This wise reflection on “accountability” and male friendship in churches by Samuel D. James has me thinking about what I call the “ten-minute rule.”

The rule is simple. It states that, in any church event organized and advertised by and for adult men, you can set you clock for overt mention of porn: i.e., no later than ten minutes in, the issue of pornography will surface, usually with a sigh followed by a story, always with a brusque declaration that “we’ve got to talk about this,” and never without liberal deployment of the word “accountability.”

I’m not denigrating the good intentions behind these events, but this exceptionless pattern is why I avoid such events like the plague.