Comments on: Can UBF Divide a Marriage? http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/ for friends of University Bible Fellowship Wed, 21 Oct 2015 04:34:18 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.3.1 By: BrianK http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19449 Thu, 17 Sep 2015 21:48:16 +0000 http://www.ubfriends.org/?p=9548#comment-19449 “Can UBF divide a marriage HECK YEAH”

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By: BrianK http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19448 Thu, 17 Sep 2015 21:47:28 +0000 http://www.ubfriends.org/?p=9548#comment-19448 That’s nice. The concern should be for those who were divorced. There are many ubf people who divorced and should have gotten help.

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By: BrianK http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19446 Thu, 17 Sep 2015 20:51:25 +0000 http://www.ubfriends.org/?p=9548#comment-19446 Speaking of Rebecca Kim… after sharing my confession, I made contact with Rebecca indirectly, via one of her friends. She said she appreciated my article and did not want to get involved in any of this. Out of respect, I did not include her letter in my new online companion for my new book.

I did however post her late husband’s 1994 letter and several others that are very revealing, from the prior reform movements.

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By: BrianK http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19445 Thu, 17 Sep 2015 20:47:30 +0000 http://www.ubfriends.org/?p=9548#comment-19445 btw, one of the big deceptions that duped me at ubf was that the shepherds back in 1987 claimed ubf was related to the Presbyterian Church and followed the Westminster Shorter Catechism. They even handed me a yellow booklet with the Westminster Shorter Catechism printed out. I thought I was joining a Christian student missionary training program.

But of course that is just pure bullshit. SLee intentionally broke ties with the Presbyterian church and purposefully created ubf as an anti-church group.

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By: BrianK http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19444 Thu, 17 Sep 2015 20:44:31 +0000 http://www.ubfriends.org/?p=9548#comment-19444 Really good thoughts Charles. Thanks for sharing, and thanks to GC for raising these issues in this article. These are so very important issue to examine. When you see the problems former ubf members face, you see that UBFism is harmful cult-control theology and that ubf is a harmful cult organization. If ubf were such a great Christian missionary-sending organization connected to the Presbyterian mainline church, then why do they damage so many people’s lives?

One of my mantras since before I left ubf is this: You are not alone!

That applies here, GC and Charles– I know there are about 7 or 8 other families from Toledo ubf who left in 2011-2012 who deal with these exact issues currently. Most don’t have the energy or the desire to share details here publicly, but know that they exist and their problems are real and similar to ours.

When ubf shepherds snatch away your identity, they then pair you up for arranged marriage in order to puff up their own glory. They are seeking a kind of eternal life, lived vicariously through sheep. It doesn’t work.

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By: c http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19443 Thu, 17 Sep 2015 18:30:03 +0000 http://www.ubfriends.org/?p=9548#comment-19443 Recommended reading: The letters of James and Rebecca Kim (former Toledo).

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By: c http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19442 Thu, 17 Sep 2015 18:29:46 +0000 http://www.ubfriends.org/?p=9548#comment-19442 “This serves to perpetuate the UBF corporate model more than it does the body of Christ”
Yup. This sums up much of UBF marriages and why divisions can be created, including divorce, which I have seen. UBF arranges marriages for UBF purposes first. As such, UBF acts under the assumption that it owns the marriage and can control the husband and wife as it fits the UBF agenda. Love and families are given the lowest priority, unless your part of a Korean missionaries’ family, in many cases. Cases I’ve seen for arranging marriages and choosing partners: getting a visa, acquiring/sending a missionary for bragging rights, getting someone to remain in the ministry through the bond of a UBF marriage, the couple both attend the same fellowship/school, the couple are the same race. One friend was repeatedly “suggested” to marry one woman simply because they were both Cambodian. Chicago once asked me if the LA chapter had any more spanish speaking men to send to S. America after marrying someone to a woman in a chapter in Brazil. Broken foundations / reasons to marry.

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By: c http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19441 Thu, 17 Sep 2015 18:29:29 +0000 http://www.ubfriends.org/?p=9548#comment-19441 Hi gc, Thanks for sharing this article. This is a topic that definitely deserves discussion.

Here are a few thoughts that came to mind while reading the article:
* The answer to the title is a resounding, Yes!
* I can think of several cases off the top of my head from the LA chapter where marriages were divided because one person either wanted to leave or had already left. In one case, with a good friend, a few of us actually encouraged him to stop coming to UBF for the sake of taking care of his wife and kids. He was coming by himself for a while but it was clearly not good nor was it necessary. His family should come first.
* In my family’s case, UBF has and continues to cause division although we left 1 year ago. We left together, but I my wife and kids attended Sunday services for a month longer than I did. Unfortunately, I can’t say too much without breaking my wife’s trust and causing further division, but I can (maybe) say the following:

– I was the UBF supporter in the marriage. My wife was uncomfortable about many things and often felt alone. I didn’t help her and listen to her as I should have. I tried to help her get along on most things, but it had to fit inside being a UBF family.
– Our reasons for leaving were mostly different, but you can imagine that when I was done with UBF how selfish an act it appeared to my wife. Suddenly, when I think things have gone wrong and it’s time to go, it’s okay. We stayed on my direction, and left on my direction. Even before leaving, it was difficult to talk about issues of UBF and our family. Not because we would betray UBF or each other, but because it became too divisive, heated, and angry all too quickly. I avoided those discussions.
– UBF haunts my marriage like a ghost. Having any kind of interaction with anything person UBF related causes division and tension in the house. It’s very unpleasant. Even mentioning contact with former members can make it uncomfortable in the house. You leave UBF, but UBF may not leave you.
– We have kids. They were very happy that I stopped doing UBF activities so that I could spend time with them. In many ways, leaving UBF has and is uniting my family.
– The next difficult struggle and division caused by leaving UBF: where do you go next? I’ve expressed here how I don’t even want to look anymore. I don’t want to go to church right now. I want to stay far away, actually. But my wife wants to go to a church. She also thinks that’s it good and necessary for the kids. I grew up going to Catholic churches and don’t have fond memories of that. I don’t want to subject my kids to what I had to go through each Sunday, just because you ought to go to church! So, we’re divided on that which is unpleasant. But the UBF history makes this doubly difficult. She continued at UBF because of me. But now when she wants me to go to a church with her, I don’t want to. Again, on this she tells me how selfish I am, and understandably so.

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By: MJ Peace http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19426 Sun, 13 Sep 2015 03:39:20 +0000 http://www.ubfriends.org/?p=9548#comment-19426 “This fact alone shows that UBF and the worldview of Samuel Lee is not evangelical at its core, since in an evangelical church (and in Catholic church as well) divorce and re-marriage by order of pastor (and even abortion by order of pastor!) is unthinkable. . . Brian is correct to call Samuel Lee’s ‘theology’ UBFism.”

Yes and yes. Divorce, re-marriage and abortion by order of a pastor are unthinkable! And this is why I would add “broken logic” to your list of broken things. I am glad that Chris/BK made the distinction between evangelicalism and ubfism. There are a lot of things wrong about UBF and I’m going to be open and honest about that. Your Pastor should NOT dictate how you live your life, who you marry, what job you take, how you spend your money, where/if you go on vacation, etc. And they have NO right to make you feel guilty for the choices you make. If that is happening something is WRONG.

I only say this, because for a long time I did not know it was wrong. I did not know I was able to speak up against these types of actions. I thought this was what God wanted for me. I thought God would never want me to enjoy my life because that is from flesh. The one verse used over and over was, “Deny yourself,” meaning if something hurts me it is obviously God’s will for me.

And now, I am unlearning these things and undermining my jacked up view of God, by his grace. He is my Father who loves me and enjoys me. Not a slave driver who puts up with me begrudgingly. This is a drastically different way of viewing God and the world, and I cannot and will not see/live the way I did before under fear and shame.

The gospel is too precious a message to be screwed up. God freed us for freedom, not so that we would be yoked to another burden. God is good. Praise His name!

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By: cmdiaz http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19425 Sat, 12 Sep 2015 21:51:37 +0000 http://www.ubfriends.org/?p=9548#comment-19425 Can UBF divide a marriage HECK YEAH

The way I understand it is like this; UBF missionaries have a screwed up life. Their life was originally ruined when they joined UBF many years ago and are now (unfortunately) “trapped” inside the UBF cult culture.

These men and women are so immensely dissatisfied with their own lives that they try to live through “sheep”, students and even their own children.

It’s not enough that they ruined their own lives with poor decision making (joining UBF) as well as failing to have a spine and standing up to the abusive UBF leaders or false UBF doctrines. They feel they can help AND hold the authority to help others… But how could they when these so-called missionaries can’t even help themselves!

When we left the NYUBF cult members began to attack my wife – God bless her heart… She thought these cult members were normal people. They tried to plant seeds of divorce into the mind of my wife saying things like ” since your husband is not UBF he is demon possessed and will hurt your daughters physically or mentally”.

This is only part of the sick and demented cult that us UBF. I honestly pray that God have mercy because their is a God who will judge us one day and I pray that these people may turn away from this kind of Christianity.

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By: Ben Toh http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19422 Sat, 12 Sep 2015 13:31:52 +0000 http://www.ubfriends.org/?p=9548#comment-19422 “As soon as there is a “helper-helped” “shepherd/sheep” “spiritual/unspiritual” division, frank discussion will stop. The “shepherd” will start to tell you only “helpful” things, not tell you what he/she really thinks and where he/she *also* sees problems.” – See more at: http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19420

When this is manipulated as such in a marriage it is tragic and unfortunate.

Sadly such arbitrary dichotomous categorizations invariably applies to virtually most if not close to all relationships, conflicts, differences, disagreements, etc, in UBF.

Additional dichotomies include: senior/junior, older/younger, controller/to be controlled, leader or elder/member, missionary/native, etc. Whenever it rears its ugly head, all it does is weaken the ministry, promote schisms and divisions, cause everyone to take sides, and breaks down trust, friendships and relationships.

Sorry for stating the sorry facts point blank. Those on the unfortunate or receiving end basically has to suck it up, take it or leave it, and regard it as UBF’s way or the highway. Is there any wonder why people continue to leave, even after 30 to 40 years of being committed to UBF!

But if you’re a beloved 2nd gen of a senior older missionary leader, then you have more rope, leeway and space with such games not played on you as much.

When this happens in a marriage, as well explained by Chris, the result can only be devastation.

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By: Kevin Jesmer http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19421 Sat, 12 Sep 2015 12:10:32 +0000 http://www.ubfriends.org/?p=9548#comment-19421 I want to chime in here. Julie and I were married in UBF. I would say that my marriage has had its hard times over the years, but I would say that it is ordained and blessed by God. After 23 years of marriage, we have 5 wonderful kids and hundreds of pictures to prove we were involved with the kids. There were hard times. We never directly focused on marriage development. It was all ministry activities, every day. But God blessed us. I started exploring life outside the house church ministry by myself. I needed to…I was severely depressed and close relationships were strained. I started going to the morning service of a local church and having coffee with the pastor. Nobody wanted to come with me and so I went by myself. Then I returned to preach at our house church. This went on for two months. We believed in one principle however, our marriage and family is top priority under Jesus. We came to an understanding that something needed to change. God had shown us an open door, a church where both of us felt comfortable in exploring. And so we made the change together. We both set out into uncharted waters and made the Bible church our home church. I know that it was God’s will for us to be married and raise a family. Would we be better off to marry outside of UBF? No. Look around. The world is not doing better. The road had rough spots, but we are blessed by God. I would say, enter into honest conversations and prayer together as a family. Keep the oneness in your marriage a top priority. Acknowledge that God himself brought you together. And open your eyes to see how God is leading your family specifically. There are doors open around you, specifically for you. To stay or leave is a prayerful decision that your whole family needs to make.

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By: Chris http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19420 Sat, 12 Sep 2015 07:17:53 +0000 http://www.ubfriends.org/?p=9548#comment-19420 In my case it was not so difficult after my wife and I had started to trust each other more than UBF leaders. In the beginning, the UBF director tried to play us out against each other, but when we started to speak frankly with each other, such attempts became obvious and separated even more from UBF. Since we discussed all the things together, we developed our understanding of the UBF problems in lockstep and it was exactly the same day when each of us felt things had accumulated so much that we needed to leave.

However, I know we were very lucky here. There were many other highly problematic cases of marriages where one spouse wanted to leave and the other wanted to stay. Usually, the one who wants to stay will be called “spiritual” and given the mission to “help” the “weaker on”. This only serves to alienate the two even more from each other. As soon as there is a “helper-helped” “shepherd/sheep” “spiritual/unspiritual” division, frank discussion will stop. The “shepherd” will start to tell you only “helpful” things, not tell you what he/she really thinks and where he/she *also* sees problems.

The most extreme case I experience was when a wife wanted to leave together with her husband who was considered the precious “ancestor of faith” of our chapter. The wife was considered immature. Yes, she was much younger than him, but their marriage had been arranged by UBF with that age difference in the first place. UBF often liked to marry people who do not really fit together, to make them focus their lives more on UBF than on their marriage. That marriage was such a case. Anyway, the wife didn’t want to divorce her husband, she just couldn’t bear with UBF any more and so she stopped attending UBF. After that, the husband was told by Samuel Lee to issue an ultimatum to her to rejoin UBF or he would divorce. Since the husband was absolutely loyal to UBF, he obeyed and filed for divorce when she refused. Only one year later, he was re-married to another girl in UBF. That marriage was also arranged by Samuel Lee. (My chapter was in Europe, but the first wife was from Chicago, that’s why Samuel Lee interferred directly). I know that there were many other cases in Chicago where UBF couples were divorced and re-married, by instruction of Samuel Lee.

This fact alone shows that UBF and the worldview of Samuel Lee is not evangelical at its core, since in an evangelical church (and in Catholic church as well) divorce and re-marriage by order of pastor (and even abortion by order of pastor!) is unthinkable. Brian is correct to call Samuel Lee’s “theology” UBFism for that reason. I know that UBF chapters are saturated with UBFism to different degrees, but all chapter are still tainted by it, since the teachings of UBFs go top down and at the top was Samuel Lee.

So gc, you’re touching a crucial issue. I have seen many unlucky and divorced marriages in UBF because on partner wants to stay and the other wants to leave, or because the partners were too different in their mindsets, or both. Their marriage was built solely for the purpose and with the background of UBF, and when that fails for whatever reason for one spouse, this creates a huge problem.

But I learned there are people in UBF who are even worse off. I have a friend in UBF whose parents are UBF honchos, and whose wife and her parents are also UBF Koreans. He knows all the problems of UBF and hates UBF, but cannot leave, because this would immediately break his complete family who are completely irrational about their involvment with UBF, so he cannot even discuss with them.

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By: BrianK http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19414 Fri, 11 Sep 2015 16:42:39 +0000 http://www.ubfriends.org/?p=9548#comment-19414 gc,

This is a really good article raising critical questions that need to be processed. I am holding off sharing though so that others might chime in. I plan to be offline for a while, thanks.

“How about you? What else can you add to brokenness? What can you share as a single or married person who struggled to leave UBF? What conflicts did you face? Alone or with your spouse? – See more at: http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19413

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By: BrianK http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19413 Fri, 11 Sep 2015 16:38:00 +0000 http://www.ubfriends.org/?p=9548#comment-19413 Oh you meant open, honest discussion inside ubf. Well then I suppose you’ll have to wait until hell freezes over.

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By: Ben Toh http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19411 Fri, 11 Sep 2015 14:46:52 +0000 http://www.ubfriends.org/?p=9548#comment-19411 Good point. I guess I was thinking about the open forum in the local UBF chapters/church community, where this is basically hush hush and taboo and never publicly discussed, because “sheep need to just study the Bible.”

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By: BrianK http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19410 Fri, 11 Sep 2015 14:19:56 +0000 http://www.ubfriends.org/?p=9548#comment-19410 “Until this is addressed and discussed in open forum…” – See more at: http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19409

How many more open forums are needed? We’ve been discussing these topics in open forum since 2004, at least 11 years.

How many more open letters need to be written? We’ve had well articulated letters that expose the problems clearly.

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By: Ben Toh http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/11/can-ubf-divide-a-marriage/#comment-19409 Fri, 11 Sep 2015 14:01:10 +0000 http://www.ubfriends.org/?p=9548#comment-19409 Thanks gc for reflective, incisive and provocative reflections and probing questions!

A major significant problem which I have been expressing more and more is that some older leaders feel as though it is their absolute right to be in control of UBF and that they are the authentic vanguards of UBF with all of her legacies, traditions and so-called “core values,” which Brian appropriately calls “UBFisms.”

Until this is addressed and discussed in open forum (rather than in closed circles comprised primarily of the oligarchy) things will continue as they are.

Recently, an older ubf leader mentioned that ubf is getting weaker. So I asked him an obvious question, “why?” He has not answered or responded.

As Jeff Daniels of the HBO hit Newsroom says, “The first step in solving any problem is recognizing that there is one.” (http://www.westloop-church.org/index.php/messages/old-testament/32-isaiah-messages/415-god-will-humble-the-proud-isaiah-14)

Is UBF ready to recognize the truth about herself?

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