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Okay fine…well then, I just might listen to a few old Sunday Night Teaching Tapes I’ve got stored in a Rubbermaid storage tub in the attic…what’s that you say? The extreme temperatures of an attic are murder on cassette tapes? …Yes, I know. (gleefully snickers)…Smithers, fetch me attic storage tub number 25 with the hazardous waste material sticker on it. Chop chop!

Not for a moment do I think it's fair game to go after grieving family members.

I met him once. He came to St. Louis. I think he was there to promote the way corps. I got to play a couple of songs during the fellowship. I was tuning my guitar in the bathroom (best acoustics) and he walked in. He was nice. Some leadership seemed to believe that musicians were 2nd class believers...ego trips waiting to happen. John Lynn was NOT like that. I was never really aware much of his post TWI ministry and any doctrinal differences, but it says a lot that so many disgruntled ex way people would rally around him. They say the cream rises to the top. John Lynn must've had some.

Those are deplorable incidents. What has come up this week regarding JAL's legacy are clearly unrelated to that kind of conduct.

The discussions are inextricably linked. Generally speaking, if a person is going to make a public figure of himself [a term that has different meanings in different contexts], then we are talking about different standards for "privacy."

I'll just say here what I said there: if be had promoted cigarettes and dismissed studies showing a link to disease and then died of lung cancer or COPD, the point would have been raised and there would not be a shred of controversy about it. In OUR community, JAL counts as a public figure. He's not being interviewed in that video because he was such a private fellow. Further, we are not debating or discussing his life choices. Had he kept them to himself, it would have been distasteful. JAL had a platform few of us have, and he used it to spread the kind of misinformation that is of a particular health risk to people in his medical situation. I cannot think of a set of circumstances that would make a public discussion of his *public* stance on this PUBLIC HEALTH issue MORE fair for comment here. He didn't keep his misinformation to himself. The fact that he mocked legitimate efforts to control the spread of an illness whose threat he minimized, AND that illness contributed to his premature death, is absolutely positively fair game. Let his legacy be a warning.

Ah, but a DIFFERENT thread is a memorial. I was going to leave that thread completely alone. I had no PERSONAL dealings with JAL, and thus no memories to share. I also wasn't going to make a new thread JUST to call out dangerous teachings. However, since this one was started, I consider it fair game. :) It's one thing to go out of your way to do a character-assassination on someone. Somebody leaves twi, and immediately the spin doctors grab the microphone and begin a smear campaign with vague connections to reality. The person was a model Christian up until the moment before they left twi, NOW they're scum! It's another to point out that someone-who made himself a PUBLIC FIGURE and worked hard to do so- has disseminated dangerous misinformation to the public. For this post, Í'm going to skip the dangerous "Momentus" push he did where people were hurt, and the dangerous "personal prophecy" movement that ruined lives and wrecked marriages. I'm JUST going to go by the video that was linked, and what he said about the global pandemic, during its height. Only going by this one video.... A) He said masks are useless against COVID. That's false. That was known `100 years ago with the "Spanish Flu" and it's true now as well. He said all the authorities speaking up were wrong and that if you listened to the "right sources", you'd know that. No mention of WHO those right sources were, can't fact-check if he's correct, of course. At that level, he's floating a rumor. B) He said COVID was no worse than a flu. Outside the US, this isn't a political thing in many countries- it's acknowledged this is a worldwide killer. Again, no sources for his outrageous claim. C) Claim the CDC said many of the cases (he said "MOST") of the cases were due to comorbidities, so that meant that COVID wasn't to blame there. That shows an ignorance of basic epidemiology. With an "opportunistic infection", something occupies and wears down the immune system, and something else- which normally wouldn't be dangerous- gets in and does a lot of harm or kills someone. So, if there was no COVID, the "co-morbidity" would not have been a significant issue. So, his own words there, for those with a layman's grasp of medicine, show he doesn't understand what he's passing along. He may believe it, but that doesn't make it true, and it doesn't make it harmless. D) He said it's worse to wear the masks than to risk catching COVID. E) He said the isolation protocols have been keeping people from attending church. He hasn't gotten around that much. Virtual church-going got REALLY popular during 2020. F) He said "most" vaccines- with COVID the context- are "HARMFUL", No medical authority has embraced this, and they keep refuting this. All the medical experts rushed out to get vaccinated as soon as was possible. In fact, many people who got on the media and claimed there may have been problems with the vaccines were all quick to get vaccinated. Again, no source, just another rumor he floated. G) He said the US death rate for COVID was 0.0 something death rate. He said he doesn't "worry about it at all", and repeated that the masks were useless, and tells nurses not to bother with them. He mentioned "the true science" with no mention of where one can look it up. So, hidden (OCCULTED) knowledge where he refuses to cite his sources. All of that, if followed, runs between "highly-suspect" (hidden sources) and potentially fatal (skipping the vaccines.) In a lot of the world, this isn't about politics, it's about PUBLIC HEALTH and bipartisan support for measures were common. In countries where this was a political football, the body counts for COVID shot up (like Brazil.) Comedian Gabriel Iglesias is in poor health. He's morbidly obese, has diabetes, and other health problems. He caught the Delta variant of COVID, and took 1 day of bed-rest. He was fine afterwards- because he got BOTH vaccination doses. If one follows JAL's counsel on COVID, one runs the risk of getting the disease, and possibly dying, or possibly passing it along to other family members and friends. Places where vaccination has been up are often maintaining social distancing and mask-wearing, and otherwise are returning to normal- as much as one can while doing both. The places where the highest rates of people getting COVID and dying of COVID correlate directly to places where people remain unvaccinnated. That's a problem for 3rd world countries that can't get vaccines, and that's a problem in the US in counties where people say their personal freedoms are being infringed upon. I agree with what Arnold Schwarzenegger said on this. Your personal freedoms have responsibilities. JAL had the courage of his convictions, and practiced what he preached- which, apparently, led directly to his death. At least he was CONSISTENT. If this post ends up getting chopped up by staff, I'm sorry. I tried to stick to the medical facts and as clear of politics as I could manage.

Wierwille was the king of making mountains out of molehills. How many were crucified with Christ? 2 or 4? See mainstream Christianity can't even get it right with details of Christs death and resurrection. So trust us instead of them because we are more accurate. If you read about the Pharisees in the Bible you get a good picture of how Way leadership operates. But they hide this with good words and fair speeches. Don't buy their major premise. Insignificant details in scripture are just that. Insignificant details. Not a reason to follow a cult.