I love you, but I don’t trust you right now.  I can’t be that close until we work this out.”
• “When you show me that you are serious about getting some help, I will feel safe enough to open up to you again.”

Physical boundaries might comprise:

• Removing yourself from any situation that makes you uncomfortable
• Taking time away to think through situations for yourself
• Moving out for a period of time
• Separating from an abusive situation

Emotional boundaries could include:

• Bringing in a third party to help resolve conflict
• Finding a support group for yourself
• Attending counseling sessions for yourself 

I wish I could tell you that having good boundaries will for sure fix your life into exactly what you want it to be, right now, today. But the truth is, real boundaries are a risky thing. We don’t know what the other person will choose. The truth is, life is scary and it hurts and sometimes I get mad and I wish I could control it and manipulate it and fix it and tie it up in a pretty pink bow.

But in my saner moments I know this: I will choose freedom and responsibility, and an honest mess of love that hurts over the fake-perfection of pretend, every time. Because when we hold onto our boundaries, and battle through with God’s help, there is real love and real relationship and real freedom waiting at the end of the road.

So every day, I try to do these things.

• Tell the truth: the straight-up, honest truth about what’s happening.
• Feel the feelings: sad, mad, scared, disappointed, jealous, abandoned, neglected, overlooked.
• Receive God’s grace and freedom for myself, right now, in the mess.
• Extend grace and freedom to others, right where they are.
• Make my choices.
• State my boundaries clearly.
• Let go and let God.

This is a joyous and life-giving way to exist in every area of life.

Also, it is messy and painful and challenging. And God is enough, even for this.