No, I’m not exactly a “fire-breathing monsters and criminally insane”. But here are two realities about myself that the Spirit showed to me last year:

1) I am heartless and cruel. I have to face the fact that my emotional self has been cut out of me through various life events. In some ways my emotions were frozen back in 1989 when my father died a slow death far too early in life. I found last year that it was very hard for me to feel emotion, even when my mother had to deal with cancer and even when my son had to deal with a form of epilepsy. I am finding that emotions can grow back, but my comments often reveal my own brokenness.

2) I am a criminal. It is hard to believe that someone like me is a criminal. But yes I should have gone to jail in 1990 for what I did. This has bothered me immensely, especially when so many people told me it was all for God’s glory. That is hard to process. My loose comments reveal this mindset as well. My conscience was cut deeply and bound to a “praise God” formula back in 1990. I patterned my entire life on this concept, and now I am struggling to recover from it. I find that while emotions do grow back, conscience might never grow back.

I love your comments about community. Indeed such community is what I long for. Our family has found such a community, and it really shouldn’t be so hard to form. That is what puzzles me about UBF: Why is it so very difficult to just be friends?

So, for years I really thought that UBF was the best church in the world, and the best campus ministry that is on the cutting edge of raising disciples of Christ. Why? Because I am good like Joseph, and not bad like Joseph’s brothers.

I failed to see that apart from the grace of God, Joseph would have been just as doomed as his evil brothers. I attributed it to my moralistic, dualistic, gnostic understanding of many narratives in the Bible, such as Gen 37:2ff.

Another artificial dichotomy would be that King David is good, but King Saul is bad. Therefore be like David, and don’t be like Saul.

Another would be ambitious Jacob and animalistic Esau. Therefore, struggle with God like Jacob and not be an animal man like Esau.

Such “teachings” really do not teach that the entire Bible testifies to and is primarily about Jesus (Jn 5:39, Acts 10:43).

Yes, I am a fun loving person in Christ only by the grace of God, and not a “criminally insane fire-breathing monster,” also only by the grace of God, even if the way I write may put off too many people.

I guess this would be a blind spot, because I thought that this title was really quite mild and inoffensive (compared to other intentionally provocative titles such as “Are UBF Leaders Cult Leaders?”)!

I hesitated to pay attention to this article because I was put off by the title. The title suggests that UBF is a monolithic entity that has a single way of teaching the story of Joseph, and that the current way can and ought to be changed by the decision of some UBF leaders. Neither of those things is true. I know that Ben doesn’t believe that it is true, and article doesn’t indicate that any of those things are true. But the title does hint at it, which can evoke a negative reaction in potential readers and discourage them from reading it carefully. An interesting discussion on this phenomenon can be found here:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2012/12/6-helpful-hints-for-blog-commenters-so-you-can-avoid-looking-criminally-insane/

Readers should be aware that many of the articles on UBFriends have titles that are intentionally provocative and contain elements of exaggeration, simplification, irony and sarcasm. The title doesn’t always communicate the essence of the article, and you need to actually read the article to find out what it says. At the same time, authors (especially me) have to choose our titles wisely. Perhaps the more people will be encouraged to participate in these online discussions if we go the extra mile to loosen up, chill out, be a little less strident, and take ourselves a little less seriously. People who write and read and comment on UBFriends are passionate about many issues that are truly important. But they (we) are also good, kind, intelligent, fun-loving people who want to help rather than harm, and perhaps this doesn’t come across as well as it could. Some people imagine that me, Ben, Brian, Chris, Vitaly, and others are fire-breathing monsters and criminally insane, which is very far from the truth. My hope and prayer for UBFriends is that our common faith and humanity will shine through more strongly during the coming year.

This article isn’t really about the way that the story of Joseph is taught. Nor is it really about how we approach the Bible. What Ben is getting at, I think, is our tendency to veer toward Manichaeism.

Manichaeism is one of the ancient heresies in the early church. Manichees divided humanity into children of light and children of darkness. They classified people into simple categories of good versus bad, and they urged their followers to join the good in opposition to the bad. This idea appeals to young children who are just starting to exercise primitive moral reasoning. In our desire to promote simple, childlike faith and obedience to Scriptures, we have sometimes become childish. I can recall so many Sunday messages where the messenger has said, “There are two kinds of people…”

Here is a quote by Mark Noll from his book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind:

“Manichaeans divided the world into two radically disjointed sections — the children of light and the children of darkness. Evangelicals have often promoted a Manichaean attitude by assuming that we, and only we, have the truth while nonbelievers, or Christian believers who are not evangelicals, practice only error. The Bible, however, shows the fallacy of such assumptions.”

It reminds me of another famous quote by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”

UBF leaders tend to use a cultural definition of reconciliation. One high ranking leader calls himself a “master reconcilier”. Yet every place he goes around the world ends up dealing with disastrous personal relationships. His idea of reconciliation is an exchange of Christmas cards or small gifts, and a pact of “you leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone.” If such things happen, UBF leaders tend to say reconciliation happened.

But I am attempting to follow the Scriptural examples of reconciliation. Like Joseph, I am intentionally acting in very specific ways, knowing how UBF leaders will react, to facilitate godly sorrow and a turning to God in repentance. Yes, only the Holy Spirit can do this. And I believe it was the Spirit of God who was prompting Joseph to react to his brothers in the way he did, as in Genesis 44.

This passage is rather twisted up in my mind however. In 2001 or so after a major split in my prior chapter, we studied this passage. It was clearly taught that one leader who left was like Joseph who gave a “bad report” about his brothers. The further implication was that “God’s people” can never speak negatively.

The other reason this passage is screwed up in my mind is because I was trained in UBF to “do all things for God’s glory”. This included breaking the law if necessary. This was instilled in me as a pattern for life through the 1990 incident. But it was re-inforced all the time, especially through Genesis study. So the Joseph story was taught to me in a way that made the brothers of Joseph not look so bad. The principle of doing God’s work was that throwing people into a well was ok because God blessed such actions. So I became numb to the abuse toward people, and instead of speaking up, I prayed that God would accomplish the saving of many lives through the abuse, based on Genesis 50:20.

So I have no idea about this passage or your question. I do like what you mentioned in an earlier post though. We should study this passage, and the entire Old Testament, in order to learn Jesus. So I don’t think the value here in the Genesis narrative about Joseph is in finding principles about how to live, but in finding the gospel narrative about Jesus.

For example, Joseph extending grace to his family who betrayed him is very important I think. Joseph knew they were all sinners, but he did not let his brothers off the hook, even though it pained him much to see them hurt. Like Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 7, he caused them distress for a while in hopes that they would come to godly sorrow.

It is a similar thing with me. I am causing distress to UBF people for a while in hopes to see godly sorrow. So far though, among UBF leaders, I have seen mostly worldly sorry and pity. As 2012 closes, I am most deeply troubled by this.

One way is “Be like Joseph (who is good) and not like his brothers (who are bad).

The other way, which is biblically sound is that Joseph was just as bad/sinful/lost as his brothers, albeit in different ways. Thus Joseph himself needed salvation just as much as his own evil brothers needed salvation.

The 1st way makes people think that some people are better than others. For eg. some might implicitly communicate or believe that missionaries are better than natives, or that shepherds are better than sheep. Is this really true?????????????

The 2nd way helps those who think they are better (like Joseph) to reexamine themselves to realize that they may be just as lost and bad and evil as their sheep that they are trying to help, albeit in different ways.

This is an explanation why it seems very difficult for some older UBF leaders to genuinely and sincerely acknowledge openly and publicly and transparently that they made a mistake. They can’t apologize or acknowledge wrongdoing, because they basically think they are better than their sheep, or the people they hurt and wounded, and that the people who are angry or who left should be thankful to them.

I studied Genesis, all 50 chapters, four times in UBF. Yes, every time Joseph was portrayed as an ideal man; the example we men should all strive to be like. This helped to foster a life based on ideals and principles that eventually became disconnected from reality.