Samson and the Pirate Monks: Calling Men to Authentic Brotherhood

by Nate Larkin

With no-holds-barred honesty and poignant storytelling, Nate Larkin introduces a model of community and friendship that is reinvigorating men's ministry across the country, a model he calls The Samson Society. Too many men see the biblical hero Samson as their model for manhood--a rugged individualist of the highest order. Yet, Samson's solitary successes were eventually overcome by moral weaknesses. Larkin, through the story of his own past and the stories of those in The Samson Society, offers a radical, refreshing alternative.

Genres: Christian, Christian Living, Nonfiction, Christianity, Spirituality, Religion, Biography

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Andrew Fendrich · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent look at the biblical truth that relationships are the best way to overcome sin and temptation. Spiritual isolation is the #1 cause of ongoing sin, and the key to "walking in the light" (as the Apostle John puts it) is by sharing your life with others--in the case of lust, with other faithful men who are fighting the battle with you. This has certainly been my experience: the most success I've had in fighting lust has been when I've been open and honest with my peers.

I wasn't a fan of some of Larkin's theology, especially the way he paraphrased some Scriptures. An example (and I won't get it exactly right because I listened to the book on Audible): Larkin quotes from Galatians 2, when Paul begs God to remove the thorn from him. Larkin writes, "But God responds, 'I like you better this way.'" Actually, God didn't say that to Paul. He said, "My grace is sufficient for you." Maybe not a huge deal, maybe it is. Mostly I'm not a fan when people "quote" God and aren't actually quoting his words in Scripture, or are altering his words. (Ask me what I think about The Message, haha.)

Also, I love the theme of the book, apart from the formality of a "society." I've had several "Samson Society" friendships with Christian dudes over the years, and we didn't need a formal structure to share with each other. Obviously it has worked well for Larkin and co., I'm just more about taking the message of the book and practicing it in daily interactions with brothers, rather than a weekly AA-type meeting.

But those small grievances aside, this one gets 4 stars because it is a really good book. Larkin's personal journey is compelling.

[Ephraim Sisay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book.

Essentially a story / biography about a pastor/husband/father who struggled with sexual sin for the majority of his life. Eventually by the grace of God was introduced to AA meetings and found the freedom and joy of confession, unity and genuine brotherhood from this style of group. He then went on creating a group called the Samson society (similar to an aa group but with a focus on Christian values)

Not really a highlighter type of book but an eye opening, easy read that definitely serves as an encouragement to continue pursuing genuine, open and honest relationships with the bois.

Kiaora Braden for letting me permanently borrow this🤙🏾

[Zach Scheller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every Christian guy should read this book.
Period.
(And I even hate hyperbolic statements like this.)

I’ve been familiar with Larkin’s story for a while but just got around to reading his book. It’s part his testimony and part the mission of the Samson Society. Unlike what most would think, this book is not an “answer to porn”, or the format of a successful accountability group (the Samson Society actually rejects that term.)

Its a reminder that a key means of grace God uses for holiness is the honesty and fellowship of Christian community. This flies in the face of American, Masculine, and Evangelical Individualism, all which sees greatness in self help by defeating life’s problems by pulling up yourself by your bootstraps. Larkin reminds us that, through openness, honesty, and “boasting in our weakness” to fellow believers, we are made strong and allow not only the Spirit to work through them, but to live alongside of us. Isolation is not the symptom - it’s part of the problem (and possibly the actual problem.)

This is the best recommendation I can make - I walked in to my small group prayer time (men only) this week and laid down a vision for what the Samson Society was trying to achieve. It ended up being the best prayer time we’ve had in years. That’s not coincidental.

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part of this book deserves a 5-star rating, and part of it deserves a 2 or 3 star rating. As a memoir, this is a very exciting book, filled with sex, lies, and church-bashing. That part deserves a 5. But the other part, the part that blatantly promotes a 12-step knockoff, that part deserves a 2 or 3 star rating. It's not that there is anything wrong with the Samson Society, it's just that I grew a bit tired of hearing it promoted. By the end of the book a reader would be forgiven for thinking that all of their problems in life can be solved through attending Society meetings where men bare their souls to each other and destructive patterns are transformed in short order.

Mr. Larkin has done a fine job setting the table to introduce his Christian based recovery program, and the program sounds like a winner. This book is a quick read and well worth your time. It encourages readers to seek out fellowship with others you can be open and honest with, and made me want to find some friends with whom I can be completely honest. It challenges me to accept other's troubles in a way that leaves them feeling supported and loved. Despite the self-promotion and impression that transformation is easy if you find a Samson Society group, this book is a good read.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't decide what I think about this book. One of the biggest things I get from it is a massive indictment of the Church - surely a lot of what the Samson Society is trying to do is simply what should be going on within the Church? What does it say about the Church if a group like this is as desperately needed as the book makes it out to be?

Something else I wonder about is how much the group aspect is a necessary as the author would have it. What if you have a church that is itself a lot more authentic than that experience by many men in this book? What if you have a church community where individual men feel free to confess their sins to one another without judgment, in the knowledge that we are all broken? What if the only difference is that there isn't any group forum for men to confess to each other and pray for each other? Is that something that is missing from such a church, or is it maybe unecessary in context where the fellowship is already authentic?

Anyway, just some things I'll be mulling over for the next few days, probably.

[Nick Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Turns out those who reach the depths of their depravity and find God, are also the ones who understand Grace and forgiveness the most. This is such a book that walks you through true grace. The really, messy, beautiful, unfair, abundant grace.

Only read this book if you are willing to face your own messiness, and accept love all the same.

[Michael Philliber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story of Nate Larkin through his life and sexual addictions and how God rescued him. Also, it is a good backdrop to the formation of the Samson Society.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nate Larkin's journey of faith, sin, repentance ... repeat ... is kinda shocking. But then again, it's my story as well. The facts may look different, yet the reality is the same. However, I'm afraid if I shared some of the details of my cycle of faith, sin, repentance that it would be shocking to others and therefore I've rarely been completely honest with other men.

And that is the purpose of Larkin's book ... to challenge men to recognize our need for full transparency with a small group of men. For many of us old-timers in the Christian church we've recognized the need for being connected to other men and "doing life together." However, there hasn't felt like there was freedom to go all the way ... into ALL of life. Therefore the benefits have been muted, at best.

The transparency with which Larkin share's his story help's the reader to feel that freedom to open up. Whether it's an actual Samson Society group or another group that is committed to full transparency, we all need that level of honesty.

[Mattmiller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Movements targeting men within mainstream Christianity have not been of much interest to me. I never went to Promise Keepers and the "Wild at Heart" stuff I've read has been mediocre at best. But this book I found to be very much worth reading.

The author talks about how shirking the life of a loner (even within your own home) and forming a brotherhood with a group of men can change your life. He talks about his own struggles with addiction and what it took for his life to change. The proposal for a "Samson Society" involves radical honesty and grace. They provide a place for men to share their faults and brokenness and gain strength through humility. And then go grab a beer afterward.

My favorite parts of the book discussed how the gospel of Christ makes it possible to stop trying to be good enough to earn God's favor, stop hiding and deceiving yourself and those around you. You must trust in Christ's work on your behalf, not your own merits. You must be humble enough to know you're a failure but have faith enough to know that in Christ we actually have the fullest freedom.

[Gungho · Rating 5 out of 5]

super captivating description and very well written story of a testimony of sexual addiction and brokenness and redemption from a one time pastor current men's healing ministry leader and the decades it took for him to get some health

[Benji · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book. Some Samson Society.

Nate is a wonderful gem of a voice because he's seen the depths and he's been brought out of them.

I am endlessly thankful for his willingness to share his well earned wisdom.

Also I really enjoyed his podcast Walking Lessons.

[Shane Hatfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a bold statement, but I stand by it. Every man needs to read this book.

[James Shrimpton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunningly written and very thought provoking.

[Rebecca Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the reasons why I enjoy using a reading challenge to help guide my selections in reading is because it helps me to stretch out of my comfort zone and read more broadly. I can’t find myself boxed into any one thing, not if I truly want to complete the reading challenge.

One of the more difficult books to find on the list I’m using this year is the “book targeted at the opposite gender,” and this book comes fairly early in the list of challenges for the year. Now, men don’t have any trouble with this one. There are a plethora of books written for moms, for wives, and for Christian women on a diverse number of topics. However, men who write Christian living books tend to write for a broader audience of both genders. So, there aren’t as many “man specific” books out there. I turned to my Kindle cloud to see if there was something that was geared toward men that I might have picked up as a freebie or a super-cheap download.

I struck pay dirt by finding Samson and the Pirate Monks on my list of Kindle books I own. I had downloaded it last summer when it was 99 cents, thinking that it might be my book for this challenge last year. (Last year, I ended up reading David Murray’s Reset, which is a great book for both men and the women who love them.)

Anyway, onto to Samson and the Pirate Monks. In this book, author Nate Larkin, relates a racy tale of addiction, cover-ups, faking it in church and through life and finding that your life falls apart. It’s his life story. His frequent starts and stops and his frequent struggles with sin and feeling that he was not “good enough” to be a Christian. His feeling that all those in church or that have been saved have surpassed their temptations into serious sin was only reinforced by the culture of secrecy that surrounds many problems that church members have. We all know we’re sinners, saved by grace, but we all struggle to admit our problems or that God didn’t immediately cure us of our problems when we were saved.

Then, Larkin shares his way out of his addictions by surrender to God and by allowing God to change his life through a 12-step program. The use of the 12-step program made him long for authentic Christian brotherhood. He was beginning to develop relationships in his church where he was mentoring other men who were struggling with addictions or were in danger of falling into them, and he wanted to come together with them in an authentic way. So, he created his own Christianized version of a 12-step program. The remainder of the book lays out what he created and gives examples of how it has worked in his group and testimonials from men in other “Sampson societies.”

This book is really two books in one, and I could easily give it two different ratings. The half to two-thirds part of the book, where he details his own story and God’s grace in his life as he learns that he can’t break his addiction on his own is touching, heart-rending and completely relatable. In fact, I raced through that section. I couldn’t put it down because I could relate to the struggle of attempting to save myself from sin (and from bad habits like drinking soda) and from failing time and time again under my own power. Our sins are different, but I could relate to Nate Larkin and I was completely tracking with him on many things.

The last third of the book, however, fails a little for me. It describes the “Samson Society” that Larkin created and how it came to be. It shares about how Samson Societies have been started in many other places and gives testimonials from other men. I struggled to understand what was so wrong with the other twelve-step programs that we need a man specific church group. For a while I attended a church that also did a knock-off Christian twelve-step group called Celebrate Recovery, so I guess the market for those kind of “church” groups is higher than I would suspect. The fault for not getting it is completely on me and my lack of understanding of why we have to take every group and “clone” it for the church.

Also, Samson Societies, as described by Larkin, are not centralized and are very different from place to place. They can have different rules and different formats so long as they adhere to a central code. So, as he describes the different bylaws, he kind of meanders and keeps reminding you that other Samson groups may do things differently. I found that a little frustrating, and felt like perhaps this would have been a stronger and more powerful book if he hadn’t of spent so much of the end of it discussing and pushing Samson societies.

[Pastor2112 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nate's story resonates with me on so many levels - from his childhood experience of church to his numerous challenges with ministry. His account is ruthlessly honest - painfully so, at times. In the midst of his numerous failings, he ultimately discovers "God wants men of integrity. But integrity is not perfection. It is not completion. It is not even purity of intention, something that, frankly, we are all incapable of achieving. Rather, integrity is a combination of rigorous honesty about my own condition and humble faith in the steadfast love of God." This allowed him to read the Bible from a new perspective: "I began to see in its pages a sprawling story of love and redemption, peopled with flawed characters and pulsing with passion, a story in which, in the end, the only real hero is God." He resonates with David's brutal honesty in the Psalms, but ultimately finds his greatest solace in seeing himself more like Samson - self-serving, full of himself, even his good deeds done to advance his own name. And yet, strangely, somehow, used by God. We need a Gospel that includes not simply "past victories over sin" but also "battles that are still underway". And the good news is, we have one! That is, if we are honest enough and humble enough to embrace it!

[Tim Genry · Rating 5 out of 5]

We can think highly of ourselves and therefore see no need for a Savior.
We can see the mess weve made of our lives and see no hope from a Savior.
"Our vision of ourselves" and "our vision of our need" can get so blurred by the world we live in.
Cheer up! You’re much worse than you think, but Jesus is a much bigger Savior than you ever dared imagine.

If you can relate to this words and your looking at becoming healed by reading in God's grace and not your good works sharing in Christian community with transparency and authenticity Then this book will lend you a hand and the author will walk beside you in your journey.

[Iain Hamill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Difficult book to review. As someone above has noted, parts are a 5-star read. I certainly agree that close male friendships are rare, and difficult to sustain over many years. It’s something I need to work hard at.

Perhaps it would be good to see a follow-up, “Grey-haired pirates” to see how the groups are functioning ten years on. Maybe the aim is not durability of friendship but depth?

References to Christ and the Gospel could perhaps be expanded - veers dangerously close at times to the very self-help philosophy they’re trying to avoid.

One to keep mulling over definitely.

[Bretta Elmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! You should read it!!

As betrayal survivor, this book offered an insight to a world that is a dark and scary place. A world I never really knew existed, and yet was right inside of my home. Makes it much less dark and scary.
As a Christian this book puts into words my thoughts about sin and the reactions of the average church. We have got to do better church!! People are hurting!
As a child of Grace, it gives me hope that things do not have to stay the same. Change is possible. Our hope is in Christ!

[Rev Ricky · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all, I guarantee it is the most interesting biography of a pastor you will ever read.

But more importantly, Nate gets to the heart of how shame prevents us from loving others and from being loved. We live behind masks. When we live behind masks, I am not loving you, because I am not trusting you with my whole self. And, when I live behind a mask, I am preventing you from loving me, all you can love is the mask.

I encourage you to read this book, talk about it with people you love, and apply it to your struggles with shame, whatever they may be.

[Danny Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a lot of good in this book. The most valuable insight is that freedom from sin, especially sexual sin, rarely happens outside community. Great story and brilliant applications. The only critique is that the author came down very hard in favor of starting a "Samson Society." Its a great idea, but when you push it so hard, you begin to sound like a mix between a how-to manual and a infomercial.

[Jonathan Beigle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nate Larking writes his story of overcoming sexual addiction and how the Samson Society helped him overcome that addiction. It reads more like an autobiography for the first 2/3 of the book and the last 1/3 is the details on starting and running a Samson group. While he doesn't like the term accountability group, the book really talks about the importance of raw, transparent accountability in the Christian's life.

[Joel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helpful book about failing, repentance, and recovery. Author has very readable style. I found the first 2/3 of the book very interesting. The final 1/3 where he talks about the mechanics of the Samson group has a lot of testimonials and I’m sure would be helpful for someone who is attending one of these groups. Good reminder for men not to isolate themselves.

[Chad A. Pentecost · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eye opening honesty

This book is brutally honest. Every man on this planet needs other men in their life to confide in, confess to and coexist with. We all need help along the way. This book outlines this necessity and one strategy to meet that need. I found many truths in this volume. I hope that you do as well.

[Brody Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nate made his story very relatable. His discussion of a topic that plagues many men, and women I'm sure, is very simplistic. He doesn't approach the reader with a "holier than thou" approach. It was more of "I'm like you. I made mistakes, here they are, I hope you learn something from my experience."

[Peter Overduin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Community for Men

it’s 12 steps, but it isn’t. It’s for alcoholics, but far more. Not a glove that fits any size of hand, but a tie that binds any fractured soul to others. A powerful read and eminently practical for men seeking authentic community on whatever road they travel.

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raw and honest; a real look at the social & emotional undertones that prevent true Godly community and how to transcend through all barriers to freedom from addiction. A must read for those looking for answers, way to help others, or become aware of the bondage of addiction.

[Travis Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

Community

A band of brothers is an oft used term. I it’s application in the Samson Society, I see it as the fulfillment of James 5:16, “...pray for one another that you may be healed.”

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book, the first half reads a bit like a novel, or like reading someone's diary. Nate is brutally honest about his own sin's and failures and also about the hope of Jesus and fellowship with fellow strugglers. Recommended especially for anyone that has dealt with issues of addiction.

[Bbqchips · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an encouraging book and I think best to take parts and ideas out of it for your own journey in following Christ.
What stood out most to me was the importance of being thankful to God and getting out of isolation.

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

a must read for men

I fully intend to join the Samson society after reading this book. I thank Nate for his brutal honesty and his willingness to live in full surrender to Christ. I am excited for the future and confident that Gods way is the only way.