Leaderboard

Yeah Grace, sometimes I wonder if the top leadership of The Way International like being “under the radar” (not very well known) to avoid unnecessary attention – I know they’re probably considered small potatoes compared to bigger destructive cults like Scientology - but maybe they like it that way…being more in the public eye would leave them open to public scrutiny, criticism…and who knows, maybe even widespread demands for accountability… I wonder how many TWI-followers would still trust TWI-leadership if they found out even just a smidgen of the sexual abuse that’s been going on – and covered up for a very long time… How would the general TWI-public react to finding out that wierwille, Craig and other TWI-leadership were/are sexual predators? Would there be a public outrage over the fact that all this has been covered up for YEARS ? What would be left of TWI’s supposed reputation as a biblical research, teaching and fellowship ministry? And who knows how much would even change if the dark underbelly of the beast was exposed to daylight…I read about another more recent issue with the leader of the Catholic church in England and Wales in a November 2020 article of The Guardian (the link is below...when I read stuff like this I’m just appalled at any church’s efforts toward “customer retention” and cash inflow taking precedence over altruistic concerns for the well-being of their own followers…did Jesus Christ mean for leaders of the faith to conquer and exploit the flock? I believe he said something along the lines of he came not to be served but to serve Mark 10:39-45 )…the following are just a few excerpts from The Guardian article : “Pope Francis asked Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the leader of the Catholic church in England and Wales, to stay in his post, despite a damning report that criticised his leadership and concluded that the church repeatedly prioritised its reputation over the welfare of child sex abuse victims… …The 162-page report said “the church’s neglect of the physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing of children and young people in favour of protecting its reputation was in conflict with its mission of love and care for the innocent and vulnerable.”… …Between 1970 and 2015, the church in England and Wales received more than 900 complaints involving more than 3,000 instances of child sexual abuse, made against more than 900 individuals, including priests, monks and volunteers… …When complaints were made, the church invariably failed to support victims and survivors but took action to protect alleged perpetrators by moving them to a different parish. “Child sexual abuse,” the report says, “was swept under the carpet.”… …Prof Alexis Jay, the chair of the inquiry, said: “For decades, the Catholic church’s failure to tackle child sexual abuse consigned many more children to the same fate. It is clear that the church’s reputation was valued above the welfare of victims, with allegations ignored and perpetrators protected. Even today, the responses of the Holy See appear at odds with the pope’s promise to take action on this hugely important problem.” end of excerpts Guardian article – Catholic Church sweeps sex abuse under carpet and related to above article that mentions a 162 page report done by the IICSA the following link gives some info about them about the report by the Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse that is referenced in the article

Questions about the identity of Jesus Christ are almost as old as Christianity itself. The gospels and epistles are, at least in part, a rebuttal to early claims about exactly who Jesus was, both before and after his resurrection. He's the Son of God. Why? In Mark it's at his baptism. In Luke and Matthew it's by virtue of him not having an earthly father. In John it's a relationship that predates his birth. All answers are Biblically defensible. The inescapable conclusion from the gospels: he is the Son of God. But John is the only gospel that explicitly appears to make the case that he is actually God as well (although John would probably be denounced as a heretic for claiming that the Father is in any way greater than the Son). The Trinity as a doctrine developed over time. That Christ was a being who existed prior to his earthly life can reasonably be deduced from the writings of Paul. We in TWI made the mistake of thinking there was something Biblically unreasonable about a doctrine like "the incarnation," as though there were no Biblical support for it. To the contrary, the Biblical support is strong and must be addressed for a Socinian model (his existence began at conception/birth, just like ours) to hold water. It should be noted that the biggest controversy around the time of Nicea was whether Jesus pre-existed as God or as an angel. That he was "just a man" was not even a finalist. You could (and we did) make a Biblical case that because he is not God (John 14:28) and he was not an angel (Hebrews 1), then he must have been a man, although an extraordinary one. But the case for Jesus as God is far from non-existent. And the case for Jesus as a pre-existing angel is perhaps even stronger (that's the Jehovah's Witness position). For what it's worth, I find it interesting that after he became an agnostic, Bart Ehrman (very recently) began subscribing to the belief that the earliest Christians were Arian (that is, they believed Jesus to be an angel prior to his birth, "the firstborn of all creation" in a very literal sense. My personal belief is that you can't get to one answer because there isn't one answer at the core of the argument. Finding out what the Bible says about who Jesus really was is complicated, perhaps irreparably, by the fact that the Bible's writers don't seem to agree with each other on the subject.