Comments on: Public Comments about UBF http://www.priestlynation.com/public-comments-about-ubf/ my journey of recovery from University Bible Fellowship Tue, 29 Mar 2016 16:34:31 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1 By: briank http://www.priestlynation.com/public-comments-about-ubf/#comment-1031 Mon, 16 Apr 2012 21:57:03 +0000 http://www.priestlynation.com/?p=920#comment-1031 Loud noises at 5:30 am… wow that brings back memories. I still have nightmares from time to time of the loud, heart-stopping pounding I used to hear 7 days a week when I lived in the UBF center building. People coming to pray in the morning refused to get a key to the center because I and the others living at the center should be trained to get up and let them in. I even bought a key to give to one of the people coming to pray, but still they pounded unceasingly. This was no polite knocking, but rapid, fist-pounding on the center door, which was downstairs.

Anyway, I think you just nailed the whole of UBF teaching: “the Lord needs it”. That verse has been WAY extended to cover a multitude of abuses. I have heard that verse applied to marriage, to lawnmowers, to power tools, to food, to cars, etc.

I remember numerous times when UBF shepherds would need a lawnmower or tools or something. They would just come and take it from other UBF members, saying “The Lord needs it.” And since we were supposed to be a “leader”, we were just supposed to let them. That didn’t happen much to me though because I learned to keep my stuff hidden.

]]> By: Chris http://www.priestlynation.com/public-comments-about-ubf/#comment-1030 Mon, 16 Apr 2012 21:33:57 +0000 http://www.priestlynation.com/?p=920#comment-1030 This reminds me of the controversies around the old UBF center in Heidelberg, Germany, in the first floor of a multi-storied house in the city in the early 1990s. The other apartments were inhabited by mostly elderly people. They were often annoyed because UBF members started to enter the building at 5:30am, slamming the house door, parking their bikes everywhere on the sidewalk, having Bible studies and singing practices during the day, cooking Kimchee, meetings in the evenings, and then again singing practice, worship service with a lot of music and meetings the whole Sunday.

Since the house had very thin walls with no sound insulation it really must have not been very pleasent for its inhabitants. The Korean missionaries also often didn’t react or respond to requests to shut the door in a less noisy way because they didn’t understand the German or because they just chose to ignore them. This didn’t make them much friends either.

UBF’s solution was to collect more offering money and then buy the whole appartment so they couldn’t be thrown out so easily. Even though they later moved to a larger center, they still own that appartment and now rent it to UBF members (I have also lived in that appartment in “common life” and paid rent even though I had contributed offering to buy the appartment before – a typical pattern in UBF).

I remember one day when there was an owners’ meeting of that building because of the problems. The “Abraham of faith” and I were sent to appease the attendants by the chapter leader, who chose to not appear himself though he was the responsible person. And I also remember how the Abraham of faith equipped me with the verse Luke 19:34 “They replied, ‘The Lord needs it.'”, surely he had been told that from the chapter leader before.

The whole attitude was that the inhabitants were just interfering obstacles inimical to God who needed to be overcome by faith and with boldness. UBF believes to do God’s work and therefore, since the end justifies the means, are allowed to do everything “by faith.” This was a very general principle in UBF that has often been abused, and made members very arrogant and inconsiderate or ruthless against other people.

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