Your words demonstrate to me your faith and good conscience, and love. I was told that you are “dangerous”, “crazy”, “bitter” and “very wounded.” So I was always fearful when your name came up from time to time! But I see that you are none of those… well ok maybe a bit crazy :)

I have found that I am much happier submitting to the Holy Spirit and His rule in my life. Who guides us into all truth? The Spirit, the Third Person of God.

I like your last words above: “to demonstrate Christ’s unrelenting love.” That is our one goal, as in 1 Timothy 1:5 “The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”

Those are some really good thoughts. The other thing I should add is that UBF 1-to-1 Bible Study is inherently unbiblical. For true, Spirit-led Bible Study to occur between two (or more) people, there needs to be two additional factors: 100% Confidentiality and Mutual Accountability. This is in line with Jesus’ command to His disciples that “the first shall be last and the last first” and that “they shall know us by our love for each other”. With the paradigm of UBF Spiritual Authority, there is no work of the Holy Spirit. How can the Spirit do its job when the “Shepherd” is doing all the work? We already have a High Priest interceding for us; we don’t need a “Shepherd”. Friends and brothers to help us in our struggle and knowledge is what we need. Proverbs 27:17 says, “As Iron sharpens Iron, so does one man sharpen another,” NOT “As High-Tensile Tool Steel sharpens Iron, so does one man wear away at the other with self-righteous judgmentalism.” (I made a funny–Ha!) UBF 1-to-1 Bible Study becomes a work of the Shepherd’s spirit and not the Holy Spirit. It is not up to us to judge or lord over others, but to demonstrate Christ’s unrelenting love.

You asked: “Why did the writers of the blue book become the judge and jury of those who left?”

My thinking is that the “blue book” is the natural progression of a ministry that lacks leadership accountability (and at the same time gives life-long, absolute power to leaders).

It was rather shocking to read the blue book lectures because it codifies some of the things former members have been saying for more than 30 years.

For me, the blue book teachings (along with the 50th anniversary celebrations) solidified my desire to never return to UBF. My conscience as a Christian, as an American and as a human being simply won’t allow it.

The section called “Social Responsibility in Action” briefly mentions the medical mission in Africa, as well as suggesting a new “seed bank account” business.

There is a lot of talk about “self-supporting” business, and a lot of talk about Apostle Paul’s tent-making business. There is a comment about utilizing US immigration law to send missionaries. And of course many examples of nurses going to Germany, etc.

Wow, I just can’t believe some of the statements in this book… I really need to put it down for a while!

Btw, does the “Blue Book” also talk about “business mission”, something Peter Chang from Bonn pursues and propagates since several years?

How pretty audacious of these chief ideologists to proclaim “self-supporting spirit”, while most top-ranking people in UBF get salaries or pensions. I know this from my chapter leader, we paid him a salary and he also got “extra vacation payment”.

You raise some very good points. Thanks a lot for publishing this.

“If one questions the beliefs of the group or the leaders of the group, one is made to feel that there is something inherently wrong with them to even question — it is always “turned around” on them and the questioner/criticizer is questioned rather than the questions answered directly. The underlying assumption is that doctrine/ideology is ultimately more valid, true and real than any aspect of actual human character or human experience and one must subject one’s experience to that “truth”. The experience of contradiction can be immediately associated with the guilt one is made to feel and that doubts are reflections of one’s own evil. When doubt arises, conflicts become intense.”

How are those who left the group viewed?

“Since the group has an absolute or totalist vision of truth, those who are not in the group are bound up in evil, are not enlightened, are not saved, and do not have the right to exist; impediments to legitimate being must be pushed away or destroyed. One outside the group may always receive their right of existence by joining the group; fear manipulation — if one leaves this group, one leaves God or loses their salvation/transformation, or something bad will happen to them; the group is the “elite”, outsiders are “of the world”, “evil”, “unenlightened”, etc.”

(source)

Is there a demand for purity that divides the world into two classes of people?

“The world becomes sharply divided into the pure and the impure, the absolutely good (the group/ideology) and the absolutely evil (everything outside the group) one must continually change or conform to the group “norm”; tendencies towards guilt and shame are used as emotional levers for the group’s controlling and manipulative influences.”

Is there a sacred method/science for living?

“The totalist milieu maintains an aura of sacredness around its basic doctrine or ideology, holding it as an ultimate moral vision for the ordering of human existence. Questioning or criticizing those basic assumptions is prohibited. A reverence is demanded for the ideology/doctrine and the originators of the ideology/doctrine. The present bearers of the ideology/doctrine offer considerable security to young people because it greatly simplifies the world and answers a contemporary need to combine a sacred set of dogmatic principles with a claim to a science embodying the truth about human behavior and human psychology.”

(source)