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Articles

Is Christian Accountability Harmful?

February 07, 2025 by Duncan Pile

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I first dipped my toe into the practice of accountability at university. The idea presented was that we would, in small groups, hold each other accountable for our sins. In other words, a portion of the time devoted to fellowship was given to a form of confession.

I was never comfortable with this, but not because I had anything to hide. I was a well-behaved Evangelical, didn’t drink, barely swore, and steadfastly refused weed whenever it was offered to me. I was also a virgin, fully committed to the sexual abstinence I believed was required of me as a Christian until I married. So why wouldn’t I like the practice of accountability when it made me look admirable?

After a conservative Evangelical childhood, I had only just begun on my journey of walking with the Holy Spirit, and greatly treasured everything he revealed to me. I didn’t like accountability because it was incompatible with what the Lord was teaching me at the time – specifically that growth came from focussing on Jesus, rather than focussing on sin. Accountability put sin in too prominent a place, causing many to obsess over their failings rather than keep their eyes on the Lord.

In practice, accountability was also rather awkward. It was a same sex environment in which men would regularly talk about how much they masturbated. I’ve been part of numerous prayer groups/cell groups over the years, and am dismayed by how much Evangelicals want to talk about their (and other people’s) genitals. In my early adulthood, sex was only ever spoken of as either temptation or sin, which placed burdens of shame on young people, causing them great harm. When I hear the word ‘accountability’, I associate it with shame and guilt.

Manipulation disguised as spirituality

Another major pitfall of accountability is that it is all-too-often used as a form of control. If people we don’t know closely are aware of our deepest concerns and struggles, they have power over us. Personally, I have been let down, betrayed, and hurt by enough church leaders to know that wariness can be wisdom. There are those in my life who have earned a position of near absolute trust, and when I need to talk about something I’m struggling with, it is those people I turn to. It seems absolutely foolish to assume that because another person is a Christian, or a member of your church, you can therefore trust them. Personally, I only trust those who’ve earned it.

The organic process of friendship makes room for the sharing of difficulties, but to instill a regular, enforced confession between people who haven’t earned that space with each other is to put them at risk.

Are there any healthy expressions of accountability?

If forced to name a healthy form of accountability, the closest I can come is urging people to be more loving. If someone expresses intolerant views around me, I do share my discomfort and the reasons I disagree, but only if it’s someone with whom I have a deep bond of trust. In other words, this would be an interaction between friends, and it would be an exception rather than the norm. Why on Earth would I challenge someone I don’t know well? That isn’t my place. Sometimes, I think we spiritualize poor behavior – interfering, rudeness, dominance, gossip, control, manipulation, etc – at the expense of dignity and respect.

A friend and I meet every Monday night to talk and pray, and from time to time, one of us might challenge the other, but only as part of a natural conversation. There’s no formality to the proceedings, and we do not have a section of the evening dedicated to accountability, but in the safe confines of genuine friendship, there’s very little we won’t discuss. Friendship is a marvelous resource, where secrets are a hindrance and trust underpins all, so if accountability has any place in Christian relationships at all, it is surely there.

That said, if honesty and trust come hand in hand with close friendship, why do we need the label of ‘accountability’? To me, accountability is taking something organic and healthy (trust) and reshaping it into an unnatural structure – something rigid and uncaring rather than something flowing from compassion.

Friendship is loving and supportive, and the conversation between friends covers all areas of life, including areas of struggle, but the focus of ‘accountability’ as a structure is always and only sin. The church of my youth was sin-focussed instead of Christ-focussed, which ironically magnifies sin, making it all the more likely. Accountability elevates sin instead of elevating righteousness, which flows from faith. Faith keeps its eyes on Christ, and in the divine embrace, we find freedom from harmful habits. When we turn our gaze inwards and flagellate ourselves for our failures, we only make our prison more constrictive.

What is sin?

As previously stated, accountability focuses on sin, so in order to understand accountability, we must first understand sin. What makes an action/choice sinful? I propose that sin is not a list of forbidden activities; sin is anything that harms ourselves or other people. Is there anything you consider sinful that isn’t described by this?

Seeing sin as harm lightens the heavy image of God many of us were brought up with. Sin has to be sin for a reason or God is arbitrary – a self-serving, rule-keeping perfectionist. What other reason would a loving God have to consider something sinful, other than to protect us from harm? God wants us to live free of sin because, quite simply, he loves us, and life is better in its absence. God is not a prison guard, punishing sinners; he is a liberator, swinging wide the jailhouse doors and calling us to freedom.

That said, God is not obsessed with our development at the expense of simply loving and blessing us. He will certainly help us step away from harm, but all in his time. Let’s say I have ten harmful (sinful) habits. He will not love me more fully or welcome me more joyfully into Heaven when I’ve reduced that number to zero. God’s love and favor are not conditional; they are not dependent on my performance. When he addresses sin in my life, it is because he wants me to be free, and I trust that he will lead me into ever-increasing freedom over the course of my life, as I walk closely with him.

The long and the short of it is that I cannot identify a healthy process of accountability. If God accepts us as we are and leads us out of harm as an act of love, and if the strong bonds of trust forged by friendship provide the perfect environment to talk about our struggles, free from judgement and shame, then what purpose does accountability serve? It formalizes the informal; it kills that which is organic, replacing it with rigid structures that cannot protect those who take shelter within them. It devalues trust, underestimates friendship, and opens the door to all manner of harm. Rather than expose ourselves to manipulation and control, let’s emphasize friendship and build bonds of trust that allow us to open our hearts to each other and to heal.

2/10/2025 5:57:38 AM

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About Duncan Pile

Duncan Pile is a writer, author and speaker, living in Derbyshire, England with his wife and stepson. His mystical approach to faith straddles the Evangelical/Progressive divide, and flowing from lived experience, he is passionate about the deconstruction and reconstruction of the Christian faith.

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