And don’t forget: disagreement IS NOT division. While disagreement is frequently mistaken as division, particularly in my experiences in UBF, disagreement is good and healthy. Many people are afraid of disagreement, especially those for whom collectivism and uniformity are high on their priority list.

6. Spiritual order: “Oh, I didn’t see you there under my foot”

http://www.ubfriends.org/2013/07/05/ubf-doctrine-introduction/#comment-9079

“But there is also a healthy aspect of spiritual order.”

But James, what is spiritual order?! We cannot begin to talk about how healthy this is until we define it.

“I can think of one example of the Rabbi in the movie “The fiddler on the roof”…

Ya, ya…That movie was mentioned many times to me over 24 years. Perhaps I should watch it finally… Why do ubf people continually refer to this movie? Is the heritage proved out by movies?

Maybe this speaks to the KOPHN fantasy world I adopted. Seems like I was always living on a movie set in ubf…with each conference being the “big production”.

In the church quite often there can be two different opposing opinions. Both may claim that they received the Holy Spirit. In that situation we need a mature shepherd who can guide the community and make a final decision for the community of believers. For we cannot afford the division of the church (Ephesians 4:3). It will be much better if the shepherd is supported by the team leadership.

Reading the Capetown Commitment this week. My impression about the ubf hertige as it was taught to me is immediate: the heritage does not contain the Christain fabric of the gospel of Jesus. I’ll share more about how the Capetwon Commitment shines the bright gospel light on the ubf heritage, but for now I just share this quote:

“Reconciliation to God is inseparable from reconciliation to one another. Christ, who is our peace, made peace through the cross, and preached peace to the divided world of Jew and Gentile. The unity of the people of God is both a fact (‘he made the two one’), and a mandate (‘make every effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’). God’s plan for the integration of the whole creation in Christ is modelled in the ethnic reconciliation of God’s new humanity. Such is the power of the gospel as promised to Abraham.”

In light of this, the “spiritual ordering” teachings are horribly flawed. Other parts of the ubf heritage have some redeeming qualities, but this one must be cast out if ubf people want to have any credibiilty to their claim to be a Christian organization. Trying to create spiritual order goes against the grain of the gospel ministry of reconciliation.

So here’s the ultimate ubf “spiritual order”:

Korean missionary > Native shepherd > native sheep > animals > former members

One example of “spiritual order” that needs work for UBF to move forward is the Korean missionary/shepherd > native person part of it. Issues related to this crop up occasionally in my opinion not because there is an explicitly evil agenda, but because there are cultural assumptions and blind spots, maybe on both sides. As an example, Ben and Joe have been in UBF for 30+ years each and each also have titles in front of their names, but as non-Koreans they are sometimes marginalized because they don’t simply obey senior Korean missionaries.

Having said the above, I can also say that there is definitely more and more support for native peoples’ initiative, creativity and leadership in the ministry. In addition, I have experienced some wonderful moments in the last year or two in prayer and discussion with senior Korean missionaries when we have come together in brokenness, repenting and coming to Jesus for his help and mercy. At those times, I’ve sensed true equality in the love of Jesus. I’ve also experienced the true humility of some of our Korean missionaries many times over the years. However, at other times I’ve experienced the opposite and some issues remain. Issues with my own sinful nature remain as well. We need to understand this more clearly, bring it to Jesus and grow in his grace through it. I find this an exciting application of the gospel, even though it is not at all easy to practice. May God help us and be glorified through us.

evangelization > evangelizing > recruiting.

I think your points about evangelization are in the realm of the orthopathy portion of our humanity. One reason (I think) that I have been impacted by the gospel so meaningfully the past 2 years is the new relationships that have been built in my life. I can say that for the first time I have now experienced the gospel, instead of just inductively analyzing the gospel. And furthermore, I am free from the burden of submitting and connecting the gospel to the ubf heritage.

Hey here’s another one:

Gospel > heritage

As many have already shared, we virtually learn all there is in UBF in say about 5 years (which also happens to be the years of our most pleasant experiences). After that, it unfortunately tends to be just a rehash of the same thing over and over again plus “more and more humbleness training” under your shepherd or director. As you said, our hearts become hardened when we hear the same predictable message repeatedly, which is like the beating of the same gong and drum beat over and over again.

One reason I am not inclined to attend the costly 2013 ISBC is because the program and outline is the same message of evangelism which > 80% of the conference attendants have already heard for as long as they have been in UBF, since only 20% are “new sheep.” In my opinion, the most worthwhile, useful and innovative part of the ISBC are the interest groups, which unfortunately comprises only an unimportant (and basically optional) 2 hour time slot.

In all of your bullet points above, I might categorize all of them under “trinitarian relationships,” which is humanity’s greatest weakness, including the church’s greatest weakness, and my weakness. If we do not focus on being trinitarian in our relationships, then the church becomes primarily a business enterprise of primarily focusing on increasing status, profits and converts.

There is no dichotomy between sacred and secular. Jesus is the Lord of every aspects of our lives and cultures. Our task is to share the gospel of the message of love with all people. Could this task of evangelization have something to do with centrifugal and centripedal?

Sometimes it can be even more confusing. Like this:
God > director > older male shepherd > Man
God > director > older female shepherdess > Woman

In this case the couple could be really easily led to great deal of disharmony, especcially if older male shepherd and older female shepherdess have different visions regarding the family, hardly talk to each other, and both are pretty agressive. And that is just wrong.

That also remindes me of the female “hidden spiritual director” implanted by SL in Toledo to spy on and control James Kim after he started to become critical.

And of course you’re right with the “spiritual order” created by seniority and rank (time of membership in UBF and actual age, and also Ph.D. title and education).

During the 2001 reform I learned that there was even a “spiritual order” among the UBF chapters. We were told the reform chapters were all from the “province” whereas the chapters in the capital with elite universities were said to be against reform. So the reform movement was discredited as a kind of “peasant uprising”.

In this post-Christian culture, the vast majority of people (whether they go to church or not) have repeatedly heard “the gospel” in one form or another, and hearing it once again is not likely to change their minds. They have already been the targets of evangelism, and if it hasn’t worked yet, it probably won’t.

What we need now is to experience evangelization. To see the implications of the gospel being worked out by Christians in real, tangible ways.

I hope you don’t take offense at this. I believe that essentially everyone in ubf, from the oldest leaders to the youngest sheep, has already heard an evangelistic message and “accepted Jesus as their personal Savior” in some sense. There is no need to present that same message to them again. They already know that Jesus died for their sins so that they can be forgiven. They have been told this so many times that if they hear it again it will make zero difference. In fact, hearing it again will probably harden their hearts! I say that out of personal experience, because my heart was hardened against that message a long time ago. Not because I didn’t believe it was true, but because it always left me with a feeling of emptiness, wondering “Is that all there is?”

What they need to see now — what no one has shown them yet — is
* how the gospel of Jesus can heal my relationship with my spouse, to enable us to experience genuine love
* how the gospel of Jesus can transform my relationships with my children, extended family, and all the significant people in my life
* how the gospel of Jesus can transform my work
* how the gospel of Jesus can transform my view of every aspect of myself (for example, my sexuality)
* how the gospel of Jesus is not supposed to bring my whole life under the unbrella of church, but rather, tranform my whole life outside of church
* how the gospel of Jesus is supposed to transform society and our relationship to the cwhole reated world.

I think that people in ubf don’t need any more evangelism. They don’t need to be the targets of evangelism, nor do they need to be told to go to campus and inflict more evangelism on others. What they need, in my opinion, is to experience evangelization in all these aspects of their lives.

When I say “they,” I include myself. This is what I needed for many years. And this is what ubf failed to give me, because ubf’s leaders were so fixated on doing evangelism and promoting/increasing the size of ubf, to the detriment of evangelization.

This is another quote from Dr Armstrong’s article about evangelization. “Pope John Paul II taught that evangelization includes not only individuals but whole cultures, cultures that need to be transformed by the influence of the gospel. In the missionary activity of the church we will always encounter different cultures thus the church must become involved in the process of inculturation. By inculturation the pope means, “the intimate transformation of authentic cultural values through the integration in Christianity and the insertion of Christianity into the various human cultures.” He adds, “The new evangelization must strive to incarnate Christian values and open the gospel message to human cultures.”

0. UBFers > all other Christians

I believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ implies a message of radical equality among all people: Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free, young and old, rich and poor, etc. Acceptance of the gospel, as laid out in the New Testament and in the life of the early church, implies that all in the kingdom are of equal worth.

But I also understand that preaching and contextualizing the gospel in any given culture does not automatically wipe out the distinctions among people, and the differential values the culture assigns them. Those distinctions may persist for many generations.

That is certainly true of Korea. The hierarchies of spiritual order in that country, which developed over many centuries, are not going to vanish quickly just because Koreans accept “the gospel” as it is preached to them.

And it is true of western countries too. After all, it took western Christians 18 centuries and a lot of strife to reach a consensus that slavery is wrong.

And in every society that I know of, it is very difficult or even impossible for men, whether they are Christian or not, to ascribe equal worth to women who are beautiful and not-so-beautiful. Even if men are firmly committed to the idea of not judging women by their physical beauty, they are going to do it anyway, even subconsciously.

What I’m trying to say is: There is big difference between evangelism and evangelization. The way I see it,

evangelism = preaching some version of a gospel message that can turn nonChristians toward Christ. One way of another, this initial version of the gospel is going to be truncated, falling short of the full message of Jesus’ kingdom. Perhaps this initial preaching of the gospel will de-emphasize aspects of Jesus’ teaching that are difficult for those specific people to accept at that time.

evangelization = the long process of working out the implications of following Christ and living as his disciples which holistically transforms individuals, families, communities amd societies. This is always going to continue in this present world until Jesus returns.

As an American Christian, I can easily look at people from Korea or any other nation and identify some blind spots where, in my estimation, they haven’t understood the implications of the gospel. And they can do the same for me. (Indeed, the Korean missionaries did precisely that, many times over.)

The truly difficult thing, as I see it, is to learn how to do this appropriately in a way that is loving, compassionate, nonjudgmental and consistent with the teachings of Christ. And to become aware of one’s own cultural blind spots.

4. “God > director > Man+Woman”.

5. “Woman > Man”

6. “PhD > Degree > No degree”

7. “Oldest > older > younger”

I agree with your points, and thanks for expanding on the other meanings of “spiritual order”.

What you say speaks to me the fact that the gospel of Jesus is not being preached nor is the gospel of Jesus being listened to among ubf missionaries.

Isn’t what you describe the “yeast of the Pharisees”, just with a Korean slant to it? Why do we accept such practices as “most holy” when in fact they don’t represent Christ in the least bit? In fact the behavior you describe tells me a lot of ubf missionaries from Korea are not aware or not practicing the first and foremost prime directive of Christians, and yet they are already missionaries. What gospel are they preaching?

In my experience, the wives of many chapter directors exert a great deal of power behind the scenes, even more so than the male directors.

You said, “Nobody in UBF (except the GD) is considered to be directly under God.” We have an interesting situation now because the current GD happens to be younger than the previous GD’s who are still alive, and he is younger than some of the elders, senior missionaries and Korean ubf leaders. Although in theory he could go against their wishes, in practice it is nearly impossible for him to do that, because it violates the principle that the younger must always submit to the older. I’ve discovered that age-based distinctions and age-based hierarchies run very deep in the Korean language and psyche, far more than I ever realized. This lies behind much of the seeming unwillingness/inability of leaders to create and enforce rules. The oldest people in ubf can essentially do what they want, for as long as they want, and no one dares to reign them in. Perceptions of “spiritual order” have a lot to do with age.

It’s true that UBF generally has “Man > Woman”. That’s why if possible, leaders and presiders are allways men. However, if in a marriage the man is “weak” or on the edge of leaving UBF, the woman often forces the man to stay in UBF and plays the dominant role, so there are quite a few “Woman > Man” marriages in UBF where the man must stay in UBF against his will because otherwise the marriage would fall apart.

But the main issue why I think UBF doesn’t really teach “God > Man > Woman” is this: There is always the chapter director between God and the couple. My wife was explicitly told that she needed to obey the director than me. So it was rather “God > director > Man+Woman”. Nobody in UBF (except the GD) is considered to be directly under God. There’s always both your director and your personal shepherd above you and your family.

Of course you know what these discussions mean: we’re now violating spiritual order!

Definition 1: a hierarchy between God, people, and nature, or a spiritual hierarchy between God, spiritual leaders, and followers.

Definition 2: harmony or unanimity among the people in the ministry. Breaking spiritual order is to break the harmonious functioning of the group, sort of like breaking rank or causing discord. When everyone is unanimous, there is spiritual order, but when there is disagreement or dissension, the spiritual order is broken.

Definition 3: the manner by which God’s work functions. His work functions in a particular way: the way that God ordered it. God’s “order” sometimes refers to God’s arrangement or pattern, and other times refers to God’s command or instruction.

If we analyze these definitions, they produce a multi-punch approach to eliminate disagreement or silence opposing voices. Consider the various scenarios that are possible:

1. A “sheep” disagrees with a “shepherd”: The shepherd can claim that he has authority over the sheep on the basis of his higher rank in the spiritual order. This quells any disagreement via Definition 1 and compels the sheep to submit to the shepherd.

2. A chapter director disagrees with another chapter director: Although they are equal and so Definition 1 can’t be applied, the dissenting chapter director is violating the harmony of the whole, so Definition 2 can be used to claim that he is breaking spiritual order and compel him to stop.

3. A person who is examining himself: he has always been told that UBF activities are God’s best ways, so he feels that ceasing or pausing them is breaking God’s pattern of Christian living and violate spiritual order by Definition 3.

Thus the phrase “spiritual order” stops dissension between seniors/juniors, between people of similar “rank”, and even within an individual. It does so by usurping God’s authority, applying a preferential status to certain believers, and imposing a rigidity within and between people.

“Confucius did not give us faith; but he gives us hope,” said Roger Scruton in Modern Culture, which ends, according to reader Peter Paik, with “something of a paean to Confucius, as the most productive thinker for creating spiritual order in an atheistic and materialistic age.”
source 1

“The religious dimension of Toegye’s theory and practice of simhak also corresponds to his Neo-Confucian view of selfish human desires as evil. Obviously, it grew out of his Four-Seven thesis that sharply set the virtuous and spiritual order of principle before the emotional and material order of material force. In Toegye’s view, human nature in itself is to be found in sagehood because it shares the same reality with Heaven’s principle. Hence, the key to his kyonghak is that one must experience the ultimate reality of Heaven’s principle as one own inner nature. In a sense, this is religious, insofar as Toegye maintains that such a process should be done contemplatively and spiritually in the mind-and-heart, not through one’s theoretical speculation or textual study. In his view, the mind is not only a rational and emotional entity in the immanent sense, but, more important, something that has its own ultimate reality in the form of human nature in itself.”
source 2

I find your article about keeping spiritual order to be rather accurate.

Now that I am connecting more and more with Christian history, authors and preachers, I am finding that the new meaning #3 (God>Man>Woman) is fairly common among Evangelical Christians in America. They don’t use the term “spiritual order”, but it matches somewhat the teaching RW gives in his 2008 lecture. That is not surprising given RW’s studies outside of ubf in the Evangelical world. But I find it highly disturbing that RW tries to connect the Evangelical meanings to the ubf heritage. If that is his thinking, what good were all the seminary classes?

The bad: This term, I think was invented by UBF. Perhaps it was translated from the Korean language. I don’t believe that “spiritual order” is found in any Christian literature, other than in UBF manuscripts and Bible study materials.

The ugly: In my opinion, this phrase has caused and resulted in more authoritarian abuse and manipulative control than any other phrase that is used in UBF. Some leaders become domineering like kings, and who are untouchable and unaccountable. The rest live in the man-induced fear of being rebuked, punished, receiving training or of being mentioned disparagingly in the sermon. I agree with Brian (and I have shared with as many people as would listen) that we should STOP and NEVER use this horrible phrase ever again, for as long as God allows UBF to exist.