Leaderboard

That's really big brush you're painting with there.

Does this post have any meaning at all?????

This may be a great post in a thread called "VPW was Elmer Gantry". (and I liked both men...VPW and Burt Lancaster.) LOL

I'm an atheist. I have lots of joy. I also exhibit the fruit of the spirit in much of my life and have been commended many times for doing "God's Work" (to which I respond: "I have to; He won't). "Atheists are extremely without joy" is a statement of staggering ignorance and bigotry. I trust that is outside your character. Might be best to stick with a subject about which you actually know something

Well, remember he taught us to disregard the ten commandments, saying they were "the law" and the law didn't apply any more. The law? The ten commandments are rules for living together socially. Decent behaviour. Respect for God, and respect for fellow human beings. The Ten Commandments are a set of biblical principles that guide ethical behavior and worship. They are as follows: You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Honor your father and your mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet. These commandments were given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai and can be found in the Bible in Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21 You'll have to look hard before you find one that he didn't break. His God was money. His carved image was TWI. He mocked God. He respected no time of rest (quite the opposite, he pushed people to breaking point). He disregarded his parents. (Interestingly, this is "the first commandment of promise" - “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you." And we know he died earlier than might be expected for a man in his circumstances) He didn't physically kill anyone, but he killed their reputations, their confidence, their lives. He killed their genuine Godly ministries, too. Adultery - how many women did he rape and otherwise assault? (some have posted their stories here) Steal? He obtained money and other assets by fraud. He even stole his famous PFAL class and the follow-on classes! Bear false witness? The lies and slander he spread, about anyone he disliked and especially about departing Corps, are legendary. Covet? He sought the fame that genuine ministers had. As the Bible tells us: “Even a child is known by his deeds” (Proverbs 20:11) conveys the timeless lesson that a person’s actions-from childhood onward-reflect character. The verse serves as a reminder that moral responsibility begins early. Wordwolf has clearly set out the deeds of the child, teenager, young adult that was VPW. No surprise what the older adult VPW turned out to be.

"I don't believe that for a second." Not "you'll have to provide a lot more specific information if you'd expect me to agree," but you've already drawn a conclusion. "This is how I know you go beyond legitimate criticism to cynicism." So, "legitimate criticism" is when you believe it, and "cynicism" is when you don't? Either you didn't mean what you said, or you have a standard of distinguishing which is which that is subjective and unsound. " I'll listen to legitimate criticism, like saying he was a serial adulterer, but he was a mixed bag at a minimum." So, it's not the evidence, the eyewitness accounts, the direct quotes from him, or other things that determine where you draw the line, but rather what you believe? Well, that's honest to admit, I'll give you that. A lot of people COULD say the same, but wouldn't admit it. "I was a college atheist when I took PFAL. I believed the Bible and have been growing in it ever since. I've got VP Wierwille to thank for that." So, you know he was genuine because you benefited and got God in your life. That doesn't necessarily follow. Him being genuine or false and you getting God in your life are actually not automatically connected. That is, I'll stipulate to your benefit. I'll stipulate you got godly after being exposed to twi, pfal and so on. I would even go so far as to say I could say the same of myself. (How's that for cynicism?) That having been said, there's a lot more to the story than "He was godly, so I benefited." You heard some things that seemed godly. A fake could easily plagiarize the work of legit Christians. A fake could easily reproduce their work, their sermons, and so on. A fake could easily deliver a sermon. A good fake could produce a sermon with an impassioned plea that brings tears to his eyes- and might do so to you. So, a successful fake COULD do everything we saw vpw do. We also know that the House of Acts Christians, the hijacked hippies, those were legit Christians who were making a stir- which is why vpw heard of them from several states away. We know the people THEY taught, the people THEY prayed for, they got love and deliverance. And they taught some people, and so on. So, then, if a fake and a real preacher could both produce the same results as vpw- either through sincere work and dedication to God or through dedication to maintaining a cushy living and the means to keep it- how do we tell the difference? We look at the man himself. When we look at them when the cameras are on, we will probably see the same thing- a display of piety and sincerity. (A SUCCESSFUL fake won't be so easy to catch.) It's when the cameras are off that we will find out what the men are like. Let's say a man dedicates his life to God. Is he going to "walk the walk" as well as "talk the talk"? The answer should be obvious. But in twi, even what filters down to the local level is oddly permissive. No injunctions to moral living, EVER. We heard about God's PERMISSIVENESS, though. How far does this go? vpw had been at it for over a decade when he went to meet the hippies to recruit them. When he spoke privately to J1m D00p, he had a conversation that made no sense to J1m. vpw questioned him repeatedly about what it was like TO ATTEND AN ORGY. He told JD, speaking of ORGIES, that "THAT'S ALL AVAILABLE." His justification for that at the time was to tell him that I Corinthians 8:1 uses the word "GOOD" instead of "BEST" and so therefore, Christians could ATTEND ORGIES. JD was shocked, said he thanked God he was not in any of that, and changed the subject. Now, George Carlin once pointed out that a sin can have steps- that is, not be an impulse of an instant. "It was a sin for you to WANT to feel up Ellen, it was a sin to PLAN to feel up Ellen, it was a sin to FIGURE OUT A PLACE to feel up Ellen, it was a sin to TRY to feel her up, and it was a sin to feel her up! There were 6 sins in one feel, man!" All joking (and comedians) aside, he had a point. That sin involved PREMEDITATION AND PLANNING. He felt an impulse to sin. Rather than "flee fornication", he made occasion-and opportunity- for the sin. He worked out a location, made a plan, and put the plan into action. At this point, I'm pretty confident you'll just hand-wave it away, since it isn't what you think. However, when it came to the Way Corps, vpw had worked out a FEW places he could molest or rape women. GOING FROM THE REPORTS OF THE WOMEN WHO CAME FORWARD, I know of at least 2 that he used- his private bus, and his private office. He kept alcohol in both. OK, keeping alcohol in either is proof of nothing- although it suggests a possible drinking problem. But, by itself, proof of nothing. All Corps candidates were required to write an autobiography when applying, "From Birth to the Corps." In it, some of them mentioned they had a history where they survived sexual abuse. Now, survivors of sexual abuse are often easier to abuse later because of their previous conditioning and experiences. This, also, is proof of nothing when by itself. Now, consider the scenario. This was repeated in testimony after testimony of women who came forth, women who came here, and were called liars, were yelled at, were shouted down, were called whores by vpw fans, and who STILL came forward. The Corps was on the farm, in the middle of nowhere. The only people for miles were the people in the program and the staffers of twi. Women were there. Occasionally, a woman whose Corps paper said they'd survived rape was called privately to a private audience with vpw, either on the bus, or in the office. They attended. vpw greeted them- AND HAD THEIR AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN HIS HAND. He offered them a drink, and engaged in small talk for some time. Then his speech focused on their personal history. He offered to help heal them of their previous trauma. He was going to do that by showing them sexual contact with him, which was going to erase the trauma or overwrite it. "I'll show you what's good about being a woman." (And so on.) Some women were too shocked to react quickly, a few ran. A number mentioned falling unconscious. No, that's not a woman swooning, that's a woman who accepted a drink that turned out to be drugged, and passed out when the drug took affect. When they woke up, some woke up with vpw doing things to them. What happens next? Each woman leaves his presence. IMMEDIATELY, one of a handful of twi insiders appears and talks to them. The woman is subjected to an indoctrination about what a blessing that was, how they should feel good about it, and so on. The insider also observed their reactions. Women who looked like they might tell someone were rushed off of grounds before they could talk. A pretext for kicking them out of the Corps was constructed and presented. They were made to feel like trash, then put on a slow Greyhound bus home. As soon as they left but before they got home, the locals where they lived were phoned and given an earful about all the problems of this woman- most of them manufactured completely. If she told anyone when she got home, she was disbelieved- EVEN BY HER OWN FAMILY. LOTS of women came forth. According to the Bible, a multitude of witnesses whose accounts agree should be believed. I don't know what you're going to do. What it sounds like is that vpw made lengthy arrangements for the Corps where he was able to sort through the candidates and find women he was likely to be able to rape or molest successfully. Then he made lengthy arrangements for places where he was likely to be successful to rape or molest them- privacy, and so on. Then he made lengthy arrangements to have specific women isolated and brought to him- with no witnesses- and for one of a small handful of people to try to keep her from telling on him, and spying to make sure she wasn't going to talk. Then, those who looked likely to talk were kicked out, demeaned, and their reputations were savaged to keep anyone else from believing them. After all, vpw was The Man of God For Our Day and Time. Who would believe such things of him? That "one" woman must be lying for some reason.

Love Wins All

WW kind of sideswiped a theory I've been working under for the past few years. I've brought it up before but it bears repeating. I have a suspicion (not enough evidence to call it a theory) that VPW was an unbeliever at heart. In tribute to Mike's thesis about how Wierwille hid great truths in plain sight and we all missed it: He declared himself to be all but atheist after studying the Bible. He no longer believed the words Holy or Bible on the cover (which is grammatically and rhetorically stupid, but you get his point). Being educated about the Bible, its history and authorship caused him to all but lose his faith. He said so! What if he never regained it? Bear with me: what if, from that moment forward, it was never about getting God and His Word right, but getting while the getting was good? He got money. He got adoration, He got fame (relative to most of us). He got attention. He got sex. He got power. How much of what he did makes more sense if he didn't believe a word of it but knew how to manipulate people to get what he wanted from them? Every time he discovered a niche, he exploited it. "This book is not some kind of Johnny come lately idea just to be iconoclastic..." [if someone has the correct wording, please let me know. I'll be happy to fix]. Oh it WASN'T? Because it was so shoddy I would think that you were selling a title rather than a book. You have a doctorate. You know how to present and defend a thesis (stop laughing, you in the back row. @#$%ing Snowball Pete). But he was an unbeliever. He KNEW the scholarship about the Bible that people like Bart Ehrman and Dan McClellan are popularizing today. He knew and he stopped believing. And THAT is when the bulls hit started. The funny thing is, it doesn't negate anything he taught. Just his motives. If McClellan and Ehrman are right, the first Christians really weren't Trinitarians. They weren't what Wierwille espoused either, though some were. Jehovah's Witnesses actually got it right, if McClellan and Ehrman are correct. But even that conclusion presupposes a unified message from the New Testament writers. And they weren't unified. Here's the problem Wierwille exposed that a lot of Christianity still gets wrong. There WAS NO FIRST CENTURY CHURCH. There were first century churches. Tons of them. And they disagreed with each other about EVERYTHING. Another topic for another time. Bottom line, I'm increasingly coming to believe that Wierwille's rise and ministry can best be explained by the hypothesis that he was an unbeliever from the moment before he became relevant.

"...it's not even a sin to eat meat on Fridays anymore..... but I bet there's still guys in hell on a meat rap! 'I thought it was retro-active! I ate a baloney sandwich. This guy had a beef jerky.' How'd you like to do Eternity for a beef jerky?"