{"id":1297,"date":"2016-07-12T19:31:01","date_gmt":"2016-07-13T00:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ubfriends.net\/?p=1297"},"modified":"2016-09-22T08:28:46","modified_gmt":"2016-09-22T13:28:46","slug":"the-dangers-of-testimony-sharing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/the-dangers-of-testimony-sharing\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dangers of Testimony Sharing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"d\"<\/a>This week, I reread search16\u2019s testimony about UBF<\/a>, and this bit in particular caught my attention: “While I lived in common life, I was always under a lot of pressure to conform to UBF standards, and I never felt good enough, so I honestly remember many nights of hopping into my car after testimony sharing and wanting (sometimes trying) to crash my car into a wall.” Yes, testimony sharing, [called “sogam” in the past or more recently “reflection writing”] — the weekly ritual of sitting through three or four hours of identical, pre-written reflections on the same message.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Are you\u00a0a lukewarm Christian?<\/strong><\/p>\n

While I was in UBF, this practice was often praised as something that set the ministry apart from the \u201clukewarm\u201d mainstream evangelical world. Yet, rereading this passage has prompted me to take a closer look at testimony sharing, as search16\u2019s comments resonate deeply with my own (and I suspect many others\u2019) personal experiences in UBF.\u00a0Reflective of UBF as a whole, the testimony sharing ritual can have a very destructive, manipulative and unbiblical influence on its participants.<\/p>\n

The pressure\u2019s on!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The key to the intensely emotional effect of testimony sharing is pressure. The process of writing a testimony actually has very little to do with the passage of scripture being studied. Rather, the main focus is on how the \u201cshepherd\u201d\u2014that is, the discipler coaching the lower-class \u201csheep\u201d\u2014superimposes the passage onto the sheep\u2019s life to coerce him or her into submission.<\/p>\n

The various pressures exuded on sheep include to denounce their \u201cold lives\u201d, to work harder at UBF activities to secure God\u2019s favor, and to give up \u201cpleasures\u201d (which can include almost any normal activity that interferes with UBF). Then, no matter how difficult or painful these directions may be, the sheep is expected to write them down in his or her own \u201ctestimony\u201d and share them publicly in front of a group of peers. Thus, Friday night testimony sharing becomes, essentially, four hours of grueling emotional onslaught, with each sheep\u2019s \u201cconfession\u201d of disobedience compounding the guilty feelings of everyone in the room.<\/p>\n

Feelings of depression and fits of crying are common at these meetings. High-ranking shepherds usually dismiss these bouts: \u201cthey are being moved to tears by the Word of God.\u201d Yet, the tears are usually not in response to God\u2019s grace, but from the overwhelming emotional burden.<\/em><\/p>\n

Two examples from my own experience<\/strong><\/p>\n

First, there was a young, single mother in my fellowship group who had only recently started sharing testimonies. Yet, almost every week, she would break down in tears as she read about how it was God\u2019s will for her to cut down any time she spent with her infant son in order to go \u201cfishing\u201d for Bible students.<\/p>\n

As another example, a Korean woman would always tear up when she had to admit that everything about her \u201cold life\u201d\u2014her culture, her family relationships, her dreams\u2014was completely worthless and ought to be thrown away.<\/p>\n

Destructive, Yet Oddly Addicting <\/strong><\/p>\n

If these meetings are so emotionally traumatizing, why do shepherds and sheep continue to insist, sometimes with great excitement, on their merits? The answer lies with emotional volatility: the extreme level of negative pressure and depression brews the perfect recipe for intense emotional experiences.<\/p>\n

Consider a sheep who feels terrible for 95% of the meeting. This causes wild changes in body chemistry: heartbeat quickens, adrenaline spikes, hormones rage. The result is an extremely intense, almost meditative, emotional state. I remember some meetings during which I would do little more than stare at my feet as the speakers presented, bathing in the sea of weird emotions that the atmosphere bred. Then, in that single moment where the sheep does the \u201ccorrect\u201d thing\u2014admits that one sin, gets praised by the chapter director, cracks an awkward but successful joke\u2014there is an equally strong emotional experience on the other end of the spectrum.<\/p>\n

When one is finally released from a testimony sharing meeting, the effects linger, either in the form of intense relief or relentless distress.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Repeat this ritual for months or years and it can be almost addictive. The problem with this result is that it is the perfect storm for emotional manipulation. Now, there is nothing necessarily wrong with emotional experiences; tent revivals are a great example where very emotional services have furthered the gospel and edified Christians. The problem is that this controlled emotional state is reproduced every week, along with the same repetitive demands to submit to UBF praxis. In technical terms, this is \u201cthought control\u201d: a repetitive dictation of what and how to think accompanied by intense, addictive, and mentally binding emotional experiences.<\/p>\n

This same practice\u2014with different vocabulary of course\u2014has been used by cult groups like the ICC, the Moonies, and even manipulative government regimes for years; it\u2019s nothing new. What\u2019s even more terrifying is that participants\u2014even leaders\u2014are rarely even aware of the nature of these practices.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the Bible warns against dependence on these kinds of emotional rituals. Remember Jesus\u2019 words from the Sermon on the Mount:<\/p>\n

Matthew 6:7: \u201cAnd when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

The same applies to repetitive and increasingly long testimonies. Writing more words will not secure favor with God, and there is a particular danger in man\u2019s attempts to artificially recreate intense experiences.<\/p>\n

The Alternative <\/strong><\/p>\n

When I left UBF after testing all of these practices and finding them highly concerning, I chose to become a member of a friend\u2019s church, and what I discovered about true Christian fellowship was a bit of a shock after all of my time in UBF. In community group, there is a sense of freedom and equality among all members\u2014from the leader to the newcomers. The time is not spent monotonously repeating the Sunday message and generating an atmosphere of fear, but exploring ideas about faith, love, and discipleship through open discussion and prayer. We build each other up rather than tear each other down. We acknowledge the presence of God even in our day-to-day lives outside church activities. <\/em><\/p>\n

More recently, a member was moved to tears during a meeting, but not the UBF kind of tears; rather than creating a mood of dread, it was genuine thankfulness for the grace of God. For some closing thoughts, my pastor told me not long ago that conviction from God never creates burden or stress. It is a \u201csweet\u201d conviction; a freeing motion of the Spirit as God makes us aware about some flaw in our being. Jesus did not come to lay on us burdens and bring us inner conflict; \u201cwhoever the Son of Man sets free will be free indeed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do these observations match your own experiences with testimony sharing? How can you see these processes played out in other practices? How can we both as individuals and as a Church watch out for these practices in our own communities? Can \u201ctestimony sharing\u201d be redeemed into something that is healthy?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, I reread search16\u2019s testimony about UBF, and this bit in particular caught my attention: “While I lived in common life, I was always under a lot of pressure to conform to UBF standards, and I never felt good enough, so I honestly remember many nights of hopping into my car after testimony sharing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice","category-reform"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1297"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1297\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}