Leaderboard

And many find healing without any involvement from any gods

So, some people want to just sweep it all under the rug. They think it doesn't make a difference. Their motivation? They WANT to think JAL is reliable, they WANT to be able to trust him. This lends stability to their beliefs without bothering to find a competent leader. That's the "why" of it. But, are they right? John Lynn has taught error, repeatedly. John Lynn still teaches error, VERY QUIETLY. Does it matter? This is the same John Lynn whose actual Christian "education" doesn't really exist. He learned from a plagiarizing rapist who emphasized people idolizing him and getting all the money. The only FORMAL education was the Dale Carnegie SALES training- which was stolen because twi has NEVER paid a license to teach their copywritten material. What kind of career of Christian ministering did that prepare him for? When planning to leave twi, he began gathering an audience. Within a few years, he and a few others had already constructed a new group, complete with "the doctrines are etched in stone and above question" and throwing in doctrines that others EASILY saw as dangerous- and warned him about ("personal prophecy" and "Momentus."( They proceeded anyway. Why? A) They were "above discussion" so changing their minds made them seem more human and less "above question." B) "Personal Prophecy" allowed them to claim to speak for God and usurp God Almighty's authority on those foolish enough to go along with it. C) "Momentus" allowed them to craft a new "insiders/outsiders" thing like the Way Corps had been. After far too many complaints, he's dropped talking about Momentus. He still promotes it when someone's foolish enough to try to communicate with him, thus subjecting themselves to JAL's full advertising. (He refuses to dialogue, he claims he will dialogue but each time he's just advertised/) The "Personal Prophecy" thing was above question- even when it destroyed his own marriage. He's stopped pushing that one. AFAIK, he followed the advice of a GSC poster, and went back and rebuilt his marriage. (That was a good idea.) Has he ever apologized, even in a general way, for pushing that doctrine at the costs of the lives of "his" membership? For claiming the Bible supported that when it never did? He has not- neither personally nor generally. He's never accepted any responsibility in EITHER disaster. So, what does it matter? We have here a man who supposedly was trained to be a Christian leader, but was instead trained BY a cult leader to BE a cult leader. He then went our ant made a new cult- complete with destructive doctrines. When he and the others who wanted to be boss disagreed, he left that cult- to immediately start working up ANOTHER. Here is a man who has been a poor example of a leader, a man who's led people into harm, REPEATEDLY, only to turn around and DO IT AGAIN. Ok, so he uses homespun expressions. Is your spiritual life so barren that you have to listen to a PROVEN failure as a teacher, rather than thousands of more competent ones? This man has destroyed lives and never said "I'm sorrry." Are you getting in line to be next to have your life destroyed? When we're talking leaders, character matters. When we're talking Christian/church leaders, character matters A LOT.

There continues to persist the notion that the GSC is REQUIRED to be a Christian messageboard, rather than a messageboard open to all religious positions (including anti-religious positions and a-religious positions.) To require that would be a DISSERVICE to twi survivors who no longer consider themselves Christian. Some ex-twi were so scarred by twi, by vpw, by lcm, by JAL, by CG, by rfr, that the flee Christianity completely. I disagree with their decisions, but I have sympathy for anyone who's been hurt like that. Telling them to "just suck it up" does not work, and is rather INhuman. (There's other non-Christians who didn't flee in anger- I think they're also poorly-served by being silenced- and the twi survivor communities are ill-served by silencing them.) The vast majority of discussions about twi don't require one to believe the Bible. We can discuss what twi says, and what the Bible says, and show they are not connected, without requiring any poster believe the Bible. (Objective truth is the same no matter one's personal beliefs.) BTW, there's places on the GSC for someone to post something pro-Christian. Also, as the GSC is about twi and its splinters, and surviving them, it's not a requirement for people to continue posting. Plenty of devout Christians have stopped posting and gotten on with their lives post-twi and post-GSC. I consider all of them to be GSC SUCCESS STORIES. They got what they needed and then went on to live their lives.

First, to correct a few factual inaccuracies at the same time..... After vpw had unilaterally appointed lcm as his successor, and vpw's health waned, vpw found out that the system that embraced him while he was The Big Cheese With No Accountability now embraced lcm, and vpw found himself as irrelevant as he'd made everyone else. Unable to accept being treated like everyone else, vpw ran to Gartmore and cried on Geer's shoulder. According to CG- whose account I believe reflected what happened- vpw spent a considerable amount of time making all sorts of predictions (which all failed to come to pass) and claims that the current leaders of twi had now stepped out from serving God, etc, etc. CG wrote all this out as a 40-page letter, "The Passing of the Patriarch." He insisted on confronting the top leaders with it, and when he addressed the in-residence Corps with the same letter, he brandished a pistol. (He loved using dogs or guns to try to intimidate people.) The 40-page letter goes on at great length but never makes any SPECIFICS. If it was addressing real problems, why couldn't it name even ONE problem that needed fixing? It was all vague comments. Around this time, one or two PRINCIPLED leaders (RD and possibly one or 2 others) had been approached by people who had been abused/raped by vpw or lcm. RD immediately went to address this. He was escorted off grounds that same hour at gunpoint. A handful of top leaders got together to see if they could salvage the situation. Unfortunately, part of this was JAL writing an equally vague letter about some nebulous problems at HQ. JAL went around the US, telling people what he knew, collecting cash donations, making himself known, etc. Once it was clear that JAL and a few others were more intereted in making a new twi-style group, RD parted company with them. JAL and friends formed "Christian Educational Services" - later Spirit and Truth Fellowship International". In the beginning, they said they were open to discussing doctrine and there being no sacred cows. A few years later, they published a declaration of core beliefs, shut down their messageboard, and shut down disagreements as a whole. The 2 biggest concerns among their adherents were probably their rather harmful doctrines of "Personal Prophecy" and "Momentus." (We have entire threads about both subjects- each thread being about ONE of those 2.) They could now have someone "prophesy" that anyone who disagreed with them was a spiritual danger- and they did just this. JAL's aware of this one quite vividly- his divorce with his then-wife was traced to repeated "prophecies" made in an attempt to shut her up. To this day, AFAIK, JAL's never apologized for leading people over the cliff on that one and insisting it was Biblical- all while silencing discussion on it. The other was the SECULAR progam "Momentus." It's an MLM that runs as a training program. Its names keep changing so that people can't look it up online and find out all about it. A few of its names are claimed to be "Christian." The practices of the program show no connection with practices in the Bible. There's various activities that a good Psychologist or Sociologist could identify as increasing groupthink and encouraging people to be louder and more aggressive. A number of participants of Momentus (a number under EACH of its names) had breakdowns, required psychological assistance, etc as a result of participating. Eventually, CES/STFI stopped openly promoting it, and got evasive on whether or not they were still recommending it. (They refused to be clear about continuing to use it, or beginning to abandon it.) When people spoke to JAL privately, JAL rebuffed normal discussions and advertised Momentus. It was impossible to have a normal discussion with him any more- any conversation was a marketing opportunity. BTW, eventually JAL and STFI parted ways. JAL and their other leaders BOTH wanted to be in charge and in control of all the dough. So, JAL left and- AGAIN- formed another ex-twi twi-style group.