University Bible Fellowship (UBF), a controversial organization that has often been called a “cult,” is staging a regional conference at Wheaton College this weekend. The event is expected to draw 1,000 participants reports The Daily Herald.
Samuel Lee founded UBF in the 1960s in South Korea. Like Rev. Moon’s Unification Church Lee’s group found college campuses fertile ground for its recruitment efforts, which began in the US during the 1970s.
The organization is known for its extreme authoritarian control over members through “shepherds” and a strict hierarchical structure of totalitarian leadership. This has included arranged marriages.
Many complaints have arisen over the years and former members have established websites regarding the group’s alleged abuses. UBF has a history of bad press in both the United States and Europe.
The founder of UBF Samuel Lee is now deceased, but the organization continues to target students on college campuses around the world.
UBF currently has campus groups at Loyola University, Columbia University, John Hopkins, Northwestern University, the University of Illinois in Chicago, Northeastern University of Illinois, the University of Maryland in Washington D.C., the University of Toledo and Shippensburg State in Pennsylvania.
UBF’s International headquarters is in Chicago.
No doubt UBF is happy they have an opportunity to stage an event at Wheaton College, where many students may note their presence. They are also holding a summer conference in Canada simultaneously on the campus of John Abbott College in St. Anne de Bellevue, Quebec.
Other branches of the group in Canada include Waterloo, Toronto and Ottawa.
UBF has additional outposts around the world actively recruiting in France, Germany, Russia, the Ukraine, Japan, Switzerland, England, Korea and India.
A petition to the National Association of Evangelicals is currently on-line in an effort to have UBF’s membership to that body revoked.
Note: UBF’s NAE membership was terminated, but then later reinstated, despite its long history of serious problems, bad press and complaints.
no comment untill now