>> briank, thank you so much for your detailed reply. Although I have never attended UBF Bible studies and although I have never been involved in UBF, my experiences in two churches opened my eyes to the reality of Christian Confucianism, just as you described – the “hamster wheel” of grace producing work, which produces more grace, etc. until the grace is all gone.”

My first experience of emotional and spiritual abuse occurred when I attended Berkland Baptist Church as a high school student. There is an abusive, rebuking culture/atmosphere at Berkland Baptist Church. One of the Berkland pastors who led the junior high and high school ministry was(is?) a very narcissistic pastor.

My second experience of emotional/spiritual abuse occurred recently at the church that I currently attend here in South Korea. The pastor of my current church has the habit of saying things without thinking about how his words will affect the listener.

Here are my comments on some of your thoughts:

“1) rebuke and scold members….members rarely hear about God’s grace or the love of God. 2) strongly encourage or demand that members become actively involved in the church or the ministry…only active members are sincere Christians. 3) respect the ministry leader or leaders.”

>>> Did you attend UBF bible studies? You just described the top 3 problems of UBF ministry exactly. Although I do not think it is wise to make generalizations, the fabric of Korean Christianity seems to be extremely consistent.

“Many times, the rebuking and scolding in Korean churches/ministries become personal attacks on an individual or personal attacks on a few “lazy, uncommitted members”

>>> Wow, if I had a dime for everytime I heard someone called “lazy” during my 24 years in UBF! One change that happened in UBF the past 20 years is that the rebuking that used to be open and public, is often hidden and private now. I don’t know which is better, but I preferred the open rebukes; at least other people knew what was said.

“Are my observations of Korean churches/ministries accurate?”

>>> I cannot speak for all Korean Christian churches, but your blog and your thoughts above are EXACTLY descriptive of UBF, as if I myself had written them (I am a 43 year old American in Detroit). Someone on Facebook sent me a message saying how thankful he was that I was speaking up. He is an American who was involved with a Korean Christian group (not UBF). He described that churches leadership almost the same as you did above.

“I’m so confused. Maybe I have an unbiblical view of what the Church is supposed to be.”

>>> You may be confused :) But your views of church (as per your blog) are not unbiblical and are very close, if not the same, as many Western Christian churches. I agree mostly with your thoughts on how church should be.

>>> This raises an important question: What role does work (deeds) have in the Christian church? We need to be careful here. I am not against morals (I think we need morality). I am not against authority (I think we need established authorities). And I agree with the book of James: Faith without deeds is dead.

So what’s the difference between these Korean Christians and Christians? You pointed it out already: grace. The Korean Christians I know have developed a “Christianized confucianism”. It sounds really good, but amounts to human ambition and sense of accomplishment. It degenerates into elitism, sectarianism and manipulation.

I flee from UBF because I cannot support such things. The grace of God does invoke good works/deeds from us. But UBF teaches a “hamster wheel” of grace producing work, which produces more grace, etc. until the grace is all gone. The Bible teaches that grace is one way. Grace flows through us to produce work prompted by love and inspired by hope. But we then need to keep going back to grace; grace is our resting point; our center. My other blog explains more: http://www.knet6.com/grace

Those are my thoughts! I welcome further dialogue. I am seeking to learn, not to teach primarily. So I am willing to be corrected or challenged.

I have a question – and if you and other people have time to respond, I would really be grateful for any answers or comments.

Many Korean/Korean-American churches and para-church ministries seem to focus on 3 main things: 1) rebuke and scold members….members rarely hear about God’s grace or the love of God. 2) strongly encourage or demand that members become actively involved in the church or the ministry…only active members are sincere Christians. 3) respect the ministry leader or leaders.

Many times, the rebuking and scolding in Korean churches/ministries become personal attacks on an individual or personal attacks on a few “lazy, uncommitted members”

Are my observations of Korean churches/ministries accurate?

The 3 characteristics are not present in ALL Korean churches or in ALL Korean ministries. My intention is not to make generalizations.

The Korean churches/ministries in which these 3 characteristics are present…are these churches/ministries unBiblical?

I’m so confused. Maybe I have an unbiblical view of what the Church is supposed to be.

Quite a few Korean churches/ministries and quite a few Korean pastors seem to be spiritually abusive.

Does anyone have any thoughts or comments?

Of course there are also various levels of “rogueness”, especially these days, but in the past decades, the directors basically operated according to the principle I explained above. Because of the clearly defined UBF heritage, all UBF chapters have a franchise feel. At the same time, when you satisfy the heritage, each chapter kind of takes on their own look-and-feel.

And the key problem is not the heritage itself (even though some of the heritage is a problem). The key problem is that there are so many directors and leaders working so hard to uphold and pass on this heritage. They care far more about passing on this heritage than preaching the gospel of God’s grace. That was also the fundamental problem the Jews wrestled with.

Maybe many chapter leaders believe that UBF has a kind of “mystery sauce” (namely all these mannerisms, practices and teachings of Samuel Lee) that makes a chapter successful and form the “spirit” of UBF, so they just use that sauce more or less abundantly in the hope this will make them great and successful leaders.

But these observations also explain why there are differences in the degree of abuse. Some chapters are more relaxed and healthy, some other chapters extreme. And it seems anonymous is right, those relaxed chapters are considered weak and ineffective, while leaders of the strict and more abusive chapters like Bonn in Germany are praised and promoted.

But one chapter I have in mind has a very laissez-faire attitude towards its members (which is very unlike the UBF stereotype we’ve all come to know), and as a result it’s gained a reputation for being “weak” or “ineffective.”

@anon: Yes, I know examples where even the larger chapters are “rogue” :) There are even some chapter directors in UBF who I would point to and say, follow their example, as there are some directors who have begun to re-plant their chapters. The elephant-in-the-room question though is this: how will mainline UBF treat them?