Accountability Partners or Warriors?

Thanks to the men’s movement the church understands now that a man needs other men, but what we’ve offered is another two-dimensional solution:  “Accountability” groups or partners.  Ugh.  That sounds so old covenant.  “You’re really a fool and you’re just waiting to rush into sin, so we’d better post a guard  by you the keep you in line.”            We don’t need accountability groups, we need fellow warriors, someone to fight alongside, someone to watch our back… The whole crisis in masculinity today has come because we no longer have a warrior culture, a place for men to learn to fight like men.  We don’t need a meeting of Really Nice Guys, we need a gathering of Really Dangerous Men.  That’s what we need.  I think of Henry V at Agincourt. His army has been reduced to a small band of tired and weary men, many of them are wounded.  They are outnumbered five to one.  But Henry rallies his troops to his side when he reminds them that they are not mercenaries, but a “band of brothers.”… Yes, we need men to whom we can bare our souls.  But it isn’t going to happen with a group of guys you don’t trust, who really aren’t willing to go to battle with you.  It’s a long standing truth that there is never a more devoted group of men than those who have fought alongside one another, the men of your squadron, the guys in your foxhole.  It will never be a large group, but we don’t need a large group.  We need a band of brothers willing to “shed their blood” with us. (Eldredge, Wild at Heart 175).