What has been lost has been found. It was believed that upstanders to the perpetrators of UBF and its retribution were silenced or disbanded. However, that is not truly the case. The reformers are still active and mainly together even to this day. In fact with the way events and circumstances are proceeding in current UBF chapters where current members are shaken up and questioning things (like those who are still in the chapter I use to go to) there’ll be a 5th reform movement. This is a theory of course but a very probably one.
Until I read “The Four Reform Movements” article I had no idea about 2 things. 1st that there were four reform movements. 2nd That there the reform movements happened all around the world including Korea. The latter truly caught my interest for UBF was founded in Korea. I have always heard the sugarcoated story of things going well in Korea and never the other side until the past week. The fact that the founder Lee refused to acknowledge let alone listen to Korea UBF and the rest of UBF is very disturbing. Then again I don’t Lee personally nor have I ever met him for he was killed by fire in Jan 2002 when I was 6 years old. So what I know about Lee is based off of documents, stories, and accounts from people who have met him or knew him personally.
The second and third reform movement is interesting for around and at the same time frame there was a Satanic Panic in the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s. Here is an interesting article about the Satanic Panic. In fact there was controversy at the Triton UBF chapter in 1997 which was documented. Here is all the declassified info on the Triton UBF chapter.
I believe there were a lot more UBF reform websites besides the Korean, German, and U.S. It could be that they are undercover or under a different name. Here is an insightful list of some UBF reform websites. **Disclaimer: For the websites that are not in English like the German UBF reform sites if you are not fluent in foreign languages you’ll need Google translate or Microsoft Translator.**
Is there anything that I have missed? What was your experience or perspective during one of the reform movements or during the Satanic Panic?
Eddie, just an admin note. Some of us are subscribed to ubfriends, so we get an email whenever you post a new article. Your latest articles are being sent out with me “BrianK” as the author. This might not be what you want… I’d suggest saving a draft of new articles, switching the author, and then clicking Publish. That way the emails will go out with the proper author 🙂
It has been said that UBF is a cult in continual reform. As long as the leaders continue to seek salvation by preserving their UBF heritage, these kinds of events will continue.
Among leaders, these events are NOT known as reform events, but as crisis events. While the leaders try to siphon off as many Christian sounding words and activities as they can from the reformers, the leaders strictly view these events as rebellion and crisis. This is made clear in the UBF Blue Book.
I summarized the Four reform/crisis events on my blog: Summary of 4 attempts to Reform the UBF cult
The best articles to read from these reform/crisis events:
2000 – Reform Declaration, USA Chapters
2010 – Joe Schafer member survey and summary
All attempts to reform have failed. UBFism is still the religion practiced by UBF chapters around the world. Narcissistic and abusive leaders are still there–the same leaders written about for decades. They claim God defeated and silenced the critics, like me. The reality is they are just stubborn.
I am excited to hear about a 5th reform/crisis event. I hope the West coast chapters can help put an end to UBFism.
I wrote this back in 2012: “Based on this pattern, I predict another reform attempt will be made sometime around 2019 unless there is divine intervention.”
Eddie, your list of websites is really good. Thank you for capturing all that information!
In regard to the 4 crisis events, I am adding a section to our wiki called UBF History. Former members have been written out of their history, so I say we publish our accounts and gain as much publicity as possible. I’ll be adding much more to the history page soon.
Also, I think I fixed the email that goes out for new articles. My Facebook account was still linked to the Admin account here at ubfriends. I disconnected it, so we’ll have to see when the next article is published if there are any further issues.
If anyone is interested, here is an example of how ubfers document their history. They only care about “pioneering”. Note the BIG contradictory statements at the end of this link:
UBF self-aggrandized history
At the end of the link above, they share the often repeated “Same or different?” article. This is a big contradiction. UBF claims they are just a normal mainline church, no different from anyone else. And at the same time they claim they are so unique and different from every other church, as if they are the true Christian church.
In reality they have NO official ties to any of the 7 mainline denominations in America or anywhere else or even any other actual Christian church. UBF is a new religious movement promoting their own new religion called UBFism.
Hello, WikiGoat,
Somewhere in one of your recent articles you mentioned SB being written out of UBF’s history. I can’t locate the article right now. I remember that it made me think about SB.
I really liked her at first because she appeared to be such a sweet and affable lady. She was one of the reasons that I began to trust UBF. I thought that an organization whose founding mother was such an honest and authentic person could not possibly be a cult.
At that time (in the early 1980’s) I didn’t know the first thing about mind and behavior control. I assumed that a main characteristic of cult groups was non-mainstream theology, especially in regard to who Jesus is. UBF does have questionable theology, but I did not realize it back then. So I put my uneasy feelings about UBF aside and stayed for about 16 years recruiting unwitting students and going through an arranged marriage.
Later I developed mixed feelings about SB caused mostly by her reactions to SL’s bizarre “training methods.” When the subject of SL’s medical experiments on people came up – which appalled me – she claimed that SL actually healed those people. When another recruiter and I asked her about students being coerced into walking barefoot in cold weather for several hours at night, she told us to see the humor in that situation. She always explained away what regular people would consider dangerous and humiliating situations attributing them to SL’s deep love for students, his somewhat eccentric nature, and the recruits’ lack of humor.
I still have mixed feelings about SB. How could a seemingly good former Christian missionary help found an organization that specializes in manipulating and controlling people? My family and I left UBF 16 years ago, but not much seems to have changed since then. SB is still there. Maybe she has always had good intentions. Maybe she keeps telling herself that UBF has helped a large number of people in its history.
I really liked her. If I were her, I would not mind being written out of UBF’s founding history. I would actually appreciate it.
Hi Moriah. Yes I have mentioned that I think Korea UBF wanted to write Sarah Barry out of their history. I’m not sure what they want now, as I am no ties to UBF at all anymore. Back in 2012, after reading the UBF 50th Anniversary Blue Book and seeing the articles about the new UBF museum dedicated to Lee in Korea, I saw the trend to give credit to Lee more than Barry. Perhaps that has changed recently, not sure.
I think your thoughts on SB are accurate. I met her many times, and even spent 6 hours talking with her in person before our family terminated Detroit UBF and left for good. I see two streams of thought in UBFism… One is from Lee, and leads to spreading UBFism. The other is from Barry, and leads to spreading the gospel. Of course this is too simplistic, but I find it to be an accurate assessment of UBF worldwide. Some chapters preach UBFism and accidentally share the gospel. Other chapters preach the gospel and drage UBFism along for the ride.
I think SB has been fake in her testimony, which has lead many to write their own false/fanciful testimonies glorifying UBF. One problem with SB is that she has been PRAISED her entire life. She can’t take criticism and just deletes former member emails. In her own words, SB mentions a special “Sarah Barry Day” in her home church (UBF never had any ties with that Presbyterian church btw).
SB testifies “On November 14, 2010, I spoke at the Sunday worship service in the Benoit Union Church, my home church. They had a special World Mission emphasis day and they called it “Sarah Barry Day” (source: UBF self-glofification website)
But this leaves out the fact that her home church used to have a “Sarah Barry Day” EVERY year from 1966 to about 1975. Here is a link to a newspaper article from 12/8/1967, which says “Greenville, Miss. Delta-Democrat-Times: Annual Sarah Barry Day Set For Benoit Sunday — The Benoit Union Church will celebrate its second annual Sarah Barry Day with a program at 7 p. m. Sunday, followed by a social in Evans Memorial Hall. The Rev. T. Robert Fulton of Greenville First Presbyterian Church will bring the message, a letter from Miss Barry to the church will be read by Professor George Rogers, the choir will sing a special song and Methodist minister, the Rev. Wilson Rav, will M. C. the ceremony.”
Why is there SO much PRAISE and FLATTERY at UBF chapters? Well because SB has been praised and flattered her whole life, to the point where she cannot bear any negativity or criticism of any kind. So while yes SB brings some bit of Christianity to UBFism, she also brings much poison.
For me, SB has simply been an enabler and facilitator of abuse. She knows all of the dark secrets of UBF, all the misconduct SL from the beginnings, the misappropriation of money, the forced abortions and much more, and she never said anything but actively helped in covering it all up and silencing, shaming and shunning those who spoke up. She not only survived but actively impeded all 3 (or maybe now 4) reform movements. Therefore in my view, she is not any better than SL, maybe even worse, because she was giving an impression to be holier and better than others, including Lee, while still supporting his system and benefitting from it by getting so much fame and appreciation and being treated like a saint. She loved that flattery and admiration very much, she loved being called “Mother” even though Jesus explicitly said such titles should not be used. In my view, SL and SB fell into the same trap: Getting too much money, admiration, fear, veneration from their followers which made them corrupt and proud. They never wanted to give that up and face truth and “go back to the Bible” as SL said but never did.
For anyone wanting to start a 5th reform/crisis event at UBF, please read Joe Schafer’s excellent articles. He became the voice of the 4th reform/crisis event.
Telling it to the church – Part 3
“…we’ll descend into belly of the beast, to the inner sanctum, that secretive world of UBF leadership that has never before seen the light of day. And this time, I will be naming names. Yes, today you will hear things that I have not yet shared with anyone, except for my wife and perhaps our dog.”
I also highly recommend reading and understanding the 2011 50th anniversary lecture entitled Terrible Times
wikigoat- Thanks for providing the links. I have seen some of them before back in 2015 when I started to question the UBF chapter I was in. I tried to find them again but to no avail for they were probably removed by UBF themselves. Now they can be recorded
Just want to note this publicly: I have archived the 4th reform movement material:
ubfriends.org with over 20,000 comments
BrianK journey of recovery priestlynation blog
BrianK free companion to the Identity Snatchers book
Regarding your mention of the satanic scare
Satanism and occult-related violence : what you should know / Michael D. Langone, Linda O. Blood.
Langone, Michael D.
I have never read the book listed above but read another book my Michael Langone possibly called recovery from cults. According to this book ritual abuse does occur in real life but sometimes people impersonate being in a religion they are not to intimidate the victim not to speak against abuse because it creates a fear factor, additionally there are other reasons, however some people really do abuse as a part of a religious group they are sincerely devoted to for religious reasons, not merely because they enjoy abusing people. Langone briefly discusses this in the book I read however I imagine he goes into more detail in the book above which I have not read.
Langone, Michael D., ed. (January 1, 1994). Recovery from Cults : Help for victims of psychological and spiritual abuse. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0393701647
Is there a purpose to dividing it into four reform movements as opposed to saying reform has just been continuously proposed?
The reason why it’s called four reform movements is because the interval between each one is about a decade. But nowadays it is more common and more appropriately called Crises
Crises because they do not reform and the leadership panics?
Bingo
Before and after leaving ubf, I was asked to help reform the group. I always refused this invitation to reform because I’ve seen too much. Behind the scenes, I saw how the ubf group is beyond reform. The same people are in charge now that were in charge decades ago, minus a few who died.
Keep in mind the ubf missionaries call the events as a crisis. In the 50th Anniversary book, they call out those who leave as having a crisis of faith.
Everyone at ubf should get this book:
http://ubfriends.net/priestlynation/50th-anniversary-deception/index.html
http://ubfriends.net/priestlynation/ubf-blue-book-introduction/index.html
Even If you were offered an appointment as the highest ranking person in the entire organization of UBF would you reject the position? I would accept it if I did not need to pay rent and food but I would feel no need to be a millionaire at the expense of others without their consent free from fraud unlike Samuel Lee who did not fear using fraud. Other people think taking such a position automatically would lead to corruption no matter who is put in charge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNIgztvyU2U
IfYouWereKing.mp4
Larken Rose
No, I would not take any position in such a corrupt/vainglory organization such as ubf.
Here is my summary of the 4 reform movements, and how I see the reactions to them:
http://ubfriends.net/priestlynation/summary-of-4-attempts-to-reform-ubf/index.html