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Showing content with the highest reputation on 11/02/2020 in all areas

  1. On the eve of this momentous election day, I am having flashbacks to life in a cult that demanded loyalty to one man's perverted view of the world. After 17 years in it, I finally woke up and figured out a way to escape. My memoir of that experience is still on special sale for only $17 until Dec. 31, 2020. It includes some real names of leaders many of you knew, especially around the time of the Passing of the Patriarch in 1986. As a member of the biblical research team at that time, I witnessed what got swept under the carpet. For an insider's story of how a person is slowly pulled into a damaging world view without realizing it, give the book Undertow a chance. Visit https://charleneedge.com/undertow-on-sale-signed-copies/ I want to thank so many of you Greasespotters for having supported Undertow by reading it and sharing it. This month, we celebrate its 4th birthday! Cheers. Stay safe and carry on!
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  2. Amen Grace! Sometimes when I reflect on my past I am turned off by how eager and egotistical I was to dream of changing the world – to the detriment of what I put into relationships with my wife and kids. I mean - I could be the most understanding, patient and supportive person toward anyone I was “under-shepherding in The Word” – but with very little energy leftover for my family – so I could be a major insensitive a$$hole at home. Don’t get me wrong –I’m not knocking the folks that can handle it all – I just think we all have different capacities and don’t think I have the energy level to be a pastor, preacher, or some activist AND a family man. Speaking of energy levels – we recently got into watching What We Do in the Shadows a mockumentary comedy horror – of centuries-old vampires interacting with the modern world and other supernatural beings on Hulu. One character Colin Robinson is an energy vampire who lives by draining humans and vampires of their energy by being boring or frustrating – see What We Do in the Shadows – Colin Robinson, energy vampire …It’s a very funny show and the energy vampire makes me think of those night owls after-meetings in the corps – there was always someone who would drone on for all eternity about how they "really got delivered by that last teaching"…oh yeah, akin to Colin’s energy vampire What We Do in the Shadows has an emotional vampire (played by Vanessa Bayer) – who is an advanced form of energy vampire — an emotional vampire — who feeds off of the pity and sadness generated by her outlandish stories of suffering and misfortune. That makes me think of the repeat “offenders” in those unnecessarily super-extended night owls – wondering about the “efficacy” of the deliverance. == == == == DVD bonus feature: What We Do in the Shadows theme song
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  3. Perhaps extreme denial also resulted in him being delusional, and believing himself to be persecuted when way corps folks did not revolve their vocations or vacations around his programs...
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  4. WW, yes it was "quite a level of delusion." I look back on my life, and realize, how many mistakes I made, and wish I could undo them. I can't go back, but I can learn from them, and try to be a better person today. I think VPW died, believing he really was a MOG. I think he lived most of his life in denial. When my life ends, I want to know, I made the world a better place, for at least one person. To me, that equals a happy, successful life.
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  5. We all have the occasional moments of re-living an experience in our minds with a better outcome. I love the French expression for it, "esprit d'escalier," or "spirit of the staircase," as if you've just walked out of a meeting and are headed down the stairs, thinking, "I SHOULD have said so-and-so!" I suspect that the deeper the trauma, the more embellished the revision. This is not delusion; it's making yourself wiser and happier, and therefore more whole. God bless you, George
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  6. While I agree that the things he did were antithetical to God's will (and would push one AWAY from God rather than drawing one CLOSER to God), I'm doubtful he was EVER close to God. His decision to get into preaching was as a career move, not as a calling. His neighbors thought it was ridiculous- he'd earned a reputation as a showoff, a braggart, a bully. His first 2 years as a preacher were punctuated- according to him- with him considering quitting. That's TWICE in the first TWO YEARS. He could deliver a sermon, but it wasn't until the first year of doing so was over that he even considered the idea that the Bible was God's Word. (What was he basing the sermons ON for a year?) He had a history of editing the work of other Christians. The rise of his speaking some things people consider excellent or more can be traced directly to his exposure to the writings of Bullinger, the book by Stiles, and the class of Leonard. In fact, the things he said that were considered noteworthy were all taken directly from those 3 sources. (There were other sources with more minor influences like Kenyon.) He put forth that he was getting all this from God Almighty and that he was going solely to the Bible as his textbook and his workbook, as he said many times. One interesting result of repeating aloud the contents of the works of others was the occasional inability to understand something, and repeating it incorrectly, then changing later and saying something completely different. From Bullinger, he got "all without exception" and "all without distinction", and later "all without exception" and "all with A distinction." His explanations of the differences between other (allos) and other (heteros) were inconsistent for the same reason. According to the pfal class, "anabolepto" means to physically witness- but in the book, "eidon" means to physically witness. For a man who supposedly JUST read the Bible for hundreds of hours a week, he still managed to get confused on who Paul heard say he "almost persuaded to be a Christian." He couldn't remember if it was Felix or Festus. He couldn't pick from either because it was neither- it was AGRIPPA who said it. Why did vpw sound convincing while saying stuff that sounded like it had such good substance? He plagiarized entirely the works of those who taught good substance. His only skill there was in preaching it. vpw could take a speech and make it sound heartfelt and personally meaningful even if he didn't believe it nor understood it. Actors do much the same. Any actor worth the name can take something, and recite it, and emote it fully with no connection to the content. There's one exercise where a couple had a romantic scene- where the dialogue was entirely composed of a supermarket shopping list, recited romantically. I'm hardly a noted actor, and I once emoted a speech where the content was a recipe. It's a skill among actors, and among politicians. Con artists can have it also. vpw sold the whole picture after assembling it- that he was a real man of God. We bought it because he was convincing- and partly because others we trusted bought it before us. So, I don't think vpw HAD a connection with God to be disconnected FROM. I think he was emoting and imitating the connections of valid Christians, and filling in the rest with empty showmanship. He'd pause, then claim he'd gotten revelation on something. He'd hide his sources of information, and insinuate/ suggest they were all by revelation. It was all part of the con.
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  7. Continuing my post from above- AND, here is a DUH! logical conclusion re: vp's ability (and willingness) to guide ppl into a "true and vital relationship with God" and therefore with His Son Jesus Christ - as he 1) became progressively addicted to ppl's approval, power, sex, etc, 2) became more and more delusional about his own importance, 3) taught more and more error, and 4) engaged progressively in sinful unGodly thoughts, words, and behaviors, he removed himself more and more from actual fellowship with God and Jesus. Therefore, when he teaches/shouts things as in the above incident, or tells young ladies that being sexually involved with him gives them a giant step up into God's and his approval*, he was actually distancing himself personally in huge ways from God and Jesus, and leading us away from them as well. "I am the way, the truth, and the life" did not apply to vpw but to Jesus. I know these things are obvious, but I am grieving as I write this; it is very painful to see... Guess a part of me was still pretty attached emotionally... But since certain damaging things had been normalized for me pre-way ministry, when I began experiencing them there too, I had no real way to judge them or to detach. Plus, once one trusts someone like a spiritual leader, especially in a developmental stage of life, it will be a process to undo the trust, eh? (Of course, I am glad that God holds me personally responsible for my part - I sinned "in ignorance" as Paul wrote. I was not a total victim, and have my part in repenting and coming clean...) *It could probably be said that all of the garbage fed to young women about how being close to the mog sexually was a sacred secret trust, and their compliance, in turn fed into his delusional state of mind just as the other power abuse/lies and our affirmations/belief in him did. Never mind the state of partial concubinage that I know at least two woman experienced as a way of being in the inner circle of the rather misogynistic men... Oh yes, the delusions of power and entitlement continued... Thank you again, this is rough but necessary... Onward!
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  8. OMGosh, so clearly stated and such an exposure of the underlying delusion, Wordwolf, that I think I finally get it. THANK YOU.
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  9. The sad thing is, if vpw had spoken sincerely and from the heart when he said that, it would have been a really good thing. He directed people to read Ephesians 6, starting at verse 10. He read aloud, misreading aloud so everyone reading along could catch the distinction. " 'Finally, my brethren, be strong in vp wierwille." *group 'no'* "Say it LOUDER!" *group 'NO!'* "That's right. You're not strong in vp wierwille. Many of you may have heard God's Word from me, but I didn't die for you." *shout from offside that sounded like VF* "IT WAS JESUS CHRIST!" "You said it, man!" Then vpw criticized people who say to look at this or that leader. "I look at The Word, baby!" Sadly, all of that was show. vpw wanted us to look to vpw, but when the microphones were on, he knew to say the opposite. Who would possibly believe the accounts of the victims, of the abused, when vpw said the opposite IN PUBLIC? Who would imagine vpw could be such a Grade A Hypocrite that he could do that all the time? It sounds ridiculous, and if there wasn't so much testimony from so many witnesses and so many victims, it might not be possible to accept that vpw did it. vpw SO deluded himself into thinking he was "THE Man of God" that- when he was in his final hours of life, he wracked his brain, looking for how he could somehow have "missed it" and failed God so he couldn't Super-Believe into instant health. He looked back on his life, and was unable to find anything sufficient. That was all for himself, alone. Now, THAT'S quite a level of delusion.
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  10. Yes, vpw's narcissistic father-figuring, power-grabbing, sexual abusing, and (I am coming to think) his dispensational boxing up of the church age distanced us/me slowly but surely from the "less relevant" person of Jesus! I.e. Jesus' presently available friendship, love, work among us, ministering to us individually... Seeing and understanding HIS sacrifices for us personally, not vp's. And all of the counter-cultural ways that Jesus functioned that are still so needed by the world today... And so much more...
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