Wesley’s Reflection on Authority and Authoritarianism
(Editorial Comment: This is Wesley’s detailed and lively unedited response to Ben’s sermon on “Shepherding Sheep” last Sun, May 26, 2013, at West Loop.)
Ben, I enjoyed your sermon. It’s really good. I find it worth reading more than once, carefully looking up all the Bible quotations. A theme that stands out is warning against “hierarchical leadership,” that is “the leadership style built on a chain-of-command social structure.” This warning can never be overstated. One of the main reasons I had hard time with my three sons growing up was that I exercised hierarchical leadership. Here is a Korean father, imbued with Confucianism, trying to raise three all-American boys. I only thank God for the relationship we have right now. It could have been much worse, even disastrous.
Believers or non-believers, the modern people must thank Jesus that heroes from the past, who were inspired by Jesus’ warning against hierarchical leadership, fought against tyrannical social structure throughout history. Non-believers must thank God for Jesus more than believers because they are more inclined to reject authority. It is irony that I have learned servant leadership in no other place than UBF, which many ubfriends accuse of hierarchical leadership. One of the messages that moved me most as I began Bible study in my college days was Mark Vucekovich’s Niagara summer Bible conference message on John 13, Jesus’ washing his disciples’ feet. As a young sheep I was so refreshed by the message that my experience could be described almost as shock. I did not even attend the conference because I was still in Korea. I was just reading his printed message. Here I am not trying to glorify UBF messages. It was just the word of God that touched me. But it is still valid claim that God uses, not only big name pastors or theologians, but even such a young messenger like Mark V, who was only in his early twenties, or even younger. (Obviously I am referring to your concern about ISBC.)
Sometimes I have some crooked thoughts and wish just a little bit of hierarchical leadership existed in Lehigh UBF. I am supposed to be the director. But I am actually close to being a janitor. If anything happens in the church, everybody assumes that Wesley will take care of the problem. The church back door breaks down quite frequently. Everybody assumes that Wesley will fix it. For remodeling work, people come in through the front door and linger a while and then go out through the backdoor. I call my directorship “janitorship.” (Of course I can work like a janitor, but act toward others like Kim Jong Il.) But who am I to complain? I thank God for everybody. Each is doing his or her best to serve God and build up the church. I haven’t seen anyone who works as hard as one American guy in our church. It is my constant struggle I work as much as he does, if not more.
Hierarchical leadership really doesn’t work. History proves it. Numerous tyrannical leaders in the position of power ruined countries and brought misery to people. The same is true with church as you described it so well. Is UBF more prone to hierarchical leadership than other churches? It’s very possible because many of us came from Confucius background. We have hard time being called by first name even by young children. I still call my friend Dr. Bill, not just Bill. Sometimes I grumble to myself because he calls me Wesley and I feel compelled to call him Dr. Bill. This is Mr. Confucius’ yoke that I must carry. Then what should we do? I guess we must keep learning from Jesus, take his warnings, read Ben’s message many times, and even memorize them. (This is also what Confucius’ teaching: Memorize great teachings and know them by heart.)
Now since I admit we from Confucius background are more prone to hierarchical leadership and we have been battered so much for that, I also want to say some benefits UBF people with Confucius background brought to Westerners, that are aligned with Biblical teachings. Predictably, one of them is acceptance of authority, which Koreans people find it easier than Americans do.
One of the most frequent phrases that ubfriends try to define ubf with is “authoritarian leadership.” (I always said why it is understandable.) And somewhat the phrase “hierarchical leadership” Ben used in his message seems to have similar meaning to authoritarian leadership. Now here is the monster we must watch out for–authoritarian leadership. On the other hand I think we must be very careful as we constantly give ourselves and others warning against authoritarian leadership. Here is why. Quite often the line between authority and authoritarianism becomes obscure, especially for those who are in the habit of resisting the Holy Spirit. People get in troubles, often very big troubles, when they confuse authority with authoritarianism. One good example is a group of rebellious Israelites in the wilderness, including Korah and Miriam—Moses’ own sister, who stood up against Moses. They of course accused him of authoritarianism. They said, “You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the Lord’s assembly?”(Num 16:3b) We know the end result of their rebellion. Here we see Korah and his group did not say they opposed Moses’ authority that was given by God, but that Moses had gone too far beyond the authority God allowed him to have. Their downfall was they did not know where to draw the line between authority and authoritarianism.
Compared with the amount of warnings he gave against hierarchical leadership, Ben allowed only very small space, two and half lines, for disciplining people who sin in the church. If people like Korah and Miriam had been among the audience, they would have very easily failed to get proper warning. I am not sure if Ben is planning to give another great message to help such people. Maybe he is. People who are eager to blur the line between authority and authoritarianism may be as dangerous as people who exercise authoritarian leadership, if not more. Just look at the society these days. Where is it going? I don’t think I am wrong to say that the major problem of Westerners these days is to deny any and every authority. They deny authorities one by one, those of parents, teachers, churches, and so on. When Westerners abandon all the authorities including the authority of God, its end result will be more disastrous than for Asians because the latter have had at least Confucius for centuries.
When I give the example of Moses, I dare not compare lowly ubf shepherds with him. I am just giving example of danger of confusing authority with authoritarianism. If anything, I would compare the lowly ubf shepherds who are rarely trained in theology–humble nurses, school teachers…, to a donkey, to be specific Balaam’s donkey. But you’d better watch out and not oppose them when they speak to you with God-given authority. If God gave Balaam’s donkey authority to give his master his words, why not these humble ubf shepherds? And don’t be so eager to oppose a ubf director when he speaks to you just because you suspect he is exercising authoritarian leadership. He may be actually speaking to you through the Holy Spirit. It was a humble house wife who spoke to me through the Holy Spirit, which brought about my conversion. She actually said that I was possessed with unclean spirit using the Bible passage from Mark 1:21-28. But I accepted it, which opened my spiritual eyes to see myself not only as flesh and blood, but as a spiritual being, who was in desperate need of God. What if I opposed her, saying, “You little woman, how dare you?” My destiny would have not been too different from that of Korah, who the ground opened it’s mouth and swallowed.
My warning against confusing authority with authoritarianism does not lessen the importance of watching out for hierarchical leadership. I am just saying that there is the other side of the same coin.
Ben, putting aside your great sermon, which I have a lot to learn from, I must add I was greatly disappointed with your ascribing ubf church’s generosity of helping my wife in her sickness to Korean hospitality, even alluding to Korean Airline hospitality. It just doesn’t make sense. I am sure all those who came to visit us were often busy and had hundreds of other things to do. How do you think they found strength to overcome their busyness and tiredness to come and visit us with food? Do you think that they remembered their mothers’ or grandmothers’ example of practicing Korean hospitality and deny themselves to come and visit us? I wouldn’t be able to do it myself. Maybe for a few days, but not for eight months.
Anyway thank you for your effort to study the Bible and give great messages to God’s sheep in West Loop Church. Several photos of West Loop Church on Facebook are lively and show that the members are doing well.
Still born free.
Wesley wrote:
“If anything, I would compare the lowly ubf shepherds who are rarely trained in theology–humble nurses, school teachers…, to a donkey, to be specific Balaam’s donkey. But you’d better watch out and not oppose them when they speak to you with God-given authority. If God gave Balaam’s donkey authority to give his master his words, why not these humble ubf shepherds?”
Suppose God has convicted me that many things that have been done within this organization, and still are being done, are offensive to God. And suppose I present that message to the organization’s leaders but they repeatedly ignore it. Would you say to them, “You’d better watch out”?
Authoritarianism says “I lied, but I did it by faith, so it’s ok:)”
Holy Spirit says “Repent & Believe God” (not self)
true faith repents of lies & tries to do better
Joe…good point. It only works on the side of UBF…everyone has to repent but the lowly shepherds…I like the words of Abraham Lincoln….this is paraphase….God does not chose sides, I am on God side….He is always right…
Mark…usually what a sheherd rebukes a sheep of is the same thing he does…Romans….yes repent and believe God
Joe, absolutely yes. You may be to UBF what Luther was to Catholic church, so to speak. It is my simple Christian conviction that truth eventually prevails. But if you want them to watch out when you speak, you’d better watch out yourself when you speak. Your burden of being right may be of more serious matter than theirs when you bring charges against them being offensive to God. In this kind of contentions situation the words of Gamaliel may be helpful both to you and them: “Then he addressed the Sanhedrin: “Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men.”(Acts 5:35)
Wesley, I wish I had a dollar for every time that ubf members and leaders have told me, “You have to watch out for how you say these things,” and, “You have to watch out that no bitter root is growing in your heart.” Countless times I have been told, “It’s not WHAT you are saying that’s offensive, it’s HOW you are saying it.” Somehow, the conversation always gets turned around to focus on style and speculation about my motives, and the substance gets avoided.
Once a ubf leader told me (paraphrase), “You are not saying this correctly. You are being too disrespectful” So I asked him to correct me. I begged him to teach me exactly how to say the things I was trying to say. His response? Silence.
Wesley, you wrote, “Your burden of being right may be of more serious matter than theirs when you bring charges against them being offensive to God.”
Here is a sampling of messages that I have heard coming from the pulpit in UBF. Most of these things originated with SL, but they were repeated by many fellowship leaders and chapter directors.
* Americans are lazy and undisciplined.
* Americans are like vending machines.
* Americans are proud and rebellious.
* Americans are hedonistic.
* Americans have fallen man’s mentality. They have “their own idea” and they are full of “human thinking.”
* Prayer topics for “HNW’s” (high-minded North American women)
I was discipled in an environment that was rife with this kind of talk. As an American, I could have been offended. But I swallowed it. I was willing to accept a great deal of prejudice and judgmentalism and very shallow analysis of the American culture by people who didn’t understand it. Yet they presumed themselves to be missionaries and acted as if they had authority over me. And they never showed any willingness to have their beliefs or practices questioned.
So it now strikes me as odd that you say I have a greater burden to check myself when discussing ubf leaders’ behavior. I just don’t understand why you said that.
Wesley, charges against people does not offend God (it offends their religious pride); failing to address evil does offend God
Joe (Luther:), thanks for your courage to nail theses to the church door; some disregard theses, but boldness of Spirit is “contagious” generating wave of holy reform that can’t be stopped
(Luther Thesis 86 of 95: “Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of Saint Peter with the money of poor believers rather than with his own money?”)
@wesley, while Gamaliel’s argument may indeed contain some wisdom, that event can become a weapon and used dangerously.
Consider the conclusion of that story:
Acts 5:40-42 “40 His speech persuaded them. They called the apostles in and had them flogged.x Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. 41 The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicingy because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.z 42 Day after day, in the temple courtsa and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good newsb that Jesus is the Messiah.”
In that event, we see the Sanhedrin vs. the apostles. Gamiliel (a Pharisee) persuaded the Sanhedrin to let the apostles go. The Sanhedrin flogged the apostles and told them to stop talking about Jesus, then let them go. The apostles disobeyed the direction of the Sanhedrin and did talk about Jesus.
Are you implying that the Sanhedrin=exubf and the apostles=ubf? Or the other way around? Are you implying that we former members should leave ubf alone, being persuaded by you and James (Gamiliel) to “let them go”?
Bringing up this example is highly problematic in my mind, and was discussed once before in the old forums. Please clarify what you mean for us.
Brian, when I quoted Gamaliel my focus was only on two words: “consider carefully,” nothing else. Who is who? I don’t even want to think about it. I said “consider carefully” in the context of doing or saying something in the name of God, especially in this case Joe speaking to ubf elders and the latter responding the former.
And by doing that you are binding the situation to Scripture. This is unhealthy. I do this too and I’m trying to avoid doing it. But such methods of communicating are deeply ingrained in me. I quote bible verses and draw the readers in, which binds their situation or the situation being discussed to the bible.
My pastor rebuked me not too long ago: Why do you always put youself in the bible? We cannot take parts of the bible out of context and view ourselves as so invovled in the bible stories.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fFbmg8UL8w
There are huge differences between two cultures, east and west. Jesus is above all cultures. Even though one culture is not necessarily superior to another culture, Korean missionaries have great responsibility to humbly learn western culture for the sake of cross-cultural ministry.
James, this is very true:
“Even though one culture is not necessarily superior to another culture, Korean missionaries have great responsibility to humbly learn western culture for the sake of cross-cultural ministry.”
Americans are not superior to Koreans, nor vice-versa. But who came to whom as a missionary claiming to see? Americans are becoming anti-missionaries in Africa, taking a form of American Christianity and implanting it unfarily in Africa.
Koreans in ubf did the same thing around the world. Anyone who claims to be a Christian missionary has the burden of understanding and adapting to the host culture. There are ways to do this that do not deny who you are as a missionary.
Also, if we are only dealing with cultural issues in ubf, the issues would have been resolved long ago. I can work with all kinds of cultures. But cultural issues are only one small layer. The theolgy holes and the overprescribing of the bible for human problems are two layers of issues that are far more important to address than culture.
John 9:41 comes to mind when I think about ubf chapter directors who claim to see: Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”
I agree Brian; I think SL took a shortcut (Greatness-seeking) that worked to inspire post-war Koreans to go out as missionaries, but backfired by bearing deformed spiritual fruit
There are some cultural differences between Koreans and Americans, but this does not explain away abusive relationships. Whether it is cultural or not, it is still sin. Every time I ever brought up what I felt were unhealthy leadership practices, it was dismissed as simply a cultural difference.
Yet, I was not allowed to be culturally different. Can you imagine the response from most Korean directors when American students reject Korean leadership and tell Korean leadership to deal with it because it is simply a cultural difference?
For me personally, the cultural difference argument is infuriating. It is often used to justify sin, unhealthy relationships, abuse, etc. and to resist changing any of these things.
What really needs to change is the culture of UBF. It has an unhealthy culture of its own that I believe is separate from either Korean or American culture. I think the reason that tension between Korean and American culture is cited as a source of problems is because in UBF culture American culture is denigrated constantly and Korean culture is glorified constantly.
namuehling, you’re completely right. The “cultural differences” excuse is wrong and a red herring. I can’t repeat it often enough: If the problems were cause by cultural differences only, then why have the reform movements of 1976, 1989 and 2001 all been started by Koreans? Likewise, if these problems were caused by cultural differences, why do we see so very similar problems in shepherding/discipling movements based in America?
Sin is sin, and abuse is abuse, no matter whether you’re a Korean or an American. The Korean senior shepherds of 1976 recognized and described the abuse very clearly, not so much different than an American of 2013. And I still haven’t heared one word of UBF to rehabilitate the people of 1976 and excuse for the abuse and evil teachings and inaccountability of Samuel Lee. We shouldn’t allow them to play stupid with us.
Thanks, Wesley, for a lively response to my sermon, which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. You wrote: “Quite often the line between authority and authoritarianism becomes obscure, especially for those who are in the habit of resisting the Holy Spirit. People get in troubles, often very big troubles, when they confuse authority with authoritarianism.”
When I came to the U.S. in 1980 I was surprised at the subtle or blatant rejection or disrespectful toward authority. But authoritarianism (in the name of authority) is not the (biblical, godly, Christ-like) way to get anyone to submit to authority. Rather, it is love, trust and humility.
You also wrote “Hierarchical leadership really doesn’t work. History proves it.” Well, we may not need to go so far, and can just look at UBF history. From 1976 till today, almost 100% of committed Christians who left UBF left primarily because of the authoritarianism of the top leader in any particular UBF chapter or nation.
Good words Ben. Here is a blatant exampel from 2013.
To whose authority would I submit to right now? In a heartbeat I would submit to Ben’s authority. He has earned my respect and trust. Even though his background is steeped in Eastern thought and I am steeped in Western thought, we can work together. Even though Ben is a ubfer and I am an exubfer, I feel as though we could do amazing Christain minstry together. My wife and I are glad to be an honory elder in Westloop.
Would I submit to Wesley or JamesK? No way. While I can respect you, it must be at a distance. You have not earned my trust in any significant way. And almost all other ubf directors remain silent, so I vieew them as dangerous to my soul.
Ben, yes “love, trust and humility” indeed. That’s what we want. Whether “our top leader”(a little uncomfortable expression) was authoritarian or not is really disputable matter. Only eight years after the War, when people were steeped into despair and fatalism and would not budge to get up, someone had to kick their butts. If God had chosen me to do it, I would have loved to do it myself. God would have had to work on me first to muster some courage.
Now time is different. Some UBF clowns so called directors or shepherds have imitated “our top leader” in a wrong time and wrong places. I would join you in kicking their butts also.
“Whether ‘our top leader’ … was authoritarian or not is really disputable matter.”
Wesley, sometimes I really get upset. This is definitely not a disputable matter. Samuel Lee definitely was authoritarian by all possible meanings of the word. If we can’t agree on that, I really don’t know on what we can agree in this world. What he did was authoritarian and wrong and evil, and the Korean senior shepherds understood and recognized it very well in the Korea of 1976, and later in the USA of 2000. No matter in which time and place he did these things, they were authoritarian and wrong. Have you ever read the letter of 1976? Do you really want to say the things described there were not authoritarian and wrong?
Also, I find it really mean of you to call UBF directors and shepherds clowns when they imitated the great leader. The whole ministry of UBF is based on imitation of leaders, it’s all the members in UBF ever learn. And when they faithfully do it, you blame them? Blame the real culprit, the one who set up the bad example and trained all others to follow him. Samuel Lee was the one who brought autoritarianism in the church, and now you turn everything upside down and say Samuel Lee was not authoritarian, and blame those who followed him? I don’t get it! It really makes me crazy to discuss on this level.
Americans got carried away (hippies free love,etc) partly in overreaction to autocratic government (Vietnam War,Watergate scandal,etc)
bad to be a rebel without a cause, but good to be a reformer with a cause:)
@wesley, Korah’s rebellion has many interesting twists, and that story too is highly problematic in the ubf context. Why? Because SLee used that story specifically against the reformers in the past, quoting that against them.
I find verse 15 to be key to applying that passage correctly: “15 Then Moses became very angry and said to the Lord, “Do not accept their offering. I have not taken so much as a donkey from them, nor have I wronged any of them.”
If ubf chapter directors can honesty say before God they have not “wronged any of them”, then we can accept that they are like Moses perhaps.
But if a ubf chapter director has wronged someone, then they have no right whatsoever to consider themselves as Moses and the former members as Korah who rebelled.
So in Korah’s rebellion, the issue was NOT authority vs authoritarinism. The issue was justice. Who was doing what was right before the Lord? Justice is not a cultural thing, though our cultural sense of justice does hinder our sense of God’s justice.
As Mark mentioned here, the issue was not whose side was God on, but who was on God’s side. Who belongs to the Lord? That is the question. Moses also said “You have gone too far!” They both thought the other had gone too far. The Lord decided. And it is the case for ubf too. The Lord will decide.
4 When Moses heard this, he fell facedown. 5 Then he said to Korah and all his followers: “In the morning the Lord will show who belongs to him and who is holy, and he will have that person come near him.p The man he chooses he will cause to come near him. 6 You, Korah, and all your followers are to do this: Take censerss 7 and tomorrow put burning coals and incense in them before the Lord. The man the Lord chooses will be the one who is holy. You Levites have gone too far!”
Brian, I agree: Bible interpretation/application is the issue. We need Holy Spirit help to avoid misapplying (like Joe tells us: stats can be used or misused).
Like Chris said, you can’t blame the imitators/responsibility lies with leader. Reform movements starting in ’76 were not trying to usurp SL’s power, they were questioning ungodly leadership acts. They were willing to follow him if he changed tyrannical ways. However, they could not in conscience continue to be silent/comply, becoming unintended accomplices
@Wesley, I use the phrase “top leader” as the head of any UBF chapter, and not just to SL, because the “top leader” may communicate that their authority should not be questioned, and must be followed and obeyed, or face some consequence.
This does not reveal Christ’s humility nor does it empower anyone. It primarily communicates this: “Everything in my UBF chapter must go through me.” Such a mindset will destroy UBF. Perhaps correctives are happening.
So what I am looking for in others, especially church leaders, is this:
1) Evidence of godly sorrow — “See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter.” 2 Corinthians 7:11
2) Marks of the gospel Jesus proclaimed — grace; peace; life (salvation); kingdom; glory of Jesus; forgiveness; fulfillment; freedom; rest; love; joy; justice.
Look for these and your eyes begin opening, both to see other people clearly and your self more accurately.
So if a leader or someone claiming to be a missionary shows me those traits, I will gladly submit to your authority and say “Yes sir!”.
But in the absence of these traits, I will be a rebel soul til the day I die, and a thorn in the side of those who claim to see and claim to have authority.
Ben, amen to “correctives are happening.”
Brian, your words like these:, “So if a leader or someone claiming to be a missionary shows me those traits, I will gladly submit to your authority and say ‘Yes sir!’.But in the absence of these traits, I will be a rebel soul til the day I die, and a thorn in the side of those who claim to see and claim to have authority” make me feel I should meet you sometime. I have never met you before. I hope to see “these traits” in you and gladly submit to your authority and say “Yes sir!” and vice versa. Isn’t it God’s sovereign plan to make one out of very different two?
“I have never met you before. I hope to see “these traits” in you and gladly submit to your authority”
Wesley, the difference is that people like Brian or me don’t claim to have authority over you or anybody else (except maybe some authority over our own kids). We don’t want you to submit under our authority. We just want you to do the right thing, because it is right, not because somebody with authority told it to you.
“Wesley, the difference is that people like Brian or me don’t claim to have authority over you or anybody else (except maybe some authority over our own kids). We don’t want you to submit under our authority.”
Exactly, Chris. Wesley, I’ll have a beer with you someday. You can have ginger beer if you want. But there won’t be any submitting to authority between us. And I know that we have met, or at least we’ve seen each other quite a few times at staff conferences or other conferences.
I did not go to the Lehigh dedication, but I can see you standing next to Dr. Bill in this photo at the bottom of the page:
new center dedication
“Ben allowed only very small space, two and half lines, for disciplining people who sin in the church. If people like Korah and Miriam had been among the audience, they would have very easily failed to get proper warning.”
Wesley you did not mention that Ben refers to Matthew 18:15-17. The message was about shepherding sheep and not about discipline, but it did address discipline in a biblical way.
Discipline should come from the Bible and not from preference. I remember having this conversation with a brother in the ministry many years ago. Biblical or preferential?? It should be possible to locate the grounds for discipline in the Bible. Old and New testament discipline was a consequence of rebelling against God. It was not a consequence of (un)consciously doing something that your shepherd did not approve of.
Although I appreciate Wesley’s sincerity, this counterbalance of arguments is side stepping the gross abuses that Ben, Joe, Brian and Chris have emphasized on many articles and discussions instead of addressing them. Not once has a discussion on ‘X’ abuse been formally handled in ministry. If it had Ben and Joe, as present members, would be the first to publish it here. As a result, everyone’s emotions are getting worse and the tension grows. Even I lost my nerve.
The list of gross abuses needs to be officially tabled. ‘X’ abuse and activity in the name of “discipline” must be declared unacceptable. Apologies are necessary, but actions to end the abuse are fundamental. I have understood that certain servants oversee mediation between chapter directors and church members in the event of problems. I even remember hearing about keeping confidentiality as well. If this is true, how successful has it been?
If an abusive director is off the radar because the chapter has no growing leaders or co-workers to communicate trouble than little can be done. If members are too afraid to speak up, the same. Knowledge of ongoing abuse that never gets the right attention is unacceptable. How far must a situation go before an abusive director gets disciplined? I will add, some have commented that directors don’t share testimony – that is their spiritual struggle. What proof is there that a director in need of counsel is receiving it? (None of us are righteous, nor are we superhuman.)
+1
Chris, if SL were authoritarian, let him be. I don’t know about you. But for me what mattered more than anything was that the gospel came to me through him (actually through his disciple). A holy saint would not mean a thing to me if he did preach the gospel to me. I would rather prefer an authoritarian who preached the gospel to me to a holy saint, who did not preach the gospel to me.
“Chris, if SL were authoritarian, let him be. … I would rather prefer an authoritarian who preached the gospel to me to a holy saint, who did not preach the gospel to me.”
Yepp, that is the “end justifies the means” theology of UBF I know so well. What you’re saying is: If you somehow can convince a person that the gospel came to the person “through you”, you can do any evil thing, it will always be ok. It is a wrong and disastrous argumentation.
By the way, I do not believe that Samuel Lee preached the gospel. At the most he preached a severly crippled and distorted and tainted gospel, a gospel that is so wrong that I think it would be better to have no gospel at all than these kind of teachings.
Wesley, are you saying that the message you preach is more important than the behavior you model? I think Jesus would disagree.
Wesley,
What is the difference between proper authority in a church and abusive authoritarianism? How can we tell the difference?
Take a look at this 2010 picture.
Do you see the pain? I saw it, but almost no one believed me. The picture in the link was built with authoritarianism. But how would anyone detect that? How would you describe this picture if you knew nothing about the facts of what happened in 2011 and 2012, and the years prior to 2010?
“Just look at the society these days. Where is it going? I don’t think I am wrong to say that the major problem of Westerners these days is to deny any and every authority. They deny authorities one by one, those of parents, teachers, churches, and so on. When Westerners abandon all the authorities including the authority of God, its end result will be more disastrous than for Asians because the latter have had at least Confucius for centuries.”
Wesley, thanks for this article and your attempt to balance this discussion. But I have to take issue with the above statement. To me it is an oversimplification of the tension between individual liberty and governing authorities that has been essential to our nation from the beginning. I don’t think we are in a spiral downward at all. I think we are still working out this tension in remarkable and very positive ways. Yes, there is trouble when people are given freedom. That’s a price I am willing to pay in order to define and maintain basic human liberty as best we can. I read a very good book recently about Roger Williams and his struggle against the tyranny of the puritans in New England.(Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul) Yes, I mean tyranny. Most Americans are very aware of the overreaching acts of these early Christian “city on a hill” folk. They don’t consider those times the good old days. I’m glad for this. And many Americans are also aware of the overreaching authority of the moral majority as described in Tim Kellers book Prodigal God. I’m glad that Americans still struggle with this tension openly in remarkable and costly ways.
Hi all, thanks for your comments. I’d like to slow down the conversation a bit so we can ponder an important point Wesley is making: the “danger of confusing authority with authoritarianism.”
@Wesley: what do you mean by “confusing”? Do you mean when a person eschews all authority and does not respect any authority because he views all authority as being authoritarian (let’s call such a person “a rebel”)? It is certainly not good to rebel against legitimate authorities. In Scripture, the legitimate human authorities are parents, husbands, and civil authorities, and the ultimate spiritual authority is God and God’s word as supreme. Those who rebel against these legitimate authorities are disobedient and consequently they suffer and society suffers.
Or do you mean when a pastor confuses the authority of Scripture, which is God’s and is not possessed by anyone other than God, as a positional authority that he can possess? I am not aware of anything resembling “pastoral authority” in Scripture–can you show me where I’m wrong? So authoritarianism is not just the misuse, but more fundamentally, the misappropriation of God’s authority, which is God’s alone, to a person.
The rebel who rejects authority is wrong because he is rejecting the legitimate authorities established by God. But the pastor who misappropriates God’s authority is also wrong because he is attributing something to himself that belongs only to God. It doesn’t particularly matter whether he abuses this authority or not; personally assuming authority IS authoritarian.
You mention Moses; he really doesn’t belong in this conversation. Moses spoke exactly in the place of God. Rebelling against Moses was exactly rebellion against God. But now, all authority has been given to Jesus (Matt 28:18). There is no person like Moses who stands in God’s place and bears God’s authority. Jesus bears all authority, it is a spiritual authority, and it is exercised by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of God’s people to accomplish God’s decree in each person.
Pastors are the ones who must be warned against getting confused: they have no authority, but they possess God’s word which has absolute authority. Their labour is to proclaim God’s word so that sinners can understand it and abdicate themselves to God’s authority.
I’d like to hear everyone’s thoughts; am I off-base from Scripture?
Uh-oh, maybe listing “husbands” as legitimate human authority will land me in the dog house! Better bring some flowers home :)
+1
joshua:
“danger of confusing authority with authoritarianism.”
Yes I agree there are some valid point in Wesley’s statement that should be unpacked and discussed.
“It is certainly not good to rebel against legitimate authorities. In Scripture, the legitimate human authorities are parents, husbands, and civil authorities, and the ultimate spiritual authority is God and God’s word as supreme. Those who rebel against these legitimate authorities are disobedient and consequently they suffer and society suffers.”
Yes I agree with these things. I am not an anarchist, but to ubfers I might appear that way. I would expand your valid point futher by saying: there is a time to rebel against legitimate authority. William Wilburforce comes immediately to mind. If the legitimate authorities condone slavery, for example, something should be done to end slavery.
“Jesus bears all authority, it is a spiritual authority, and it is exercised by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of God’s people to accomplish God’s decree in each person.”
Yes!
“William Wilburforce comes immediately to mind. If the legitimate authorities condone slavery, for example, something should be done to end slavery.”
Yesterday I watched the movie “Amazing Grace” about Wilberforce with my family. There was a scene where the parliament finally seemed to agree that slave trade was evil, but then they still only voted for a “gradual abolition”. I looked at my wife and she looked at me and said “that’s so much like UBF”. I had exactly the same thought when I saw that scene.
Wesley, you’d better look for Jesus in the OT (Jn.5:39). Jesus is the one and only who has authority in the life of a believer. And there is no need even for a born again sheep to have a shepherd authority over him because he/she has Jesus the Shepherd and the Overseer of his/her soul. Don’t you know that Jesus made every believer a king and a priest? Any authority you mentioned as necessary is just an abuse.
Have you heard that when people preach the gospel they say, “You should accept Jesus as your Savior and LORD”? Jesus is the Lord. And if in a church there appear some other lords they are just deceitful abusers.
And can you find a difference between you and eg Ben and Joe as chapter directors? Haven’t you gone too far in your following Confucius that it is difficult to understand Jesus’ teaching about new life and Christian freedom?
It troubles me when Christians draw their understanding of authority primarily from the Old Testament. The OT laws and structures were just a shadow; the reality is found in Christ (Col 2:17).
Amen
Brian, Chris, I did not talk about me submitting to your authority but submitting to each other. It is my expression of mutual respect. By the way when my wife and I visited Ben and Christy, we brought Merlot. They had already salmon ready. It was perfect combination. It was the first time I really enjoyed wine. I am willing to try ginger beer with you. I have never tried or even seen it before.
It is difficult to enjoy wine without understanding even a little bit about the different varieties and how to properly taste it. In that respect, I guess it’s a bit like Christianity :)
Wesley, ginger beer has no alcohol. That is why I mix mine with Kraken…
Try Shiner Ruby Redbird. It’s a light summer beer brewed with grapefruit juice and ginger.
http://texasbeer.blogspot.com/2011/03/shiner-ruby-redbird.html
Wesley,
Sometimes I have some crooked thoughts and wish just a little bit of hierarchical leadership existed in Lehigh UBF. I am supposed to be the director. But I am actually close to being a janitor. If anything happens in the church, everybody assumes that Wesley will take care of the problem. The church back door breaks down quite frequently. Everybody assumes that Wesley will fix it
Last weekend our family visited Waterloo UBF, I saw great leadership amongst students and leaders. There was great respect, love and community. One student got up at the end of the service and announced a “Spring Cleaning” of the center. He did not display any hierarchical leadership nor any authoritarian style of leadership. What I saw was a leader who encouraged and motivated others to clean Gods house. He did not demand anything but asked for volunteers. He showed love and respect for everyone. He himself was going to be part of this project. That’s the difference.
You said: Predictably, one of them is acceptance of authority, which Koreans people find it easier than Americans do.
I would have to disagree on this. As an American, I and many others respect authority. We follow the laws, we obey our parents, our teachers, our pastors and we listen attentively and we process and learn from our mistakes. Many of us are professionals who love God and obey His authority in our lives and live accordingly.
Every nation(including Korea and US) has people who break the law or rebel against authority. Please do not confuse this with people calling out the abuses and injustices being done by people in authority. In this case Spiritual Authority.
Here is what I believe is different: In Toledo when our former Pastor was the director of Toledo UBF there were many meetings. One of the meetings was a Messenger meeting where most men leaders( both Korean and a few Americans) attended. When the Pastor would leave the country for buisness, many of the Korean missionaries would not attend the meetings but the few americans would still show up. Out of curiosity my husband asked one missionary why missionaries don’t attend when the pastor is not here, he said ” I guess missionaries are expected to attend when he is here” . Those americans who came to the meeting came out of their own convictions not out of obligation or fear of the person in leadership.
So would you want someone to be at your meeting or church out of obligation or fear? or would you want someone who wants to be there out of their own conviction before God?
I must add that the longer we were in ubf, many of us conformed and lost our own convictions. I also attended meetings out of obligation or expectations coming from our leaders . Which I now realize the unhealthiness of it all.
I say this as my reality and what I experienced, not trying to bash anyone.
Martha:
“Last weekend our family visited Waterloo UBF”
Awesome. I want to publicly point out that Penn State, Waterloo and Westloop are excluded everytime I speak against “ubf chapter directors”. That is my list of the 3 redeemed ubf chapters. I hope that list grows.
“One of the meetings was a Messenger meeting where most men leaders( both Korean and a few Americans) attended.”
Yes I attended that meeting out of a sense of duty. Duty to obey is why I did everything in ubf. The worst part of that meeting was the personal training a select few received after the meeting was over. If you were the “chosen one” you would have to stay up at the center all night or until 2:00 am or so “working” on the message which meant typing or sitting in silence while the director slept (by the way I will not call any director in ubf a “pastor”).
And I’m glad you brought this up. Koreans have a sense of obeying authority only if there is first loyalty. If there is no loyalty, there is no need to obey in the Korean mindset. So that partially explains why the Koreans didn’t usually show up if the Korean they were loyal to was not present.
But in my American mind, I believed that I should show up no matter who is leading or who was present. So American sense of obeying authority is actually more healthy and closer to Christ’s ideas– to obey for the sake of justice and not to be partial to favoritism.
This is something a Korean missionary to America MUST recognized: America, for all her flaws, is rooted in Christianity. Korea is not.
Joe, about your comment, “Wesley, are you saying that the message you preach is more important than the behavior you model? I think Jesus would disagree,” I am not talking about the message DL’s disciple preached to me but the fruit she(indirectly DL) bore in me, which I think is weightier evidence of God’s work than her(or DL’s) behavior that others try to judge.
About “It troubles me when Christians draw their understanding of authority primarily from the Old Testament. The OT laws and structures were just a shadow; the reality is found in Christ (Col 2:17)” I absolutely agree with you. I think it is very important. I am so glad that you made this comment. Jesus said when he was lifted up he would draw all men to himself. The source of his authority rests in his crucifixion. Only when our lives reflect the cross of Jesus do we have any spiritual authority.
Sorry if I sound stupid, but who is DL?
DL = Dr. Lee. SL = Samuel Lee.
Some people call me DB (Dr. Ben) or BT (Ben Toh) or DBT. :-)
For the record, Ben, when and where did SL get his doctorate? Did he do any coursework for it? Does the institution have any credible credentials?
I don’t remember where or when (?90s), but I believe it was for his commentary on Romans.
Ben, I remember that, sometime in the late 80’s or perhaps early 90’s, he received an earned doctorate (as opposed to an honorary one?) in hermeneutics from an institution that no one had ever heard of. The story that circulated was that, when the faculty read his Romans material, they were stunned at its quality and immediately granted him a doctorate and asked him to come and teach at their college (which he declined to do). Perhaps I heard that story from you!
I wonder if there is any independent verification of that. As you know, many of the stories in circulation about SL were originally told by him and then accepted by everyone as true.
I personally don’t give a hoot whether he had a real earned doctorate or not. If it was a mail-order deal (pay a few bucks, get a diploma) I don’t mind. But for our own sake, we do need to be as truthful and objective as possible about him and his achievements and the achievements of UBF. For so many years, I was told over and over that his lectures and Bible study materials were the best, that they were so awesome, and so on. It was a huge source of pride for us. But strangely, no one else in the world outside of UBF seemed to think so. There were no hordes of people out there clamoring to learn from us. And when I honestly thought that SL’s lectures weren’t so good, I quickly learned to keep those opinions to myself and say that they were wonderful as everyone else did. Gradually it dawned on me that this was a real-life manifestation of The Emperor’s New Clothes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes
Oops, I forgot that Koreans care so much about titles. Our federal changellors in Germany Merkel and Kohl had Dr. titles too, but the never were called “Dr. Merkel” or “Dr. Kohl”.
As far as I know, SL had even 2 Dr. titles, one “Litt. D” a “honorary” tile granted by his former college in Korea after he gave them a donation (from our offering moneys) and the second from “Bethany Bible college” in the US which is run by a Korean. The book book “Name It and Frame It” wrote about them: “… they show many signs of being a degree mill. Sources of faculty credentials are not listed, the chancellor and president appear to be father and son, and their degree requirements are far short of those at accredited institutions.” The dr. title that Samuel Lee and all UBF is so proud of is worth nothing except for blinding people for the obvious fact that Samuel Lee was illiteral in theology. By the way, his lectures also showed clearly that he was illiteral in history and that he had no rational and scientific mindset. Therefore I refuse to call him “Dr.”.
And yes, I was told the same story that people in some university were so amazed by his Roman bible study and his “invention” of the “inductive Bible study method” that they spontaneuously gave him a Ph.D. Reminds me of the stories told about Kim Jong Il like that he was the world’s best golfer.
To me, his emphasis of his “Ph.D. Litt.D.” only tells me that he was an impostor. He claimed to have both authority (from God) and recognition (from the scientific community) which in reality he both did not have.
Chris, thank you for providing these details. I also have qualms about giving SL the title “Dr.” because, although he did have a somewhat inquisitive mind, he was not a scholar in any serious way. Serious scholarship requires peer review and careful response to criticism of one’s work.
This morning I read an article by Roger Olson that describes the phenomenon pretty well. Olson wrote:
“Many years ago I was visiting some friends of my family. The husband’s grandfather was a spiritual mentor of many members of my own family. When he found out about my interest in theology as a scholarly pursuit and discipline he scoffed and pointed me to some books (booklets, really) written by his grandfather—a patriarch of our faith community. I had heard his grandfather’s name all my life—from my parents and relatives. So I sat down and began reading the books. The first one I opened argued that all the divisions of Christianity came about as a result of the Constantinian takeover of Christianity. Before Constantine, the author argued, Christians were united around the gospel and there were no major or serious divisions. They were all in one accord and of one mind and faith. Well, after reading just a few pages I knew the man had no knowledge of the history of Christianity and was not qualified to do theology. I silently put the books back on my new friend’s shelf and said nothing to him about it. I knew he would not be able to handle the truth about his grandfather.”
The full article is here:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/05/what-is-theology-and-who-does-it-part-3-final/
Dr. Joe (I know yours was earned, from Harvard no less), I think you should get comedy comment of the month award for “The Doctorate”:
..from an institution that no one had ever heard of…they were stunned at its quality and immediately granted him a doctorate…I personally don’t give a hoot…If it was a mail-order deal (pay a few bucks, get a diploma)..
suddenly even I have hope to obtain an honorary PhD:)))))
Proverbs 17:22
A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
I feel happily healed: that’s what we need, a “Good Humor” healing ministry
Thanks, Mike. I’m glad you could see humor in my comment.
After I got my degree, ubf members invariably began to call me “Dr.” I know that they meant it as a sign of respect. But to constantly include that title in my name was and is strange, because I never have and never want to define myself by my degree status.
My mother never attended college. She married shortly after high school and raised 13 children. One of the valuable life lessons that she taught me was to show respect to all people and judge them by their character regardless of their education or social status. Indeed, that is one of the characteristics of the kingdom of God — that all people are valued because God values them. That lesson has always stayed with me. I have a 20 year-old son with mental disabilities who will never even earn a high school diploma. It is challenging to build a relationship with him. It is not easy to value his contributions to my family and society and church. But value him I must, because God values him.
This is part of the reason why I think ubf needs to dispense with honorific titles ASAP. It is not a matter of eastern versus western values. It is a matter of gospel values. The church needs to go the extra mile to value everyone not for what they have accomplished but because of what Jesus has accomplished. The constant use of titles reinforces hierarchical thinking and role-playing that makes it nearly impossible to reveal who we are and to relate as friends and human beings.
In the summer of 2010, I delivered a conference message about the church based on Acts chapter 2. Here is part of what I said.
Are we willing to become part of a community where our standing and honor in that community is not determined by how old we are or how we look and dress, or where we went to school, or by our own human standards or rules or anything that we have accomplished, but only by what Jesus Christ has done for us? Are we willing to welcome anyone into our community and give them standing not based on what they have done but on what Jesus Christ has done for them? If the answer is yes, then I say to you: Welcome to the family. Welcome to the real church. Welcome to the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
That message was not received very well.
Thanks for that comment, Joe.
James 2 comes to mind: Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
I think you can as well replace “wearing a gold ring” with “wearing a PhD title” in this passage.
By the way, James 2 also says But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.
+1 @Brian: “America, for all her flaws, is rooted in Christianity. Korea is not.” Americans default to justice, righteousness, honesty, authenticity. Koreans default to loyalty, faithfulness, conformity, (outward) obedience.
When West Loop UBF began on Jan 4, 2008, I shared this with our fellow Christians:
1) The first rule of WL is that there are no rules.
2) Whoever comes to WL comes because they want to, and NOT because they have to.
3) Have fun serving God.
4) Do whatever you want!
5) When you want to do something at/for WL, you do not need to ask me for permission, approval or blessing. Just DO IT.
As far as I can tell, after 5+ years, we have not fallen off the cliff. This surely is nothing but the sheer grace of God.
+1 Ben.
I highly recommend reading about Roger Williams.
“With absolute faith in the Bible, with absolute faith in his own (puritan) interpretation of it, he nonetheless believed it “monstrous” to compel another person to believe what he or anyone else believed, or to compel conformity to his or anyone else’s beliefs. His enemies called him a firebrand. They feared the conflagration free thought might ignite. They lacked faith in the ‘Sword of God’s Word.” They feared being challenged, and having their world, under challenge, disintegrate. They feared chaos of freedom, and they feared the loneliness of it.
Williams embraced all that. Freedom, he believed, was worth it, worth his life and worth far more than his life…..he said, “Having bought Truth deare we must not sell it cheape, nor the least graine of it for the whole World, no not for the saving of Soules, though our owne most precious.” For he knew that to believe in freedom and liberty required faith in the freedom of thought, of conscience.”
Sorry if I sound like I’m slamming….just some food for thought. I do see parallels in the struggles that Williams had with the Massachusetts Puritans who abused authority. I think we all need to ask ourselves why we are afraid of freedom. I think it’s at the root of the confusion you speak of Wesley as much as anything else might be.
…and regarding “rebellion” against authority in modern times I think we have to look deeply at the causes. When the younger brother rebels against the Father, isn’t it at least in part because he isn’t drawn to the “slave mentality” of the older brother? I would say the moralistic or abusive older brother who might be in the form of parent, teacher, pastor bears a lot of responsibility.
Wesley, you wrote: “I am not talking about the message DL’s disciple preached to me but the fruit she(indirectly DL) bore in me, which I think is weightier evidence of God’s work than her(or DL’s) behavior that others try to judge.”
When the Spanish Conquistadors came to the western hemisphere, they “converted” native people to Christianity by force and violence. Some enduring Christian communities were established, and some natives came to genuine faith in Christ. But I would ascribe the fruit to the Spirit of God, not to those guys.
That is an extreme example. I’m not saying that SL = Conquistador. But my point is that God often works despite the actions of people, not because of them. God will often make good happen in the midst of bad actions. But bad actions should still be identified as bad. Otherwise you can justify nearly anything. And that is what we have done in ubf, again and again.
Joe, many talk about DL. If anyone thinks he knows him, I probably know him more. I had lunch with him almost every single day more than ten years. I sat with him every Sunday second worship service for the same period of time. When people judge him through secondary sources of information, I get so frustrated. I feel that my best friend is being slandered and humiliated.
Wesley, I am not judging merely based on secondary information. I heard and saw many things that he did firsthand. I experienced him too. On many occasions I saw him overstep the bounds of what a pastor ought to do. While he helped many people, he also hurt many people. I’m sorry if these discussions make you uncomfortable. But these discussions have to happen. And they will.
wesley, glad you enjoyed lunches funded by donors:)
—-
“…secondary sources of information…”
—-
Those are also called *witnesses*, and there are more than a few who have testified.
Sibboleth, witness hadn’t occurred to me, but you’re right. How easy it is for eyewitnesses/primary sources to be misunderstood as secondary sources.
Jesus’ Resurrection was testified by appearance witnesses, but Jews who didn’t feel like believing made up some cockamamie story that his body was stolen
Perhaps like Wesley, I am probably the most sympathetic and have the most favorable attitude toward DL compared to others on this blog, probably because I would see/meet him several times a week for over 20 years, sometimes even 7 days a week. He also attended my fellowship meeting at UIC every week almost without fail for 20 years. He was really quite a funny, perceptive, likeable, spirited, joyful man who connected with you in ways that few people could.
This is NOT in any way to defend, support, justify or rationalize any of his authoritarian abuses, boundary breaking, or lack of accountability, but to simply support perhaps what Wesley is trying to express.
To perhaps countless UBF loyalists, SL is like their own loving dad, whom they love and respect dearly, sometimes even more than their own dad, who might be aloof, disconnected, or simply AWOL. Few sons and daughters would “go after” their dad for his faults, especially after his death, but would rather think of him and remember him in the most favorable light, even if it is likely to be biased, unbalanced, and lacking in objectivity.
This is perhaps a most sensitive, delicate, difficult and uncomfortable area of navigation as we proceed.
Ben, I believe the vivid memory SL is the reason why UBF has been so slow to address the problems that have kept it from being healthy and fruitful.
I did not start out talking about SL. As you may recall, several years ago I began to urge ubf leaders to discuss why so many longtime ubf members were unhappy and ready to leave the ministry. Many of them did leave. The problems were never addressed, never even discussed. No one ever wanted to do any serious evaluation of ubf’s culture and methods. Gradually it dawned on me why they were so reluctant to discuss things that were so vital to the future of the ministry. It was because, even without mentioning SL’s name, anything unflattering that was ever said about ubf was instinctively taken as a criticism of him, and criticism of him was strictly forbidden. SL was the 500 pound gorilla in the room. Everyone felt his presence but no one would acknowledge it. The fear of talking honestly about the things he did was (and is) keeping ubf frozen in time.
And the refusal to talk honestly about SL has made it impossible to create a culture of ethics and accountability. When chapter directors treat their members in an abusive manner, it has proven very difficult to impose discipline on them in any real way, because many of the things that those chapter directors do are things that they learned by example from SL. How can we discipline people for wrongdoing while we continue to heap praise on the legacy of SL who did the same things?
I have no personal vendetta against SL. But like it or not, an honest evaluation of his legacy and practices are the linchpin to meaningful change and growth. The longer we refuse to talk about him in an honest fashion, the longer this organization will stagnate and decline.
And I realized the memory of SL makes it very difficult for ubf leaders to learn from other sources.
Ben, I remember someone telling you, “Why do you hurt us so much by talking about the things you learned from Rick Warren? Why don’t you talk about the things you learned from Samuel Lee?”
In a strange way, learning directly from non-ubf sources was considered to be showing disrespect to SL.
For many years, I could not learn from Christian books. On the rare occasions that I read them, I could not hear what the author was trying to say. Rather, I mostly scoured them for evidence to prove that ubf was in the right. My defensiveness about SL made it very difficult for me to grow in my faith. But when I dropped that defensive posture, everything changed. It was as though a whole universe of possibility suddenly opened up.
Joe, this needs to be highlighted: “On the rare occasions that I read them, I could not hear what the author was trying to say. Rather, I mostly scoured them for evidence to prove that ubf was in the right.”
That was exactly my experience. My conscience bothered me the whole 24 years in ubf. Instead of learning, I suppressed and denied reality, fabricating my own personal KOPHN narrative, leaving my “self” behind.
So in the old Voy forum discussions, my heart would race and my mind would nervously scour the forum for some shred of support and justification of my ubf ideology. I had seen the living Word of God and heard Him speaking through the bible, but I desperately searched high and low to find justification for my ubf lifestyle. That sparked my fearful and fervent “Tom Cruise” days of online defending of ubf.
In the end, I found that my defenses were a farce. I could no longer keep integrity between my fantasy image of my life and the reality all around me. The explosive forum discussions caused me to reconsider my ideology and drove me to godly sorrow.
Now I can calmly and peacefully express myself and share my honest reactions without fear.
Yes, Brian.
When I read “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality” by Peter Scazzero (which James Kim just reviewed) I was struck by the author’s description of the false religious self, the religious mask, that people wear to hide their true selves. I realized that my faith had become very superficial because I was not coming to God as the sinner that I was. Rather, I was trying to play the fantasy role that ubf gave me. Not only had my relationship with God had become superficial, but my relationships with essentially everyone else were superficial. I was wearing a very thick mask. Defensiveness about UBF was a huge part of that mask. It was only when I dropped my defensiveness and became more honest about what I had actually seen and experienced in ubf that my mask finally came off and I could begin to relate to God and others as the person I really am. I could experience the love of God as I never had before. And I could experience fellowship and friendship with people as I never had before.
1 John teaches that there is no fellowship without light. There are still many leaders who want to bury all these things about ubf and SL. Their refusal to come out into the light of open, honest admission about what really happened is stunting our fellowship in profound ways.
“It was only when I dropped my defensiveness and became more honest about what I had actually seen and experienced in ubf that my mask finally came off and I could begin to relate to God and others as the person I really am.”
Ditto. And I must say that was the single hardest thing I’ve ever done. It was so painful. I melted as I took of my mask and saw my self as I was, as in a mirror. It was truly like death, like a kernel of wheat falling to the ground, like dying to my self.
Thank God for people like Chris and the others who left who challenged my mask!!
btw, Chris: Your wife makes a good point about leaving the ubfriends discussions, but I am SO thankful for your input. You have been a faithful minister of Christ and His gospel to me and to many here. I hope you have the strength even after 10+ years of this stuff to speak!
feels like we took “The Love Boat” to “Fantasy Island” to be the “Survivor”
@Joe. UBF has become quite insular over 50 years that it is an anathema to seriously learn from non-UBF sources. Some have regarded any critique of UBF as a great sin against what God has established in UBF.
@Sharon. Sorry that I “cheat” by reading a review of “Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul”: http://www.christiancentury.org/reviews/2012-10/original-separationist
In Massachusetts Williams “opposed government-mandated church attendance and loyalty oaths because he believed that these practices improperly mixed church and state. Williams’s views were not helping him to make friends with his fellow Massachusetts ministers. By 1635, Winthrop, with support from the clergy, had successfully banned him from the colony. There were some in the Massachusetts leadership who wanted to execute him.”
“Anyone who reads Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul will need to come to grips with the fact that it is Williams, not Winthrop, who best represents the historical roots of the religious liberties that citizens of the United States enjoy today.”
It seems that throughout church history, what church leaders were most afraid of is FREEDOM, which is the most wonderful doctrine in the Bible. Yes, freedom can be abused. But trying to control people from abusing their freedom removes the unique distinctiveness of Christianity.
I believe that if UBF leaders begin to truly give freedom to all her members, UBF will become a far more loving, healthy, gracious church with freedom in Christ and freedom in the Spirit as the foundation of our church, rather than trying to enforce “UBF core values” on the next generation of UBFers.
Yes, it is freedom in Christ that distinguishes Christianity. Years ago, I witnessed the conversion of a Muslim woman from Iran. As a child, she wanted to love and worship God. On her first day at school she decided to wear perfume because she knew she was going to learn how to talk with God and wanted to present herself to him well. She was severely chastised. In Christ,she found one who loved her and accepted her worship. But shortly after her conversion, she had to leave our church. She said that the same spirit of oppression that she experienced in Islam began to plague her as she tried to live in fellowship with us. We need to hear her story!
I am similar to Ben and Wesley in that I knew SL for many years and have a generally favorable perspective towards him. Perhaps those of us who were considered loyal to him saw his best side.
However, for all of the good that I experienced, there were also elements that were uncomfortable at best. We need to prayerfully and humbly deal those issues, acknowledging and apologizing for any sins committed while binding the wounds of those adversely affected.
The most important matter is that our faith must rest in Christ alone based on the Bible. And our deepest gratitude is to God for his amazing grace to us in Jesus Christ. No loyalty to any human being even approaches that since all of us are sinners and in desperate need of his mercy.
I’m glad James and Wesley are commenting and posting here even though many who come to this site may not agree with them 100%. It makes for interesting and useful dialogue. It would be wonderful to hear from more of our Korean missionaries to continue to advance the discussion.
+1
+1
“I knew SL for many years and have a generally favorable perspective towards him.”
I only met SL 4 times, for a total of about 2 hours combined. One time I prayed with him in private for about 30 minutes, before I went to Russia. Another time he stopped by breakfast with SB and me and a few friends.
In those 4 hours, SL gave me numerous imperatives for my life. One was: “Marry a woman 1 inch taller than you so you will be a man of vision” (that came true and I have a vision :) So I too have a favorable opinion of SL as a person.
But in regard to his teaching that enslaved me I have utter disgust. When I was baptised by full immmersion in 2012 at our new Baptist church, the pastor told me just before I went under “You are free from the teachings of one man.” It was most liberating. So now I can remember the good memory of SL and also say that I don’t give a rat’s patookie (do rats have patookies?) about SL or his teaching in regard to how I live my life. I am no longer bound to such teaching.
“I’m glad James and Wesley are commenting and posting here even though many who come to this site may not agree with them 100%. It makes for interesting and useful dialogue. It would be wonderful to hear from more of our Korean missionaries to continue to advance the discussion.”
Ditto. Why in the world did I ever think Christ-following was about gathering around those who appeared to agree with me 100%? Out of 7 billion people only I agree with me, and that not 100% of the time :)
My wife told me about her only encounter with SL. It was at a conference when the obligatory picture was taken and she happened to stand next to him, and then he very rudely pushed her away because he wanted to have another girl stand next to him.
I never met SL personally, but saw him several times at conferences. I rmember his bad pronounciation in his “announcements” and stupid remarks like that the Germans lost the war because they thought too much instead of shooting (with which he wanted to imply that we should simply obey UBF and be busy without thinking). I also remember how I though that it sounded like he was mocking God when he was singing the Lord’s Prayer. (Even though at that time I did not yet know any negative things about SL.)
So people have mixed experiences with SL. To some he was friendly, to some he was rude, some he ignored completely, and some he offended and humilitated in extreme ways, even publicly. Sometimes he did all to the same person at different times. So, if he was friendly to you, or seemed to tell spiritual things or do good things at times, what does it matter?
What do you say about these things?
* He preached from the pulpit that people who do not obey his commands will suffer a bad fate, get ill or even die a horrible death. I can quote suche passages from his sermons again, if you don’t believe. They even have been published by UBF in the 1990s.
* He refused to be held accountable even when severe allegations were brought forward against him in 1976 and 2000. His answer to the reformers concerning accountability was “God will punish me if I did anything wrong.”
These are behaviors which are typical for cult leaders, and they are not diminished by whatever personal account you have with Samuel Lee. Please address these problems instead of telling us that you “knew SL better than we do”. We heared this stupid defense so many times. To me it sounds like if Eva Braun defended Hitler by pointing out the sweet and nice things he told to her and how friendly he was when they were alone.
And I remember how SL said to the Russian delegation after a ISBC that Stalin was a good shepherd for Russian people. He said that Russian people dearly loved Stalin and readily gave their lives for Stalin defending Stalingrad. It was a moment of cognitive dissonance for me. Stalin was very anti-christian and literally killed thousands of Christians especially baptists. Jesus is the good shepherd not Stalin, not Stalin-like ubf missionaries.
Vitaly, I am not surprised. I remember SL referring to Ho Chi Minh as a positive example of how to inspire people.
“The most important matter is that our faith must rest in Christ alone based on the Bible. And our deepest gratitude is to God for his amazing grace to us in Jesus Christ. No loyalty to any human being even approaches that since all of us are sinners and in desperate need of his mercy.” Amen. Hallelujah!
@aw “Perhaps those of us who were considered loyal to him saw his best side.” On occasion, I also saw the other side, which terrified me and everyone else in UBF who knew him. For decades, I deduced from this that fearing a senior mature servant of God should be “normal” for every godly Christian, in that it equates to me fearing God.
Today, however, I believe that according to the Bible I should fear God only and fear nothing else and no one else (Prov 29:25; Lk 12:4-5; Ac 4:19).
Thank you Ben, you understood the situation most correctly. You said, “To perhaps countless UBF loyalists, SL is like their own loving dad, whom they love and respect dearly, sometimes even more than their own dad, who might be aloof, disconnected, or simply AWOL. Few sons and daughters would “go after” their dad for his faults, especially after his death, but would rather think of him and remember him in the most favorable light, even if it is likely to be biased, unbalanced, and lacking in objectivity.”
UBF is like a close knit family. Everybody knows everybody even after it grew to be a big international organization. SL was like a father figure, dearly loved and respected by many of his children especially by most of loyal Koreans in UBF both in America and Korea. In fact many people met Jesus very personally through his labor of love and prayer. I also agree with Alan that he made some mistakes and crossed boundaries. It is fair to say that he is good and bad and ugly like everybody else.
Recently we elders met a former missionary in Chicago and heard a painful story of SL’s mistreatment toward him. We sincerely apologized him on SL’s behalf and even invited him to give us a lecture in the process of healing and reconciliation. It is our hope and prayer that we may continue to do this kind of work of reconciliation one at a time in God honoring way. Through these processes of healing, apologizing, reconciliation, I believe God will be honored among us.
One of the reasons why many older Korean missionaries are silent was because the huge differences between the East and the West.
EAST says WEST says
Be contemplative // Be diligent
Accept what is // Seek change
Freedom of silence // Freedom of speech
Meditation is important // Articulation is important
Marry first then love // Love first then marry
Love is silent // Love is vocal
Focus on other’s feelings // Focus on self and needs
Cherish wisdom of years // Cherish vitality of young
Search inside of yourself // Search outside yourself
For truth: meditation and ethics // For truth: Data and analysis
The truth is given, it does not have to be proved // The truth needs to be proven by all costs.
James:
“Everybody knows everybody even after it grew to be a big international organization.”
This is misleading. In ubf, everybody knows about everybody. This is something MarkY and I discussed in our 3 hour coffee shop visit a year or so ago. We knew each other’s names. We knew each other’s faces. And we knew the ubf stats: chapter, rank, length of service. But did we know each other as brother in Christ? No! We admitted that we knew nothing of substance about each other.
It is the same with many others. I became much better friends with MarkO/MarthaO during and after leaving. I have a real friendship with JoeS/SharonS/BenT/ChristyT after leaving. Friendship and fellowship in ubf is much more shallow than even beer buddy fellowship. This is the reality all ubers know. Would we be kind and flattering toward each other? Yes. But were we friends?
I love being away from ubf! I got to meet ATK in person and have dinner with him and rebuke his message! I got to spend several hours with you James, the president of ubf! I get to speak freely and be myself and rebuke and repent!
“EAST says WEST says”
While that video gives some insight, it is a shallow representation of both sides. Both are far richer and deeper and more complex. I am a human being, and I fall into East sometimes and West sometimes; we all do. I am sick of the shallow ubf judgments of entire nationalities! Let’s be real and just be ourselves, whatever that may look like!
east says west says… ))
The Bible says, “And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren.
25 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them.
26 But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;
27 And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:
28 Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many”.
Why does East say these things to West through ubf missionaries, James?
In the Russian version of Pinocchio, Pinocchio (when spiders were trying to teach him obedience) says something like this, “Spiders! you better teach your own little spiders!”
It sounds well, “Поучайте лучше ваших паучат!”
I am late to this discussion. But, does it really matter what the East or the West says? But to me, what Jesus says really matters and adherence will affect my eternity. And this is what Jesus says:
MT 23:8 “But you are not to be called `Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. [9] And do not call anyone on earth `father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. [10] Nor are you to be called `teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ. [11] The greatest among you will be your servant. [12] For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
I think, against the revealed will of Jesus, when we make a fellow Christian our “father” or “mother”, this leads to serious problems such as spiritual abuses. The role of a father or mother in the life of a Christian is reserved for God and no one should take that place, so that the child of God listens to and follows his/her Father in heaven.
I am surprised by how UBF directors try to become “father” to their members by deciding everything on behalf of those they are suppose to help hear the heavenly Father’s voice for their life decisions. They also get upset if someone tries to hear and follow God’s leading apart from the usual director’s channel. It upsets me when some people are even decorated with title such as “Father” and “Mother” in UBF. By giving them such positions, don’t we also inherit their spiritual DNAs?
i guess it’s in the human nature to over-elevate selves, but brothers & sisters all are we: big bro Jesus intercedes with the Father & Spirit helps/guides
AbNial, I have never felt comfortable calling Samuel Lee my spiritual father. The fact is that I was a Christian long before I met him, and I will remain a Christian no matter what becomes of my relationship to UBF.
In November 2010, I attended a meeting of the North American senior staff. There was no open discussion at this event. But near the end, each of us present was allowed to make some brief remarks. I thought about my remarks very carefully and wrote them down. This is what I said, which I still stand by today. (Except that now I would think twice before calling him “Dr.”)
When people talk about the spiritual heritage of UBF, I hear them using terms like fishing, one-to-one Bible study, manger ministry, soldier spirit, self-support, marriage by faith, etc. These are essentially the principles and methods developed by Dr. Lee. Many feel attached to Dr. Lee. He was an influential figure in our lives. But he was not the only Christian who influenced me.
Reflecting on my life, I found five people who deeply influenced me. First, my mother, who raised me and my twelve siblings by faith in God alone. Second, a Catholic priest who befriended me and prayed for me during my freshman year at MIT; it was through his influence that I read a Christian book and committed my life to Christ. Third, Sarah Barry, from whom I learned to respect and interact with Scripture. Fourth, John Armstrong, whose writings deeply challenged my sectarianism and opened my mind and heart to interact with the Body of Christ beyond UBF. Fifth, my wife, who has taught me countless things that other people could not; through her I am experiencing the love of God in new and wonderful ways.
Please forgive me, but I cannot identify Dr. Lee as my spiritual father, nor can I identify myself as the fruit of UBF. I have drawn much spiritual nourishment from UBF, but I would not be the person I am today without those other influences. This is why I will never see myself as simply a UBF man, and why I cannot get excited about dedicating my entire life to promoting UBF-specific values. To do so would be to deny my true roots and heritage.
I am not alone in this. America was a Christian nation long before UBF missionaries arrived, and a “typical” North American person in UBF will have significant spiritual influences in his or her life outside of UBF. To strongly press the principles of UBF upon us is to divide us from ourselves and from one another.
Our common spiritual history didn’t begin with Samuel Lee and Sarah Barry in 1961. It began with the apostles on the day of Pentecost. Our true inheritance is not methods or principles, but the gospel of Jesus Christ. To identify anything else as our inheritance, however good those things may be, produces spiritual confusion. God is jealous, and he does not like it when we steal glory away from his Son and place it on something else. Jesus alone is the gospel; Jesus plus something else is not.
I believe that if UBF’s leaders are able to clarify our spiritual heritage as Jesus Christ alone, God will be pleased, and many of our members will be deeply comforted.
UBF always downplays any non-UBF spiritual roots. We hear little about the work of Sarah Barry and the Presbyterian church who reached out to Koreans, but much about Samuel Lee. I remember a life testimony that “my sheep” wrote for a UBF conference. He was a medical student and wrote about how much he admired and learned from the nun-nurses in the hospital where he made an internship. My chapter director let him share his testimony in front of him before he was allowed to share it in front of the group. Then he told him to discard several passages in his testimony, including that passage about the nun-nurses. The chapter director wanted to give all glory and credit to UBF. Some years later several “rebel sheep” left our chapter, including “my” sheep which made me very sad. When I visited him and spoke with him about why he left, he told me that a pastor had warned them about spiritual abuse and manipulation in UBF, and he gave me that and several other concrete examples. I couldn’t object because I knew what he said was true.
Joe, I agree with you on the personal and country history level. ubf tried to position itself in Russia as if God had never been to Russia before 1990 when ubf missionaries at last came to us. I can see some problems of the Orthodox Church in Russia but they are of a different (not as big as in ubf) level. Orthodox priests also lost much of people’s trust like ubf leaders, but they don’t abuse. In Russian “good shepherd” is the same with “kind shepherd”. And Orthodox priests act really kindly. And I personally was influenced by an Orthodox priest long before ubf. He baptized me. He didn’t say much but he proclaimed to me, “God has forgiven your sins”. It was so liberating, a fountain of the Holy Spirit in the soul! It was a sunny day. I went home looking to the sky and thanking God. When I mentioned this and other facts of non-ubf influence the director always told me “to take them out of the sogam”. Yes, I was even given new names in ubf to lose my own identity as a human and as a Christian.
Last year I visited a museum devoted to the Russian history before the communist revolution. The last Russian tsar was killed along with his family in my home city. Communists also tried to remake Russian history. I learnt a lot in the museum about the tsar. And you know I would submit and obey him as the authority from God and I would fight for him and for my country. He was a very good tsar and in a sense a good shepherd for the people.
Joe, well said; I’m both encouraged & saddened by your words. Encouraged because I also see the big picture, long-range view when I think about things. Sad because you said it almost 3yrs ago, & many of us have said pieces of it in our own way over the years, yet here we are again. I finally started just doing what I believe but guess I gotta ramp it up & do it more, ’cause I have low tolerance for repetitive issues/unchanging situations
why is self-support (which is good) encouraged, yet the higher you go you should be supported?
just one of many contradictions gleaned from religious life
also isn’t marriage really always by faith if you really think about it? (how well do dating people know each other?)
proclaimed goal is many going out at missionaries, but not many have managed to do so (especially the most spiritually “able”)
“why is self-support (which is good) encouraged, yet the higher you go you should be supported?”
Good point, Mark. UBF is full of such contradictions. The biggest contradiction in my view is that they claim you can only grow spiritually if you are supervised and trained by a personal shepherd, to whom you must submit and whom you must obey, yet the founder and leader – who was considered the most spiritually mature person in the ministry – never had and never accepted any human shepherd above him. I never even heared that he gave credit to any person for his conversion or spiritual growth.
“.our spiritual heritage as Jesus Christ alone.” Is exactly what I believe as well. He is our example. I met SL and prayed with him before I got married. I once shook hands with him and his hands felt like jelly full of water and fluid. As a nurse, that revealed to be that he had cardiovascular disease and he was dying. I admired his spirit and his dedication to what he believed in. I was never in the inside group in UBF just learning bits and pieces from those who knew him. I know my chapter director loved him and even shared his messages word for word on Sunday. So I learned from him even though I never studied with him the Bible. My concern now is the future, the families in UBF who are in this system, and the unity and freedom of all believers.
It is ridiculous to debate the stature of a man in this discussion. Some knew him, some didn’t and the rest only know him through the efforts of loyalists to keep him ‘alive.’
A common dialogue I find among more Koreans (by chance) in UBF deals with role models. It seems that when one has a deeper personal conversation the concern for ‘Do you have a role model?’ or ‘Who is your role model?’ always enters more familiar conversations. My answer as an adult is always the same ‘I don’t have one.’ There are people I read about and take an interest in, but I never ‘model’ myself after that person. I often wonder ‘Is it really important?’ I also consider the consequence of such a fascination on the importance of a role model. I think it has been trained so well into people to role model after SL that they can easily forget the image of Jesus.
Moreover, I will say one personal comment. My people (of heritage) have been divided by controversy over what one man did to protect and preserve the people he was responsible for. It impacted the cultural and religious identity so severely that many are divided to this day. Many review the history and see it plainly. Others mystify the man and his decision at that moment in time.
Likewise, we must see SL and SB as founders of UBF and nothing more. If they had an impact personally on people it must not be taken out of the context of Christ. Regardless of inner motives of the servant, if we can receive grace from God that is the most important. But, we must not let such people supersede Jesus. When applying this in life testimony writing, belief in Jesus must come from the facts and not the first moment in UBF, because of your human shepherd.
When I asked before on the ‘God blessed UBF’ article about people’s faith only Brian answered and shared that his before/after life testimony had been adjusted accordingly – as always. People must be allowed to speak clearly how Jesus entered their lives and through whom which should include anyone without exception.
@gc: thanks for your comment. I should have responded to your earlier request. You know me and my situation pretty well, I think. As you know, I grew up in a Christian family. In my testimonies that were shared at Korea world mission reports, MSU Summer Bible Conference, etc. I was encouraged to play up that I was a child of “missionary parents” but had lost my way and rebelled against God, but then UBF 1:1 Bible came and rescued me back to God. I always got the undertones that my parents, my parents’ ministry, and my parents’ church were failures and UBF was like a personal savior. Once my sisters read a testimony that I wrote that was posted on the internet (without my permission). She felt as if I represented them as merely a part of my sinful human life before UBF when I was a rich, spoiled “prince” in a Canadian former missionary family with a big house. The implicit arrogance, condemnation, and criticism in my testimony was so hurtful to her, as if I had renounced that part of my life and everything that God had done.
Strangely, when I shared my testimony in private without an audience, I had freedom to be genuine and write from what I had experienced. But when it was to be shared in a conference, it had to be highly polished to publicize the great work of UBF in changing me “from a spoiled prince to a shepherd for Canada” (which was literally the title I was given for one of my testimonies I shared in a big conference). Did anyone realize how utter demoralizing and demeaning it was to identify my life before UBF as nothing more than being “a spoiled prince”? As if I only became a valuable human being after joining UBF.
Here is one of my early memories of ubf from nearly 30 years ago. A young university student was being coached by a missionary on how to write his life testimony which he was going to share at an upcoming conference. The missionary was telling the young man to write his testimony in a certain way. The young man objected, saying “That’s not how it was.” The argument continued. The young man said (paraphrase), “Look, that’s not how it was! Stop trying to put words in my mouth!” But the missionary continued to pressure him relentlessly.
Finally, the young man gave up and said, “Fine, I’ll do it your way” and wrote a testimony that followed the standard formula. That formula is, “Part 1: I was a lost person living in darkness who didn’t know God at all. Part 2: I met Jesus through ubf 1:1 Bible study and now I’m going to become a 1:1 Bible teacher.”
@Joe: are you sure that wasn’t me your overheard 10 years ago (or 2 for that matter)?
Most amusing, in 2003, my father visited during the Easter conference, and he was asked if he could share his personal testimony. And he was coached to share it the same way as you describe, asked to write it down, and critiqued before he had shared it to make it more praising UBF and thankful for how God has wonderfully blessed my son through UBF, and encouraged to “release” and “bless” his son to be committed fully to UBF. My dad was several years older than the fellow coaching him, had served for years as a church-planter and evangelist, and was a guest. He was pretty good-humored about it, but it definitely struck him as being very unnatural and controlling.
@James:
“It is our hope and prayer that we may continue to do this kind of work of reconciliation one at a time in God honoring way. Through these processes of healing, apologizing, reconciliation, I believe God will be honored among us.”
But don’t you see that this approach does nothing to end the abuse that is still going on? This is hidden work. Do people in house church and satellite chapters even know about this?
What is needed is a corporate repentance statement and mass, open communication. Otherwise you are supporting the cult label. Clearly ubf used to be a personality cult around SL. But after his death, ubf became a different kind of cult, more of a control cult where member’s lives are controlled by the shepherd/sheep paradigmn.
What is being done to address the private, closed, permanent, controlling shepherd/sheep issues?
I saw that all the US missionaries went back to Korea recently for a World Mission Report. The report is horridly self-praising and suggests no change whatsoever. Basically, the US missionaries were “re-charged” and fired up cheerleader style to stay focused on the ubf ideology and ubf heritage.
What do you think about this? I know that many of those US missionaries in attendance should be disciplined and removed from office. But of course instead they continue to be flattered and shown favoritism, flown to Korea, probably on the ubf sheep’s donations.
I hope ubers realize the authority issue won’t change in ubf. It’s always the Same old situation; same ball and chain.
yeah, who paid the plane, that is the question?
(all expense paid vacation on somebody’s dime I guess; oops vacation is a dirty word, at least for us low earthlings & who has $ to take a vacation anyway)
total secrecy about money use is deplorable: natives slave to offer/support family/etc (thinking that others are doing the same); but who knows who is favored & blessed from the common fund?
$ is an absolutely critical issue to clarify: normally general accounting would be sufficient, but in cases of abuse where there has been no accounting (just like in elder financial abuse) perhaps there should be “penny by penny” accounting until those minding the mint can be trusted..
About meeting SL. I met him several times. I remember how I was a messenger at a CIS conference and was realy “busy” under training. I was running out of hall through a corridor and SL was entering the building. He stopped, looked at me running by. Later they told me he wanted to stop me and talk to me. He said something like, “He was running, what was he so busy with?”. Ironically but it was he who made many people busy with many ubf activities tso that it became difficult and problematic to be busy in one’s family, society, job and even evangelization. What i can say about SL is that he was better than our chapter director, at least more clever. In our chapter we had to “obey” so strange teachings and practices without the director’s understanding what he did. I mean he just copied SL’s behavior and “training methods” and didn’t know why he must act that way himself.
The director told us a story about SL many times. Here it goes. “The missionaries put a pulpit in the Chicago center. They worked hard and it took time and labour. After they finished SL looked at it carefully and said, “You must make it 1 centimeter shorter!” Everybody said to each other, “How?! Why?!” But they silently obeyed. And what was the result? After obeying the God’s servant’s command they understood that the pulpit became perfect when 1 cm shorter. And they understood why the God’s servant gave such a command. You see, you must just obey me and later you will understand that the result is perfect”.
“Finally, the young man gave up and said, “Fine, I’ll do it your way” and wrote a testimony that followed the standard formula. That formula is, “Part 1: I was a lost person living in darkness who didn’t know God at all. Part 2: I met Jesus through ubf 1:1 Bible study and now I’m going to become a 1:1 Bible teacher.””
“The fact is that I was a Christian long before I met him, and I will remain a Christian no matter what becomes of my relationship to UBF.”
Now there is the same kind of formula for former ubfers. “Part 1. He/she was a good Christian, loyal and obedient, a future leader in ubf. Part 2. Something made him unthankful, disobedient, demon-possessed and he ran away and became worldly; be careful, satan is working through him/her”.
Chris, about ubf leaders demanding and not doing themselves. The same was in my chapter. The director never wrote and shared his testimony, he read the same messages he had read 15 years before in a 1-2 year circle, he didn’t have a job, etc. So for him all the rest seemed lazy. For example he could go to a campus to fish (he didn’t have sheep he fished so he took sheep from the shepherds and then rebuked the shepherds for not having new sheep) and then say at the meeting, “Where were all of you, I couldn’t see you at the campus”. Many shepherds sacrificed their lunch time to go fishing every day. Once a shepherd told the director, “My everyday life is like this: I go to the center at 5:45 in the morning then the job, the fishing and the evening meeting, so I come back home after 22:00. I can not see my children awake”. It was a norm for every shepherd in our chapter. Still the shepherd was regularly rebuked for being lazy and not having sheep. The director had nothing to do at daytime and nobody was at the center so it seemed for him that there were not enough meetings though there were everyday daily bread meetings and everyday evening meetings and additional meetings on saturday and sunday. It reminds me of Gen 1 “And there (in ubf center) was morning and there (in ubf center) was evening”
And speaking about conferences, in such chapters like ours you were supposed to do everything: the message (writing 4+ times and then reading), taekwondo show, special songs, world mission night songs and dances, etc. During conferences preparation time (4-5 weeks 3 times a year) and during “Bible school” preparation time (about 4 weeks not less than 3 times a year) the usual meetings and sogams and daily bread remained as a normal obligation.
Hey, Vitaly. Your director at least went to the campus. Ours didn’t do even that. He also didn’t need to take our sheep away, because he didn’t make 1:1 with sheep. After the daily bread meeting, he would stay in his office reading the newspapers, while everybody else had to go to work. He actually wrote a “new” message every week, but he let other people type and correct (and then re-type and re-correct several times) and xerox copy it. He made it look like that this message preparation was the most difficult job in the world, and the most important job in the world (he was giving us “the word of God”) so he couldn’t do anything else. But of course his messages were horrible by any normal standard and had always essentially the same content. “The director had nothing to do at daytime and nobody was at the center so it seemed for him that there were not enough meetings.” Yes, same here. He always invented new ways of keeping people at the center. And whenever there was a holiday that people could use for recreation and family time, he would fill it with some UBF activity.
And a few words about Ben’s message. Our director always taught that the church is a “family” where he is the “spiritual father”, and the church is a “body” where he is “the head”. So it seems normal when body parts “just obey” the head. You shouldn’d think for yourself the head has done it already.
@Vitaly, I was taught something similar: that the church is like a spouse to whom we must be faithful forever with life-time commitment. Just like we don’t divorce our spouse for having problems, we should not leave our church for any reason, but remain faithful with life-time commitment. “Life-time commitment” is a favorite word it seems. I answered, “I see no evidence for that teaching in Scripture.”
@Vitaly and joshua, I fully agree with you. In fact we discussed this earlier also, I think in one of Joe’s article about how language and culture shape a community’s thinking. Undoubtedly language and words are an effective tool of manipulation and control. These fancy words without biblical basis such as “life-time commitment” are indeed misleading and dangerous.
AbNial, and I am glad you are sharing here on ubfriends. It seems to me that it was first time when a ubf leader (SB) said some positive words about some people who left ubf in India. She said something like, “God led them to serve in another place”. It is similar with ATK’s message that ubf trains students and then sends them to other churches. the ubf leaders mean, “these people are ours though they left ubf”. And you and many others say here on this site, “No, we are not yours and we don’t want to be yours and we left ubf because of your cult-like practicies which our cosciences and God’s word don’t allow us to follow”
Yes Vitaly, I am aware of such statements by ubf leaders mostly about me. The unspoken understanding among ubf leaders however is that some Church offered me money so I left ubf to work for that organization. That is a lie spread by India ubf to save their own skin and to shift the focus from problems in the ministry to my questionable character. It is not true and God is my judge and theirs as well.
Yes, I too am glad to be here on ubfriends though my wife thinks that it is a wastage of time. My former director’s wife who returned from Chicago recently is seemingly annoyed by my comments here on ubfriends and advises me to concentrate on Jesus! Thanks to the grapevine.
My opinion is that ubf leaders obey Jesus’ words “Not so with you” but they mean to make things worse than the Gentiles had. ubf operates not like a family but like an army.
btw I tried to enter an army academy. And such was the first talk to my officer:
I said, “I thought…”
The officer interupted, “You should not think here. if you try, you’ll feel headache soon” He meant that I would be beaten if I don’t just be silent and listening and obedient.
Your comment reminds me of Acts 26:14 — kicking against the goads, banging head against the wall.
Recently, one of the young people in my church shared a testimony about a great work of the Holy Spirit in one of the local universities. A fire of the gospel was ignited among many Christian freshman and they began to boldly share the good news of Jesus to their friends in the dormitories, and dozens of students have come to believe in Christ in the past few months. When I heard such a wonderful testimony, I realized that all the man-made efforts I had expended for 10 years to artificially change people through my own efforts in shepherding them was just like kicking against the goads. I saw that the Holy Spirit is pleased to work as he wants, and I rejoiced.
I remember that I once attended a European directors conference and someone gave a lecture about Jonathan Edwards’ view of revival. His point is that revival is caused by the Holy Spirit and cannot be brought about through human efforts. After the lecture, the director said (paraphrase): “Thank you for teaching us that revival comes from the Holy Spirit and not through our efforts. Now, let’s pray that we may work extra hard to fish students so that a revival may come to Europe.” His words were literally that contradictory!
yes, Joshua. Your story reminds me Chris’s story that Germans shouldn’t think but just shoot in order not to lose in the war. Oh, man )))
I shared already that once the director asked my sheep, “What must you DO to find many sheep?” The sheep (who was a shepherd of course) answered, “I should seek deep relationship with Jesus so that He would work through me and attract people to Himself”. The director was furious and shouted, “What are you talking about?! What relationship?! You must not think you must just go and fish the new sheep. It is that simple: the more you go fishing the more sheep you will have!” And it was not in 1976, it was in 2011.
“It is that simple: the more you go fishing the more sheep you will have!”
My Korean Bible teacher told me her experience is that you must invite 100 people to find 1 sheep. This is the way UBF has always operated. Finding the one person who is just in a existencial crisis or identity crsis or utterly lonely or having examn nerves, and can easily be manipulated. Then making that person believe it is a heavenly intervention into his or her life and becoming the personal savior for that person and making him or her eternally thankful for what you and UBF have done and make him or her a lifetime member of UBF based on that. It’s actually taking advantage of the spiritually or socially helpless situation of people. I would consider this all legit if there were not these hidden goals of getting honor and increasing the organization by “raising shepherds” that way, but just the wish to help people and then let them choose to join whatever church they like. This would be facilitate if UBF would not pretend to be a church in the first place.
Just read the mission report mentioned by Brian to see how much honor UBF leaders draw from that: “God established a 36 house-churches, 120 adults and 120 children through him.” Whatever that means that somebody “established 120 children”.
Our common spiritual history didn’t begin with Samuel Lee and Sarah Barry in 1961. It began with the apostles on the day of Pentecost. Our true inheritance is not methods or principles, but the gospel of Jesus Christ. To identify anything else as our inheritance, however good those things may be, produces spiritual confusion. God is jealous, and he does not like it when we steal glory away from his Son and place it on something else. Jesus alone is the gospel; Jesus plus something else is not.
I believe that if UBF’s leaders are able to clarify our spiritual heritage as Jesus Christ alone, God will be pleased, and many of our members will be deeply comforted.
@Joe, Amen! Thanks for clear voices like yours in the Church today not minimizing the truth, not exaggerating either.
Regarding our historic root, yes we need to reconnect ourselves to the apostles on the day of Pentecost. Some crazy person planted a fancy word “mother Church” referring to ubf, to someone very close to me, and I had to counsel almost two hour this morning.
This article is from Os Hillman. It also explains where our thoughts and reasons came from.
“—Sherman and Hendricks make an excellent assessment here of how many Western societies have been affected by the philosophies and culture of the Greek influence. We in the United States may speak English, but we think Greek. Our focus on competition, segmentation of life from the secular to sacred, rationalism and reasoning all move us to a goal of a more intellectual position in our faith instead of a simple, trusting faith. The root of this is the Greek/Hellenistic civilization. It has been so much a part of our thinking and way of viewing life that we have lost our ability to understand God and relate to Him as the early church did.
As the church grew and extended its borders outside Jerusalem, believers became influenced by a wide array of philosophies. The purity and power of the message were affected by the dominant culture, which became the Greek culture. The time following the two major Jewish revolts of A.D. 70 and A.D. 135 saw a Greek, man-centered view of the world reshape the church. Early Greek scholars, like Plato, introduced dualism, which says life is divided into two compartments: the spiritual or eternal, and the temporal realm of the physical. Plato’s dualism entered the church through many of the church fathers who were Greek philosophers who converted to Christianity. They attempted to reconcile Greek thought with Christianity.”
“Early Greek scholars, like Plato, introduced dualism,”
Thanks for pointing this out. Yes there is much dualism in the ubf mindset. ubfers need to see the Trinity and accept that the Holy Spirit is not just a spirit or force, but God, and that the Holy Spirit is our Director, so no need for chapter directors who “direct” the lives of “sheep”. We belong to God, not to a ubf director.
“They attempted to reconcile Greek thought with Christianity.”
Perhaps this helped lead to the right-wing, zionist form of Christianity in America that is also a layer you have to fight through when leaving ubf.
By the way, would you explain why ubf has a website called Zion UBF? http://zionubf.org/
This is interesting. Joe and I have thought alot about this dualism over the last few years. But James, I fail to see how this “explains where our thoughts and reasons come from”. Remember, that most of our Christian life has been directly influenced by UBF, which is not much related to US Christianity at all. Can you explain how you think this relates to the current discussion?
Are you trying to say that UBF’s Christianity is an antedote to this Western dualism? If so, I would have to disagree.
“rationalism and reasoning all move us to a goal of a more intellectual position in our faith instead of a simple, trusting faith.”
Is this the key point you are trying to make? Please realize that most of us have been told far too often to have “simple faith”. This has been a very unhealthy means of controlling and manipulating us. The intellectual discussion on this website has very little to do with people falling into an over-intellectualized version of the faith. This could not be further from the truth. If this is not your intention, forgive me. You are touching on some very real issues that require serious discussion. I would love to discuss this further. Please make your intention more clear.
@Sharon, this is a classic example of the “conversation” that has infuriated me over the past 24+ years. James is displaying the classic ubf director mindset: make a statement and let you make up your own mind as to what it means. I hope James is different.
This is something needs to be untwisted. This is how the ubf director mind usually works:
1. Make some statement or reference from a source that the audience might know or respect.
2. Don’t make any concrete statement about what you (the director) really believes. The statement does include the director’s opinion, but it is given in a generic way that would allow for multiple conclusions. This allows for some experimentation, to see who agrees with your point and who does not agree. This gives the director his much valued sense of who would be loyal to him and who would be considered enemies.
3. When someone shares a contrary opinion to the director’s hidden meaning, the response is silence.
4. When someone shares an opinion that matches the director’s real intention, then emphasize that and bind that thought to ubf ideology as a justification.
This is a sick and maddening form of control. I see it so clearly almost all of James’ interactions here. As I said before, I hope he is different and starts to answer the questions honestly which are directed to him– without quoting anybody and without referencing any bible verses.
I think we should all keep this in mind as we comment here: We are being watched, studyied and analyzed by ubf directors. They already took one survey of how people feel about ubfriends. And when I look at Google analytics, I see quite a few names of people being searched for. So perhaps it is good to remain anonymous when posting here. Allies and enemies of ubf are being identified. I know this was the case when I talked with ubf directors in person when this blog first started.
This pattern also infuriates me, Brian. I have also observed it many times, including on this forum.
those who have been controlling, shall be controlled; if God is for us, who dare be against us? I am what I am thank God (Jimi Hendrix lyric: how’s that for lack of duality)
blind “faith” (trust) is all the problem…
Brian, your question about “zionubf” brings back strange memories from my first and only visit to the ISBC in the US. I remember that the title of the conference or the title of a keynote or something was “Let’s march to Zion”, and somehow the gathering of the UBFers for the ISBC was compared with the gathering of God’s people in Zion. In retrospect, I think it was a not so subtle attempt of making UBFers believe they are (the only true) God’s people. Similar as Jehovahs witnesses are doing, or the ICOC who thought of themselves as “the Kingdom”. Probably the “Great commission” movement also used such rhetorices, because the first book written about that movement was called “Marching to Zion”. To quote the book: “Hand-in-hand with this ecclesiastical introversion was a “Laodicean syndrome” which affected much of the Blitz [former name or Great Commission] movement. This was the teaching and mentality that viewed every other group or church as, to some degree, “lukewarm” and less correct or zealous than we were; every other group was engaged in “second-best” (or worse) activities. Another relevant quote from that book, originally from a much older book by Roland Allen: “The fatal mistake has been made of teaching the converts to rely upon the wrong source of strength. Instead of seeking it in the working of the Holy Spirit in themselves, they seek it in the missionary. They put him in the place of Christ, they depend upon him.” Those who ignore history are or doomed to repeat it.
RELIGIOUS PRIDE that is the culprit
Our director also loved honour very much. He would often say, “I have established more than 12 disciples and what have you done?”. And again I felt cognitive dissonance because there was no disciple in our chapter “established” by him but he praised himself that all we are his established disciples.
When I went fishing I also felt strange.
1. Because I was “strictly ordered” to go fishing, but while fishing I was supposed to share love of Jesus and of our church. If you receive love and share it it is normal. But if you receive orders what love are you going to share?
2. Because I could believe and believed that Jesus’ gospel may attract people and bring them to the church. But I knew also that people wouldn’t want to stay in the church which is not attractive with its many meetings and strange activities. Who on earth would wish to live in the obedience I lived in?! So again there was dissonance inside me: I wanted to share the gospel but I couldn’t believe that people would come to ubf if they knew what its reality is. And there had always been a great pressure to increase the “number”. Nobody cared whether you shared the gospel or not, and in the weekly report you have to put your 1:1 number and that is by what you are judged and (dis)honoured every week and even every day in ubf.
And if you try to explain anything, then like in the army academy no one will hear you. Instead you will hear, “Don’t think, just keep shooting!”. ubf methods just don’t work and are not blessed by God. As Joshua said, revival is done by the Holy Spirit, not through our labour or methods. So methods are not important, there is no Holy Spirit blessing on ubf efforts. And this is important. And it is because the motives, the prossess and the results are not approved by God. And our souls feel that even through this dissonance which is I believe in every ubfer except the leaders. It seems very difficult for the ubf leaders to understand many things many ubf problems because they have never tried to obey their own orders, their own “God’s word”. They just “serve” so much with their commands and orders and then curse those ungrateful proud “satans” and wonder why they left the “true” way of obedience to them. And there is no former ubfers’ blessing on ubf. And that is also important because the former ubfers are Christians and they don’t approve ubf before God and according to their conscience.
Hey everyone, awesome sharing, thx. Of course I could add “Ditto” and “Amen” and “+1” to every comment, sharing my own versions which would be identical except for names and places and time.
So what do we have here? We just had a snapshot of stories from the 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s (four decades) and from Germany, Russia, India, Canada and America (five countries)– all with identical stories of abuse of power and the spiritual abuse of demanding conformance to ubf heritage using ubf ideology.
“Change” in ubf means “rearranging the chairs on the Titanic”.
Thanks, guys, for sharing. I resonate with virtually all of your stories with cognitive dissonance. As Vitaly shared, it is quite unfortunate that many older UBF leaders don’t get any of this, or refuse to listen to any of it. Perhaps this does not apply to James, Wesley and a few other missionaries, who might begin to understand the cognitive dissonance of those who suffered spiritual abuses under authoritarian hierarchical UBF leaders, who I believe are still present in countless UBF chapters today.
I feel most sorry for those UBF leaders and their defenders who primarily think that “I (they) suffered so much for sheep. I sacrificed for sheep. I gave my whole life for sheep.” I believe they truly believe so. They may also believe in Jesus. Yet, they do not understand their own “older brother” sins, and are always constantly rebuking juniors and the world for “younger brother” sins.
In the Bible “older brother” (i.e. UBF leader’s) sins are ALWAYS worse than “younger brother” (i.e. sheep’s) sins. I hope that someday UBF begins to teach and address “older brother sins” clearly, loudly, and consistently. Otherwise, UBF will primarily consist of older brother sinners, who are the “worst” kind of sinners in the entire Bible.
“I feel most sorry for those UBF leaders and their defenders who primarily think that “I (they) suffered so much for sheep. I sacrificed for sheep. I gave my whole life for sheep.”
Yes, +1, ditto, Amen!
“Otherwise, UBF will primarily consist of older brother sinners, who are the “worst” kind of sinners in the entire Bible”
Indeed. But I am exacerbated by ubf directors who keep saying “I am the WORST of sinners!” but keep doing the same abusive sins, saying “Just FORGIVE me!”. I heard that line over and over and over during my leaving process.
At one point I told a ubf director: “Get off your high horse. You are NOT the worst of sinners. You just need to repent and step down.”
And when I thought about what I would approve in ubf as God’s work. When would I agree that “God showed up” at a conference? Maybe when this conference is devoted to ubf’s repentance which would be included in ubf’s main “story” and when ubf stops sending abusing missionaries whom nobody has need for.
When I talked to ubf leaders I saw that their idea is like, “Well, your director abused, that was bad, now he is trying to change his directorship style. So come back and see that your director is changing”. They don’t understand that the director’s existence itself is the main abuse. Korean leadership outside Korea is another great abuse. All those “inter cultural” issues don’t matter at all. They would matter if the church is in a neutral inter cultural space. But such space doesn’t exist on this planet. And whatever you try to understand the host culture being Korean you will never become native and your leadership will be abusive anyway. Maybe US is somewhat a multi-cultural country, I don’t know. Still there is American culture and it is a West culture, not an East one. Maybe second gens can become American. Nevertheless I would never agree that it is normal for an American church to have 50+% Korean members and 100% Korean leadership. It is an abuse. It is ok if it is a Korean church for Koreans living in the US. So to change ubf for some good the change of the directorship style is not enough. As far as I understand ubf is going to remain a Korean corporation (not native and not a church) with Korean branches abroad which Korean leaders are very proud of. (And personally I see no place for me and my family in a Korean corporation with abusive leadership. And it is bad that we spent and even wasted so much time there being non-Korean Christians)
And on the personal level I really don’t need a mediator and a shepherd but Jesus, I don’t need a director but the Holy Spirit, I don’t need a king of kings and a lord of lords but Jesus (Jesus made us kings and priests), I don’t need a spiritual father but the Heavenly Farther and what I need less of all is a Korean abusive director who wants to lord over me in every possible sphere of my life and who always tries to shadow Jesus and God’s kingdom and wants me to do many strange things: strange for me as a Christian and as a Russian.
I received a 17 year abuse and I can’t imagine the directors apologizing the next 17 years and I don’t want them to. I just want the good intentional missionaries to leave, “run away” in the good sense and try to do something healthy before the Lord. My opinion is an opinion of a native. ubf leaders, if you want to hear a native and if you have ears, please hear: 1. Understand he gospel and serve with it (what you are doing now is abusive even for Koreans). 2. Serve Koreans (your best intentions toward natives will never make a good thing out of an abuse).
Ditto. +1. Amen! (or Amin rather!)
@Vitaly “what I need least of all is a Korean abusive director who wants to lord over me in every possible sphere of my life and who always tries to shadow Jesus and God’s kingdom and wants me to do many strange things: strange for me as a Christian and as a Russian.”
Such “lording over” and “exercising authority over” juniors and sheep in the name of “shepherding sheep” has been accepted and embraced as “God’s chosen way” of conquering the world with the gospel through UBF. Such a 50 year mentality and paradigm has produced very sincere and very abusive leadership. It has also produced the ugliest traits of Christianity, such as elitism, exclusivity, unaccountability, and unfounded superiority, which is really being “groundlessly proud.”
Because they are very sincere, many became Christians or adopted a more serious or disciplined approach to Christian life and toward the Bible. But because they are also abusive, many become wounded, they feel violated and used, and eventually leave UBF.
Perhaps such authoritarian and abusive unhealthy leadership is being addressed gradually–but too slow in my opinion, since this has already been ongoing in a bad direction for 50 years. But as many say, this should be addressed forefront, foremost and of utmost importance, rather than doing so only AFTER doing the “more important work” of evangelism and discipleship.
Ditto. +1
what’s more important than correcting approach before cranking out more defective product, unless of course the point is profit from product regardless of quality
Doing discipleship first instead of first dealing with relevant reconciliation and relationship issues is like building a building with a frail faulty flawed floundering foundation. Guess what’s going to happen?
full speed ahead avoids dealing with real issues, but eventually issues warp time to catch up with us to be dealt with like it or not: if not us, who? if not now, when? if not, why?
Sharon, I quoted the article because it was interesting for me to hear from an American Christian’s point of view. It has nothing to do with our ongoing discussion of UBF problems. Western thinking is deeply rooted in the Hellenistic philosophy. But that is not quite the same as biblical point of view. As I ponder about the huge differences between the Western and the Eastern ways of thinking and culture and philosophy, I can say they have both good and weak points. We all know Jesus is above all human cultures. Is there another way to encompass both good points of the West and East? This may be a big question mark for all serious Christians and the futuristic thinkers. Scazzero said the antidote of the emotionally unhealthy Spirituality is first Emotional Health and second Contemplative Spirituality. Silence and Contemplation is strong in Eastern culture.
“It has nothing to do with our ongoing discussion of UBF problems”. :))
Yesterday (on sunday) a guest pastor spoke a little about making disciples. He said, “Making disciples is never a monologue way when someone teaches another. It is a dialogue: and the dialogue is between the disciple and God. Sometimes it is a trialogue: two disciples are listening to the Word of God together”.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authority
The word authority is derived from the Latin word auctoritas, meaning invention, advice, opinion, influence, or command.
thus true authority must be like an author, source of meaningful words to inspire others rightly how to follow something good/worth following
authority must respect God/serve man, if it serves God/respects man, it is corrupted