Thanksgiving. Christmas. We are now entering the final 7 weeks of 2015. As we share in mourning for France, I renew the call for everyone to stand up against abusive ideologies and to stop enabling the purveyors of any kind of religious system that covers up abuse. What is the ubf answer for terrorism such as we just witnessed? They say “just study the Bible” and everything will be okay. And yet their system of “going back to the Bible” fosters abuse of many kinds. For ubfers, these last seven weeks of the year is the most intensive season of indoctrination and abuse.
The financial abuse kicks into high gear as babysitting money balloons to account for all the extended and additional meetings, practices and rehearsals for the end-of-the-year CWS (Christmas Worship Service) drama and dance productions. The pressure to offer high amounts of money sets in as well, limiting the family Christmas presents and celebrations in favor of showing loyalty to UBF. The psychological abuse, from my experience, hits an annual high during these last 7 weeks. UBFers are directed to spend much time reflecting on how thankful they are for their shepherds and that one chance meeting on campus years ago. Their minds are bound once again to the manger scene, and reminded of how much Jesus and Mary resemble the UBF leaders. Once again their theology of sacrifice is deeply ingrained into the souls of ubf members.
To counteract this prime time abuse season, I will be sharing quotes from my book, Identity Snatchers. And to kick off the series, I am offering Identity Snatchers for free on Kindle, one day only, Sunday 11/15. I believe the most effective way to counteract the abuse at UBF is by exposing the UBF lifestyle and by deconstructing UBFism.
The Holiday Challenge to be Mission-centered
As the holidays approach, ubf students will be challenged to cut short their time with their families. Some might be allowed to return home, but not without nervous glances and many prayer meetings with their shepherds. Surely any student who returns home will be put on a prayer list to “protect their hearts and minds” from the unspiritual and ungodly effect of their family. The students will hear ramped up calls by shepherds to be mission-centered and to shed their evil family-centered ideas.
The Holiday Challenge to Participate
The holidays should be a time of rest and reflection, and doing good deeds for the poor and others. UBF shepherds use the time however to challenge students to commit their lives to UBFism.
In addition to the standard meetings, new members are pressured to participate in numerous music and arts programs. Consider this quote by a former member:
“Every time a UBF holiday or major conference was upcoming, I would have to participate in a play, called a “drama,” scripted and directed by one of the UBF Koreans. The purpose of these plays was to entertain the audience at important UBF meetings, and to break down the personality of the actors. The manner in which we portrayed our characters in these plays was most unconventional and unnatural. I remember always being in a psychological state of dissociation when acting in UBF dramas. One time toward the end of my stay in UBF, I was told to write a script for a holiday drama. However, when we met to practice the drama, another UBF Korean showed up with a script of his own. ‘Ha! We never intended to use your script,’ he told me, ‘it was just training.’” –Anonymous, former Baltimore UBF member
Identity Snatchers: Exposing a Korean Campus Bible Cult, pg.53
The Holiday Pressure
The end of the year is sometimes filled with extra pressure and stress. UBF shepherds channel this into more pressure to indoctrinate students with UBFism, cleverly disguised with Christian terminology.
The UBF system begins and ends with pressure. The sources of that pressure seem innocent enough and are always rewarded with good food and many compliments. The student is invited to more than just a weekly Bible study meeting. Over time the student is pressured to attend an endless array of meetings. The intention of all these activities may be good and noble, but whatever good intention exists, such intention is spoiled with the pressure to attend. The new student discovers over time that the good fellowship is really intended to break down a student’s defenses in such a way that the student feels as if he or she made their own decisions. Such intrusion into a student’s life is unhealthy, but seen as a kind of holy love or spiritual cure.
The UBF system is setup in such a way that the student will think they are in a Christian discipleship program, with the expected Christian goals of purity, love for God, love for others and justice. To outsiders and newcomers, the UBF system often appears to be nothing more than a hyper-evangelical conservative Christian group with a few oddities. As a new student attends more and more drama rehearsals, prayer meetings and other fellowship, something seems odd, but usually they dismiss the oddity as being part of the Korean culture. This culture is heavily present at most UBF chapters. However, something more harmful is contributing to the odd sensation or mixed bag that outsiders often claim to see.
Identity Snatchers: Exposing a Korean Campus Bible Cult, pg.54
My spontaneous thoughts are that I used to practice the very things you describe for over two decades. I thought that this was THE way, God’s way, to fight shallow Christianity and nominalism. I was probably better at this than most, which was why I was once labelled as “exemplary!” But NOT ANY MORE.
Next, reading what you wrote makes me feel so sad and sorry that such practices are unfortunately still going on in varying degrees in different UBF chapters.
I would say that some places have reduced the pressure and guilt tripping to participate in UBF events.
My positive encouragement is simply that you do not have to say yes and agree. Stand up. Speak up. It is your right to fight and resist oppression. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be intimidated. It is your absolute God given Christian duty to live in the freedom of the Gospel. By the way, these are all biblical commands!
“I would say that some places have reduced the pressure and guilt tripping to participate in UBF events.”
Yes, the pressure had been reduced in recent years, dramatically so in some places by the reports I’ve received.
There are reasons for this reduced pressure:
– Me and my books
– The dialogues/outlet on ubfriends
– Joe and Sharon’s work
– Ben and Christie’s work and all Westloopers
– Many internal, secret reformers inside the group
To my knowledge, this perfect storm of external and internal Christian influence has not happened before at the group. The other 3 reform/crisis events helped only up to a point.
But ubfers should be aware–there are sharks just chomping at the bit to clamp down and bring ubf back to the hardcore pressure-cooker days.
The sharks’ key strategy is to outlast (probably because they are not smart enough to outwit people like me). That is why one of my key strategies is also to outlast. Lord willing, I plan to outlast all the sharks.
Brian: The reasons you give all play a role. But in my understanding, the main reason for the reduced pressure is that UBF is not lead by Samuel Lee any more. He was the origin of the pressure. When other leaders also exerted similar pressure, then only because they copied Samuel Lee. UBF is built in a way that people imitate what they learn from the leaders. Everything is based on cloning and imitation. After the prototype and inventor of this cloning process disappeared, UBF is only moving on via its own accumulated inertia. Without driving force from behind, the pressure goes down and due to friction the whole UBF movement will eventually halt, unless they find a new general director with a similar ability to manipulate and brainwash people to fear him more than death and absolutely do his will. But in the times of the Internet, and with all the bad history of UBF already revealed, this will become more and more difficult. A new cult leader of the calibre of Samuel Lee will want to start with a clean plate, copy some of the methods, but get rid of the rest of the UBF heritage.
Very good point Chris: “the main reason for the reduced pressure is that UBF is not lead by Samuel Lee any more. He was the origin of the pressure”
Indeed, while there are sharks still at ubf trying to do what SLee did, in the absence of the head shark, SLee, resistance is much more possible.
In fact, it is quite possible that none of what we’ve done would have worked when SLee was alive. Thank God the current General Director has at least some idea of reform and change.
UBFism lives on however. It is so difficult to end an ideology with hundreds of people still buying into it and still taking the UBF soldier oath. It is really sad to see reports of people still committing the rest of their lives to making the UBFism experiment work out when there are so many examples of failure.
“none of what we’ve done would have worked when SLee was alive”
That’s an interesting question. While Samuel Lee was still alive, people compared UBF with a pressure cooker where the pressure always went up until in the reform movements the cooker violently exploded and released much of the content. Then the lid was screwed on again until the next even more fervid explosion. I wonder if with the lid on again after the 2001 explosion, UBF would have exploded for good by now. But without the lid, it continued to simmer with no pressure and all reform attempts evaporate. It was easy for them to say “stop beating a dead horse” and “we have changed already” or “all UBF chapters are different” when the reform issues were brought up again.
The unfortunate unbiblical pressure that was created for over 50 years in UBF is the non-negotiable repeated teaching–implicit and explicit–that obeying your shepherd is equal to obeying God.
However, this pressure was never or rarely or much more gently and graciously applied when it concerned the children of the missionaries.
“However, this pressure was never or rarely or much more gently and graciously applied when it concerned the children of the missionaries.”
This is what I saw for decades as well, Ben. And now the ubf sharks are hiding behind the second gens’ work, like the Well. The traditional ubfers hate the Well, but they will gladly take the credit for the Well conference. And they will gleefully let the Well be the public face of UBF.
Chris, there is one more reason that the pressure is off and the sharks are backing off– the police.
I have already reported several cases of abuse to the appropriate police authorities. Covering up abuse is no longer an option.
And if anyone sees abuse at UBF and wants to report it, they should contact the local police. If you want me to do it, click the “Report abuse” link found in the Help page:
Help