Exactly, Ben. The ubf Shepherd (junzi man) is trained to replace the roles of the Holy Spirit in the life of new believers.

And also “doing God’s will” means doing what your shepherd says you should do.

“It is becoming less an interrogator, and more like listening to the beautiful voice of my Lord, and hearing his love pouring through the words in Scripture.”

Yes, Spurgeon has helped me “hear his love” in marvelous ways. In my ubf experience, I did not anticipate “crushing blows”, but I was enslaved by fear, burdened by guilt and trapped by hopelessness that comes from seeing that I would never measure up.

One interesting things is that we messengers were always trained to have “timely” messages with the “timeless truths” of the bible. Looking back now I see that “timely” meant “invoking a decision to obey ubf heritage now” and “timeless truths” meant “instilling a mindset of harmonious obedience to leaders”.

* If you read UBFriends, you should repent of listening to Satan’s voice and all the bitter and lazy complainers who post things there.

* Vitaly’s shepherd’s “idee-fixe” of lust. So you must repent of desiring to date.

* If you missed a fellowship meeting you should repent of being “family centered.”

* If you did not go fishing you should repent of laziness.

* If you did not humbly listen to, submit to and obey your shepherd, you must repent of “breaking spiritual order.”

The tragedy of such teachings is that the shepherd NEVER has any sins to repent of. It is what I addressed previously: http://www.ubfriends.org/2013/03/21/the-sins-of-older-christians/

When a shepherd/Bible teacher/chapter director teaches repentance in such shallow moralistic legalistic ways, it is not the godly sorrow or gospel repentance that the Bible teaches.

Your article is very relevant. Repentance and sorrow have taken a new meaning since leaving UBF. Before, the word of God was little more than a hard-hitting interrogator beating me up to extract a confession. Like a cudgel, it beat me across the back WHAM, WHAM, WHAM, until I found something in the passage to repent of. I sometimes trembled as I prepared to read my testimony because I hadn’t found anything real, and I needed to fabricate something.

Now, however, God’s word is so soothing, so comforting to my soul, so enlivening, and so peace-bringing. It is becoming less an interrogator, and more like listening to the beautiful voice of my Lord, and hearing his love pouring through the words in Scripture. My approach to Scripture has now changed. I approach it with eagerness to enjoy the fellowship of listening to my Lord, not in trepidation, anticipating its crushing blows for my repeated failures.

so yes it is possible, but only by seeking God’s Spirit help beyond human religious effort; if we stay shackled to inferior human methods, we hinder God’s own Spirit work: so let’s persevere in seeking Christ until his body is unshackled

I feel that testimony writing can be so much more than just stating what works you did not fulfill or what sin you fell victim to in a week. After reading/writing on UBFriends for a couple of months I think I need to repeat in a weekly testimony that murder came into my mind every time I inferred a refusal to change the system. Should I repent of this? Of course I should and have done so. But I will not enslave myself because such a thought entered my mind as point 3 suggests. What triggered my murderous thought was a stubborn refusal to fix a broken system. But, I will not inhibit myself from being human and having such a reaction – a reaction for justice.

We have a sorrow of conscience for those who have fallen at our own hands, but also for those who betray the one true God in favour of themselves.

Christianity in Russia is more than 1000 years. In ubf Bible study we used to understand the pharisees in the passages as representing the Orthodox priests. Now I see that it is not just. ubf leaders fit in the pharisee passages much better (especially Mt.23).

ubf now says that there is no perfect church and so ubf is not perfect. But first ubf has not been a church. (When I say anything about ubf in the Baptist church there is silence usually because people have never heard such things and so have nothing to say just enjoying their shock)). Among other things Christian people can’t understand the lack of baptism and communion). Second, as Chris points out ubf is a “typical cult” rather than a typical non-perfect church. And third, there is more Confucianism than Christianity in ubf which is so clear from the ubf directors’ comments here on ubfriends. They don’t want to be loyal to Jesus and the Bible rather they want to stay loyal to SL and the “sacred” heritage at any cost.

And as I shared before the Orthodox priests don’t hurt people. Yes they can be sinners but their sins are usually not against other people. They are kind and pleasant looking (with all those beards and wear))

I was baptized in the Orthodox church and actually my great grand father was an Orthodox priest in St.Petersburg. I have a picture of him and my great grand mother. They were noble and beautiful. (They had 12 children and only three of them sirvived the blockade during the WW2)

My heart cries rivers of tears thinking of our daughter who is entering college this fall. Yes, an 18 year old is so young….what if she were to be enslaved in the ubf machine?

“I don’t know why but at least in our chapter the missionaries considered Russians to be tax collectors and prostitutes at best.”

During my 3 month stay in St.Petersburg as a short-term ubf “missionary” I heard this also, Vitaly. The horrible explanation expressed to me by ubf missionaries there was this “Russian people are a godless people who know nothing about God.”

This is so ludicrous! Russian icons are prime examples of Christianity. I very much want to learn about the icon painting process. And the Orthodox Church in Russia has much to offer us Westerners.

The same was with usual weekly sogams. Your sogam is not sincere if you don’t say a word about your lust. On the other hand, I remember how a brother fell into such a sin and confessed it. Then the director said that it was the best sogam he had ever heard. He also said that it was the only sincere sogam at the meeting. I know that the director had a “weak point” and that was lust, and when he came to ubf he was “helped” the same way. Confessions “helped” him to temporarily “overcome” this sin. There was another brother who “sinned” in his thoughts regularly and weekly confessed the sin. The director told him to stop mentioning the sin in his sogam. And the brother stopped (as if the sin suddenly dissappeared from his life). This brother was a good example for me that such human methodics (regular confession and strugle to be busy enough so that not to sin) can not solve a sin problem (Only Jesus can).

When I came to ubf I almost didn’t know what lust is. So it was ubf and sogams that tought me this sin. I was demanded to “repent” and write my own sogam. But I answered, “I really have nothing to write about and to share, I don’t have a girlfriend even”. The director asked me, “You listened to the sogams, what did you learn?” I answered, “Well, I learnt the sogamsharers are really experienced sinners and nevertheless they say that God forgives them”. Actually I received a lession at the time that I am free to sin, I am not an experienced sinner yet and God will fogive me and after I have enough experience I will be able to share a “good” ubf sogam.

I don’t know why but at least in our chapter the missionaries considered Russians to be tax collectors and prostitutes at best. And every week every one had to think about what kind of a sin he/she would confess through the sogam this time to show him/herself to be really the “worst of sinners” in order to please the director.