Re: UBF life in Cincinnati -- RSQUBF discussion forum

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Date Posted: 03:43:12 05/15/04 Sat
Author: Chris
Subject: Re: UBF life in Cincinnati
In reply to: ExUBFerCincinnnati 's message, "UBF life in Cincinnati" on 02:08:07 05/15/04 Sat

Thanks a lot for posting, ExCinci. The interesting phenomenon with UBF is that the higher you come to the top of the hierarchical pyramid, the greater the corruption and abuse. This applies to people as well as to chapters. Many of the rank and file members seem to be quite nice, and many of them do not stay because they are corrupt, but because they are too naive/unknowing or intimidated/idoctrinated. Certainly the majority of Jehovah Witnesses rank and file members are nice people as well. The problem remains that both groups excert coercive manipulation and have false and unbiblical doctrines and practices. This gradient in corruption also applies to the chapters. Some of the remote chapters seem to have less problems, but in the headquarters the corruption is most extreme. And, as you already mentioned, the bad habits and practices are copied from the top leaders and headquarters to the lower ranking leaders and chapters. All UBF chapters are more or less the same in its practices and doctrines, though there may be variance in extremeness. UBF is like a cookie cutter, and that again applies to chapters as well as people. Alone the fact that the chapters and people appear so similar is a mark of a cult. UBF is designed witht he principle that sheep have to copy their shepherds. The copy process always goes from top to down. The original is at the top of the pyramid, the more or less perfect copy at the bottom. The lower the level, the less perfect the copy. Most copied Samuel Lee not perfectly and appear less abusive. Personally, I know only one (Peter Chang in Bonn) who seems to even exceed Samuel Lee in this. You can read about the Bonn problem here.

Sam Zun said the money "simply could not be delivered." with no further explanation.

We experienceed similar problems in the past. I donated a huge amount of money for a Moscow Bible house, but it was not bought. It was rumoured that the money was lost in an attempt to bribe the Moscow administration, but we never got an explanation. In this way, many "special offerings" have been collected and nobody knows or can reconstruct first how much money was collected and second, how exactly it was spent. Already the 1976 open letter (here) talks about misappropriaton of such money collections. The main problem is that UBF never had proper bookkeeping and audits, but Samuel Lee and maybe a few of his cronies knew about the flow and use of offering moneys.

so I am wondering does anyone know if the money could not be given for legitamate reasons or was it just being used for his own purposes.

Because of the reasons above, nobody can say this for sure. Not even UBF members. They will tell you that you simply have to "trust" in the UBF leaders. We cannot proof that the money was abused for private purposes, but any organization which is built on this principle "simply trust the leaders" is highly suspicious and if it's not corrupt now, it will inevitably become corrupt. The track record also shows that there is no reason to trust any UBF top leader, quite to the contrary.

Please also read about the 2nd reform attempt in the USA. It appears that Sam Zun was informed about the corruption and showed some sympathy for reform first, but later backslided. Maybe he had too much fear of Samuel Lee.

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Replies:

Headquarters vs. "the sticks" -- Chris, 04:08:24 05/15/04 Sat
- Re: Headquarters vs. "the sticks" -- TONY LANG, 07:26:00 05/24/04 Mon
  - Re: Headquarters vs. "the sticks" -- Chris, 08:13:04 05/24/04 Mon