“I am mainly addressing this article to myself: my hope is that I will continually turn my gaze from people to the triune and amazing God… and then eventually back to people in the context of being in God.”

I don’t want to put a stop to any discussions about people per se, but I want to take a step back for a moment so that before God’s presence, I may view them rightly. Though Roosevelt’s quote is a classic example of dichotomous thinking, I’m not really trying to promote that kind of thought pattern here. That kind of black and white thinking usually serves as a good rhetorical device; just wanted to get you all’s attention :)

In your current article you ask several similar questions, giving us the choice between discussing either people or ideas, or between posting either negative experiences from real-life or postive inspirations or ideas. This is a false dichotomy, for me. Sayings like “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people” sound profound, but I don’t think they are. I bleive great minds discuss all of these.

For instance, you can talk about the idea of fascism in theory, but you won’t be able to understand it without also discussing events like WW2 or persons like Hitler.

We can talk about christotelic and trinitarian hermenteutics, ecclesiology and missiology, and try to understand the gospel better and better.

But on the other hand we have some huge elephants in the room. There have been wrongdoings that are so wrong that it does not even matter which hermeneutics understanding of trinity and the gospel you have, not even whether you are Christian, Muslim or Atheist, it does not matter whether you are Korean or American, uneducated or university professor. I am talking about wrongdoings that any of these immediately would understand as horrible wrongdoings that need corporate confession and apology and explanations what will be done to avoid such things happening in the future.

In the spirit of your current article, I don’t want to name these wrongdoings or give examples, I just hope you know what I’m talking about.

So the question is for me, how can ubfriends have these profound ivory tower discussions about gospel and trinity and other heavenly things far from real life and real people down on earth, while at the same time a herd of elephants is in the room and a pack of skeletons drumming against the door of the cupboard?

Please understand me correctly, I don’t want to belittle your discussions and your desire for deeper understanding of God and the gospel. After UBF, I myself had several years of intense theological studies and searching for answers.

But somehow I feel by feel that by resorting to such discussions only, we give UBF people the impressions that we do not have real burning issues and sin problems, only a few theological nuances or cultural misunderstandings that need to be straigthened out.

Again, I do not want to stifle or discourage theological discussion, it needs to take place and it may be a way to get people involved and open their minds for the practical issues by talking about the theoretical ideas first. I’m just saying that you should not make it a dichotomy. If this discussion does not help people to ultimately open their eyes for the blatant injustice and sin and demand and execute reform and corporate repentance, but rather helps them to be distracted away from the real issues and processing the past, then it seems rather futile and counterproductive to me.

1. Create some word clouds as we did here
http://www.ubfriends.org/2013/01/23/what-are-we-talking-about/

2. Measure traffic on UBFriends for a period of time and compare it to traffic on ubf.org over the same period. You may be surprised at what you find.

Your words here and Ian’s article on the church have made me realize the profound nature of the church’s relationship with the triune God. Because we are united to Him through the Holy Spirit, we would be egregiously remiss to neglect people when discussing ideas about God. My prayer is that I would so rightly understand God and his love for the bride of Christ that when I speak or think or carry out actions toward her I would do so in a manner that reflects an acurrate knowledge of Him.

But I guess one thing you’re getting at is the way in which we look at people? Philippians 2:1-11 continues to surprise and amaze me in this regard. There is unity with God through the Spirit who gives the things of God to us, and by this unity and fellowship with God we have relationships with others, even having the same attitude or mindset, as Christ. There is always a third party. Psalm 8:4 also comes to mind. God’s looking at us and work for fellowship with us, in spite of our troubles, is graceful and exciting.

This past week has simply been exceptional and exhilarating for me in that God seemingly answered my prayers that current UBFers would freely speak up and express themselves boldly without fear–even before “potentially threatening UBFriends sympathizers” who might pounce on any UBF favorable comment until blood is drawn!

My praise and thanks be to God for David, Friend and Forests!

May there be many more like you “out there,” who would come out of the woodwork and boldly declare your love and sole allegiance to Christ and for the glory of God. But if you are just a silent reader, that’s fine too, for God does not show favoritism toward those who publicly share and those who silently read and reflect. God bless you all.

You asked, “if someone were given the opportunity to speak about ubfriends at the nh staff conference would you be willing or would that be kind of ridiculous?”

It would be ridiculous. I already did that by the way:

North American UBF staff presentation by Brian Karcher

And like Joe and Sharon and about 50 other former ubf leaders I know, my wife and I are exhausted and do not want to talk about ubf anymore, I don’t care about ubf people, I don’t care about ubf ideas and I f’n don’t care about ubf events anymore.

If ubf people can’t smell the stench by now, there’s nothing I can do. So I will enjoy my life, my wife, my family, my job, my new church and new friends. I am happy now. I love life. I am a family-centered man. I am my own man. :)

I love what the Spirit has been teaching me about Scripture and the rejuvenated relationship I have with Jesus who lives inside me, even if it earns me the heretic label and even if people see me as some evil pirate. I love pirates so I’m ok with any perception people have of me.

No longer do I care about “sin management” or “perception management” or “reputation management”. What matters to me is what I think of myself, what my wife and children and family think of me and what my God thinks of me.

I mainly wrote this article because as an irreverent cynic at heart, I needed to motivate myself to continue living out my Christian life in the context of UBF. Secondarily, I wrote this to people who are in a similar position as I; that is, those who are in chapters where change is possible but for whatever reason they have become totally disillusioned, burned out or just have run out of ideas as to how to continue to participate in and further advocate for change. Maybe that didn’t come across so well in this article; perhaps I stuck my tongue a bit too far into my cheek and plus I’m not always the best communicator.

As I said in my note at the beginning, I truly sympathize with you all. I can’t begin to know what you have gone through but in some sense my heart goes out to you and I wish all the best for you. I tend to be a bit self-focused at times, so perhaps I need to be quiet and listen to you all’s story with a bit more empathy. I’m very sorry if I came across as unsympathetic or ungraceful.

Another hope in writing this article was to promote dialogue concerning big ideas within Christianity, something I thought that would help us to move past what UBF has done to us. And I understand that trauma must be unpacked in a very cautious manner and in an intimate setting. At the same time, digging deeper into those big ideas in a forum like this has done a great deal for me as of late. For instance, I loved talking about christotelic and trinitarian hermenteutics with Joe; it brought me outside of myself for a minute and for a split second I felt as though some of my trauma was being tended to through encountering God in this way. Anyway, I hope that we can all continue such dialogues and not let UBF dominate our psyches (again, not insinuating that this is the case for you all, perhaps more so for me if anything). I’ll try to be more empathetic in any future write-ups. Peace and love in Christ to you both.

Ah, yes, another non-vain man after my unfortunately vain heart. Where shall I mail you the check for agreeing to say this for me?

Yes, in case people already forgot where to click after reading above, click here:
http://www.ubfriends.org/2010/10/19/a-discussion-stuck-in-limbo/

And don’t forget this too (below):
http://www.ubfriends.org/2012/03/12/thoughts-on-christian-friendship/

You might have to click the above link 100 times to get the link to work correctly

DavidW, you have been able to put words to my very thoughts which is very helpful. I hope and pray that many more will want to continue this conversation.

Joe, if someone were given the opportunity to speak about ubfriends at the nh staff conference would you be willing or would that be kind of ridiculous?