As we former members know all too well, responses from ubfers are rare gems. Here is the second public response to me recently (the first was a one-star public review of my Identity Snatchers book). For context, please read the Martlet Student Newspaper article from June 9, 2016, where I was interviewed: http://www.martlet.ca/student-club-connected-to-an-organization-accused-of-cult-like-activities/
On November 3, 2016, Mr. Joshua Park (the chapter director in Victoria ubf) sent the following Letter to the Editor: http://www.martlet.ca/letters-to-the-editor-nov-3/
In his letter, Mr. Park plays many cards. Here are my reactions…
“University Bible Fellowship accusations unfounded”
Right from the start, Mr. Park dismisses ALL accusations entirely. The word “unfounded” means “having no foundation or basis in fact.” This is the curse we ubf survivors live with–our perspectives are dismissed as having no value. Some survivors thus have difficulty finding reality. What is real if zero of my thoughts are valid?
Mr. Park addresses two issues that are problematic to the group, even though many issues have been raised. I raise 12 toxic problems in my books. Mr. Park responds to two of the issues: “1) Arranged marriage” and “2) Isolation of members from friends and family”
Response to the Arranged Marriage accusation
Mr. Park first plays both the “seniority card” and the “ostrich card”. This is a favorite card to play by ubf defenders:
“I have been in the UBF for over 20 years, but I’ve never heard any UBF member who said he/she was pressured to love another member, and I’ve never seen or known such practices in UBF.”
Wow! We should just rejoice in the streets! Mr. Park has been in ubf soooo long. He says he neeeevver saw anything. Right.
Next Mr. Park gets weird..
“If you have a good male friend and female friend, you may think that they can be a beautiful couple. So you can introduce them, saying “I know that you both look good. You can be a beautiful couple.” If they want and agree, they can accept your introduction. If they don’t want and disagree, they will say, “No. Thanks.”
What? Mr. Park now plays the “we are normal” card. Everybody has male and female friends right? It’s normal to introduce them as marriage partners right? This is NOT normal folks.
“The UBF churches are doing the same. Pastors observe their church members for quite a long period. There are some young men and women who are mature spiritually and ready to get married. Pastors can introduce young men and women.”
Mr. Park again plays the “we are normal” card. He uses words like “churches” and “pastors” to appear more Christian-like. ubf uses the terms “chapters” and “directors”, along with “shepherds” and “shepherdesses”. In recent years they like to play word games by adopting Christian terms like “elders”. It is all just a ruse however.
“If they accept each other, they can get married. If they don’t want, they say, “No. Thanks.” That’s all.”
Really? That’s all?!? What about all those young adults who got shipped off to other chapters because they said “No thanks” to their Marriage by Faith arrangement? What about all those students who undergo marriage-training?
“Do you think that this is duly called an arranged marriage? Is it a cult-like practice?”
Now Mr. Park plays a serious cult manipulation card–the “shell game” card. If you accept Mr. Parks words, naturally you would say “No this is not cult-like practice!” But if you knew the actual Marriage by Faith practices, you would be shocked. Why not call this as Marriage by Faith, Mr. Park? Why don’t you explain how Marriage by Faith is an attempt to immitate the Genesis story of Rebekah and Isaac? Why not explain how these marriages are coerced beforehand?
“Brian Karcher, who said he was married through the UBF’s arranged marriage in his interview, stayed in UBF for 20 years.”
Now Mr. Park gets to me. No, Mr. Park, I did not stay 20 years but 24 years. Get your facts straight, lol.
“When his pastor introduced a woman, why did he accept her? Why didn’t he say to his pastor, “No. Thanks. This is cult-like”?”
Well, Mr. Park, I am glad you asked! I DID say “this is cult-like”. MBF (Marriage by Faith) was always a sticking point for me at ubf, from day 1. Before marriage I shared a testimony, sometime around a Valentine’s Day, in which I accused my shepherd of arranging marriages. I shared how marriage is about love, not about working for God’s glory. My shepherd was so very angry. I learned that if I continued challenging MBF, things would not go well for me. So I stopped speaking out against it.
I felt so much angst as I watched my friends be arranged-married to people they barely knew. One friend saw his new “co-worker” wife leave the country, and then they divorced. Another friend was possibly a lesbian, but she was married anyway. They soon left ubf. These MBF practices, Mr. Park are indeed cult-like. They are harmful and must be stopped.
Why did I accept my wife? Well if you read my books, I explain. I accepted my wife because I chose my wife! Yes, I played the MBF game to win. When our marriage was arranged, it was secretly influenced by me. My shepherd chose the woman I wanted to marry! I accept my wife because she is beautiful, intelligent, and funny.
“Why did he stay in UBF for 20 years? As you know, he is a smart and intellectual IT specialist who authored four books. If he really thought that UBF is cult-like, he should have left the church earlier. In fact, I heard that he often said that he has been happily married to his wife.”
Yes, Mr. Park, I am happily married to my wife. But we were miserable in ubf. We had no marriage relationship in ubf–we were “friends with benefits”. We are only happily married now because we left the group. Now we have time to focus on building our relationship.
As for your other questions, please read my books. I explain in detail, especially in “Goodness Found: The Butterfly Narratives”. Here is a summary: I joined because the group promised goodness. I stayed because the group re-defined goodness. And I left in order to find goodness.
Response to the Isolation of members accusation
“UBF practices discipleship according to Jesus’ teachings in the Bible as many other conservative churches do.”
Mr. Park again plays the “we are normal” card. Why then did the group cut all ties with the Presbyterian church? If the group is so normal, why do they make the claim of being the “best Bible teachers”? If the group is so normal, why do they claim to be so different and “world class shepherds”?
“Some members may feel that teachings and practices for a God-centered devotion pull them off from friends and family.”
Mr. Park now admits the accusaion is true.
“But putting priority to God and His kingdom is a norm for a Christian and it requires certain adjustments in social and family life. I haven’t seen any practice in UBF ministry that pushes its members to alienate from their friends and family against their own will.”
Again, the “we are normal” card and the “ostrich” card. Just because you have not seen any practice like this, Mr. Park, does not negate the fact that such practices exist. Come on now, be honest, you have seen such things.
“If a church tries to separate you from your friends and family, what will you do? Will you just keep quiet and stay for over 20 years as Brian Karcher claimed? Everybody knows that it is just an artificial accusation.”
Ah now we get another serious cult manipulation mind trick, the “turn the tables” card. Mr. Park thinks that correlation means causation, a fatal flaw in his thinking. And then he plays the “everybody” card. We all know Brian is lying right? LOL.
Mr. Park, you will need better cards if you are going to play with me 🙂
Great response. All these “we are normal” and “nobody is forced to do anything” and “if we were so bad, why don’t people leave earlier” excuses miss one point: The reality of mind control by use of persuasion, manipulation and human psychology that has been proven to work times and again, in thousands of similar groups and cults. Coupled with the promise to give you eternal life, an absolute meaning and calling in your life, and the “church” that claims to be “God’s work” as a substitute family. Coupled with a steep hierarchical slope and extreme power divide between the “servant’s of God” who are the representatives of God for you, and yourself, a worm that is always sinning and always needs to confess guilt in weekly testimonies. In this environment, nothing is “normal” and rational behavior and reaction to abuse simply does not occur. Just look at the “metoo” debate where women also were abused and kept quite for years and decades. Similar mechanisms, starting with a power divide. But in UBF, in addition to the power divide, we have all this ideological superstructure and religious window dressing of the power divide that confuses people and stops them from speaking up against “the work of God”. Shame on you, Mr. Park, for claiming UBF is “normal”. You know very well that nothing about the UBF practices and teachings is normal.
Thanks Brian for sharing.
Surely God would not commission anyone to do His work who would break His commandments.
The commandment in the Old Testament of honouring your parents is God’s first in human relationships. UBF ‘missionaries’ break this commandment and are teaching their ‘sheep’ to do the same, I.e. to sin against God.
The commandment in the New Testament to love your neighbors means having compassion for fellow human beings. Again UBF ‘missionaries’ break this commandment by influencing (mind controlling) their ‘sheep” to love only UBFers, but hate their neighbors.
I wonder if they ever thought of their accountability when God’s judgement comes.
With regards to arranged marriages which I know is still widely practiced by the East Indians, though with modern modifications, they are the affairs of the God given physical familied. Even in the Bible incident of Isaac and Rebekah’s marriage, it was the father’s arrangement. Nowhere in the Bible did God approve of someone else replacing the role of the parents, such as that of UBF ‘shepherds’ replacing parents of other people’s sons and daughters for the marriages. What distorted man-made relationships and practices!
http://ubfriends.net/offended-by-teaching-the-truth-too-early/ here is what I think Is happening
I think you make some valid points, FBU:
“This is why people write complaints on ex member forums when we teach the inner secrets of UBF. Not because it is a false representation of University Bible Fellowship but because we are teaching them the real teachings too early in the recruitment process and breaking the commitment to secrecy to the public secret society known as University Bible Fellowship.”
Indeed, when the ubf 6 stage training model is discussed publicly, the ubf Koreans get rather anxious and upset. We are messing up their “spiritual order” and sharing too much information.
I remember so many times when we shepherds were exhorted to just reveal the shepherding plan slowly, one element at a time. This is all part of the age regression scheme at ubf. We unfortunately treated young adults as babies and young children, thinking they can’t handle the “higher things” of shepherding glory. All this is of course proof-texted from the Bible.
The article excerpt below is “nuff said” about the spirit and character of UBF. Their first instinct is to lie brazenly (“Oh, it’s just a coincidence.”) Then, when called out for the lie, they claim “persecution” (“harassment”) and disappear.
Article excerpt:
“Pratt sent two emails to the address publically listed on the CCSS website, but received no response. He then contacted the CCSS itself, asking them to contact the group. The student society did, and the Camosun UBF claimed that the similar names were a coincidence and that they would be changing the name shortly.
“Satisfied, Pratt let up on his investigation. But he then discovered that the Camosun UBF advertised larger UBF conferences as opportunities for students.
“‘I emailed them again,’ Pratt recalls, ‘saying that if you’re not associated with the international group, and the name is a coincidence, how come you’re saying you’re going to send Camosun students to the international groups’ meetings?’
“Just days later, a CCSS employee informed Pratt that the group were withdrawing their club status due to claims that Pratt was harassing them. As quickly as the organization had popped into Pratt’s consciousness, they had just as quickly disappeared.”
“To this day, they’ve never contacted me, they’ve never replied to my emails, and I don’t even know who they are,” Pratt says. “If it was just a coincidence, you’d think they would want to clear their name.”
Good observations, WholeNumber. The way the Victoria group reacted reveals their cultish mindset. A little publicity goes a long way when it comes to exposing cults.
“We unfortunately treated young adults as babies and young children, thinking they can’t handle the “higher things” of shepherding glory. All this is of course proof-texted from the Bible.”
What proof texts do they use?
1 Corinthians 3:2, Hebrews 5:12 (but we rarely used Hebrews because it is not “SLee canon”). One verse was enough for us, lol!
The other thought we used was that we inferred that Jesus was dishing out the truths of Heaven little by little, based on passages like John 14.
That is the exact opposite of how I understood Hebrews 5 and 1 Corinthians 3 where I thought he was rebuking them for choosing not to learn things and being behind where they could have been by now in learning progress
I’m not surprised. The UBF group sees the Bible is simply a tool to make people loyal to UBFism. It really doesn’t matter to them what you believe, as long as you remain loyal. I often joked that I could lead a drug dealer ring in Detroit and UBF leaders would praise me–as long as the drug dealers were loyal to UBFism!
“Why did he stay in UBF for 20 years? As you know, he is a smart and intellectual IT specialist who authored four books. If he really thought that UBF is cult-like, he should have left the church earlier. In fact, I heard that he often said that he has been happily married to his wife.”
Mr. Park sounds like a real piece of … work. It wouldn’t be considered a cult if it was easy to leave. Does any former cult member claim that it was easy to leave their cult? Sheesh. Anyway, there’s an article, “Against All Reason: Why I Failed to Leave My Cult” at http://bit.ly/2si5s91. Mr. Park should try reading it sometime to educate himself.