I am a mother. I want to share with you my story and experience with UBF for the past 15 years, from trusting the UBF Korean missionaries to be my son’s bible teachers in 2006 when he was 12 years old, to now when he is 25, totally estranged and disappeared from my life for several years. The estrangement comes with his well being compromised. The lack of accountability and transparency in UBF is a public trust concern. In sharing this, I risk further punishment by UBF who has control over my relationship with my son.
It is a very long story. I will share several articles over a course of time. For today, I will give an overview of UBF. I was a friend of UBF between 2006 to about 2013, the year my son turned 18, the adult legal age.
UBF is not a church as we understand it to be, associated with family relationships, efforts to reconcile relationships, welcoming the public of different ages, backgrounds etc., holding bible studies openly with different people groups where discussions of differing views are normal.
UBF is a church (if you insist on calling it a church) with the absence of parental relationships for young adults who have non-UBF Korean parents. Typically, in UBF, you see overwhelming Korean missionaries a.k.a. shepherds and young adults a.k.a. sheep, no non-UBF parents or very few, if any. Bible studies can be very private between shepherd/s and sheep only.
In my 15 years of experience with UBF, I have come to know UBF embracing a religion (I will call it UBFism) as Samuel Lee (founder) followers, with a shepherding system where the UBF Korean missionaries are the shepherds having self-given, unlimited, undisclosed powers / authorities over their sheep or disciples, typically young adult recruits. The shepherds will replace the sheep’s non-UBF parents. It discriminates against non-UBF parents and non-UBF friends of the sheep with a deceiving Christian front to fish for potential member recruits in tertiary educational institutions. Its practices conflict with biblical principles. Below are 3 of the many practices I have come to know.
UBFism teaches students to obey, trust and honor the shepherds, the Korean UBF missionaries. Punish, dishonor and threaten parents if necessary, including demanding a young adult to stop communicating with the parent if he/she does not say positive things about UBF. The Korean UBF missionaries have the self-given, unlimited, undisclosed power/authority over a young adult and over his/her parent/s. They cannot be wrong. The demand to trust blindly undermines and suppresses the development of an adults reasoning power, critical thinking, freedom and dignity. >>> The Bible says Honor your parents. Do not covet your neighbor’s property. Trust and obey God. Be wise, test the spirit of the teachers.
UBFism teaches students only to share life within and love only those in UBF. Shun going to other churches and fellowship with other Christians. Dishonor and punish those who do not agree with (viewed as persecution or attack) UBF if necessary. Threats, deceits, making up stories, cover ups are common. This does not apply at the recruiting stage when love bombing overwhelms anyone. >>> The Bible says Love your neighbor as yourself, to have fellowship with other Christians in the body of Christ. Resolve conflicts starting with just between the 2 involved, extending to involve a wider community and beyond if the conflicts remain unresolved.
UBFism teaches “marriage by faith”. This is a practice where UBF missionaries arrange marriages for other people’s sons and daughters. >>> The Bible says Jesus was not married, and did not arrange marriages for his disciples. Marriages, if arranged, were by parents/family in the bible, not religious leaders.
Based on the practices of UBFism, it is in the interest of the UBF missionaries to estrange parental relationships, to rid a disagreeing parent of a young adult’s life. It is not difficult to do so with their undisclosed power as shepherds. It is further made possible by exploiting the North American legalism of adulthood and the UBF chapter corporate structure. UBF chapters in Ontario, Canada are registered non-profit, charitable corporations with total control by the Korean UBF missionaries as directors. Exceptions, if any, would be someone loyal to and trusted by the missionaries. Transparency and public trust are issues of concern.
I recently did a public trust check by contacting the police and a local newspaper. I attempted to objectively resolve a mountain of issues I raised with UBF over the years, where I suggested my son report his abuse claim with the police as the first step.
The reporter was given the understanding that there was estrangement between my son and I.
- I called the police so my son could report his claim of emotional abuse by me when he was a minor which he claimed caused his mental health conditions with no hope of healing. My son told the police the was no abuse to report. Note, the abuser arranged for the victim to report and the victim refused report.
- His emotional abuse claims first surfaced in late 2013 privately and went semi-public in group email threads from May 2017-late 2019, sanctioned by UBF. His description of the abuse painted a terrible abuser that the general public should be aware of under Ontarios child protection laws. When asked, UBF did not show evidence of the abuse report (since they had been his bible teachers as a minor) and the health professional he was referred to so we know this was/is not a coached abuse.
- His mental health conditions developed and continued during the time he was intensely involved with UBF. Can they be consequences of the coached abuse by UBF, a form of psychological abuse? I believe this possibility is very high. He was not given the space to properly care for his mental health.
It manifest, though, how dangerous UBF is. A mother trusting UBF missionaries to teach her child bible can be hit with an abuse claim by her young adult son years later without anyone knowing. In the child protection laws, it is assumed no normal human beings would intentionally coach a trusting minor (and continuing into his adulthood) to believe he was abused for an agenda. The agenda is/was to program him to not love his mother but to love UBF in her place. Only UBF would do that.
In my about 7 years of UBF friendship, the only non-UBF parent I came to know was another mother who had 2 sons in UBF. The younger brother left UBF, after seeing how lowly their mother was treated by the UBF missionaries at his brothers arranged engagement party. Their mother, like me, is no longer a friend of UBF. There were hardly any non-UBF parent/s, if any, in UBF.
Over the years, my son has lost his close connections with family, friends, other Christians and churches outside of UBF from before his UBF days. At best, these connections are superficial if allowed.
Yes, you read right. UBF missionaries, a.k.a. shepherds, do not hesitate to estrange parental relationships to get their sheep, other people’s sons and daughters.