Leaderboard

Well done, Rocky. Sounds like your activity was with equals, and not, from your quote, as an abuse of leadership power. Self-awareness is a wonderful thing.

Thanks for confirming that, Rocky. Others, bear in mind that, as well as regular posters here, there are lurkers who read and don't post. I'm not going to tell.

I still believe it's legitimate and fair to characterize Wierwille's schtick as hypnotism. Some bought the suggestions, some didn't. Those who saw through it, didn't stick.

I had a private message concerning this topic and I want to use an extract to highlight something else. (I'm not telling you who PM'd me. If that person wants to "out" themselves, that's their business.) I noticed while in High School a strong human dynamic that pops up in all human organizations and all ages: the Captain of the Football team get his choice of the hot cheer leaders. ... so many ministry leaders were like Football Captains and so many girls threw themselves at their feet, just like in High School and College. Just in case anyone had the idea that the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting were high school cheerleaders and "threw themselves" at Eli's sons, can I just remind them that Moses had, not that long before, firmly prohibited adultery. (D'ya remember? The ten commandments?) Who's the "guardian" of those commandments? Eli and his wicked sons. Even if (and there is no such inference) such women had crept naked into the sons' beds, it was still the sons' responsibility to say NO! and not to abuse the women. Eli knew, and half-heartedly rebuked his sons. There were big OT penalties for illicit sexual activity. It's clear those penalties were still in force (albeit laxly) in Jesus's time, and that's a long time later, centuries - over a millennium. There are many admonitions in the epistles; Paul wrote about sexual matters several times. And yet here we are. Two millennia later. Still dealing with clergy abuse of the women of the congregation. It's not limited to TWI. But it is - truly - the modus operandi for TWI. If male clergy feel "tempted" by the women in their congregation, whose fault is that? No, it is not the women's! It's the men's fault, and their weakness, if they cannot resist. And they should do what it takes to remove themselves. Never be alone with a woman not your wife (as Billy Graham is said to have insisted - so as to avoid any possible faint inference of impropriety). And never, never, never hunt down vulnerable women to take advantage of them.

I was aware of all the bruhaha surrounding that paper. People even got in trouble is if it was mailed to them. I read it. It was simply a well done logical research paper. Those who overreacted were incriminating themselves.