"At a personal level, Christian men need to see how their obligations of love and loyalty to one another are deeply connected to their roles as husbands and fathers. Your friends are not merely a “break” from home. Rather, in Christian friendship, love and solidarity are shaping you in a way that will reverberate in the hearts of your wife and children. This isn’t claptrap about “being a better you.” It’s about having a whole heart, and showing your wife and kids that they, too, need friends."
This is a very important point and one I haven't seen that way before – I think wives and especially children need to see how you as a husband and father model friendship. Male friendships are indeed not just a break of family but a vital and healthy part of family life. They can also lessen the burden of expecting too much from your family members.
In general, I agree with everything you say here and I think you've touched upon sth. very important and sensitive. My rather sad perspective is that this is not so much a church and wording problem but a problem of male initiative. Many men I know are just... to put it bluntly too lazy, passive and comfortable to seek out friendship. Digital distraction, careerism and hobbyism might play in there, but whatever it might be many men are really bad a keeping in touch and initiating contact and close friendship. I try to prioritise friendships, but it's a tough business and one where I have to constantly reach out to others.
My favorite quote on friendship is from Beuchner: "Friends are people you make part of your life just because you feel like it." Friends are helpful, but a relationship of utility is not a friendship.
“Friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I should say, 'sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.’”
C.S. Lewis, The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 2: Books, Broadcasts, and the War, 1931-1949
I finally left my men's group at a Calvary Chapel. 30 guys every Saturday morning, going through the Bible verse by verse. That's all fine. But after 2 years there's never been a relationship built. Not one friend I can call on to move a door, drink a cup of coffee or share a laugh.
There was so much an emphasis on accountability, although Ive seen it elsewhere. But there was a tremendous lack of understanding that men need a way to connect, to friend each other that isn't spent on pouring through Bible nuanced subplots or pointed questions as the article mentions. We just need fellow travelers. The other stuff will come
:faithful" are the wounds of a "friend"...not necessarily an "accountability partner"...those are more "fearful".
Here is just one study pertaining to your article...
According to the Survey Center for American Life, 15% of men report having no close friendships. This is five times more than survey results from 1990. The report also revealed a shift in whom young men turn to for support, with only 22% now seeking help from friends, compared with 45% in 1990.Jan 28, 2024
Thank God I have had close friends my entire adult life, Christian and secular, and the life difference that has made under God's love and providence has been beyond enormous. And I come from a family in which men also had close friendships so was raised with a great role model.
Nailed half of it: in 'accountability groups', friendship is left wanting. The other half left wanting in 'accountability groups' is a healthy confession of sin. Even where sin is confessed in this context, we haven't done very well in providing a strong absolution, nor have we really reinforced a strong sense of agency. The Church needs strong male friendships, trained confessors for private sin, and a healthy liturgy where we confess our sins on a corporate level and receive the reminder of God's pardon through Christ.
Likewise I have felt that dread knowing my mentor, from whom I sought accountability, would ask me about my time with the Lord. I knew I always felt short from personal expectations. In my 30s, as a mom of 5 young kids, accountability check-ins with friends was more about how I was handling anger at my kids - this was the area I was most longing to work on.
The Christian resources I was reading encouraged wives to make the space for husbands to spend time with other men. That works well for some and still some men choose more isolation. I do hope for them to be free to connect with other men - some are just not very connected to themselves - we have lots of work to do!
Women are often discouraged from being iron sharpening iron - because they are told over and over - "you are not your husband's Holy Spirit." So we were told that husbands spending time with other men WAS their opportunity to get feedback (and the author makes the point, that it should be more than that - friendship - which we celebrate.) However, women are to ALSO not 'talk bad about husbands' - so there's no righteous mechanism to share those struggles.
I wonder if iron sharpening iron is looked at culturally as exclusively masculine - as it is in the KJV translation.
Final thought - while affirming and celebrating that men need male friendships, I also think a lot about women needing relationship and interactions with their brothers in-Christ and men needing to know women as their sisters-in-Christ. Maybe if we knew how to interact with each other in healthier ways and not focus on differences due to our hyper-sexualized Christian culture - there would be unexpected fruit. If men LOVED women as sisters - would it be so easy or satisfying to jump on a computer and pursue a digital experience in a dark room -many times viewing women's bodies being abused? And if women who have been wounded had the opportunity to know Christian men as BROTHERS, would that bring some healing for both?
My husband’s only Christian friend is me: that is both suffocating and worrying. I’ve prayed for years that he would find a friend or that a friend would find him.
I am so profoundly grateful for my deep, close friendships with other men throughout my life and I could not imagine what life would be like without them. But I have pursued them, valued them, and made them a priority in life. They did not happen automatically and easily. You not only have to want it and value it, you have to pursue it. All I could think of was yes, and amen as I read this post.
Well said. This is so timely for me. I’m struggling with my church right now because there is a lot of accountability and teaching, but no friendship. Everyone is too busy to beyond the weekly schedule of men’s Bible study.
It is crazy we've made everything so complicated in the church and modern culture that having true Christian friends is somehow radical.
"At a personal level, Christian men need to see how their obligations of love and loyalty to one another are deeply connected to their roles as husbands and fathers. Your friends are not merely a “break” from home. Rather, in Christian friendship, love and solidarity are shaping you in a way that will reverberate in the hearts of your wife and children. This isn’t claptrap about “being a better you.” It’s about having a whole heart, and showing your wife and kids that they, too, need friends."
This is a very important point and one I haven't seen that way before – I think wives and especially children need to see how you as a husband and father model friendship. Male friendships are indeed not just a break of family but a vital and healthy part of family life. They can also lessen the burden of expecting too much from your family members.
In general, I agree with everything you say here and I think you've touched upon sth. very important and sensitive. My rather sad perspective is that this is not so much a church and wording problem but a problem of male initiative. Many men I know are just... to put it bluntly too lazy, passive and comfortable to seek out friendship. Digital distraction, careerism and hobbyism might play in there, but whatever it might be many men are really bad a keeping in touch and initiating contact and close friendship. I try to prioritise friendships, but it's a tough business and one where I have to constantly reach out to others.
Well said! …and ouch lol
My favorite quote on friendship is from Beuchner: "Friends are people you make part of your life just because you feel like it." Friends are helpful, but a relationship of utility is not a friendship.
“Friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I should say, 'sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.’”
C.S. Lewis, The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 2: Books, Broadcasts, and the War, 1931-1949
"a random group of British friends." Nice one! :)
Great discussion!
A wonderful parenting principle echoes throughout my mind as I read this provocative article.
Rules without relationship leads to rebellion.
I finally left my men's group at a Calvary Chapel. 30 guys every Saturday morning, going through the Bible verse by verse. That's all fine. But after 2 years there's never been a relationship built. Not one friend I can call on to move a door, drink a cup of coffee or share a laugh.
There was so much an emphasis on accountability, although Ive seen it elsewhere. But there was a tremendous lack of understanding that men need a way to connect, to friend each other that isn't spent on pouring through Bible nuanced subplots or pointed questions as the article mentions. We just need fellow travelers. The other stuff will come
:faithful" are the wounds of a "friend"...not necessarily an "accountability partner"...those are more "fearful".
Here is just one study pertaining to your article...
According to the Survey Center for American Life, 15% of men report having no close friendships. This is five times more than survey results from 1990. The report also revealed a shift in whom young men turn to for support, with only 22% now seeking help from friends, compared with 45% in 1990.Jan 28, 2024
Thank God I have had close friends my entire adult life, Christian and secular, and the life difference that has made under God's love and providence has been beyond enormous. And I come from a family in which men also had close friendships so was raised with a great role model.
Nailed half of it: in 'accountability groups', friendship is left wanting. The other half left wanting in 'accountability groups' is a healthy confession of sin. Even where sin is confessed in this context, we haven't done very well in providing a strong absolution, nor have we really reinforced a strong sense of agency. The Church needs strong male friendships, trained confessors for private sin, and a healthy liturgy where we confess our sins on a corporate level and receive the reminder of God's pardon through Christ.
THANK YOU.
Good article. Excellent points.
Yes, I'm a woman weighing in 🙂
Likewise I have felt that dread knowing my mentor, from whom I sought accountability, would ask me about my time with the Lord. I knew I always felt short from personal expectations. In my 30s, as a mom of 5 young kids, accountability check-ins with friends was more about how I was handling anger at my kids - this was the area I was most longing to work on.
The Christian resources I was reading encouraged wives to make the space for husbands to spend time with other men. That works well for some and still some men choose more isolation. I do hope for them to be free to connect with other men - some are just not very connected to themselves - we have lots of work to do!
Women are often discouraged from being iron sharpening iron - because they are told over and over - "you are not your husband's Holy Spirit." So we were told that husbands spending time with other men WAS their opportunity to get feedback (and the author makes the point, that it should be more than that - friendship - which we celebrate.) However, women are to ALSO not 'talk bad about husbands' - so there's no righteous mechanism to share those struggles.
I wonder if iron sharpening iron is looked at culturally as exclusively masculine - as it is in the KJV translation.
Final thought - while affirming and celebrating that men need male friendships, I also think a lot about women needing relationship and interactions with their brothers in-Christ and men needing to know women as their sisters-in-Christ. Maybe if we knew how to interact with each other in healthier ways and not focus on differences due to our hyper-sexualized Christian culture - there would be unexpected fruit. If men LOVED women as sisters - would it be so easy or satisfying to jump on a computer and pursue a digital experience in a dark room -many times viewing women's bodies being abused? And if women who have been wounded had the opportunity to know Christian men as BROTHERS, would that bring some healing for both?
My husband’s only Christian friend is me: that is both suffocating and worrying. I’ve prayed for years that he would find a friend or that a friend would find him.
Well said. This was such a good read. I myself fell into the accountability trap.
It was a natural friendship that I formed in a meetup group that has gone more to progress my character than the group itself.
I am so profoundly grateful for my deep, close friendships with other men throughout my life and I could not imagine what life would be like without them. But I have pursued them, valued them, and made them a priority in life. They did not happen automatically and easily. You not only have to want it and value it, you have to pursue it. All I could think of was yes, and amen as I read this post.
Well said. This is so timely for me. I’m struggling with my church right now because there is a lot of accountability and teaching, but no friendship. Everyone is too busy to beyond the weekly schedule of men’s Bible study.
Yes. Yes. Yes.