To this day, I am a firm believer that wounding by any leader in the church needs to be prayerfully addressed. This reflects Christ-likeness and humility when a leader acknowledges that they have hurt their flock.

Conversely it reflects pride and arrogance if they refuse to hear how they may have hurt and wounded others.

One of the worst statements I heard was when I brought up how poorly and abusively a father/leader treated/wounded his daughter/sheep. The defensive statement was “Do you ever consider how she treated her father” as a rhetorical question to justify, excuse and minimize the severity of the father/leader’s abusive behavior toward her.

1) An older leader often won’t listen to younger people because of hierarchy/pride/”spiritual order”/authoritarianism.

2) Older leaders often can’t let go of their position of leadership and control, because they have been leaders for decades.

3) Older leaders do not welcome initiative from younger people, unless initiated by, sanctioned, and pre-approved by them.

4) Older leaders have rarely been critiqued, nor is critique ever truly welcomed, because a junior has no right to critique their senior. To justify this, see what happened to Ham, and to Miriam and Aaron when they were “disrespectful” to their leader Noah and Moses.

5) Older leaders do not welcome their messages or directives or assessment to be questioned or critiqued, because they are God’s appointed servant, and because you do not “critique the word of God,” thus equating their messages on par with the Bible.

Again, I am sorry if this is an over-genalization or over-simplification.

Thanks, Joseph. Too “see” our blind sides/blind spots is painful. The reason it is blind is because we do not want to see it or hear about it. So, it requires others to exhort us (Heb 3:13) to help us see the “plank in our own eye” (Mt 7:4).

I want to remind everyone that many people who left UBF (especially former leaders) were pushed out. Some of us tried for years to find our role…we wanted to be leaders; we were willing to sacrifice; we were willing to obey absolutely. But in the end, the “servants of God” did not reward such things with greater responsibility, but instead with more rebuke, more guilt and more burden.

Many of us tried to witness while “in” UBF, asking questions and trying to learn the Christian faith, only to find silence to our questions. UBF has driven many to become vocal about such things. It happens every 10 years or so.

So I agree, we are called to “witness” and that does include “witnessing” to abusive cults. And I say that “witness” has to include witnessing based on facts, mutual dialogue and open discussion of problems. It does not meant to live in a KOPHN fantasy world by any means. Nor does it mean to just keep rebuilding UBF heritage every time it falls apart.

As a Christian, you are the light of this world (Mat 5:14) because of Jesus in your heart. We see Christians in the midst of a Muslim/Buddhist/Jewish temple and even in Atheist organizations, trying to reach out and be a light. Jesus was in the Temple of unrepentant Pharisees (John 2:14). He needed to be there.

Jesus is needed in UBF. Surely, Jesus can use a Christian in any church, Christ-centered or not. I have noticed that some has run away from UBF because of UBF’s MBF, shepherding, this and that. But I cannot imagine Jesus running away where He is needed most. He did say to shake the dust off our feet (Mat 10:14) and to not throw our pearls to pigs (Matthew 7:6). In my heart, I know that UBF is a church that is willing to grow. Many UBF leaders and pastors have a blind sides, but Christ is working in their heart on a day to day basis.

Christians are called to witness to the ‘ends of the earth’ (Acts 1:8), certainly this includes churches, regardless of how far away they are from Christ.

I will repeat again that in the final analysis no man can or should judge another man’s repentance, because no man can truly see another man’s heart, based on his outward behavior, conformity, or outward/publc repentance (Rom 2:1-3; Matt 7:3-4; 1 Sam 16:7; Mt 21:28-32).

My evaluation of (wrong) things said and done by some UBF people is virtually similar to yours, I think. The things that you say need to be addressed, changed, repented of, I can also confidently say are also similar to my assessment. All I am saying is that as much as you wish for these things to happen (as I do), they are neither in your hands nor my hands. Ultimately it is in God’s hands.

As God said to Habakkuk, God can even use more ruthless and ungodly people to discipline God’s own relatively “less wicked” people (Hab 1:6,13). Without in any way justifying all the wrongs that have been done in UBF, I dare say that God can even use “wicked unrepentant” UBF people/leaders to accomplish HIS purpose.

God does not fulfill his work because we are good or adequately repentant. God fulfills his work in spite of the fact that we are evil and wicked. That has always been the case.

Neither you nor I can force/compel/coerce/write/blog/persuade/appeal to our leaders (or even our own children) to repent. That is the mysterious work that only the Holy Spirit can do. No man can bring about another man’s repentance.

You, Vitaly, Brian, and perhaps even I have said all we can say in all the ways and angles that we can say them. Now it is up to God’s own mysterious sovereign will and purpose to accomplish his divine plan, while we ourselves work out our salvation with “fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12), and with “humility and tears” (Acts 20:19).

The reason why I repeat this point is that I see it always ignored in the discussion of the assessment of UBF in the past and what UBF should do in the future. Members discuss whether UBF should change or claim that UBF has changed, but the first thing that should be discussed is whether UBF (as a whole and top leaders individually) have repented or are willing to repent. There must be a public confession of guilt and repentance, otherwise no new beginning will be possible. And we should not in any way commend someone who was obviously unwilling to repent (can I say “foudner’s day”?) – actually such people should be considered like gentiles (Mt 18:17) (which of course does not mean that such people should be treated badly, we should love gentiles as well, but they should not be considered Christian leaders and role models).

What I am trying to say is that in the final analysis God is our ultimate and only Judge. I am not saying this as a cop out–for Lee or any other UBF leader or myself–to not deal with the utmost importance of personal repentance for every Christian. As your fellow countryman Luther, whom I am learning to admire more and more, said, “All of life is repentance.” Jesus also stressed the crucial urgency of repentance (Luke 13:3,5).

So for instance, I want do repent, I believe, but to some people they may think my repentance may not be sincere enough, or adequate, or to their satisfaction, or expectation based on whatever their criteria may be.

Likewise, I do not believe that anyone can truly judge anyone else’s repentance because no human being can see the heart of another person. Again, I am not defending Lee for some of the things he did and said. I am just saying that neither you nor I should judge Lee or anyone else regarding some matters where only God truly knows man’s heart (Rom 2:1-3; Matt 7:3-4; 1 Sam 16:7).

You’re saying that Lee’s problem was that he did not repent “perfectly”. The problem is that we don’t have any indication that he repented *at all*. When the reformers came to him from Korea and wanted to talk with him, he sent them away saying “God will punish me if I did anything wrong.” These are not words by a repentant man. These are words by a stubborn self-righteous man. At least so they sound to me. We should not give the impression that people with such an attitude should be considered Christians or even Christian leaders.

I think I understand to a degree that it is quite hard to approve of Lee, when many other leaders are autocratic like him, usually to a worse or more extreme degree, so that they may be far less gracious.

I agree with you that Lee and other leaders should have repented publicly, or begin to repent and publicly acknowledge wrongdoing. However, a man is saved by faith in Christ, and not on the basis of whether or not he or they publicly repent. None of us, I don’t believe, ever repent perfectly, or repent publicly of all of our sins. If God expects and requires that, we’re all dead, especially me!

I agree that David did worse things, but my issue is that there are two important differences between Samuel Lee and King David: 1) David lived in the time of the OT and was appointed by God, whereas Samuel Lee lived under the NT and still ruled like a self-appointed king, and 2) David repented (http://www.case-studies.com/david3), while Samuel Lee never repented. (Allegedly he once claimed that he was “demon-possesed” when he did the bad things – that’s what Vitaliy alluded to – but I don’t know if it’s true, as he never confessed or repented openly.) I don’t want to arouse the old discussion about whether God forgave Samuel Lee again, but I still think it’s necessary to emphasize the one important point: confession and repentance.

These are good observations. And although you write from a UBF experience, I think you capture some problems common to nearly all Christian leaders across many denominations. At least that is my opinion after reading numerous blogs and listening to several sermons/leadership videos recently.

I think the core issue is a heart issue. What does our heart look like? For many years I wanted to be a “lion heart”. I was careful to be conforming and obedient (lamb like) outwardly, but fostered a ferocious heart in my inner person.

I was stunned to realize that a “lion heart” is very close to a false prophet Jesus described in His Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:15). I see no direction from Jesus to have a wolf-like heart while appearing to be meek or mild-mannered outwardly. Just the opposite.

The new image I learned from the Sermon on the Mount is to have a lamb heart, that is, meek, generous, peaceful, hopeful, joyful, faithful inner life. It is out of the overflow of our heart that we speak and we are known and we are deemed clean or unclean (Mark 7:15; Luke 6:45).

Jesus wants my heart. When I submit my heart to Jesus, I find rest, peace and grace– no condemnation. Then I am free to be bold like a lion. 

I was going to suggest to our admins that your comment above be removed, but I think it is ok for the comment to stay. We ought to discuss this openly. I believe Ben’s article is applicable broadly in Christianity and is not specific to UBF. However, since we are friends of UBF here, I think this warrants some discussion.

First, your initial logic does not hold up. Ben’s phrase is correct, “Christian leader”, and it applies to many leaders in UBF. I am trying to avoid sweeping, broadstroke generalizations, but I know this is hard to do, and I’ve failed at times. But to say that there is no UBF leader who is a Christian leader is false. I’ve not been able to this well, but I do think we former members ought to avoid our own wounding of UBF members with our own righteousness. One of my goals is always to spark dialogue, and I realize that sometimes I ignite a fire unintentionally. (I’m working on that…)

Second, was Samuel Lee demon-possessed? I will bash UBF with the bashiest…but I won’t say that. Samuel Lee was not demon-possessed. And although I do know there is a spiritual reality, and that Satan does run rampant when Christian leaders are focused on non-gospel activity, I will not agree that UBF is evil.  

Third, you say “UBF problems are not common christian churches problems. The UBF problem is that it is not christian.” I think we should distinguish between UBF ideology and UBF people. The ideology of UBF does promote an unBiblical/unChristian ethos. Perhaps this is what you are referring to. And that ethos stems from a logos (doctrines) built on obedience and discipline instead of grace and truth. This then generates a pathos (community emotion) of guilt, fear and self-condemnation. 

But to say that UBF people are not Christians is false. There are Christians in UBF. Often the people in UBF are taught the grace of God (forgiveness of sins in Jesus) correctly. The problem is then the people are bound to a human shepherd and taught a form of legalism with an elitist mindset.

Legalism and elitism are indeed common problems among many Christian churches.  But this is all very complicated in the UBF context because UBF won’t commit to a specific theological position. UBF as an organization is committed only to ideological slogans. Perhaps you are referring to this. If so, then I understand you. And then you add the layers of cultural issues and the thing gets mind-boggling.

The only way to make sense of all this is Jesus, and to stand on the grace of God. I’ll share more what I mean in reply to Ben’s article soon.

I am not justifying or defending UBF or Lee’s authoritarian practices. But David, a man after God’s own heart, did “far worse” things: adultery, murder, count his fighting men which caused the death of 70,000 of his men (2 Sam 24:15). Yet he was righteous (Ps 18:24, 101:1-3, 103:12; Rom 4:6-8).

I trust you have read what I had previously wrote about Lee: http://www.ubfriends.org/2011/01/why-samuel-lee-was-deified-and-demonized/

Personally, I have no problem either way with my 4 children staying or leaving UBF. 2 stayed and 2 joined other churches. I praise and thank God for all of them.