Thanks to all the people contributing here. Most of you are echoing thoughts in my head as I read the various articles and responses. So I say “ditto” to most of the reactions here.

I am refraining from commenting on most threads because there are a few comments that infuriate and ensicken me so much that I just need to remain silent.

All I can say in regard to the latest threads is that ubf cannot possibly ever be the same after what happened in 2010 to 2012. The Holy Spirit has been quenched, insulted and grieved long enough, and He/She is on the move.

ubf as all of us old-timers knew it is certainly “dead”, even though some semblance of the ministry will no doubt continue. I love how Mark M. puts it “the gig is up!”. Indeed, and the “sheep are awake!”. There is no way to stop HOT conversations. The gospel fire has been lit and won’t be extinguished.

Just pointing out that we just today hit 6,500 comments. That is 500 comments in 24 days. 20 comments per day. Our average for the first 3 years was about 5.5 comments per day.

“Plan A” is like Psalms 33:10-11. God has an overall design or purpose to give us hope, but not a day-by-day schedule to rule our lives. So to say “God doesn’t have a Plan B” is like saying “God won’t give up on you.” God created each of us and doesn’t have some master plan to destroy us the minute we mess up “the plan”.

This is a topic to explore more deeply… I no longer see God executing a single plan for our life, micro-managing each minute of daily life. God does not provide us with a choice between God’s one, holy choice and a whole bunch of sinful choices. There is no single plan, but I do believe God has many plans or “designs” as in some translations. God has many plans and part of my growth is to learn how to listen to God’s voice and pay attention to what God may be up to in my life and other’s lives around me.

Not sure if this makes sense… This is yet another untapped area that I need to explore further. I am still unbinding Jeremiah 29:11 for example, from ubf ideology.

I personally think that the whole idea that God has a certain plan for my life is somewhat faulty anyway. At least in the way that God has a predetermined idea of how exactly I should live, e.g. in UBF or another church, or who I should marry. For me, the most helpful idea has become to see God as a heavenly father. As a father myself, do I have a plan for my son that he must exactly follow? No, I just have the wish that he should be happy, and I want him to make his own decisions. If he fails, I would still support him and help him. I think such an image of God is not unfounded (Lk 15:11-32).

I am also confident that we both are part of plan A. There is no plan B, and there is no second Savior. If plan A seems to be failing, we can’t just create a new plan. We are stuck with figuring out how to love each other. Love is plan A.

Over the next 9 years, my wife noticed that our spiritual health and the spiritual health of our children was not good. We had to “feed ourselves” spiritually. But I dismissed and denied such things, refusing to even talk about it out of my arrogance.

What has hit me hard lately is how greatly I displeased God by ignoring my responsibility to my family and the health of all of us. My actions in Detroit received a ton of flattering praise in ubf, ubf but we were disintegrating as a family by ourself. We had to leave ubf and join a local church for the sake of our own health and to take responsibility for our own family. Each family’s situation is different, so I don’t think people should follow our example. In fact, I suspect if we had indeed gone to LeHigh, our reaction would have been much different.

“Abortion is murder. This convicts our nation, as more than 40 million babies have been aborted since 1972.” [emphasis mine]

Many Christians would agree with that. But it’s problematic to state this in such stark black-and-white terms, when the person who says this knows full well that abortions have happened in UBF with the support of ministry leaders, yet doesn’t say a word about that. How much better it would have been, how much more honest and authentic and effective the message would have been, if the messenger admitted that this was the case and said that he now believes that it was wrong. Taken at face value, the messenger’s words indicate that he believes SL participated in murder. There’s a great deal of cognitive dissonance here.

If it convicts our nation, does it convict UBF?

This is one example of why many UBF leaders now appear to me to have so little spiritual authority. Spiritual authority comes from integrity.

I’ve heard from non-UBF sources that abortion is technically illegal in Korea but is fairly widespread, even among Christians. It’s not uncommon to find pastor’s wives having them. This is not an excuse, but an observation. Churches in Korea tend to be very conservative in their public stance against abortion, but what people do in private is another matter.

As far as I know, there is no slam-dunk argument that you can make based on the Bible alone that abortion is wrong. But from the earliest days of the church, when abortion and infanticide were widespread in the Greek and Roman culture, Christians believed that they were wrong and took a stand against those practices to protect the lives of the innocent and helpless.

This was shocking to read. I always heard in my time in ubf that ubf came from SL and SB (by the way, SB is no longer mentioned as a founder in some of the 50th Anniversary material). When did ubf become God?

On the other hand, I was relieved to finally read concrete statements that document the teachings I always suspected but always had refused to believe. The blue book is truly classic and expressed the hidden agenda and real thoughts of what Korea UBF has in mind for ubf.

btw, SB’s lecture in the blue book was actually quite Christian and quite good. I see ubf has two directions: follow the SB route (good) or hold onto restoration of the Slee legacy (not good).

Yea Joe, these facts are hardly “breaking news”. Anyone can easily read the testimonies of multiple people’s accounts of such things via Google.

Last year my family had dinner at a Korean missionaries house, whose family had left in 2001. She told us of another account where the abortion never took place but was explicitly stated as a requirement for a young couple to be sent out as missionaries. The Korean woman who told me this saw the actual letter in Korea in the late 70’s (but then she was rebuked by her shepherdess for seeing the letter).

On a relate note, the topic of directing someone to have an abortion for the sake of campus mission was discussed in a meeting I had in 2013. I was rather stunned to hear a Korean missionary say that the ultimate value of loyalty cannot be overridden by the bible nor by ethics. Loyalty is supreme, he said, and for Koreans, they can never place anything higher than loyalty (in his words).

So while ubers might point to the fact that no one is “commanding abortions” in 2013, the attitude is very strong and very much alive in the fabric of the ubf mindset and lifestyle: “sacrifice all for ubf mission because ubf mission is from God”.

As I’ve said before, I am learning that such an attitude is not Christ-like, but a Christianized version of Confucianism. It is not a Scriptural idea to kill your conscience nor your dreams nor your emotions nor to sacrifice your children in any sense. God told Abraham to STOP, and not to sacrifice Isaac. The Christ-like attitude of self-denial and taking up one’s cross never includes cutting or gouging out your “self”. But is rather a journey of self-discovery in light of the sacrifice Jesus already made.

Commandment #9: “You shall not be a false witness.”

Explanation of Commandment #9: We commit ourselves “to speak the truth, and not to mislead others by our silence.”

So I don’t want to mislead people by remaining silent.

I cannot find anything in the Ten Commandments or the catechism that says I am supposed to forever keep quiet about all the ethical and moral problems in my church and just trust a few top leaders to handle it all in secret and continue to wait for them even if nothing happens year after year. Does the Bible say I have to do that?

Regarding the forced abortion… I hoped that by now UBF would have been willing to admit that abortions did happen. In one case I know of, it was done at the suggestion, encouragement, pressure or command of SL. When speaking of him, it’s very difficult to distinguish among those. Because he nearly always spoke to people with an air of authority. If he said that you ought to do something, the psychological pressure to obey (both from the community and from within the individual) was great. The word “force” can be misconstrued. I don’t think you are saying that SL used physical force or threat of violence to make a woman get an abortion even though she strongly didn’t want to at the time.

The reason that I’m saying this is that I don’t want anyone to seize upon that one word, “force,” and then use it to say that you are lying.

UBF absolutely does need to set clear expectations about what kinds of behavior are unacceptable. There has to be a fair, transparent process for imposing discipline on those who flagrantly violate rules. But change will happen only when a critical mass of leaders and members become brokenhearted over what has happened, over what they (we) have done. At best, the Ethics Committee can focus and manage a process of cultural and spiritual reform if it is already happening in the community. But the committee cannot make reform happen.

1) It’s unclear to me what the task area of the ethics committee is. Should it do more “fundamental research”, publish ethical norms for the members to read? Should it devise the statutes and by-laws of the organization? Should it supervise other parts of the church? Should it address concrete cases of unethical behavior in the church and make a judgement? What is the actual scope of duties and which authority does the committee have?

2) It’s unclear to me who is part of that committe? What are the qualifications to be a member, how is it elected?

3) Does the committee get involved in questions of church discipline? Mayb as a last instance? I’m really not sure if that would be right. After all, Mt 18:17 says if things escalate they should be brought in front of the whole church, not in front of some obscure committee. This would make it much too easy to cover up scandals. Just have the right people in the committee.

4) Shouldn’t the ethics committee also be responsible for devising ways of teaching every member the basics of ethics, e.g. by a curriculum of lectures or books that should be read in the chapters. For instance, in Germany we have these books which explain ethics from an Evangelical point of view: http://www.genialebuecher.de/die-ethik.html Shouldn’t every member, at least everyone who acts as shepherd or teacher, be obliged to read such books and know about ethics instead of confining the knowledge of ethics to a small group as if unethical behavior was a minor issue that could only be judged by experts?

It saddens me to hear you say “I heard that ubf has now ethics committee” because even chapter directors like yourself have not been told what the committee is for and what it is now doing. The existence of the committee has been announced. But everything else about it has been kept secret for a whole year.

Perhaps chapter directors think “this is none of my business,” or “the leaders are handling everything and it’s out of my hands,” or “I’m just a nobody and have no standing or privilege to even ask about this.” If so, that saddens me. Because the ethical problems and lack of accountability affect everyone. The public reputation of UBF has been sullied for years, for decades. and that has hindered everyone’s ability to do ministry. Just putting it in the hands of a few top leaders might seem like the humble thing to do, but in my opinion, it’s irresponsible. Chapter directors have a duty to hold the top leaders accountable.

About my answer which you described as “eloquent and has Christian words” I must confess my sin that I actually felt it was kind of eloquent after writing it. I was committing sin Ravi Zechariah once mentioned. There were a number of preachers in a certain gathering, preaching one after another. Ravi described his own struggle that while he was delivering a “holy” message he was struggling most “unholy” thoughts inwardly: “Whose sermon is the best?”
At the same time I must add that I did not write it only for the sake of eloquence. It actually helped me in dealing with people who hurt me more than once. For example, the smart guy in my college days, hurt me because I let him. I was hurt because I thought his opinion of me really mattered. If I had thought of him only as God’s sheep just like me, who needed God’s mercy like me, lost in his sin of being a righteous prick, then I would have not felt so much resentment toward him, but prayed for him with “godly sorrow.” For a long time I did not think this way. That’s why I suffered very long time with resentment. Only recently I have learned not to allow righteous pricks’ opinion of me to matter to me. I still struggle. But at least I know how to pray about the problem. “Lord, give me strength and help me understand that only what you think of me really matters. Ones who I respected–respected in wrong way, I should not put their opinions of me above yours. Help me not to deviate from this truth and hurt myself.”

About “What should we do?,” if you talk to everybody, it is like talking to nobody because if they know you are talking to everybody, everybody will hope that the other person will do something about it. I heard that ubf has now ethics committee. I don’t know what they have done so far. But have you talked to them about the problems you mentioned?

I think Chris is perhaps the most patient man in the world :) He’s been waiting for a couple decades now…

Christianity cares for “the least of these.” This surely includes those who are speaking up, and even those who are not speaking up but have been hurt. If UBF ignores the least of these, then will God not ignore UBF?

Your comment above is eloquent and has Christian words, but completely misses the point. The way you answered the question is a snapshot of what I think is wrong with the ubf mindset.

Feelings that are kept buried will one day explode. And as my wife often reminds me: Don’t jump into solving my problem until you know what the problem is, and even then it’s usually better to not solve the problem.

The Jesus who died on the cross for our sins is the same person who cleansed the temple when the religious leaders and their organization became so corrupt that they dishonored his Father’s house.

And it is the same Jesus who called out the hypocrisy and sins of the religious leaders at many, many points in his public ministry.

If we accept Jesus as Lord, we have to accept all of him.

The issues of ethics and ministry practice that people have been raising on this website and elsewhere are not isolated cases of one person hurting another as sinners inevitably do. Sure, there are personal elements to every one of these situations. But when the problems have become systematic and deeply embedded in the culture of the community, don’t the community’s leaders have a duty to address the problems in a systematic fashion? Isn’t that their job?

For thirty years I have trusted and supported UBF’s leaders, and for a long time Ben and Brian and I and so many others before us have been raising the alarm, privately pleading and begging them to do something real about these ethical issues. They have not. Again and again they have shown no desire to face these uncomfortable things or talk about them. They dodge, dither, deny and delay. They rebuke us for talking about them on a website, saying that these things should be handled in private. But when I bring the issues to them in private, they still do nothing. Then, when I ask them why no progress is being made, they keep silent and act as though I have been overstepping my bounds and treating them so disrespectfully.

Wesley, what do you suggest we do?

For sure the offended, if a Christian, forgives the offender, albeit imperfectly. A Christian woman who is raped forgives the one who raped her, but the sting of the rape remains with her all her days, especially if the rapist is her father. (Can you imagine anyone telling her, “Since you are a Christian forgiven by Christ, just forgive your rapist and move on with your life”? That is why it is quite odd and shallow if someone asks any wounded or traumatized person to just forgive and move on.)

The problem with one Christian offending another may be that the offending Christian may think they did nothing wrong. Yet the one offended still needs to forgive the offender even if the offender doesn’t think he/she needs to be forgiven. Then there are sad accounts where an abusive Christian husband says to his battered Christian wife that she should forgive him for hitting her, because she is a Christian who is forgiven by Jesus. Herni Nouwen says that church members forgiving their pastor or priest may be the hardest, because the pastor often does not think he did anything wrong to his parishioner(s).

These are some relevant quotes which could well pertain to Christians in church (The 3rd quote is most interesting):

“History is full of disgraceful examples of self-righteous Christians who acted as though their own convictions about God’s call justified their ill treatment of others.” Anthony Gittins, Reading the Clouds.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely expressed for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” C.S. Lewis.

“There is no deeper pathos in the spiritual life of man than the cruelty of righteous people.” Reinhold Niebuhr, An Interpretation of Christian Ethics. (I wrote this last year to explain how easy it is for ANY Christian leader to hurt and wound others, since they too are sinners: http://www.ubfriends.org/2012/05/30/wounded-by-the-righteous/#more-4658)

You answer to Ben and Brian about how to dealt with hurt sounds good, and it is applicable in certain situations. However, it does not apply to sin committed in the church. Otherwise, Mt 18,15ff would sound like this: “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, just forgive them anyway and get over it.” Is this what is written in your Bible?

Also, I’m not getting tired of repeating that this is not an issue of Ben or Brian or me being hurt only. Hundreds, if not thousands of people have been hurt. And it is not an issue of people hurting people but an issue of bad theology and cult-like practices hurting people, and this will continue until the bad theology and the bad practices are exposed and renounced. I want to say it again: This issue cannot be solved by an apology alone. Of course, an apology will be part of the solution, but this must be solved fundamentally or history will repeat itself.

By the way, I’m convinced that those people who are speaking about their hurt on the Internet are not even those who have been hurt the most. I have talked with some people who would never write on the Internet, UBF leaders do not even know how much they have hurt them. They are forgotten and left behind. So again: It is not solution to focus on those people who are the loudest on the Internet, apologize to them in some half-hearted way, in the expectation that this will silence them and solve the problem. If you really cared who has been hurt and in which ways, you would read the many testimonies that have been written on the Internet, starting with the open letter of 1976.

1. The hurt of deception and disillusionment cause by the ubf doctrines over 20+ years.

2. The hurt of shunning and silence caused by the ubf directors over the past 2 years during and after leaving ubf.

3. The hurt of bearing the burden of what I did to cause other’s harm in the name of “being a blessing”.

4. The hurt of ignoring my family as they endured my rash decisions to move our family so much and my ignoring family in the name of “serving God’s world campus mission”.

5. The hurt of being misunderstood and condemned to hell by Evangelical people because God was sending me through a fundamorphosis as I left ubf.

6. The hurt of being told I am demon possessed and hell-bound because I am a gay rights pacifist.

Watch the Truman show if you want to understand more. I realized now that even the “blessings” I received in ubf were a facade mostly. Listen to these songs if you want to know more of my feelings: sometimes I feel like Jackson Missippi. Sometimes I feel like screaming out say something!. Sometimes I feel like shouting now your messin’….

Often I just hear the sound of silence or feel depressed to see that I’m stuck in the hotel California.

But I’m so thankful for the bonds of real friends like Ben and Joe and JohnY and JohnA, and M&M and others.

In the end, I know I am born free. I rest in the amazing grace of God.

Your question combines multiple questions together: Who has hurt me? What hurt was done? How do I feel toward the people who did the hurt?

Here are my thoughts:

I must first point out that for most of my 24 years in ubf (1987 to 2011) I was very glad to be there. I received much benefit and had many happy times. I loved doing ubf stuff because I came to believe I was doing God’s will. The biggest benefit to me was a knowledge of the bible text (even though the ubf doctrines are all messed up, I am glad to be able to say I spent over 16,000 hours in bible study. At least I know the text.)

But there was always a nagging problem in my conscience. I was being trained to “be a blessing” to others and to “serve and help them”. While I myself was very blessed in ubf and I enjoyed eating at the shepherd’s table of fellowship, I began to notice the suffering of those around me. Like Mary in the bible, I kept all these things in my heart, treasuring them up and pondering all that was going on around me. I mostly remained silent and was one of the “quiet ones” in ubf, because I wanted to be the most blessed.

My conscience started to be bothered right away. In 1990, me and some other ubf people broke into our director’s house and stole all his families belongings in order to “be a blessing” to them. I was unaware of the details of the godfather-like struggles going on with JK and SLee. A while back I shared my confession of what I and other leaders did to JK’s family. My leaving ubf was at least 50% because of what I did to JK’s family and about what I did to others (not about what was done to me in ubf). I sat by idly as I heard about the severe problems my friends had. Over 103 people (including children) ended up leaving my chapter over the course of 21 years. They have all had varying levels of reconciliation, but all left with trauma of some kind. I noticed that the more we ubf leaders “blessed” others, the more suffering they experienced. Something was not right.

In 2011 I decided to bring the 1990 event to closure. I couldn’t go on living with such a burden on my heart and soul and mind. I began by sharing my honest thoughts from the last Easter ubf conference I attended. This was a test to see “how it would go” if I ever raised any matters of conscience with ubf leaders. I wanted to know if I was dealing with Christian pastors who would help me resolve my burden, or if I was dealing with cult leaders who only cared about maintaining the ubf heritage.

I wanted to know if the friendships I thought I had built up would be sustainable through honest conversation. I wanted to know if my director cared about me and our 24 years relationship or if the ubf heritage and keeping face was more important. Surely no one would turn their back on me, right? I was “Mr. ubf”! I had defended ubf fully and “absolutely” on the internet! I was loyal, faithful, obedient and had treated ubf directors with double-honor for over 20 years! I had been a ubf missionary to Russia! Surely I could share a few honest words, right?

You can read my blog to know how I feel about the directors in ubf, most of whom were SILENT during my problems that arose in 2011. So the “hurt” only happened to me the last 2 years AFTER and DURING my leaving. I did not really feel “hurt” during my time IN ubf, but only as I experienced the shunning process. I was hurt by the ubf idea of “unity“.

The first feeling might be shock that a Christian leader in a church could say, do, decide or be influenced by others in a way that seems callous, calculative and retributive, rather than caring, loving and compassionate.

Another feeling–which might be worse than the first–is when and if others in the church respond or gossip about you because you began to question or express some displeasure.

The ad hominem arguments are death itself, because those who use it will absolutely refuse to hear anything you have to say, while continuing to insist that it is ALL YOUR PROBLEM.

Finally, by God’s help and mercy alone, the feeling of truly amazing grace to know that no matter how disheartened, frustrated or angry I may have felt, Jesus felt it far far worse for having done absolutely nothing wrong. And Jesus did it all for me, so that I may still find joy and thanksgiving even in my worst moments, because truth be told I clearly deserve far worse than the worst thing that can ever happen to me.

Perhaps others may share too how they felt.

I understand your perspective and agree with you in many respects. I’ve also observed that English communication in general seems to becoming slower. Watch a movie from the 40s and you’ll see what I mean; the actors speak really fast, much faster than how we normally speak today. A few weeks ago I listened to archived radio broadcasts from 1947; the speakers then also spoke much faster than today. I’m not sure why this is, but it seems that our communication is slowing down. I’d be interested in learning why.

Just a small example that came to my mind when I thought about the phrase “do what is right”. It is really problematic if leaders impose their own ideas, dreams, visions and plans onto others, subtly framing them as “God’s will”.

Great quote. As an American and a human being, I see zero malice on this blog. I do see harsh criticism, painful expressions, awkward quotations and severely convicting words. But malice? No.

Perhaps we have a different definition of malice?

> Sorry, but I won’t show any mercy in this area of “slowing down”. If you are a missionary to Americans, it is your responsibility to speed up. For a quarter of a century, I slowed down my thinking, my speech, and my life to meet the Korean missionaries and help them. In one sense Christian missionary work does depend on natives who can enable and connect with the missionary. But instead of that relationship maturing, I and other natives around the world, became slaves to the missionaries, adopting the missionary culture. Vitaly’s recent comments here show me the same thing happened in Russia.

> I cried the first time I attended our current American church. Why? Because the pastor spoke SO fast! I could hardly understand and struggled to keep up. At that moment I realized I had become Koreanized. Did I receive the gospel of Jesus in ubf? Yes. But I also received the false gospel of Koreanization.

> The job of a missionary is not to preach his/her culture, but to adapt and even adopt the culture in which they are sent into. There are many layers to the problems in ubf, and cultural dominance of Koreans is one of those layers. Joe reported recently on a survey of what word people used to describe ubf. The most used word was “Korean”. Correcting this is perhaps a good place to start correcting the problems in ubf.

So now I focus on dialogues. I like what Ben often says: “ubf trained me too well.” Where did I get the idea that if you love someone you must rebuke them? Therefore, I rebuke ubf directors openly and directly. These things probably don’t make sense outside of the ubf context. But I know ubf people understand. I love my shepherd, so I rebuked him. I love SB, ATK, RW, MV, etc. so I rebuked them.

The Holy Spirit has taken me (a shy, arrogant wimp donkey of a man) and made my forehead like flint and opened my voice to rebuke all ubf directors openly, in-person and in public until the spiritual, mental, physical, sexual, financial and any other kind of abuse is exposed and held accountable.

> “I apologize for saying, “Why should I apologize for anything that happened in ubf in the past?” It was not well thought out question. It’s a part of my responsibility to fight “evil” leaders and let them do right things and build Christ-centered church. If possible I would like to talk to every single one of those who were hurt by any ubf man and do anything within my power to help healing.”

Thanks for clarifying this, Wesley. It’s good that you understand how such a response is wrong, even if it sounds technically true. It’s good that you want to apologize to all these people.

But still, this was not my question and request to you. My question was whether you think that UBF as an organization should apologize for all the documented abuse in the past, for how they treated those hundreds of missionaries who spoke up and wanted to change the ministry, and for ignoring these problems for so long time. Even lower ranking members must apologize, because as you say it would have been their responsibility to fight evil and injustice, no matter from which side it is coming. Even those in UBF who did not do much and were more like “sitting ducks” (as Samuel Lee called them) need to apologize, because being silent when speaking is necessary is also a sin. Some people believe “I can’t do anything wrong if I don’t interfere” or “I can’t say anything wrong if I do not answer at all”. But this is very wrong. Silence can speak volumes, as we already discussed here.

This should actually not be only an apology, but more like an admission of guilt for having followed an authoritarian and intrinsically abusive system and a man who built that system with the help of all of us, rather than follow Christ. This is where all the problems came from.

As I already explained, it’s not so much one person harming the other; it is much more a system (or a construct of ideas) harming all of us. Strictly speaking, we also did harm to the soul of Samuel Lee by not clearly helping him to repent and immediately point out when he did evil things like calling somebody “a fat lady who resembled a globe” and we were just sitting there laughing and smiling. Power corrupts, and we allowed him to become corrupted. Sure, in the end those who have authority and act up like leaders have more responsibility than those who were used and manipulated by such people. But everybody shares their small part as well. There were many situations where I should have talked but was silent.

So, I would still be interested in your answer to the question, should UBF issue such a public and official apology and rehabilitate the reformers? You still haven’t answered this yet. What’s your opinion?

> “Chris, I am sure you and I have much to discuss. I am open to it. But I have to take it a little slowly.”

If you take time to read up what has been written on this website, to read books about these issues, or think deeply about these matters, that would be well invested time. Discussion alone does not help. We need educated and informed discussion.

By the way, how long have you been in UBF? How long as a sheep, how long as a shepherd/missionary, how long as a director? How much do you know about the reform issues? Did you read the open letters and declarations of the reformers, for instance? Just to better understand where you’re coming from.

> “How dare you Koreans try to teach us instead of learning? I hope you as German don’t get in that kind of mentality.”

I have been very open for the teaching of Koreans as a young student. Too open, I would say nowadays. The problem was also that these Koreans understood “teaching” a bit differently than you would normally understand the word. This word “teaching” seemed to include “crushing my soul”, “breaking and remaking my personality”, “making me dependent”, “making me feel guilty all the time”, “being my real parents”, “parenting me like a little child” and demanding “absolute obedience” from me.

Honestly, I rarely noticed the attitude “How dare you Koreans try to teach us instead of learning?” from Germans in my chapter. But I often experienced the attitude “How do you German students try to teach us Korean missionaries instead of learning?” from Koreans in my chapter.

> “I dream a day when all ubfhaters will become ex-ubf-haters.”

You and others have already clarified this. Just to make it fully clear once more, because this is a stereotype I hear much too often: The word “ubf hater” is ambiguous, because UBF can refer to “UBF, the system of beliefs and practices” or “UBF, the people”. In the first sense, you can wait until I’m buried, I will forever stay an UBF hater. In the latter sense, I never have been an UBF hater. For this reason, we should stop using such words and stereotypes.

Actually you were the one who told us to differentiate between UBF-the-organization and UBF-the-people. But when you call UBF critics “UBF haters” you make the same mistake of confusing their hate of e.g. the authoritarianism in UBF with hate of the people in UBF. UBF critics are just as able as you are to differentiate between UBF-the-organization and UBF-the-people.
To be more precise, I don’t even hate all of the practices and teachings in UBF. UBF gets many things right. But there are some elements in the doctrine and practice that are deeply wrong and dangerous, and some that are subtly twisted. These seemingly small wrongs are like the proverbial (actually Biblical) “little yeast that leavens the whole lump”. Unfortunately, these tainted parts that need to be thrown away for the dough to become healthy again have been in UBF nearly from the very beginnings, they are kind of ingrained in UBFers minds and UBF culture; and they have a big overlap with what UBF top leadership calls “UBF heritage,” which they consider indispensable and cling to so much. The leadership rather would cut away half of the membership in 1976 and 2001 than cut away their “UBF heritage”. (Which is, in my understanding, actually a “Samuel Lee heritage”. That’s why I’m still talking about Samuel Lee and what he said or did so much.)

> “By the way can I joke to a German?”

Maybe we have a different kind of humor, but we definitely have humor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_humour). And yes, we laughed and joked a lot in our German chapter, together with the Koreans.

But still, I think many things that happened in UBF and still happen in some parts of UBF are not funny at all. They are deadly serious.

I apologize for writing so much again. It’s not as if I did not have other things do to. But somehow I always feel compelled to write here. Even if I am away from the computer, I often think about these things. My wife then says to me “oh, you have that UBF look again.”

My director also had a totally different understanding of what is “political”. He told us that was the reformers did was “political game playing”, while just following the party line “by faith” was the spiritual thing to do. For me it was exactly the opposite: Opportunistically and blindly following the party line is the political thing, and trying to do what is right based on the facts and on the Bible and our ethical understanding and conscience is the spiritual thing. But his argumentation was always that reform was a “political thing” only and we should be spiritual instead and totally ignore them.

I found that many people in UBF thought like that, and this is really what divided us and alienated me from them. I still love them as persons, but I totally do not feel like we are “kindred spirits” any more in that regard. Before, I really thought like that, I thought we all were kind of soul mates. I really thought we were all like “let’s do what is right – no compromize”. To find that most of my fellow UBFers were either different or at least had a totally different understanding of what is right (based on the person who is giving the orientation, instead of on the orienatation itself) was a big shock for me. I just could not believe and understand how we could be so different.

It’s no secret I have a love/hate relationship with ubf people. All of us do, if we are honest. I hate the 50th Anniversary lectures, mission statement and the manner in which it was presented. And I hate most of the ways ubf people behave, especially the way I myself ignored, dismissed and marginalized people who left or didn’t fall in line.

After more than half of the Toledo leaders left in 2011, one of my friends told me that leaving ubf felt like a messy divorce. She said she now realizes that she and her family had been married to ubf.

I don’t believe anyone on UBFriends is a UBF hater. This idea may have primarily come from UBF loyalists who are “absolute” in that UBF cannot and should never be critiqued. So if you critique any “senior” UBF leader you are labeled and caricatured as a “UBF hater.” Incidentally, a refusal to be critiqued will result in an unhealthy church, which sorry to say is what UBF is becoming, unless of course we change and repent.

I feel very sorry, even angry, when I hear some UBF people becoming defensive of UBF leaders, and who speak very negatively, critically and judgmentally toward anyone who DARES to speak up about some of the bad stuff that some UBF leaders, past and present, have done.

For instance, Vitaly recently shared this very disturbing account in a previous post: http://www.ubfriends.org/2013/03/25/good-leaders-delegate-without-control/#comment-5978 How can UBF, as a “holy, godly, Christian church,” NOT respond to this???? How can any Christian in UBF ever defend UBF for this???? Not be just heart broken in reading such an appalling disgusting indefensible humiliation????

“So really why can’t I stop talking about ubf? Because I love the people there and I loved my time there during college! I am so harsh on ubf because I love ubf. I can’t bear to see so much
potential lost primarily because of a simple lack of dialogue.”

I dream a day when all ubfhaters will become ex-ubf-haters.

“No more beating around the bush.”
> Right, because Chris, Vitaly and I are bush-wackers who are tearing through bushes :)

Ok there, you get one good memory of ubf because Wesley posted his article!

So really why can’t I stop talking about ubf? Because I love the people there and I loved my time there during college! I am so harsh on ubf because I love ubf. I can’t bear to see so much potential lost primarily because of a simple lack of dialogue.

Of course I understand why some leaders would be quite upset with this question, but don’t you think that it is a fair question that should be seriously answered?

Because we were trained to just follow orders, we didn’t know how to form our own thoughts and words. Our consciences should have become sharper over time, but instead we became duller and duller. We passively allowed the seniors to direct without holding them accountable. They needed us to hold their feet to the fire and make them deal with the problems as they arose. But we thought it was more humble and spiritual to just keep quiet and follow their direction. We failed to take our leadership roles seriously.

Have you ever read the open letter of 1976? Have you heared abort the abortions forced by Samuel Lee? Have you read all the testimonies of dropouts who complained about the abuse they experienced? The largest part of my pain is not what I personally experienced, but the realization that I have been part of an organization that systematically performed and tolerated such abuse and did not want to apologize, but expelled those who talked about it. Even though I personally experienced heavy spiritual abuse as well, that is not was really bothered me. I would come easily over that if I knew I was the only person affected. Why do you think this is only a personal issue of mine? Don’t you feel the same pain and necessity to apologize as I do when I read about forced abortions? “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it.” Shouldn’t it be so?

Blunt is good. No more beating around the bush.

Wesley, that was not my question. I did not ask you to apologize, but I asked whether you think that UBF should apologize as an organization. An organization in which you are a member and even a leader.

As a German, I would not feel at home in my country if it had not apologized for what it did in the past. As a member of the German protestant church, I would not feel at home in my church if it had not apologized for how it behaved during that time (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_Declaration_of_Guilt).

And even if I personally did not live in that time, and luckily my parents and grandparents weren’t involved with the Nazis, I still would never speak or think like “Why should I apologize for anything that happened in Germany in the past?” I’m a German, and this is also my history if I like it or not.

“UBF did not appoint me to any position of that sort.”

You are right, that apology should come from the top director. But it would have no meaning if that apology would not be backed up by the whole of UBF, particularly by people like you. If you and the other directors are indifferent about such an apology, then such an apology from the top director of UBF would really have little meaning. On the other hand, if you and other UBF directors and members have a clear opion, then you would all push for such a thing to happen.

“I hope that you won’t see me as a ubf man but as a man who happened to be in ubf.”

Wesley, you don’t “happen to be in UBF”. It is your choice whether you are in UBF or not. And a UBF chapter director, you are a representative of UBF whether you like it or not. And it is your choice how you act if you decide to be in UBF, whether you care for the issues we are talking about or whether you are indifferent. The top director cannot do anything without the lower ranking directors and members. You are one of them. If all of them are indifferent, I have no hope for UBF.

Seriously though it was really out of my league, just after the passing away of Dr. DH. I wish RM was still there; I enjoyed spending time with him when he travelled through Toledo. Please send my greetings to SH and Dr. BP and everyone else. And perhaps I should add one more chapter to my “redeemed ubf” list…