That those kinds of negative responses about a marriage being “from God” (UBF’s way) or not and about shepherding are not called out by UBF leadership (since they are standard teaching and widespread) is infuriating and one reason why I could not stay in UBF. More of the same ubfisms and methods of control. I haven’t found the majority of people who teach these things as bad or evil people, but the problem is that this is what they were taught and how they also showed their “faith”. It’s systemic and praised, and the cycle continues–well, not in forests’ case, thankfully.

Amazing that we are here happy and thrilled that forests married in this way. Of course, those who married by UBF’s way will say that it was their own decision. And it’s true–such people did make that decision for themselves. I did as well. I don’t take away at all from how such people believe they expressed their faith by that decision. But the context in which that decision was made is setup and manipulative, and, in many cases, deceitful. The words of the infuriated missionary aren’t surprising at all, and show how the UBF shepherding system creates a possessive, competitive and unloving environment.

Such statements imply the unquestioned superiority of the Christian, which cannot but make the missionary always feel like they (rather than Christ) is the Savior, and that they are far better than the natives simply because they are Christian.

Ultimately, this really denies the grace of God.

“UBF is like a spiritual wasteland and is full of idol worshipers according to their custom in spiritual darkness. But God is working mightily through the Holy Spirit using UBFriends, shining the light of God’s glory all over UBF.”

I took that paragraph from a published UBF mission report and just changed a couple of words. The original version was:

“Asia is like a spiritual wasteland and is full of idol worshipers according to their custom in spiritual darkness. But God is working mightily through the Holy Spirit using our missionaries, shining the light of God’s glory all over Asia.”

Jesus said, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12).

For some strange reason, UBF leaders don’t think it’s problematic to publish offensive statements about people whom they are trying to evangelize. But I’ll bet that, if someone published that first version, many of them would be furiously gnashing their teeth, even though it’s somewhat true. There is a fair amount of idol worship going on, and this website has been shining a light on it.

Doesn’t this often come at the expense of not being entirely forthright or honest?

Of is it simply equating acknowledging abuses with shame and with losing face and credibility?

In my opinion, some older folk just do not realize that coming clean with nothing to hide really increases their credibility and enhances their strong sense of honor.

“I noticed a lot of 2nd gens in UBF secretly follow Ben Toh.”

Acknowledging problems in UBF (that is likely even evident to themselves) has seemingly been something that is almost impossible for some (or many) to do over the last five decades. All those who acknowledge problems have either left UBF or have been basically marginalized and caricatured.

I’m still speculating and wondering why some of our missionaries and leaders are just simply unable to frankly acknowledge that “Houston, we have a problem,” even though they/we are experiencing countless problems and difficulties and unnecessary obstacles because of this inability to acknowledge the obvious.

This is an illustration I heard and used from a ubf sermon about denying God’s existence (which I no longer like to use): To deny God’s existence is like looking up in the sky and closing one’s eyes and saying, “There is no sky.”

Isn’t looking at ubf and saying “there’s no problem in UBF; all the problems are with UBFriends (and with Brian Karcher!) virtually the exact same thing???