Thoughts on Accountability
I’ve been thinking and praying a lot lately about the subject of accountability… I’ve not yet fully developed the thoughts below, but I will share them anyway. Perhaps someone “out there” will have some words of wisdom or experience.
Warning: these are generalizations, so your experience may vary by degrees.
Standards
In evangelicalism today, we set low expectations for people (for accountability, participation, service, etc.) that when people do fall short (and in a fallen world, and in sinful flesh, we should expect that people will), they fall to an even lower standard.
In other words, we set the standard at “3″ and people come in at “2″ and it troubles us. Instead, we should set the standard at “8″ and see them come in at “5″ and “6″ and be joyful. (Not to mention that Christ’s standard for us is “10″ – no, I’m not getting into works-based salvation, but I WILL unashamedly get into works-evident sanctification.)
Fear of Man
Even if we teach and preach the doctrines of grace, we tend to disciple as Arminians and Semi-Pelagians. “Whether you accept or reject what I am telling you about sin depends entirely upon my approach and upon my persuasiveness and upon my relationship with you, not upon God’s truth of it nor the persuasion and conviction of the Spirit within you, nor your relationship with Christ as your Lord and Savior.”
Discuss amongst yourselves. Or comment. Or contact.
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I’ve heard this principle applied to relationships.
It goes something like this:
The ideal is the standard we are taught to strive for. Close enough is a socially acceptable failure to achieve the standard set.
Perfect Ideal (ie: #1) = Abstinence until marriage. “close enough #1″ = intimacy once engaged to be married.
Dropping the standard for the ideal to #2 abstinence until engagement; “close enough” #2 becomes committed, relationship.
degrading further to Ideal #3 “committed relationship” / close enough #3 becomes ‘feelings of love’
Ideal #4 ‘feelings of love’ / C.E. #4 ‘i like that person’
#5 “I like that person” / #5 Close enough = anonymous, casual ‘because it feels good’.
#6 casual & anonymous / #6 = aggressive, vulgar unspeakable acts
Cheapening of the Ideal results in the magnifying and normalizing of the perversities.
I wish I could remember who I could attribute this to. Perhaps someone else may remember.