This priestly>nation website is a collection of thoughts, comments and articles that have helped me process my journey of life. For the past several years, I have focused on my recovery from the shepherding ideology I once embraced as a director in the University Bible Fellowship. I have been seeking to find my own narrative of my life and to unbind my mind from the heritage and cultic behavior deeply ingrained in me through more than two decades of UBF training.

If you are looking for my thoughts on my ongoing recovery, you can use the archive search to read through my 300+ articles that generated more than 500 comments. Please also read our 20,000+ comments and hundreds of articles on our blog:

ubfriends (archive)

ubfriends (current blog)

The Blue Book from UBF

*Update 6/1/2016: The entire blue book is available online (in Korean and English) on the new ubf heritage guarding website. Here is the link to download the 50th Anniversary blue book.

I strongly recommend friends and family of anyone in UBF, as well as the 6,000 or so UBF members worldwide, to demand a copy of the 50th Anniversary “blue book”. I have a copy for those who cannot obtain this book. And make sure you get the printed copy and not the public versions, for the last lecture was deceptively changed for public viewing.

In 2011, the 50th Anniversary mission statement from Korea UBF was rejected by Americans in UBF (and possibly others). The main ubf.org website took down the statement, but Korea UBF continues to display the new UBF mission statement, which does not mention Jesus at all.

Taking Back Our Identities

For thousands of former UBF leaders and members, we found our identities had been confiscated, as in a kind of spiritual identity theft. This is the thought reform ideology and methodology of the group’s “theology of sacrifice”. I call this UBFism.

Since leaving in 2011, nearly 40 UBF members have contacted me for help making sense of their UBF commitments. Most have left the group. Some were suicidal. For an organized look at the UBF group and its controversial theology and history, please visit my other site: http://www.restunleashed.org/

The BITE Model of Control

The BITE model from Steve Hassan continues to accurately describe the nature of the UBF chapters quite well.

Check out my interview with Steven

Read Steven’s info page about UBF

Movies and Music

The best way to recover from such an experience, I found, is movies and music…In UBFism, you “marry” the group, bound for life commitment. Leaving feels like getting divorced…my recovery has been assisted by break-up songs…

One of my all-time favorite movies is The Truman Show. It tells the story rather well of how I lived in UBF, and how I escaped. Truman’s reality check with his father is especially meaningful to me.

How did I escape the bonds of UBF shepherding? I pushed the limits. Just as Truman rode his boat to the end of the massive movie set, through the director’s storm, I pushed UBF to its ideology limits. I defended UBF vehemently. I climbed the UBF ladder to its top, jumping through every hoop the ideology presented, becoming a Director myself. At the top of the UBF ideology I found there was nothing left. The UBF heritage had no plan for my continuing life as a disciple of Jesus.

At that point, like Truman, I simply said, “Good morning, and in case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!” and walked off the set of “The KOPHN Show”.

I have watched many helpful movies, way more than the prior 20 years combined. I imagined myself as the main character. It was so liberating to see myself on the screen become untangled as freedom poured into my soul like living water.

Some of the movies were rather dark, but movies like “The 300” and “Iron Clad” helped me deal with the dark side of UBF that I had denied for so long.

Another movie I am re-watching is “The Village”. This movie tells a lot about how I lived in UBF, and says something about how I got free of the shepherd/sheep authority trap.

Source: Ex Word of Faith – Signs of a Shepherding Church

Having extreme accountability for sheep with little accountability for shepherds

1. It is common for there to be no accountability of leadership to the church body or to an ecclesiastical authority in some form of denominational body. This does not mean that all non-denominational, independent churches are Shepherding churches. It just seems that most Charismatic churches that are Shepherding churches are not accountable to any organization. And, as we will see later in this book, some major denominations are now practicing Shepherding techniques.

2. The congregation, however, is totally accountable to the leadership of the church.

4. Elders, deacons, associate pastors, cell group leaders, etc., are picked by the senior pastor, not by the congregation.

6. Leaders are untouchable. They remain aloof from the congregation. Attempts to get to know them or to question them are met with “Don’t touch God’s anointed!”

9. Oaths and vows are enforced on the congregation. Some of these include oaths of loyalty to the pastor, a promise to submit to the direction of church leaders, and vows of chastity by single people.

18. Church members do not have the right to vote on church decisions. Decisions are made by church leaders on behalf of the congregation. In many cases, church members have no idea how the church money is spent, even though it came out of their pockets. This will be called the New Testament model of the church.

Having an emphasis on the true family of God at the expense of family and friends

8. Loyalty to the pastor and the church is stressed, at the expense of loyalty to the congregation member’s family and to God.

Having little regard for the Person of the Holy Spirit as God’s Spirit

3. Extreme emphasis is placed on the authority of the pastors and the elders. Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Bible take a back seat to the authority of the leadership of the church.

Having an incorrect or partial view of the gifts of the Holy Spirit

5. Emphasis on the full five-fold ministry, with an undue amount of attention given to the apostle and the prophet.

7. The prophetic gifts are used to manipulate the congregation. Doom will be prophesied over someone who does not fully submit to the authority of leadership.

Undue use of guilt to get blessings

10. Congregation members are told that the primary way to receive God’s blessings and to be protected from the power of Satan is to submit to the authority of the pastor and other leaders.

13. Undue emphasis is placed on the public image of the church and ministry.

17. Teachings are guilt and works based, instead of grace and salvation based.

Having a “gospel” of sin management 

11. There is great emphasis on proper behavior and “sin management.” The verse “avoid the appearance of evil” will be used repeatedly.

12. Cell groups are “accountability groups,” instead of Bible study or prayer groups. Cell groups are a great idea, but when they are used to control the congregation’s behavior, instead of studying the Bible on a more intimate level, there is something wrong.

14. Undue emphasis is placed on what is appropriate behavior by the congregation.

15. Leadership seems to spend more time telling the congregation what to do than in teaching the congregation how to be a witness for Jesus to a dying world.

16. Directions for proper behavior seem to be rather prying and intimate. The congregation is told that they must do these things to receive God’s blessings, live a Christlike life and be good disciples of Jesus. These directions are not offered as suggestions, but as commands. These direction include, but are not limited to, being told what to wear, what to read, what movies or television shows to watch, what to eat and drink, who to date, who to marry, how to have sex with one’s spouse, how many children to have, how to raise one’s children, who one’s friend will be, where one should live, what job one should have, how many hours per day to pray and read the Bible, and how much money to give to the church.

Using extreme or physical forms of punishment for disobedience

19. Small children in Sunday school or nurseries are subjected to corporal punishment to “drive the rebellion from them,” and are told that they need to repent for something as trivial as pulling the toys out of the toybox without permission. This happens at ages as young as two years old, an age that most theologians recognize as being too young to understand the concepts of rebellion and repentance.

20. Rejection or questioning of the authority, doctrines or teachings of the church is dealt with through “discipline,” which may include public humiliation of the congregation member or being kicked out of the church. At the least, the congregation member who does the questioning is called rebellious, and quite possibly accused of witchcraft.

21. Leadership encourages (sometimes demands) that congregation members become their “armor bearers,” basing this concept on one little guy who appears once in the Bible – Jonathan’s armor bearer in 1 Samuel 14. While Jonathan’s armor bearer as also his friend and advisor, Shepherding church armor bearers are assigned menial tasks such as cleaning the pastors’ toilets and carrying their jackets and Bibles. They are sometimes totally ignored by leadership, not being spoken to for years.

Having a bad view of former members, especially critical voices

22. Members who leave the church without the formal consent and blessing of leadership are shunned, or publicly slandered.

23. Former church members display a form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. They report not wanting to go to church ever again, have difficulty reading their Bibles, and say that any thought of doing either causes them to be nauseated. They may also have stories of having been stalked or threatened by church leaders after they left.

After leaving UBF, I find that psychology has much to help to offer. The following media summarizes what has been very helpful to me, to unbind my mind and find the freedom and grace and love Jesus promised.

Helpful movies:
– “Mars Needs Moms”
– “The Hunger Games”
– “Good”
– “Downfall”
– “Amen”
– “Tangled”
– “Wrecked”
– “The Lorax”
– “Monsters Inc.”
– “Megamind”
– “Despicable Me”
– “The Shunning”
– “Astro Boy”

My favorite blogger these days:
http://paradigmshift-jmac.blogspot.com/2012/05/what-if-entire-fellowship-believed-that.html

A helpful documentary about Bonhoeffer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJpkVI2ZlMY

The story of Charles Spurgeon, the prince of preachers:
(converted while the normal pastor was snowed in!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlvK0EUn6u0

That Voy post actually helped me recently. Being called the “Tom Cruise of UBF” reminded me earlier this year of one of my favorite Tom Cruise movies, A Few Good Men. After watching this movie again this year, I decided to repent of defending UBF and learn from Tom Cruise’s character in that movie, Lt. Daniel Kaffee.

The tagline of the movie became a real-life inspiration to me: “In the heart of the nation’s capital, in a courthouse of the U.S. government, one man will stop at nothing to keep his honor, and one will stop at nothing to find the truth.” The dialogue in the movie regarding honor vs. truth opened my mind to see how wrong it is to ignore truth for the sake of honor. I pray that God’s people may be people of truth, asking questions and untwisting flawed theology.

Here is my favorite clip. Perhaps I am the Tom Cruise of UBF afterall.

Ending Part 1:

Ending Part 2: