Yes, that’s right. I deny the existence of accountability and confidentiality. I realize how controversial that sounds. It may even strike some of you as patently false, even silly. So let me make my case.

Accountability

I’ll begin with accountability. I’m not at all suggesting that accountability is inherently a bad thing. I wish that all Christians were accountable to others, be they close friends or colleagues in ministry. But what I’ve discovered over time is that accountability is easily promised and just as easily avoided. A person can say “I’m accountable to Joe/Jill,” while cleverly hiding serious sins from their “accountability partner”. I’ve learned firsthand how deceptive people can be. Yes, even professing Christians. They can pledge themselves to be accountable to someone else and yet live a double life that is often undetectable. The failure of the accountability partner to know this is not necessarily a sign that he/she lacks discernment. It may actually be because the individual in question is exceptionally skilled at hiding their true motives and covering their tracks. They can lie to your face and do so with remarkable believability.

Simply put, never underestimate your capacity for being deceived.

This is not to say that you can’t be accountable to someone else, or even to several individuals. It is a matter of your sincerity and your authentic desire to live a godly life. To be accountable requires considerable humility. It requires that you are quick to acknowledge your sin and repent of it. It may even be the result of you not trusting your own soul and your need for someone else to identify when and how you are falling short of your commitments. All of us should be willing to be held accountable and not to hide our shortcomings, however minor or major they may be. I always want to be in such a close and vulnerable relationship with another that he/she can look me in the eye and say, “Sam, something’s not right. I sense you are beginning to wander from the faith. Tell me what’s going on in your life.” And I pray that I would always be willing to say, “Yes, you are right. I need help. Here’s where I’ve failed. Thanks for calling me out on this.”

My point, then, is that you can be accountable to another, if you so will it, but that another may not be accountable to you if they are determined to keep you in the dark about their conduct, no matter how passionate or genuine they may sound when they make the commitment. It all sounds so noble and righteous to declare that you are accountable to someone else, but only if that is actually true and you are not sinning unrepentantly behind the scenes.

Confidentiality

Now, what about confidentiality? It too is a myth. When you share some bit of information and ask that the person with whom you shared it to keep it in confidence, most will say, “Of course. I won’t tell a soul.” There are two reasons why this rarely works.

First, secret information, perhaps such that concerns another person’s sin, is something most people can’t resist. It’s too exciting. You feel yourself to be on the inside of a situation from which others are excluded. Knowledge is power. And when you find yourself in possession of some information that others don’t have, the temptation to elevate your importance by disclosing that you know something they don’t is almost too much to bear. And that is when you say, “Hey, I’m going to tell you something important, but you can’t share it with anyone else.” And they say, “Of course, I would never share it with another in the way you have shared it with me.”

Second, the reason confidentiality is a myth is because everyone has a close friend, perhaps a best friend, whom they trust. They are persuaded that this person would never gossip or break the confidence to which they pledged themselves. And that person with whom you just shared a bit of salacious information also has a close, perhaps best friend, in whom they have confidence. And so it goes until numerous individuals have information that each of them promised they would never share with another.

This is especially the case with men in church leadership sharing information with their wives. I know how difficult it is to keep silent about someone when you are talking to your spouse. After all, if you can’t trust your spouse, whom can you trust? And I hope that each of you who is married has a spouse (like I do) who will never break a confidence. But that is a highly unlikely and unrealistic possibility. Our wives also have best friends whom they trust, who in turn have best friends whom they trust, and once again, so it goes.

There are situations where I find it necessary to seek my wife’s counsel about a situation or a bit of knowledge that has come to me. But when I encounter that sort of scenario, I will always ask the person who shared the information with me, “May I consult my wife? She has wisdom that I lack and I need her input to be of help to you.”

But one form or expression of confidentiality is entirely within our reach. That is when someone shares with you a bit of information and asks you to commit to never sharing it with another. In other words, confidentiality may well exist on your part, but you should never assume it will exist on the part of another. If you can truly and honestly pledge total confidentiality, then be sure that you fulfill your promise.

Of course, there are a few exceptions, as all pastors know. I cannot hold in confidence a confession that someone has abused a child or committed a crime. Or perhaps they have told you they are planning on committing suicide. We have an obligation to speak up when someone else is in jeopardy or when a crime has been committed or a person is planning on committing a crime. But, aside from those exceptions, which typically are the law of the land in most if not all states, we can keep to ourselves whatever another person shares with us.

One rule of thumb that I’ve observed throughout half a century of pastoral ministry is that if someone says, “Sam, if I tell you something, do you promise to keep it to yourself,” I don’t instantly say yes. I ask them first, “Yes, so long as what you are about to tell me does not concern the abuse of a child or even of an adult. I cannot keep silent about an act or a plan to act that puts the well-being of another person in jeopardy.” Or, “I cannot keep silent if what you tell me is of a crime that you have committed or plan to commit.” Or, “I cannot keep silent if I later discover that your action is of such a nature that the law requires me to report you to the authorities.”

In the final analysis, both accountability and confidentiality are possible only when you are the one who has pledged to be truly accountable or confidential in what you’ve been told. As negative as it may sound, other people are not always trustworthy. We hope and pray they are, but you can’t rely upon it. The heart is deceitful above all things!

I hope my comments here do not come across as the ravings of a cynic or an overly suspicious person. I’m just trying to be realistic in view of what I’ve experienced on numerous occasions in the past.