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Another thing that comes to mind is the duplicitous nature of The Way International. After thinking about everyone’s comments, for some reason I thought about chapter 13 “Why Division” in wierwille’s book “The New Dynamic Church”. I reread the chapter but the final paragraph on page 172 really grabbed my attention: May God deliver us as the Church from being contentious and difficult, from maligning our brethren, from bickering and quarrelsomeness, from dividing the Body of Christ by our lack of enlightenment. There is too much division outside the Church; our solidarity is imperative to give us strength to move forward in spite of the opposition. May the Father in heaven, for the sake of the only-begotten Son, bless us with such an abundance that we may cease to be part of the problem and become a part of the answer. May we as members of Christ’s Body become so filled with love that we may be teachable and have our hearts opened to His Holy Word. And may we receive of Him and carry the blessing to all we meet, that they may see us and know we are His. End of excerpt ~ ~ ~ ~ In stark contrast to the above amicable tone in Why Division and the mostly generic statement of beliefs on TWI’s website, several two-faced incidents keep replaying in memory: * At a Weekend in the Word, a Heartbeat Festival and a few other open meetings, wierwille would get into one of his anti-Trinity rants saying that in order for a person to really believe in the Trinity they would have to be possessed by a devil spirit. How does that jive with his easygoing sentiment in “Why Division”? And how does that harmonize with what Jesus Christ said in John 13:35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. This seems very divisive…polarizing…polemic…I mean - who wants to be possessed by a devil spirit? * When I was in residence at Rome City, one night wierwille was expounding on the greatness and uniqueness of his ministry and drew a comparison to Jesus’ ministry. Reading about Judas taking the sop from Jesus in John 13:30 He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it was night. wierwille then made a very heavy-handed point of emphasizing when Judas left the fold he went out into spiritual darkness. To make it relevant to the corps he then reiterated Judas’ choice as being a devilishly influenced desire for self-destruction - and that we as way corps must be strong in our commitment to this ministry since the only other choice outside this ministry is oblivion. Close to the end of his talk he spelled it out even further by saying something along the lines that if we were to trip out or cop out where else would we go? In other words, there’s no other viable options – there are no other church groups, offshoots, ministries, etc., that are feasible and will be satisfactory to one's needs. This seems very manipulative…very us-versus-them mentality. * I think of all the character assassinations I’ve witnessed over my years of involvement - “maligning our brethren” – got to see some of it firsthand when I was in the way corps. The malicious and unjustified harming of a person's good reputation – because that person disagreed with the cult-leader - wierwille, LCM, campus coordinator…or the person had some misfortune befall them or whatever it was that seemed to threaten leadership’s authority or could possibly shatter the illusions of The Way International’s perfect little world. It's in the great chapter on the religious leaders…hypocrites…Pharisees…and certain aforementioned cult-leaders that you will find this gem They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden. Matthew 23:4 NLT

That quote is sooooo two-faced. It makes me want to tear my hair out. Contentious and difficult, bickering, dividing.... Aargh! And - what??? WTF?? May the Father in heaven, for the sake of the only-begotten Son, bless us with such an abundance that we may cease to be part of the problem and become a part of the answer Huh?? They got the "bless with such an abundance" all right - they forgot the "become part of the answer." (What exactly was the question, again? "Let's not be divisive" or some such?) In fact, they are not part of the problem - they are the problem.

Y'know, one thing that worries me a little about this. Some of these folks will go off and start their own splinter groups. But some of them may go along to some churches and inveigle themselves into leadership positions. After all, they are "Revs" with many years of "leadership" behind them. Do they repent their ways? Genuinely? I do know of some who have left and joined "normal" churches, and some have risen to leadership positions - and appear genuinely repentant. But who knows what some (perhaps not the R&R group, which has a different agenda) may harbour in their thinking if they never address the faulty doctrines? And when they have practised wilful blindness and worse, deception, for decades, and accreted influence and supposed power over others - hmm. It's taken many of us here years to work out sensible approaches to gospel and theology free from TWI-taint. We here at the Cafe may not agree, but at least we've put thought and effort into what we believe now (or don't believe).

Besides wierwille having zilch hermeneutical skills, what was passed off as divine illumination was simply his “signature intuition” – which was nothing more than what he felt a passage meant. And I term it “wierwille’s signature intuition” because in TWI-culture an explanation or interpretation was not considered acceptable unless wierwille signed off on it – in other words it came from him so it was approved by him. Signature intuition refers to what wierwille felt was true regardless of what a passage might really mean; though incompetent with the biblical languages and having a penchant for plagiarism and logical fallacies he was able to cobble together something he was proud of; Signature intuition is wierwille's unique sixth sense of nonsense to divine Scripture, so it always suited his lifestyle - and the devil be damned! It seemed to me wierwille was usually flying by the seat of his pants – using his own initiative and “perceptions” and during live teachings he frequently strayed from the very interpretative keys he taught in PFAL. I think he lacked the discipline, wisdom, experience and honesty of a seasoned researcher and so relied more on intuition to pull off his act. He would often play his trump card “Father revealed it to me” As far as hermeneutics goes - real Bible scholars focus on trying to properly understand the Scriptures through the context, biblical languages, cultural context, historical context, the systematic study of the texts, and plain logic – it really is a discipline, a science and an art – if any intuition is involved it's in gaining a feel for the significance to ascribe to certain data and where more attention would prove to be most beneficial. Intuition is not a bad thing. Matter of fact, I believe our intuition should be integral with our more analytical study of the Scriptures...But it’s important to realize that it’s not perfect and it can be misinterpreted or even compromised by a seared conscience… and there’s also something else to consider – the doctrine of illumination. In An Old Testament Theology the authors discuss the method of sacred hermeneutics, on page 79ff, they say: The inherent nature of any object to be studied dictates the best method for elucidating its properties…To study the stars, one must first gaze up at them to recognize their nature before crafting a telescope, not a microscope, to see them better… …The well-known text “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God (2 Tim. 3:16 KJV) implies that we recognize three inherent qualities of the biblical text. Each quality demands that we fashion a proper instrument (i.e., method) for understanding it. “Of God,” a genitive of authorship, names God as the Author; “inspiration” implies a human author; and “Scripture” denotes a text. All three demand an appropriate approach, and these three approaches must be practiced at one and the same time because the Bible is a unity that is formed by all three. The first two qualities demand a spiritual commitment on the part of the interpreter, and the third paradoxically calls for his or her approaching the text with the detached objectivity of a scientist. Immanuel Kant and Paul Ricoeur make a fundamental distinction between “explanation” and “understanding.” In truth, however, one cannot understand without explanation, and our explanations depend on our prior understanding of reality. As Gerard Manley Hopkins, one of the great poets of the Victorian era, expresses it: “our inscape determines the way we view the landscape.” …inscape…the presuppositions we bring to the task…the perspective and presuppositions with which the interpreter approaches the text… …The doctrine of illumination demands that Scripture be read in a spirit that is harmonious with God’s Spirit…We cannot make God talk through the scientific method (cf. Matt. 11: 25-27 Matthew 16: 13-17 ; Luke 24: 27, 45 ; John 5:45-47 * ) To correlate Word and Spirit with human spirit, we need humility, wholehearted devotion, prayer, meditation, and contemplation.” End of excerpts From: An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic Approach by Bruce K. Waltke with Charles Yu ~ ~ ~ ~ *Note as a convenience, I have inserted hyperlinks to the passages that the authors cited - as these were not in the text I quoted from the hardback edition I have at home. ~ ~ ~ ~ Additional note: I recently got into divine illumination on another thread - here