Accountability and male loneliness

Lessons from the Mike Johnson saga

I remember reading a story the summer after I graduated college about a man who was asked to be a personal reference on a friend’s job application for a federal agency. I had just started a summer internship. Surprisingly, graduating with a philosophy degree offered limited opportunities, and I was learning what it meant to be a Christian man in the working world. Part of this transition involved moving away from a rich college community that had been so formative because of the friendships I had made–especially those with other men. 

In this story, the man had agreed to be a reference for his friend and was subsequently contacted by the FBI, or the CIA, or the DoJ, one of the alphabet soup agencies. During the conversation he was asked a set of questions that were by and large predictable, but at the end, before the conversation concluded, he was asked a question he did not expect: Had he ever been inside his friend’s home? A bit confused he asked the caller why that mattered. This person responded that over time the agency had learned that while applicants may have a personal reference with social relationships, many of these contacts had never actually been into their friend’s home. So while it was possible to get to know someone over a coffee or beer, as part of a club or rec league, knowing someone in their own home was indicative of a much deeper sort of relationship. 

Homes are meant to be places of safety and security; we are discerning about who we let in. They are places of rest; we want to leave work at the office or close the laptop for good. They’re a retreat from the world; a place where we don’t always have to be on guard. But they can also be places where we isolate, hide, and keep people out. To let someone in is to risk vulnerability. And if the old jokes and jabs are right, men are especially wary of relational vulnerability. 

In its own way, this fear of being known revealed itself on the national stage several weeks ago when Rolling Stone wrote a piece on the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. The subject of the article was a story, which when properly interpreted, was about the Congressman and his son’s relationship and how he sought to be an example for him in terms of living according to the Christian sexual ethic. However, in what was either utter negligence or deliberately misleading the reader, the Rolling Stone said that Mike Johnson “admitted that he and his son monitored each other’s porn intake.” The journalist went on to call such actions “creepy Big Brother-ness.” There’s no need to give further in depth analysis of this hit piece. But suffice it to say, Mike Johnson, regardless of what you may think of his politics, is not an Orwellian arch-villain  or parental deviant. 

What the Representative and his son were practicing is what Christians normally refer to as “accountability.” This is a practice engaged by Christians as they pursue progressive sanctification and seek to be more like Jesus in their daily lives. It is an openness with a brother or sister in Christ to protect oneself from sin and live unto righteousness. It is a way to live in the light. It is a type of confession among the priesthood of all believers. It is a way of practicing spiritual hospitality and allowing someone into the home of your soul. 

The author at the Rolling Stone, and a fair number of readers, were apparently shocked that self-identifying Christian men would download an app on their phones in order to allow a friend to surveil them. Why would anyone do that? Why give up that sort of privacy? Why allow someone that level of access to your life? Why risk the embarrassment? Such questions betray the sad reality that men are missing out on or avoiding close confidants and substantive friendships. 

The answer to these questions are given to us by Scripture. Proverbs 18:24 says, “there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” While there might be fear around the sort of vulnerability accountability entails, our souls deeply desire this. One can only imagine the joy and awe that overcame the apostles when, in John 15:15, Jesus told them, “I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” In our desire for friendship, we cannot expect the depth we hope for without disclosure. 

One thing this article and its response illustrated was that intimacy, especially the intimacy that comes from accountability, is missing from the lives of most American men. To many, this comes as no surprise. There has been an increasing number of articles and books and media reports on the phenomenon of male loneliness. In his recent book, Of Boys and Men, Brookings scholar Richard Reeves reports, among other things, that men report far fewer friends than their demographic from several decades ago. Earlier this year Christine Emba of The Washington Post wrote a piece entitled, “Men are Lost: Here’s a Map out of the Wilderness.” I cite these two authors, who are on the left end of the spectrum, because concern around men falling behind, or male loneliness, or “the war on men” has traditionally been the concern of conservatives. But no longer it seems. It seems that secular outlets are picking up on something that many Christians have known for a long long time: that men need close relationships with other men. 

This concern around male loneliness is unlikely to resolve itself anytime soon, but Christians should be encouraged that we have practices to help us and those around us. Accountability is one way we can do this. It might seem foreign to the world, but so too did caring for widows and orphans at one point. Unfamiliar does not mean ineffective. Let’s engage with the brotherhood of believers with depth and transparency in order to be a shining city on a hill.