For two consecutive years, 1999-2000, Samuel Lee ordered all Chicago-area UBF chapters to gather at the World Buffet restaurant in Niles, Illinois to throw a big birthday bash for Sarah Barry. Thousands of dollars were spent for Barry at these events, and she was lavished with gifts, but more disturbing to me was all the unbridled praise, not praise for God, but praise for Lee and Barry. On the World Buffet karaoke stage were featured song and dance numbers and skits(!) dedicated to Barry. In 1999, I had to be part of one these dance numbers. A Wright College "performance" included incredibly syrupy praise for Barry as an "angel from above."
Cut to 2002. Barry makes a 5-figure contribution to a North Korean relief organization in the name of the now deceased Samuel Lee. The contribution opens the way for Barry to take a guided tour of North Korea. She goes there and comes back with a report that says something to the effect that she witnessed a leadership cult in North Korea.
Cut to later in 2002. Barry declares in a letter that the leadership cult in Bonn is an "exemplary" UBF chapter that many other chapters should emulate.
Incidentally, Lee ordered a similar birthday bash for my father at the World Buffet in 1998.
What would Jesus have thought of these World Buffet bashes where leaders were lavished with gifts and praised to the heavens?
In UBF terms, such idolatrous veneration and "hero" worship is called "thankfulness", thankfulness which is supposed to silence any and all criticisms, valid or not, in the name of "spiritual order."
