Re: Systematic Obedience Training -- RSQUBF discussion forum

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Date Posted: 05:05:43 10/15/04 Fri
Author: Chris
Subject: Re: Systematic Obedience Training
In reply to: PECAS 's message, "Systematic Obedience Training" on 21:11:16 10/14/04 Thu

Welcome to the forum PECAS and thanks a lot for your contribution. Don't hesitate to open new threads if you want to start a new discussion about an important issue that you don't find covered elsewhere. (Just one advice: Make your first posting in the new thread short, explaining only what you want to talk about. Add longer postings as a reply to that. Then you will not always need to scroll down so much to come to the replies.)

I already thought about opening a similar thread, looking at the same problem from a different aspect.

In the doctrine thread, we talked about the question whether we should obey our shepherd when he commands us something to do which is against the Bible. But I think that question does not really come to the core of the problems. Because, in most of the cases, the UBF leaders will not give orders that are directly against the Bible. This will happen sometimes in extreme cases, such as ordering abortions or divorces. But the majority of abuse falls into a different category, the one you mentioned.

So the question is, do you need to obey when you know it is arbitrary "obedience" or "humbleness" training. As an example, the leader may force a man to get perms or a woman to cut her hairs, as such training. This would not even be fictuous, since Samuel Lee did this, and even much more extreme things (sitting in icewater, red pepper in eyes, pulling toenails out, to name a few. But let's restrict to the seemingly harmless example of a woman who is ordered to get a hair cut, in order to make her "humble" and test her "obedience." It is not against the Bible to have your hairs cut. Oh, correction, you could even argue that it is against the Bible with 1Cor 11:6. So let's take the example of a man who is ordered to get perms.

The dirty trick involved in this kind of training is that as soon as you say "I won't do that," this is used to prove that you really are proud and disobedient, so you really neeed humbleness and obedience training. And usually, the people believe this. They have put you in a quandary. This is how mind control works.

There are so many arguments for a UBF member to follow that command:
- your are obeying your shepherds
- you are not doing anything against the Bible
- your are humble
- you train yourself
And there are so many arguments that speak against:
- you may become proud, may be expelled, lose salvation
- you may not please God by disobeying "his servant"
- you destroy the harmonic atmosphere, cause trouble

Therefore, usually, UBF members subdue to all kinds of silly trainings.

We can go one step further. What if the command is not only not against the Bible, what if it is not even silly, but looks very spiritual. Take the given example of Bill and Peter. The things he was ordered to do were not against the Bible, they were note even silly, they all were very good and spiritual things. The only problem was that they were advices in realms where not the leader should decide, but the respective believer. It is HIS life. So it is HIS decision whether to go to Korea or to China, whether to marry or not. He bears the responsibilty and has to live his whole life with the decision, not the leader.

So the question is what you do if a leader demands obedience in a realm which is YOUR realm, and not HIS. Things which would be revealed to you by the Spirit, and not to the leader. Why would the spirit tell the leader who YOU have to marry or where to go? Wouldn't the spirit rather tell it directly to YOU, if you are a believer? Of course he would.

Plus, I think we need not always fearfully search for THE will of God, when he decided to NOT reveal you one concrete way. Maybe God will be please with both, whether you marry or not, wheter you go to Korea or China. Maybe He leaves you the choice, and will make the best of it anyway? I believe that sometimes God has ONE concrete plan for you, and then you should follow it. But in this case God makes sure you KNOW that plan, and he reveals the plan to YOU directly, not to your leader. In other cases, God simply wants you to make a decision that you think will please him.

The UBF will argue:
1) There is no such thing as your own realm, but the leader needs to make all decisions
2) If it hurts nobody, why not simply obey?
3) The leader knows it better (has a better overview, is more spiritual, has direct connection to God, etc.)

Another concrete example: The leader says you should give your child a name that is different from the one you have chosen.

All of this does not fall into the category "You need not obey if it is against God's command."

I think the fallacy are the points 1)-3) as listed above. My answer is:

1) Authority is always restricted. As parents you have certain authority over your children, not those of others. As husband, you have certain authority over your wife, not women in general. I could give many examples here. The idea that a spiritual leader has authority to determine marriage partners and override the leading of the Spirit is so absurd, that the Bible does not even speak about it.
2) It hurst somebody, namely your own soul. Furthermore, if a leader is never challenged concerning these things, and everybody simply obeys, he will go on and on, the abuse will be more and more extreme. The leaders are sinning when they demand obedience in areas where they have no authority. If they are not challenged, it hurts their soul. It is our duty to warn each brother who sinned against us or God, even if this brother is a leader.
3) God wants a personal relation with you, he wants no mediators.

I will stop here and would like to hear your comments. When do we need to obey, when not?

Just one comment concerning the following passage:

UBF wants to raise missionaries and PhD shepherds so Shepherd Peter, should be overjoyed about Bill's future vision. However, there is one problem. As Bill continues to grow in UBF, he needs to be trained ...

Actually, there are two problems. 1) Bill needs to be "trained," and 2) the problem is that UBF does not simply want to raise missionaries, they want to raise UBF missionaries.

By the way, was the story purely fictuous? It sounded so real. See some real examples here from my UBF experience.

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Replies:

Re: Systematic Obedience Training -- PECAS, 19:45:44 10/15/04 Fri
- Re: Systematic Obedience Training -- Chris, 03:31:54 10/21/04 Thu
  - Re: Brian Karcher -- Amy, 11:34:43 10/21/04 Thu
    - Re: Brian Karcher -- Chris, 11:44:59 10/21/04 Thu