Three months ago, I received word from Steven Hassan that he would not only like to read my new book, but would like to interview me. Steven Hassan is the author of Combating Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best-Selling Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults. He believes, as I do, that the best way to combat mind control groups is for former members to share their stories. According to Vimeo, my interview has now gotten 100 plays in approximately 100 days. That equates to someone watching my video every day for three months. Please continue to share your stories. Here is mine.
Hassan – Karcher 2015 – Interview University Bible Fellowship (UBF) from Brian John Karcher on Vimeo.
In case you missed it, here is a link to my book and Steven Hassan’s book that we discussed in the interview.
You mentioned in another post the importance of hearing former members’ stories. I cannot tell you how much I agree with this, since during my time in UBF I only heard one side of why people had left and it stuck out to me.
I had been having questions for a couple months, but reading former members’ stories was what really opened my eyes to the UBF process, both in how it had damaged many people spiritually and in how many people had been genuinely led by the Spirit to move on–something that would have been impossible according to my co-workers.
These things must be shared openly and discussed without hesitation; if there is to be any redemption for UBF, that is it. Healthy ministries are open and honest about their problems and about the real guidance of the Holy Spirit. That was the biggest contrast I noticed at my new church: they laid out their beliefs and their issues from day one.
Very astute comment, Hertoa:
“These things must be shared openly and discussed without hesitation; if there is to be any redemption for UBF, that is it.”
It is highly ironic that the redemption of ubf can indeed be found in sharing stories… isn’t that what testimony sharing *should* be all about?
But the downfall of ubf continues into 2016… why? Because the ubfers still feel compelled to be the Lord’s anointed who script out the narratives of “sheep”.
Therefore it is time to resurrect the UBFERATOR! Here is some fun for all you sheep stuck under the heavy yoke of your ubf shepherd. Just answer a few questions and presto! You have a scripted testimony that your shepherd cannot deny! Forests won’t even have to edit your testimony for posting on ubf.org. “The UBFERATOR scripts out life, so you don’t have to” (TM)
UBFERATOR – Life is scripted; be a shepherd
UBFERATOR – Life is bad; rebuke boldly
UBFERATOR – Life is busy; generate your question sheet answers
Disclaimer: The ubferator links above may earn you severe dead dog training. Use at your own risk. The ubferator has also been known to cause intense abdominal pain from laughing too hard. Please use with caution. If you experience laughter lasting more than four hours, please call your doctor. – See more at: http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/09/03/the-ubferator/#sthash.CiY782RO.dpuf
I agree with you, Hertoa! I hope others will share their stories as well.
Brian, thank you for sharing your story and for writing the book, Identity Snatchers. It certainly gave me an inside view to all that I was completely oblivious to. I came to recognize that there were many things wrong in the organization, but you highlighted many factors that only the higher leadership was fully aware of. Thank you and M for your courage to stand up, speak out, and offer help to former members!!!
Thanks Hertoa and Suz!
I love Ben and Joe’s forewords to my book. Their commentaries alone are worth the price of the book, in my opinion.
Here is something Joe wrote:
“The things he writes about did happen, and the stories must be told. The subtitle of this book, Exposing a Korean Campus Bible Cult , will cause many UBF leaders and members to become upset. They really, really hate it when you drop the C-bomb. For decades, their organization has been hounded by tales of authoritarian abuse, manipulation, cover-up and deceit. The stories are extensive and well documented. Everyone knows of them. In private conversation, many of the top leaders of UBF will admit that these stories are true, yet they maintain that the problems are not very serious. And as a public matter, University Bible Fellowship has never demonstrated any remorse or admitted any wrongdoing.”
I agree with Joe’s statement that many UBF leaders today will privately admit that some things done were really bad…or that they “lacked wisdom,” or “could have been done better.” But the “intention” was good and pure.
However, the underlying often unspoken justification for “abusive” practices/actions is that “God blessed UBF so much and brought countless people to Christ/salvation in many countries, and raised many committed disciples.” It is as though the good clearly exceeds the bad in UBF. So just forget about the bad and focus on the good.
Or that we are all sinners. So sinners make mistakes, including UBF sinners. So forgive those who used and abused you, so that God will forgive you.
Or just move on and give your life to another church and ministry, which clearly lacks understanding of people and how their past experiences shape their present and their future.
Finally, I think that it is a mixture and combination of both pride and fear.
1) Pride in that–in the strong honor shame culture of UBF–it is shameful (and virtually impossible) to acknowledge your sins publicly, even though David confessed his sin publicly for the whole world to read. Also, many sins happened “long ago” and that now we are “correcting them as best we can.” So it’s not necessary to bring up past matters.
2) Fear in that if wrongdoing is acknowledged, many “new innocent sheep” who are eager to study the Bible will run away, or lawsuits may arise.
So in my opinion, because of pride and fear, UBF has not been able to truly and fully confront and face her past, which is quite unfortunate.
Correct, Ben. ubfers almost always jump to “But we intended something good…” It is the classic “ends justifies the means” falsehood.
While they keep justifying things, check out the slightly modified Freedom of Mind version of the video, up on Steven Hassan’s Vimeo page, which has over 30 views:
Steven Hassan interview with author and former UBF member Brian Karcher from Steven Hassan & Freedom of Mind on Vimeo.
Brian & Ben,
I actually have a question regarding the predatory side of UBF. Can you please speak to the issue of hunting down and stalking the “run away sheep”? This aspect of my experience was probably the most disturbing as I’ve tried to process the group’s repeated actions in this regard. Is this practice common amongst other cult groups as well? Does Hassan address this issue in his book?
I have more to say, but here is a quote from one of Hassan’s books:
“Some cults teach their members that people who leave the group are the enemy. While such intimidation should be taken seriously, actual incidents of violence are rare. Fear of negative publicity usually keeps the group from retaliating. Ex-members need to realistically appraise the potential for retribution.”
The extreme following up for “troubled sheep” is very common in ubf. I suspect it is common in shepherding groups, not sure how common in other cults/new religious movements.
Suz, I have read it more than once in testimonies.
It can take several shapes. The better one is when the shepherds believe they must search the “lost sheep” everywhere and bring it back to the flock to be a good shepherd. The worse one is when they believe the sheep has turned into a wolf and now hate it with all their heart because it has become their enemy and the enemy of the flock which they think they need to protect.
UBF has no “handbook” for how to deal with such situations. All their actions are based on imitating others and a result of the “shepherd identity” that is imposed on the members, particularly the “missionaries”.
How they behave towards you also depends on how self-cofident you appear. When they see you are unsure, you have self-doubts, you feel guilty, or your self-confidence has little cracks, they exploit this and try to crash you, otherwise they will either avoid you or go back to love-bombing depending on how much hope they have that you can be re-integrated. Every UBF member knows that in order to be a good UBF member, first your own personality (your “true self”) must be completely shattered and then in place ot this, the new UBF personality (the “cult self”) needs to be imposed on you, replacing your old identity. That’s a strategy they always have in their mind and that distinguishes UBF from legit Christian ministries. It’s the old cult concept of “break me and re-make me”.
It all is a bit complicated because the Bible has a concept that might look similar. So people might excuse UBF thinking they are doing the “work of God.” However, only God Himself may “smash” people. If so-called shepherds try to do this on His behalf, they are overstepping their competence and do harm. Also, God will never destroy your individuality because He created that individuality and personality in the first place and He loves diversity. Cults in contrast love uniformity, they want to shape everyone into the same mold.
By the way, regarding the “re-making” of people, UBF has this concept of training that is associated with the images of how you train a dog, a sportsman, a soldier and also how you raise up and educate children. In Germany they use the word “Erziehung” for this that fits better to UBF’s concept than the English word “training.” So they would use the word “Jünger-Erziehung” in German when they would use the words “raising/training disciples” in English. Interestingly, that word “Jünger-Erziehung” has never been used in German Christianity over centuries, it was kind of invented by UBF, and when you google for it you will only find UBF websites. And when I searched the German Bible for the word “Erziehung,” I found it was never used with the idea of one adult person doing this to another one, but that it was kind of reserved to parenting and then to God in the lives of adults. That was a big eye-opener for me. What UBF actually does is usurping the place of God in the lives of the members. That’s at the core of all the abuse and why it hurts so much.
“What UBF actually does is usurping the place of God in the lives of the members. That’s at the core of all the abuse and why it hurts so much.” Chris, I think you ‘hit nail on head.’
A few days ago, a report went up on ubf.org about things that happened in Kenya. A UBF shepherd from Kenya shared TMI about the marriage-by-faith process. There was a paragraph about how the missionaries “canceled” one couple’s marriage after three years for unspecified reasons. I was going to copy and paste the paragraph here for everyone to see. But someone just edited the report on ubf.org and took the paragraph out.
http://ubf.org/world-mission-news/africa/kenya-ubf-mission-report-juma-fuchingo
My question: Are they doing anything to deal with the abusive practices of missionaries in Africa? Or are they simply trying to hide the truth?
Joe,
Thanks for pointing this out. It appears the statements are still there:
“However, during this year we also experienced spiritual struggle in our mission. We struggled to pray for the restoration of two house churches continuously throughout the year. This is our pain of prayer even as we go into the new year. We pray that God may touch their hearts and revive their calling and mission as campus shepherds. After cancelling one potential shepherd and sister’s marriage by faith that was ongoing for three years, they eventually compromised due to their own human approach and fell into sin. This dashed our hope to establish at least one house church this year as we had prayed. This caused a lot of suffering among all our missionaries and senior leaders who had invested their hearts to pray for these two.”
If this disappears, our dark weblord can usually find it again via things such as Google cache 🙂
Google cached version of the Kenya Report”
There used to be an internet history/wayback website that captured snapshots as well. Not sure if it is still running, but you can check out older links: Web Archive
My mistake. Yes, it’s still there.
But now that we’ve pointed it out, it might disappear.
This kind of special editing goes on regularly though. Sheep experience such editing when preparing a life testimony.
The recent 50th anniversary lecture from David Kim is a glaring example of such deceptive editing. The published paperback book (which I have a copy) and the online version of his “Terrible Times” lecture are different. The American website version is toned down, with blatant spiritual abuse phrases taken out:
Deceptive editing of Terrible Times lecture
I will be interested in hearing how its spun from the editing team. I have been proof reading the ones from South America, but I never change the content of the text.
That being said I have never come across anything like that…although I was once confused why a group of Korean Missionaries moved to South America to start a Korean language school. Still pretty confused on how effective it is to join a culture and minister by becoming completely separate.
Wow, Chris, thank you for your insight as well. It is a bit ironic for the predators to call their prey “the wolves” for refusing to come back or for threatening to expose them. As Ben and so many others have referred to: UBF-ers ARE the hunters, but Brian has provided the hunted a platform for exposing them and for sharing our experiences about their abusive practices with the world.
This video is 1000% truth. I too was apart of ubf the Kansas city chapter and I got a front row seat to the spiritual elitism, hypocrisy of this so called ministry. they should call ubf the ministry of Samuel lee because it does not work on behalf of the heavenly father.
Hi Rocket and welcome to “you be friends”.
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I definitely plan on uploading my story whenever I get the time.
I wrote previously that emphasizing one’s good intention only hurts and wounds others more: Christian leaders emphasize their good intentions. If and when confronted about their “cruelty,” they might become defensive. Next, they express their good intentions in trying to help and serve others. Though this may be true, such statements never console any person wounded by them.
Christian leaders are relatively “blind” to their own self-righteousness. Every Christian without exception sees more clearly the faults/sins of others, rather than their own (Mt 7:3-4).
– See more at: http://www.ubfriends.org/2012/05/30/wounded-by-the-righteous/#sthash.jebCxxqV.dpuf
The response I got on the topic of “cancelling” a marriage was crazy.
“Do you have suggestion for better word for it.”
I have a better word for it: authoritarianism
Here is another word: spiritual abuse
And another: cultic control
And another: evil manipulation
Take your pick…
How about “dictatorial Korean missionary mentality”?
Or maybe just “sin.”
When a Christian leader/”chapter director” feels that they have the right and God given authority to threaten anyone–such as to cancel one’s marriage–it is just plain sad.
It is even sadder when it is not addressed by the church while it continues to happen, because the recurring emphasis/prayer topic is to “increase in number” (Gen 1:28) and “make (new) disciples” (Mt 28:19), rather than to publicly address horribly abusive, controlling and manipulative bad church practices that have wounded so many.
To bring some levity to this very serious issue, I just want to say that the one positive thing from my experience with UBF was that it gave me the opportunity to try a new ethnic food. For this, I am grateful! Korean bulgogi with sticky rice is still a favorite of mine! A very, very good friend of mine, who is Korean American, has helped redeem my view of Koreans. She is a solid and humble Christian, and I am grateful for her friendship.
Fully agree. Korean food is great and there were many good things you could learn from the Koreans. Unfortunately everything was tainted with the UBF sauce.
I only gained three good things from ubf and that is broadening my horizons as far as cross-cultural friendships. Up until that time I didn’t really have many Asian friends, second enjoying Korean food, and due to my break-up with ubf the third has been to study the bible from a biblical/historic perspective.
@ Suz blugogi and rice is a favorite of mine too. Just don’t know how to make it. Since I left ubf it has been hard for me to interact with my Asian friends. That is something I must get over.
@Rocket – Korean cooking is not so difficult, there are many videos on Youtube showing you how to make bulgogi or kimchi or kimbap. For some of the ingedients you will need to got to an Asia shop of course. But that’s also interesting.
There is a fantastic Korean restaurant in my area, Riverside, in Covington, Kentucky. I go there sometimes but am always nervous that I will run into a Cincinnati UBF member, haha!
Hey everyone, if you add up the views/plays from the 2 Vimeo links and the 1 Youtube link to my video interview with Steven Hassan, there are now 1,062 views! On to 100,000 by 2041! lol