It is so interesting (and “cute”) to me that someone keeps trying to remove this line from Wikipedia: “Some outside observers and former members describe the group as cult-like, excessively controlling, spiritually damaging and/or abusive.[2][3][4][5]”

Hello South Korea!

And he also tells me there is a ubf chapter in this exact city :)

Seongnam BUF in Gyeonggi-do South Korea‎

Bento has a network of agents throughout the world. He can easily figure out who is doing this. Bento sees all.

It’s really pathetic that this person could not just come here to ubfriends and discuss whatever issue compelled him/her to delete the negative statement from the Wiki article. Instead of addressing the things that earn the cult label, the thought is still to erase the cult label.

“When older church leaders no longer respond with silence and shunning to ex-ubfers, the church will have hope. – See more at: http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/08/11/walking-in-the-shoes-of-the-other/#comment-19014

This is a great way to restate my two demands that I keep repeating. The starting point to redeem ubf is obvious: stop the silent denial and shunning. Figuring out the mess and untangling the organizational impediments will take a long time and will be difficult. But the starting point is easy to identify.

Kurek on CNN

Kurek on the View

I never met Tim in person. We are Facebook friends. We hit it off several years ago before he published his book. We met on the outlaw preachers forum and immediately understood each other. The Spirit was pushing both of us to enter into the gay debates. At the time, Tim was still appearing as gay, and was not ready to tell everyone that he was really straight and was doing a social experiment for one year.

It has been amazing to talk with Tim along this journey. At one point he was on CNN and the View. His book later helped inspire me to be a Christian gay rights pacifist, and I setup my just-being-there blog: http://www.justbeingthere.org/a-message-from-a-christian

Thank you for sharing this ted talk. I am so excited that intentional empathy is possible. It is a choice. Can we walk in the shoes of the homeless, the woman selling herself, the lgbtq community, the unchurched, the churched, etc?

Empathy is something that can be taught and it must be taught along with reading and math. When I taught high school I was shocked at how little capability my students had for empathy. That is something that should be taught and enforced from kindergarten. But it means getting out of one s comfort zone. The philosopher Adorno said that the highest form of morality is being uncomfortable one’s own home.

The questions I have personally heard over the last 7 years are the following:

* Are you in or are you out?
* Are you UBF or are you not UBF?
* Do you focus on campus mission or not?
* Are you raising leaders or letting people do whatever they want?
* Do you carry out 1:1 Bible studies and testimony writing or not?
* Are you studying the Bible or just reading books?

Such questions are endless. They are also cute! Sorry, I couldn’t resist saying this.

“The response…was silence. Overnight, it was as though I had died, that I no longer exist.”

When older church leaders no longer respond with silence and shunning to ex-ubfers, the church will have hope.