The Letter

1. Spiritual Fodder
2. Cultic, Aberrant, or Abusive?
3. Role of Women in Ministry
4. Then What's a Good Church?
5. Why So Quiet?
6. Becky's UBF Roots
7. The Letter
8. Dissecting Ed's Brain
9. Shepherding/Discipleship Movement
10. Exit Strategy
11. Moving On

August 22, 2005

Dear Becky JDSN:

It grieves me to write this, but after much anguished prayer, I decided that to do this in writing would be the best.

In Daegu, I challenged you on what I believe to be evidence of how much you have changed for the worse over the years, and your unhealthy leadership. The issues I addressed in Daegu has to do with your dangerous self-understanding; lack of commitment to truth telling; your cynicism toward the Word, and ministry; your excessive, nearly-addictive playing of Bbong (뻥) see note, personally, and with your staff and at the pastors meetings, and what this reveals about your leadership; your self-understanding as a person of special status (e.g. prophetess, apostle, etc); your secularized lifestyle; your family idolatry, and nepotism; the queen-like, high-maintenance person you have become; and your defining many of these negative changes as the new spirituality which all BBCs should follow.

The main issue is the last one. If I am free to criticize you, and disassociate myself with what you are doing, and refuse to follow, then it’s less of a problem. If you were honest that these are negative changes in you, and you appropriately downgrade your self-understanding, and your role in BBC, then, again, it would not be a problem. But you want all of us to justify all you do, all the ways in which you have changed; whatever you do must be baptized in spiritualized rhetoric. You expect all of us to not only swallow the absurd justifications, but also impose the same on our sheep. It is too much “moo-li.” (무리) excessive, unreasonable I can no longer do the former, and refuse—as I should—to do the latter. In other words, my problem is not with just your character problems. I do not demand perfection from you as my leader. I can accept you with all your faults. But I cannot deny your faults, or rationalize or spiritualize them for you. This is unhealthy for me, for you, and for our church.

Somewhere along the line, I stopped trying to convince myself with rationalizations for your behavior. I began to call (inwardly, to myself) your behavior and character whatever it would be called by neutral objective observers: self-fascinated; selfish; hot-tempered and verbally abusive; princess-like; unable to take criticism; never repenting for anything; bragging; elitist; secular; self contradictory (as when you say that you are the busiest woman immediately after having played Bbong for days); chaotic; dishonest; manipulative; political. But the problem is that no one can ever call it what it is when it comes to you. With anyone else, we would be roundly critical; with you, we have to beautify it, spiritualize it. This causes people’s inner faculties to be broken. No pastor should demand this of his flock.

Again, at the risk of being redundant, the main problem is your insistence on your nearly-inerrant role as a Pope-like figure. Since you can do no wrong, when you DO (and you do, indeed!), we must justify it. Often, you provide your own rationalizations, and we must accept them (and suffer inner damage), and pass them on to others, and crush any who don’t accept it. This is morally wrong. Anyone else who do what you do, say what you say, and have the kind of character flaws you have will be rejected as a spiritual leader. Yet, in the strange and warped BBC pastoral world, the reverse must happen. You become exempt from all normal criteria of evaluating persons; you become above the law. Up becomes down, right becomes left, wrong becomes right.

The irony of our situation is that a few years ago, the Korean dept. leaders were severely rebuked for not challenging P. Andy Lee, since even before the adultery was discovered there was so much that was troubling about his leadership in the final 2 years or so.

I had been praying for some time now for God to do something by the 25th anniversary. I had no intention of initiating anything in our Boston meetings or in Daegu. But I resolved to be honest. I told one of the other pastors in an email: “I just want to survive the Daegu meeting.” But you began by calling Chris “satan.” I had to step in and tell you that most of my reservations about your leadership and character have nothing to do with what Chris told me, but based on things I directly observed. And so it all came out.

I meant everything I said in Daegu. I know it must have been traumatizing for you to hear all of it like that, but I had hoped that you would recognize the truth in what I was saying.

I went to Irvine with this hope. The first night, you spoke for about 7 hours straight. Your entire speech, containing many details revealed for the first time, basically was “My Life with Pastor Paul.” It started with your honeymoon, how awful it was, how cheap he was to get second-rate places, “inns,” rather than “hotels.” You went on and on about how frustrating it is to daily deal with such a person as P. Paul, and that Chris, and me, two people with happy marriages would not understand. You also went on to attack Kelly as a child raised by a widow, that most families would not have welcomed such a person as a daughter-in-law. You wondered if we would be in this place if I had married someone else. So odd that you should try to interpret the serious issues I brought up by wondering if the issues would not have been brought up if I had married a more frustrating spouse. And you said things similar toward Chris, mentioning some unsavory thing about his father. (You like the word “noble.” I think this was quite ignoble of you.) You went on and on about how the rich do not understand the poor, and how, similarly, the happily-wed do not understand those with bad marriages. Oddly, you seemed to be saying that to be unhappily married qualifies people for greater spiritual leadership. You punctuated your speech with a refrain, repeated throughout your monologue: “Could you not have a bit more mercy on me?” But this was said in a tone of bitter and mocking sarcasm.

I felt so disappointed by such a display of unwarranted self-pity. First it was not relevant, since my concerns had to do with your very real, official, public, and dominant role throughout BBC as something like our Pope; Second, it was a display of the kind of self-pity quite at odds with our message and values. At no point during our Irvine meeting did you ever acknowledge any wrongdoing, or any truth in anything Chris and I said in Daegu. You continued to defend and justify, and occasionally, sarcastically admitted some small character flaw of yours here and there—“yes, I have a bad temper, but it’s because I deal with people’s sin.”

I proposed at the end of our meeting that we talk one on one, since these large group meetings are not all that fruitful. You rejected this, saying that it will most likely result in mutual hurts. Then Soomi came up on Monday to talk to Kelly. It was a very frustrating conversation. She evaded direct questions regarding what she thought of specific things you did, which we thought were very very clear examples of wrong. She was lawyer-like in her ability to evade, saying, for example, that all the movie watching, Bbong playing was just a “phase” we are going through, which would soon end, but she refused to say if it was a negative phase or a positive phase. She brought word from you that you are now ready to talk with me, because many things became organized (“jung-li”) (정리) arrange in order in your mind during your flight back to Boston.

Again, with some hope, I called. After our telephone conversation later that night, I was once again very disappointed.

You began by saying that on your plane ride back from Irvine, you kept thinking about one thing I said: “you disapprove of my ministry.” You said that the word disapprove kept coming back, and that through this one word, you were able to enter into my mind/heart, and understand me and Kelly. You said that we must feel so very “ug-ool-hae,” (억울해) frustration owing to injustice and that I am right to feel this way. You said that we did “nothing wrong,” that all we did was work hard at our ministry, and that now, we are being criticized for some minute differences. You said that of all the pastors, Kelly and I are the ones you are the most thankful toward. (It was disorienting to hear such words of flattery after all the terrible expressions you used to criticize Kelly in Daegu, and then again in Irvine, just a few days prior.) You said that none of the other pastors know what is actually going on because you consulted me exclusively on many sensitive incidents, and I was the one who handled them with you.

I am sorry to say, but JDSN, I felt that much of the conversation was inauthentic on your part. You were speaking words designed for impact—to melt my heart—without a strong commitment to truth. This became clear when you said that on your plane ride back, you had to ask yourself the question: “Do I indeed (“Gwa-yun”) (과연) do indeed disapprove of Eddie’s ministry?” But the fact is you have been disapproving of me, and Berkeley ministry openly to many others (never directly to me!), including Boston campus staff, for many years now. So you were lying to me when you said that you had to ask yourself this question--unless you are genuinely out of touch with yourself, and all the things you have done for years to make me feel “ug-ool-hae.”

You said that your own answer to this question was that you might have slightly disapproved of my ministry with respect to the course 101 vs. John 1-1 issue (John 1-1: Becky's own introduction to Christianity course based on UBF material), a very recent development. The fact is, however, your disapproval of me and my ministry has been a long-standing practice. And as I told you during our conversation, I have gotten used to it. I think it is your right as my leader to do this. Of course, it violates covenant faithfulness toward me to do this before the younger ones, behind my back, even to those currently under me, and at the mission field, but this kind of disregard for proper boundaries has been characteristic of you in all sorts of ways. It really drove P. Andy Lee crazy, as I recall, when you undermined the legitimacy of all that he was doing, criticizing him and his ministry to many people under him, and to us (YB, me, and the rest of the English dept. staff.)

You then went on to brutally criticize Andy with harsh words. You said that when Andy called to ask you about the Irvine meeting, you yelled at him, saying, “What do you know? etc” and refused to talk to him. (I actually doubt that this is exactly how it went.) Again, this is something you have done many times. Criticize Andy, or YB, or Peter in front of me, with harsh words--especially Andy. You usually couple this with statements that flatter me. This is one of the reasons that I once told you that you are the “most divisive person at BBC.” It insults me that your view of me is such that you think it would delight me to hear you harshly criticize Andy for no apparent reason.

Finally, you told me in a soft, confiding tone, that there is something you had not shared with anyone. You went on to say that you are very worried about Chris, that you think he is emotionally unstable, that this is due to the fact that SV ministry has been hard, with Cha Joona dying, divorces, etc. (Chris said in response to this that being at SV has been much much better than being in Boston. I think he said “thousand times.”) Your solution was to have him leave for Th.M at somewhere like Southwestern. He can leave immediately, before the fall semester. But, you said, this means that I have to take on SV ministry. I could not believe what you were saying to me. You were actually offering me greater territory! You made sure that I understood what you were offering me by adding that Chris would not return to SV, but to Pasadena, to begin a new ministry at Cal Tech, since he did well at MIT, and he is an engineer.

All of this was insulting to me, that you would think that by flattering me, and by offering me greater territory--all of SV--that I would be happy and appeased. I am sure you would protest your innocence, but I just cannot interpret it in any other way. And I realized that you just don’t get it. I felt hopeless. It’s as if a son told his dad, “Dad, please stop drinking, because when you come home drunk, you are violent and you frequently beat mom.” And the dad’s thinking process is: humm… why is he saying this? What does he want? And he responds to his son by saying: “Hey, do you want me to buy you a new car?”

The sad conclusion I reached after the Irvine meeting was confirmed by this phone conversation. I lost all hope of genuine dialogue. After I refused your offer of SV, I sat there bewildered, disappointed once again, but much more resolved and clear as to what I need to do.

Our church has become sick. The sickness of your character has infected our entire BBC organism with a deep sickness. You have diminished many who were loyal to you, who trusted you, who gave you so much faithfulness. You have been unfaithful to your own messages; you have betrayed many people; you have corrupted them; you have weakened their sense of judgment; you turned all of them into “hwa-toe-koon-dul” (화토꾼들) "pro" hwa-toe players, a disparaging term as it is a disreputable occupation (as most Korean people will, in all fairness, call all of us); you drink up all of their loyalty (in contrast to King David, who poured it out before the Lord) to self-aggrandize; you manipulate others into expressing adoration toward you, and you quote them to further your own spiritual mystique. While your life has become less and less admirable, your own self-concept had become greater and greater. Now, the gap between the reality of who you are and the rhetoric surrounding you is so huge that those of us who try to fill that gap with our “trust” have been done so only by having our inner faculties damaged, or our ethics compromised.

One of the things that surprised me in the aftermath of the Pastor Andy Lee incident is your blindness to your own sinful contribution to his downfall. You had your long list of villains. I heard you say more than a hundred times that the 2 who were most responsible were P. Paul and Hyekyung SMN. You had your dramatic way of saying this. “Yi-nam-ha lul mahng-ha-gae-han jang-bon-in-dul.” (이남하 를 망하게한 장본인들) "You the culprits responsible for ruining Andy Lee" You never included yourself. But I was there from 1993. I saw you undermining P. Andy, and using all sorts other lowly tactics, talking to people under him, for e.g., to delegitimize and aggravate him. I also saw the extreme frustration he felt toward this entire process; his sense of injustice; his anger; but him feeling stuck, unable to openly speak against you. Clearly, you belong high up on the list of those who contributed to his downfall. But you never repented. You tried to make restitution by helping him, but you never repented for what you did—all the inappropriate and maddening things you did to drive him absolutely up the wall! If you had repented back then, instead of taking solace in Bbong addiction, we would not be in this place today.

Instead of repenting for your wrongs, and the deep character defects from which they arose, you used the entire P. Andy Lee incident to paint a picture of vindication by God, and personal victimization. You emerged from that incident as a victorious warrior—full of wounds for which we should all admire you, and full of pride that you were the victor. I realized then that I was serving a blind leader who does not know how to repent.

Since 1999, it has been slow torture for me. Increasingly, I knew you had gone awry. But I kept trying to see good in you. Your love for people; the fruit in your ministry. But even here, I saw that your love for people was often inconsistent and elitist. And the fruit of your ministry often produced people who were emotionally dependent on your approval. Still, I struggled. I reminded myself of the past; my spiritual indebtedness to you; the times when I felt genuine fondness toward you. And I prayed and hoped that I would be wrong, or that you would repent. But you kept getting worse and my inner conflict grew.

At times I felt I was perpetrating a hoax upon the world; I felt that we were all conspirators engaged in a huge fraud upon our congregation; if they knew what went on, if they were familiar with the true dynamics of the pastoral staff meetings, the ancient-royal-court-like politics of Berkland life, if only they had a camera to see and hear our meetings, what would they think?

Taking care of the Korean Dept, and fighting the San Leandro rebels, getting the building back, all of this was a welcome break from all of this. I could talk to you again over the phone, and we had something to talk about, and we were united against the common enemy. But the issues I had about your leadership, character, and the unhealthy dynamics of our pastoral politics were only put on hold temporarily.

Because you often quote me inaccurately, I want to reiterate in writing some of my problems with your leadership, and the strange, warped world you have created. I do so in the earnest hope that you will take it to heart.

Narcissism. - I remember those days in Berkeley, and the early days of Boston, when you were genuinely humble. You were our teacher, our leader, but you did not hold yourself as such a special spiritual specimen (“prophetess” or “apostle”), and the distance between us was realistic. Now, this distance has become very very unrealistic. You are the inerrant pope, and we are just peons. We (the other pastors), for our part, play dumb and dull, but the whole thing smacks of the unreality and false ritual of ancient king-to-advisor relationships.

- Another evidence of your narcissism is your pattern of having long monologues—uninterrupted, unchallenged, the theme of much of which is: “How great, special, bold, insightful, artistic, interesting, unique I am.” It is actually quite “min-mahng-hae” (민망해) pitiable for me to see you talk on and on while all of us sit and listen without saying a word, just providing an audience for your self-fascination. (In fact, many are dozing off, and many others are surfing the net, reading news, checking email, swapping music, etc.) You would think that we would have active discussions among us, sharing our observations from the frontlines of ministry, discussing different approaches, spritual or biblical insights etc. Instead, there is just your monologues.

- You interpret all events egocentrically. Your birthday, the years of significant events in your life, how they correspond to world events, etc. You even interpret other people’s lives according to yourself, even people whose lives intersected with yours briefly, so that the ups and downs of their lives are, at some deep level, due to how they treated you, for example. And you sincerely seem to believe this, and you narrate examples of such things to further your—and our—sense of what a specially anointed person you are. This is a serious imbalance in self-concept.

- You over-encourage people to give you adoration. You quote with great approval people who have complimented you a long time ago. It’s a wonder you don’t blush when you do this. You get so upset when credit is not given to you by name. Berkland pastoral practitioners know this very well, so that we scrutinize each testimony to be given at events where you are present to be sure there is sufficient mention of your name.

- You are selfish. Your insistence that others live according to your very strange schedule of staying up all night, and sleeping until the afternoon (although for many, they need to work the next day) is very selfish and inconsiderate. You talk about detailed love, but seem unconcerned about the extreme stress you are causing, and the chaos you are bringing in the life of others around you who need to twist and bend to your strange schedule, tastes, preferences and whims. If there were a great need to live like this, it would be understandable. But there is really no valid reason for this other than the personal preference of one person. Many suffer. A loving person, according to your own teaching, is sensitive to the pain of others. You are blissfully oblivious, or unconcerned. But maybe you think since it is a privilege to be merely in your presence, all of the strain is worth it for them. Again, this demonstrates a very egocentric person.

- Your victim complex regarding your marriage is, again, reflective of your narcissism. Most people could not possibly have given the speech you gave in Irvine—a 7-hour, uninterrupted tale of what a victim you are because of P. Paul. There were a lot of details about your honeymoon, and the cheapness of the accommodations you stayed in (pointing out that it was some kind of “inn” not a “hotel.”). As I mentioned above, most people in the Korean immigrant community who got married back then did not even go to a honeymoon, let alone go to Hawaii. I think your expectations regarding your life, which the marriage to P. Paul has crushed, was way overblown to start with. I think you did OK with P. Paul. There are many women in the world (and many younger people in our own congregation) who can tell stories of much greater victimization—yet, without feeling half the self-pity you displayed. Our own mothers had to put up with much more terrible marriages. In fact, you used to say that this is a huge spiritual barrier to Korean women’s spiritul growh—that they see themselves as victims of their husbands, and instead of seeing the cross as something caused by their sins, they identify with Christ as a fellow victim and sufferer. But this was exactly the theme of your speech. You said that you live a daily cross-bearing life. I think P. Paul does as well. In fact, the humiliating way you treat P. Paul often borders on the inhumane, and I have sometimes wondered how he manages to tolerate your treatment of him.

I simply could not agree with your tears when you found out that P. Paul knew about the microwave ovens at the rest stops. I think among men, it would be a funny story to tell. Not wanting to be bothered with microwaving the rice, refusing to indulge your princess-like wife, pretending to not notice them: definitely not heroic, or loving, but certainly not something you should have told us with that kind of drama and sense of victimization. Please take a few steps back and listen to your own story. Who can sympathize? But, incredibly, one or two SMNs started crying. Pauline and Philip being embarrassed by their dad’s sermon, too: most of us grew up under painfully embarrassing parents. Their lives, and your life, turned out good enough. But good enough is not good enough for you, it seems. Again, I must say: narcissism.

- You queen-like behavior, expectations regarding how you should be served are also reflective of your narcissistic character. Why should someone else get rebuked for forgetting to bring your “han-yak”? (한약) oriental medicine Why must so many be nervous about serving you right? Why so picky, and easily annoyed by small inconveniences, like not having cold water readily available for you? How can any right-thinking pastor hold you up as an example of mature christian character?

Dishonesty. - Playing Bbong is a prime example. This is done in secret. We hide the fact that this is the major activity of all our pastoral gatherings. But what is also revealing is your constant shifting of excuses for this practice. It started with the strange rationalization that it is because there is nothing else to do with P. Andy. Then, it was “hyo-bbong.” Then, now, it is “leadership training.” You also once declared you are banning it. But, you, in fact, never carried out this “ban” yourself. This kind of lack of seriousness regarding the truth of what you are saying has been characteristic of you in many ways for many years.

- Rationalization. The false rhetoric surrounding Bbong is an example of something else you do that represents dishonesty. You are a master at rationalization. But, your rationalizations are very thin, and many of us see through them. For example, when Sally expressed her hurt at our Irvine meeting that you called her “byung shin” (병신) a deformed person (a pejorative "bomb", severe in all contexts) again and again, you began to acknowledge the fact that you have a “rough mouth.” But then, you said that the OT prophets also had “rough mouths.” You said that you were not as bad as the OT prophets. At least you don’t tell people that they will eat their own children. As I told you in Irvine, that kind of rationalization offends me. You are no OT prophet, and your rough language is your sinful lack of emotional self-control and your contempt and disregard toward the feelings of others. You need to repent of this, rather than rationalizing your behavior by a comparison to the OT prophets. Please acknowledge your responsibility for the trauma, wound, and damage to self worth you have caused in many. (And please understand why I cannot tell others, without compromising my conscience and damaging their judgment faculties, that your hot temper and abusive language is because you are like one of the OT prophets.)

Again, in Irvine, when Chris mentioned that he felt like he was going crazy in Boston next to you, instead of thinking about your negative leadership which led him to experience this, you said that your main problem was overestimating Chris, thinking he was a higher caliber person, and training him more rigorously. By saying this, you turned a situation where you should have apologized into one in which you emerged as someone who lovingly thought more highly of Chris’ potential than he actually had. I mention these two incidents, but of course, this is very characteristic of your after-the-fact rationalizations. Thus, your bad, explosive temper is translated into “intensity of love” or “hard training.” When people get damaged by your outbursts of temper, this is translated (dishonestly) into “they were not ready” or that you “trusted them too much.” This kind of warping of speech, this kind of reversal in the meaning of language, is characteristic of many cultic or other controlling groups (communists, for e.g.).

When I challenged you about your messages, the fact that you are often unprepared, speaking on random topics in a stream-of-consciousness mode, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for the entire message, your response was that Apostle Paul’s epistles are also characterized by him discussing this and that without clear organization (“ee-mal, juh-mal”) (이말, 저말) this topic, that topic; literally this word, that word. Then, when I objected to this, you tried another rationalization. You said that you are on a mission to demolish today’s christians’ common view of a model sermon as a tidy, well-organized presentation. I find it hard to believe that you are doing this out of some prior sense of mission regarding current views on homiletics.

- Misquoting. You often misquote people, and often in order to divide people from one another—even spouses.

Divisive. - You have denigrated Grace, Andy, YB, Peter, etc. in front of me unnecessarily. I am sure you have said similar things about me and Kelly to them. Even in your handling of this incident, although you say you regard us as sons, you had different people call Chris and me (mostly Chris). We ended up arguing. Then you receive reports of our current state of mind through them. Why not just talk to us directly, if you regard us as sons? On the other hand, there are many mothers of dysfunctional families who behave just like this, telling one son to call another son, then report back; criticizing the eldest before the youngest, criticizing the youngest to the middle child, and telling each of them that they are the most special. So to hear that this grieves you most baffles me. Could it really be that you were not aware of your active divisive role among us?

Unhealthy BBC Culture. - Flattery, dishonesty, and fear. Many of the people you surround yourself with will not tell you the whole truth. You can do 9 things wrong, and no one will challenge you or offer criticism. But if you do one thing right, they will lavish you with praise. If they will not offer you criticism, they should not give you flattery either. You have become the emperor with no clothes. (But you have fostered this atmosphere yourself.) For example, you have heard many say something like: “Oh, why don’t we close down our churches, and all of us move to Boston?” I know for a fact that people do not want to move to Boston. Yet they say this. And you seem to believe it.

Chris and I have, over the years, received many requests by our peers to communicate something to you, or ask for something, that they were afraid to do directly. When, in the middle of some other discussion, I am able to bring it up casually, and get your permission or agreement, I then bring this happy news to whoever asked me, much to their relief. This is how people relate to you.

After Daegu, one of the pastors was quick to try to take back some things he said, lest what he said be quoted to you. He had told Chris that his wife had been depressed for a week after the recent SMN retreat in Boston, but he denied any knowledge of this. One of the other pastors admitted to me that he thinks that at times our church is like a “personality cult.” But he also said that he would never be able to say it to you in public. He told me that he thinks he can tell you this in private. (I seriously doubt it). There has been remarkable silence from all my friends after Daegu, and, even a greater silence after Irvine. If I am wrong, you would think they would call to challenge me, or convince me, or rebuke me. If I am right, or even partially so, you would think they would say I agree with you on some points, and disagree on others. I am baffled, and disappointed at my friends. Certainly, our rhetoric about our famous friendships is far off the mark.

- There is very little real relationship-forming going on among the pastors and, certainly, hardly any among the SMNs at our church. People rarely talk to one another. Like once-close friends becoming distant and suspicious after the onset of communism in their land, our friendships have stood still, or regressed. We have become mutually wary in the environment of fear and taboo created by your leadership. Yet, our rhetoric about it continues unabated, in disregard of reality.

- Defensive ministry. For many BBC pastors, your approval means everything. But since it is often not clear what will displease you, given your moodiness, spontaneity, and unpredictability, playing it safe is at a premium. No one wants to hear you say: “Is this a Berkland church?” But what is the core of our ministry? This is ill defined. But it is, in fact, the person of JDSN; i.e., it is whatever you say it is depending on your latest thoughts. But this is often changing according to your latest trip, or your latest conversation with someone. There is no fixed set of principles that we have defined as our core values. So people practice defensive ministry. They do things that they see you doing, or they do things that were approved in the past. This is a very stifling experience for most.

- Cynicism toward ministry. One of the alarming things about you in the past few years has been your growing cynicism toward ministry. “People don’t change.” “Why devote out time to people who don’t change, when we should spend time with our kids?” You seemed to have lost confidence in the power of the word. We never crack open the Bible when we meet for days. Because of this cynicism toward ministry, you seemed resolved to just fellowship and “build relationships”—mostly by hanging out and engaging in fun, secular activities. Therefore, our ministry has been stagnant and in maintenance-mode for quite some time now.

- Unhealthy view of marriage. As yet another example of up being down, and right being left in your world, happily married couples are made to feel apologetic for it. Their happy marriage is not, of course, a result of anything like emotional maturity, but a lack of commitment to truth, or a lack of spirituality by which the spouses are satisfied with each other. This is very unhealthy indeed, and has caused actual damage to many marriages throughout BBC.

- Lack of real leadership. You have not provided real leadership for years now. You have not dealt with XYZ and many other needy and troubled staff. Your solution seems to be to just keep moving them around, each time necessitating a fresh round of deceitful announcements to our congregations. Clearly, you have reached the limit of your own leadership abilities a long time ago. Like the majority of ancient royalty, you exercise total power, demand homage, but provide very little actual guidance, mentoring or inspiration.

- Increasing secularity, and secrecy. We have betrayed our message regarding many things. I still remember how a few of our sophomores—I think it was Warren and some of his friends—were severely rebuked by Andy and Grace for going to Noraebang (노래방) karaoke. Now, we, the pastors, do. And the obsessive and secretive playing of a game associated with the lowest of activities among Koreans--the game itself, and the extent of playing are utterly scandalous. We have also betrayed our messages, and former stance regarding movies and regarding Korean videos. Oh, how we used to revile people who would watch hours and hours of these videos, many of them running 30 hours or more. And you rationalize all of this—fellowship, understanding our congregation, education, etc.

I can go on and on in this vein, but I think this letter is long enough.

Given all of the above, and more, I cannot, in good conscience, lead others who follow me into the strange and warped world in which you must be adored, followed, feared, and set up as a super-spiritual christian model, where common sense must be abandoned in order to believe all of your rationalizations, and your practices be imitated, and your moods and hot temper suffered. I think this breaks people. It is a wrong I cannot continue to perpetuate. By my mere presence, people assume a lot. They are entitled to this assumption—the assumption that I am not a fool, that I would hold up the truth, that I would apply the same standards toward myself and my leaders as I would to them, that I am an ethical pastor of integrity. Therefore, any reservations they have toward you become supressed by my (and the others’) mere presence as a BBC pastor in full support of you and all that goes on in BBC. I refuse to continue to play part in the deceit, the fraud we are perpetuating upon the public, and upon our congregation. Personally, me and Kelly felt at times that we were going insane dealing with all of this over the years. No one else should ever be asked to go through this.

I plan on vacating the Alcatraz building as soon as we find suitable office space to lease, and taking other steps to finalize my break with your leadership. After that telephone conversation with you, I decided that there would be no point in holding off until January. I don’t think the September 7th meeting you suggested to Chris is really necessary, since many things depend on you and you alone. After much thinking and prayer, I realized that for me and Kelly to simply leave, or a subset of our leadership to move to another city, would be an unconscionable abandonment of our sheep. I don’t think I could live with such a decision. Therefore, I decided that I must stay in this area, and minister to those who will follow my leadership apart from BBC. I know I will have to offer them some explanation. I cannot lie and say that I am resigning because of stress, or for personal reasons, or any other such made up reasons. Nor can I tell them that BBC leadership is healthy, and all of them should follow you. That would be wrong. I will try to keep it as general as possible, for the sake of the sheep as well as to protect your legacy as much as possible. I have very little to gain, and much to lose practically by doing this—the hurt and shock this will bring to so many, including my own children, being reviled as worse than P. Andy Lee, the painful loss of all my friendships. It may be the hardest thing I will ever do.

I still miss how you used to be. I miss the old Berkland that I fell in love with. The old Berkland that I committed my life to. Our old values of radical discipleship, counter-cultural community, covenantal relationships, focus on the Word, missional mindset, the faith we once had that we would change the world, that we would raise disciples to become our co-workers, co-builders of the kingdom. I miss the spirit of freedom we had in relating to one another, sharpening each other, arguing, debating, and loving each other. We were unselfconscious, and had nothing to lose during those days, when we did not care so much about the Berkland name, when we all still had our distinct personalities and strengths, when all things seemed possible. I still have huge nostalgia for those days, and long for their return. I know that all the best of what God has done among us has not been entirely destroyed; just overshadowed. I have been praying for the shadow to lift, and for the good things to return, and will continue to do so.

I regret the tone of this letter. I went over it to tone it down several times. English sounds so cold, and my criticisms were not softened with roundabout expressions. But the letter was not written without prayer—often with tears—toward you. I believe it to be an act of love toward you. I will continue to hope and pray for that day when we can enjoy one another’s company, when all the Berkland pastors can be friends again. I am sure it will take time, but still, I want to hold out the hope that we will grow old together. In heaven, in the light of fuller truth, I may owe you an apology. But this side of heaven, I believe I’ve done my best.

With prayers,

Ed Kang

Note #1: (Nylon) bbong (뻥) is a variant of the hwa-tu (화투) card game. Hwa-toe (화토) is a dialectal variation (사투리) of the word, and the one Ed uses here. The word itself is an onomatopoeia of the loud sound of popping rice, barley, or corn--alarming, but not amounting to much. The phrase "sounding 'bbong', are you" (뻥 치네) is commonly used to scoff at someone's attempt to lie. While hwa-tu is generally accepted as part of mainstream culture, to understand the underlying stigma associated with the game, one needs to understand its history (Japanese soldiers brought the game, called hanafuda, over to Korea during the Annexation, intended to introduce idleness to aid in subjugating the commoners), the type of people who play it (from idle middle-aged housewives to Yakuza), and the context in which it is played (in illegal gambling halls, where the gambling point-systems have brought many to catastrophic ruin). Pastors and deacons generally refrain from owning a deck of hwa-tu cards in their homes.