“I read the email you sent out about my experience with my brother. You wrote it well, covered the subject matter correctly without making any judgements. Thanks for your words, I appreciate your kind thoughts.”

However, I do agree with comments about UBF as they were (A) Witnessed or (B) Experienced
I think maybe it’s best that we offer our own experiences to avoid the rhetoric. But, I am in no way dismissing what we see and hear and remain silent about.

I will recap my own experiences regarding treatment of my family:
I never really treated my family poorly as a result of my faith. In fact, my faith was essential for restoring and healing my family relationships. However, I can contrast three situations that reflect poorly on my previous chapter. One year my parents joined in on a Christmas worship service at my home chapter and were very comfortable and enjoyed the environment very much. Fast forward a few years and I am in a different chapter getting married….

My family was all but pushed aside. My parents were given respect in context that almost everything was carried out by the UBF church. It is a reminder that your typical wedding is not about the couple but the families. SO, in the church context, the wedding is not about the couple, but instead it’s about chapter directors and spiritual order. But, when looking back at wedding photos, that day I can see that my sister was kicked in behind everyone all by herself – which I was told about after the honeymoon anyway. (The photographers are in fact to blame, but actually, the priority of photos is also dominated by UBF and each chapter associated with the couple and process of the arrangements. Family comes amidst everything else, what can I say – hindsight is 20/20).

When my sister introduced herself as “my sister” the director’s wife rudely said, “I can see that.” Moreover, when one of my brother’s was confronted with the director he was also treated poorly. I might add that my brother played a pivotal role in getting my wife to the church and driving us to the reception and he even drove us for the outdoor photo shoot. What can I say? I was caught up in my own moment, but was unaware that such things would happen. By my previous experience, my home chapter had handled my family members with love and courtesy, but it had not been the case in the chapter where I was married.

One more thing. When my parents came to visit my family in 2012 the chapter here took care of them like family. My parents were able to have time with my daughter and my wife and I, but they were also shown around the area a couple times by full-time staff shepherds. I could not have been more blessed to know that my activity in UBF was redeemed by the attitudes of UBF shepherds in my present chapter.

None of my positive comments are to undermine any negative comments from others. Moreover, I am not intending to repeat unecessarily about my previous chapter – BUT – it must be understood that the handling of my family was not a solitary event. It was the result of chronic, unchecked co-working issues that are plagued with a sense of megalomania. There are brutal chapters out there. So, if UBFers are not listening than let potential students or present students be the readers. It is possible to find yourself in a healthy UBF chapter, but it does not dismiss what has happened or what is happening in many parts of the world.

Do you pray that God may send many new “sheep” to ubf?
My prayer is to join the Spirit that blows wherever it pleases (John 3:8).

What would you advice to those being “fished” by ubf shepherds?
I have never been asked this. But those who privately correspond with me or speak to me in person, I have no hesitation saying everything I’ve said on UBFriends.

Is it good for them to become ubfers?
It really depends on who the chapter leader is.

My opinion is that even though your Yakateringurgh director and Chris’ director in Heidelburg are clearly authoritarian with some bad theology, don’t u think that they are both Christians?

But this presumes you would have come to the same insights that you have today, while still being in the hamster wheel under the influence of Samuel Lee, who would have told you to not read or write on the Internet, to not “fight with crazy dogs” as he called the critics of UBF, to undergo training to overcome your critical thinking, to focus on fishing and writing and sharing testimony and spending your time with Bible study and fishing sheep. It is very difficult to “see the light” while running in the treadmill of UBF and while being manipulated by a psychologically strong person like Samuel Lee. I am very strongly convinced that your way of thinking changed not only after but because of your disconnection from the strong influence of Samuel Lee and your relocation from the Chicago UBF headquarters to your own chapter.

Ben, pardon me, but I find such sentences obnoxious, for two reasons:

1) If you strip all subordinate clauses from this sentence it claims that “UBF is the bride of Christ and the body of Christ.” You simply combined the two sentences “UBF is my church” and “the church is the bride of Christ and the body of Christ” into one sentence, without caring that the word “church” is used with different meanings in both sentences, namely “congregation/denomination/ministry” in the first sentence, and “the whole body of all Christians” in the second sentence.

2) It denies the necessity of repentance. As we know, even after 50 years, and even after horrible sins have been revealed committed by the organization and its leaders, there is still no corporate repentance. Just as individual believers need to repent, ministries need to repent as well. Rev 2+3 is a good example where Jesus does not address only individual believers, but whole local churches as such. He says to these churches “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent.” As long as there is no sign of earnest corporate repentance, there is no need to “tone done” and downplay things.

A church that is content with being “imperfect and stained, sinful, scared and marred” and does not want to do anything about it, and counsels people to “tone down” when they point out their “imperfections” is no church of Christ. And yes, we’re not talking about small “imperfections” here. This is again UBF rhetorics. We’re talking about grave and fundamental things.

Yes, I am pained to hear her story. I would absolutely condemn such inexcusable and reprehensible behavior, and if the person feels she needs to leave UBF I will certainly bless her, support her, continue to be her friend and definitely not guilt trip her, or try to make her stay.

But if Lee was alive today, I would address everything I have ever written on UBFriends with him, and I will let the chips fall where they fall.

Lee–flawed, authoritarian, abusive, manipulative, controlling as he was–was my friend. His preaching and communication, which I heard for 2 decades, often had power, spirit, grace, joy, humor, humanity, reality, hope, etc. I learned the spirit of perseverance, hard work, discipline, self-denial, etc from him. I am NOT denying his bad and horrible influences that are still pervasive in UBF today. I am sorry you cannot bear to hear that he had positive and loving and godly traits as well.

I have already stated too many times on UBFriends and in person to countless UBF people that the UBF authoritarian hierarchical system is unhealthy, unbiblical, allows leaders to be unaccountable and unable to apologize, the cause of countless people who have been wounded and abused in the name of shepherding, and the source of virtually all problems faced in UBF today.

I do not want to blame them to the end because UBFers already know my clear stance and my position. If I keep blaming them, I am going to break relationships and prevent reconciliation, which is my ultimate goal. Despite all of her ugliness UBF is still my church and the church that I love, because she, imperfect and stained, sinful, scared and marred as she is, still is the bride of Christ and the body of Christ.

Also, people change when they experience grace, not when they are blamed and slammed with the truth they cannot bear to hear, even if the truth is the truth. Yes, the truth sets us free, but the truth is Christ who is ultimately gentle and humble, and the truth includes grace.

I want to try to be gracious when I bring up painful truths that some people may not want to hear.

Also, some of our strong criticisms is really not effecting change, but only heaping blame upon blame, accusation upon accusation.

Still, your stories need to be told. Every time I read them, I cringe and am saddened and I am all the more resolved to work for change for the future by the Spirit, so that my grandchildren will experience a better UBF than both you, Chris and Vitaly (and countless others), experienced.

I mean that you always write that Lee was Christian and that all who are saved are saved by grace. So Lee was a “real sinner” who was saved by grace. Writing this you are responsible for your influence as a pastor. And you are sending a message that ubf is a “christian” church among many other christian churches which have some problems. Are you saying that ubf victims should consider their ubf missionaries christian just like you do? And if the student from my story came to you, pastor Toh, what would you advice her to do? “To be or not to be?” To stay or not to stay?

You might remember that e.g. Apologetics Index advices Christians not to involve with ubf. Chris says about another cult expert who says that ubf is a typical cult (and there are so many experts and many people including former ubfers who say that ubf is a typical cult). What is your opinion for many “sheep” to read, not as Ben Toh, not as a ubf director, but as a christian pastor?

Well once upon a time her mother became very sick and they took her to the hospital. The student hurried to visit her mom. But the kind ubf missionaries stopped her at the door. They told her to trust her mother to God and stay at the center. She tried to explain that it was absolutely necessary to visit her mother in the hospital. But the missionaries didn’t allow her. There was a long “discussion”. After the student lost all her arguments she started crying with tears and loud begging, “Please, please!!! allow me to visit my mom! please, allow me visit my mom!…”. She cried and cried… At last the missionaries ALLOWED her to visit her mom…

This was the beginning of the first glorious ubf chapter (and the only one) in the Ural region. Thank God there is no ubf in Yekaterinburg now. But… the kind missionaries are still there hoping that “the rebellious Russian shepherds” would come back, or that God would send them “new sheep” in this “spiritual desert” whom they would “sacrificially serve”. The missionary used to “create a new history” and be “history makers”.

Ben, I also wanted to ask you this question.

Actually, my comment is already a toned down version of what I really want to say. I’m not talking like Jesus in Mt 23:33, or am I? I’m already restraining myself more than even Jesus did.

So I understand why they won’t listen to you. That is why I encourage you to seriously tone down the rhetoric, if you truly want to be heard, because I think that what you have to say is very good and correct for many UBFers to hear.

Would you rather be heard by saying a few things gently and kindly in understatement? Or are you determined never to be heard by coming across as though you simply want to tear down and destroy everything that is UBF?

Yes, there are some UBFers who will never ever change. But most if not the majority of UBFers are “good people.” I’ve met them. I know them personally and reasonably well for several decades. But when you tear UBF apart by your statements, you simply close their hearts. Then all your attempts for good will simply fall to the ground unheard.

As I wrote in the article, Jesus, the Word “spoke as the God of love, grace, mercy, kindness, patience, generosity, gentleness, forbearance, etc.”

Jesus is the Father of the prodigal son, who was gracious and kind even toward his angry self-righteous older son who was rude and belligerent toward his father.

I am not asking you to stop sharing the horrible stories of spiritual abuse in UBF. But I hope that whatever painful stories you share, you may also reveal kindness, mercy, grace, patience, tolerance in the choice of words you use when you write, even toward those who are determined to perpetuate the UBF system until their dying day. Jesus suffered and died even for them, and not just for those who were spiritually abused by them.

Did you believe this on your own, or was this the story that all UBFers reassured to each other in every meeting and private talk?

“Only by God’s grace, we are reconciled today.”

What do you think, if Samuel Lee was still alive without changing his behavior and methods, and you were still under his influence, would this have ever happened?

But I want to emphasize again: This is actually not a problem of the UBF members, but a problem of the UBF leaders and the UBF system that conditions its members to behave like that and adopt a value system like that. Most UBF members actually want to spend time with their parents and relatives, but their shepherds and directors do not allow that and train them that if they do that, they behave badly (they are called unfaithful, unspiritual, disobedient) and if they ignore their own family they are doing it right (they are praised, flattered, are recognized and love-bombed in their replacement family UBF). This training, going on over years, is very effective.

Gajanan gave a good example. I experienced similar things, several times, until I learned I should not visit my parents and should not care about them, but only about UBF. And I already posted the story where my marriage was cancelled by the director just for the reason that I wanted to spend an afternoon with my mom who had come to visit me before marriage, because we hadn’t really talked with each other for many years.

Some years ago I attended a talk of a cult commissioner of the Catholic Church. The two examples of cults he presented were the Mormons and UBF. Concerning UBF, one of the examples he gave was the following: A student in Cologne visited her parents every weekend. They were living somewhat remote in the rural Eifel area, and they had paid her an annual rail ticket so she could visit them. After some weeks of Bible study, UBF began insisting that she attended the SWS in UBF Cologne. They pressed her so hard that finally in one meeting, she came forward and “sacrified” her annual rail ticket by handing it over to the chapter director. When she did that, the whole assembly applauded and praised her.

As you see, it is not the members who choose to neglect their family. The UBF leaders and the UBF system condition and manipulate the UBF members so that they get another value system that virtually forces them to neglect their family, teaching that this is the way to please God. In the article, you again blame yourself and generally “Christians” for doing so. But I don’t think you should blame yourself, and you should not blame all Christians for doing so. Most Christians do not behave like that, at least not in such extreme ways. The way UBF is doing it is a problem of its own.

On the one hand, it seems spiritual to blame yourself rather than another person for things that you have done. But when it comes to subtle manipulation in the name of God, such taking the blame on yourself can blur the view for what is the real problem and who is really responsible. You only wanted to do good by concentrating on UBF. Who was the one who shaped your understanding of what’s good and what’s bad? I think you should blame Samuel Lee who as you said was your “mentor” and taught you all these things with his manipulative and psychologically effective training methods. You don’t want to admit this because 1) you want to keep up the delusion that Samuel Lee was a good mentor and a good friend, instead of a really bad mentor, and 2) because you don’t want to believe that you were so easily manipulable and trainable like Pavlov’s dog, but rather hold up the delusion that you were always in control of your own mind even under the influence of Samuel Lee. The truth is that we are all human beings who are all responsive to the same psychological tricks and means of mind control, and Samuel Lee was a master of using mind control methods.

Sure, I also blame myself for following and obeying UBF leaders against my gut feelings and conscience. But on the other side, I see how really clever, subtle and powerful the manipulation was, going on so slowly over the course of several years that I didn’t even notice it. So in this case, I try to stop blaming myself (though subconsciously I still do) and give most of the blame to UBF. Blaming myself would mean to become a victim of the UBF system again and allow its guilt tripping to continue. We should be very clear that UBF is the problem here, not the people in UBF. And with UBF I mean the whole “UBF system” with its doctrines, methods, practices and its value system, established by Samuel Lee. Actually I believe that even Samuel Lee himself became a victim of that system. Playing with mind control methods is like playing with fire. The problem with Samuel Lee is that he did not only burn himself, but many others as well.

Some decades ago, I had so offended my dear mom that she cried and said, “Because of you I will never be a Christian.”

My only sibling, an older brother who loves me, once said, “If you keep this up, I’ll disown you as my brother.”

At the time, I foolishly thought that I am suffering persecution for Christ. Only by God’s grace, we are reconciled today.

I’m glad this issue is being addressed here. Like Gajanan, I treated my family horribly as well due to the undue and un-biblical instructions from leaders. With time, with many long and tearful times of repentance and asking for forgiveness, and through doing my best to change, the relationship is gradually being restored.

Actually, my main motivation in moving to UBC was not my academic position at the university, but so that I could attempt to reconcile with my family. It was after I had determined to move that the Lord blessed me with a professorship at the university.