Understanding Accountability in Faith

From Salt Lake City, Utah This is HOTM I’m your host Shawn McCraneyFounder of TGNN and developer of the fulfilled perspective—calling people to faith outside of religion. and this is the Short Show!

Show 26: Accounta-laugh-ability
Taped April 11th 2021
Aired April 12th 2021

One of the claims against me as a Christian and teacher and pastor is that I have not made myself accountable to anyone (except God). This is something that I have said publicly. That is a claim that makes our critics scoff. It is a claim that frightens those of organized religion because to them this always leads to horrifying results. I guess to them God is able to control things when a board of people are involved but can’t control things when one is.

Effects of the Non-Traditional Approach

But let’s take a look at the results of this approach, first in my own life and the life of this church and ministry. Over the years:

• By His grace I have grown in the Spirit of Agape loveSelfless love marked by patience, mercy, and humility—central to living in spiritual liberty. for more and more people instead of less and less.
• We have, through His leadership taught the Word without fail for over fifteen years, we’ve never burdened anyone with views, doctrines, practices, tithes, and donations.
• We have taught people how to think and what to consider, not what to think and what they must believe. This supports the Liberty that comes with the Spirit.
• We have not received any new revelations from God, have not claimed authority over anyone, and have not ever suggested that our way is the only way to think or live in Christ.
• And we have not run to the hills or stripped anyone of anything – this is after fourteen years of doing this without Accountability, folks.

But more importantly, I am not unique in this as many notable believers in the past have taken a similar course and stayed true to the cause.

Examples from History

Those promoting human accountability are constantly citing Jim Jones and David Koresh and Joseph Smith but why don’t they ever mention people who have also turned from human accountability and selflessly served the living God in love? Ever read about the faith and walk of the early leaders of the Anabaptist movement? It's really quite amazing. These guys separated and suffered for the faith after departing from Orthodoxy – but they never served kool-aid to their people. Instead, they served up liberty, faith, freedom, and love. Of course, there was a price for their autonomy.

There was one guy named Belot who published Anabaptist literature in 1546 and Calvin had him arrested (for teaching that the Old Testament was abolished by the New). We have all heard of Michael Servetus who was put to deathSeparation from God—now overcome. Physical death remains, but it no longer separates us from life with God. for his denial of the Trinity! Did you hear this? Put to death BY so-called Christians because they chose to see things differently than what orthodoxy and their accountability groups demanded.

The Story of George Fox

How about the story of George Fox all the way back to 17th Century England? George sought truth for years, going from church to church trying to find what resonated to his soul as a follower of Christ. But He couldn’t find it. All he saw was church playing. This was in the 17th century.

But old George never gave up in his pursuit of Jesus and one day he says Jesus spoke to him. This is what George says about it: "When all my hopes in them [that is, in priests] and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could I tell what to do, then, oh, then, I heard a voice which said, 'There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition.”

And so George followed that voice – that Christ, that Yeshua throughout the remainder of His life – making Him King and turning from all the established religions around him. He let Jesus be his lead. The result?

First of all, he was arrested numerous times for heresy – by the leaders of Orthodoxy, of course. So was his wife. Numerous times – over doctrine. They said George needed accountability! Of course, they did. And he suffered greatly at the hands of those who claimed Jesus as Lord.

But he also went on to establish a church that moved to the jungle, authorized multiple wives, and killed each other at the end of the day? No, he formed a little group called the Friends, which today are also known as…

Faith and Accountability

The Quakers pursued ideals such as peace, unity, "God in us," love, and freedom. Since that day, these ideals have been central to the Quaker faith. However, let's examine the other side of the coin. Today, there are men and women who claim to be under accountability who say and do things that the Quakers would never say or do, or things an Anabaptist would rather be burned at the stake than say or do.

Why haven't accountability measures stopped certain actions within the faith? Why hasn't Brother Jeff Durbins' accountability team stopped him from slanderously and untruthfully saying that I was like David Koresh? Or what did Jason Wallace’s accountability group do to stop Pastor Jason from saying that I am "the most vicious man imaginable!"? Nothing. The Quakers, without accountability, would never say such things. Neither would the Anabaptists.

Accountability and Slander

How is it that the very men who scream the need for accountability unapologetically speak the most unchristianlike slander about others, but people like the Anabaptists, and George Fox, and others who are not under the thumb of religious authority, are able to die to their flesh and suffer personal indignities? The answer is in the fact that when God is legitimately a person’s accountability partner, the Holy Spirit reigns, and not the ways and will of men. To me, this makes accountability, accountalaughability.

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