waysider

I have to interject that what T-Bone has said here resonates loudly with my own personal experience. "Spirit can only speak to spirit" is one of the major stumbling blocks and flaws in the so-called "Great Principle". There's lots of past discussion here if anyone is interested in looking at it in greater detail The "Keys to Walking by The Spirit" checklist on page 15 of the Advanced Class syllabus. Comical to think about it now, in a sad kind of way. I wonder where VP got this list. Surely he couldn't have authored it himself and included the prerequisite of humility. The Advanced Class has to have been one of the most depressing two week events I ever experienced during my time in The Way. Such high expectations. So little realization of them. I want to say it was a waste of time but it was so much more beyond that.

I remember fellowships that fit this description but don't remember ever hearing this terminology. Not much more I can add to the conversation.

"Regardless of whether it's called or thought of as "magical thinking" or a "law," there is a latent power resident within how anyone disciplines their mind to think. And yes, it certainly can change what our perception of reality is (or isn't.)" Perception of reality, yes. Reality, no. Regardless of how successful and popular this concept has become, the fact remains that you can't change the physical world around you one whit with the thoughts inside your mind, whether positive or negative. edit: Off-Topic, though. Perhaps refer to one of the many discussions of the subject we have had here.

It's de-humanizing. That makes it easier to accept.

"The Way Tree terminology - the purpose - to distort the fact in people's minds that TWI is an organization?" I'm picturing this as a scene from "Pinky And The Brain". Brain: Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Pinky? Pinky: Well, I think so, Brain, but if they called it a structured hierarchy, who'd show up to sing Little Bunny Foo Foo?

Critical thinking is a manner of thinking that allows for critique of ideas using reason and logic. It's an objective, unbiased approach to evaluation of ideas and situations. The PFAL series, along with Renewed Mind and Dealing With The Adversary, taught us to explicitly avoid and deny critical thinking........... "Having done all, STAND!. You just don't budge, baby."-VPW......It's sprinkled throughout all the other classes as well, with the exception, maybe, of Keys to Research. A lot of ex Way people are still stuck in that denial mode. You can see the evidence of it regularly on facebook. I consider them to be victims until they start to use that stubbornness in a damaging, oppressive way. edit: I wanted to add that this doesn't only apply to Bible matters. I've encountered many ex-Way people who are entrenched in this anti-critical thinking mindset. It can be maddening trying to reason with them. Sometimes they even show up on GSC to let us all know had severely we've been led astray. Such is life.

I don't know if this is off topic. It seems like it is somehow related, at least to me. When I finally came to accept that I had been duped, I wasn't angry or bitter. On the contrary, I felt a sense of relief. It suddenly all made sense to me. I've said before, I regret anything and everything I did that caused someone to take the class or become involved with The Way. I apologize for that. I was never a mean or overbearing type of person, before, during or after my involvement. This, in itself, created quite a bit of inner conflict for me because I couldn't bring myself to do some of the things TWI required of me, such as expel someone from the class for minor tardiness infractions without first considering their personal circumstances. There are lots of other examples, of course. I think we all have several we could cite without me being specific. On a related note: We are all ultimately responsible for our own actions. However, and I've said this many times, sometimes those actions were the result of pretense and fraud. My often cited analogy is this: You want to buy a used car so you shop for the best deal. Mileage is a big deciding factor for you. You find one that fits your requirements and it has low mileage so you buy it. The decision was yours. Later, you discover that the seller had doctored the odometer to give a false, low reading. They must share in the responsibility for the decision you made. Lots of us became involved with The Way or the various training programs because we based our decisions on information that was fraudulently presented to us by the organization. Understanding how it all blends together is what alleviates the anger and bitterness and brings the sense of relief.

Not only did VP not have scriptural references, he flat out said, "I can't show this to you in the Bible, you'll just have to trust me. This is what Father showed me." That may not be an exact quote but I'd bet you it's pretty darn close. So, there it was , a massive red flag that none of us apparently gave much notice. It just sat there like a duck. BTW, in the class I remember, it involved a bit more than masturbation. I've posted it before and it drew an "Ewwwww!" response.

No one has asked to see your DD214, MRAP. That's not how this place works.

I certainly didn't mean to insult you. I'm merely pointing out that what you are promoting is heavily invested in inerrancy, Theopneustos, dispensationalism, etc. In other words, the core tenets of Way Theology. These are the kinds of things that fuel the tendencies toward contortions. If you so desire, pick one and discuss it or refer to a previous thread where such subjects have been explored individually, many in great detail.

It's a fluid state of being. Almost no one experienced simply one or the other and stayed around The Way for any length of time. Recognizing that and how those states of being influenced your life is an important part of personal growth.

I'm not sure you realize it but what you did here and elsewhere on this thread is rephrase session #1 (and other sections) of PFAL...... Inerrancy, God-Breathed, dispensations, private interpretation, guaranteed salvation("I didn't say it, you did"...VPW)....Not unique to The Way but certainly at the core of Way Theology.

Well, in case you're still wondering, he stated what he believed to be the answer to that question in Christian Family & Sex. You might want to review your class notes.

Seriously? Who's attacking you and how did you arrive at that opinion? The question has been answered several times in different ways. Topics will naturally weave in and out of focus as discussions progress. The most problematic off topic posts are the ones that intentionally attempt to derail the thread. If you have a problem with something drifting too far off topic, the proper thing to do is contact a moderator. Lengthy discussion of the discussion itself (meta discussion), rather than the topic, is also detrimental to the flow of a thread. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Yep.

"And whether or not anyone in this day and time is Christ's ultimately boils down to whether or not one believed (not merely thought, or guessed, or supposed, or said the words ...or anything else less than what it means to believe) in the death and resurrection of Christ." This is but one definition of what it means to be a Christian, one that was promoted heavily in the PFAL class and allows for dispensational thinking. To a large part of the world, though, a Christian is someone who assigns great value to the teachings of Christ and attempts to pattern his or her life in accordance with those teachings. Personally, I place more value on that than whether someone fleetingly believed Romans 10:9&10 and then reverted back to a life of debauchery. Most of what we call Christianity, today, isn't really based on Christ, it's based on the Pauline Epistles. Someplace along the journey, Jesus seems to have taken a back seat. If the only Biblical teaching we ever focused on was The Golden Rule we would have more than enough work to busy ourselves for the rest of our lives.

This is a bit of a tangent regarding viewing the source. There is a commonly held belief that being in the Way Corps gave participants the opportunity to learn at the the teachers feet (or however that saying goes). I'm sure that was the case for maybe the first or second Corps but, as it got bigger and bigger, that concept became a pipe dream. By the time I got to FellowLaborers in 1975 there were 50 of us. True, we saw the limb leader every day at dinner for 1/2 an hour but, other than that, we only saw him once a week at our weekly FL night, as he stood at the podium to "teach". More often than not, the "teaching" was nothing more than a butt chewing for what was perceived to be our endless shortfalls. Yes, you could schedule an appointment to speak with him in private if you felt the need. Do you have any concept of how inconvenient that was, given our housing was probably about 15 miles from limb HQ and our schedules were booked from 6:00 AM until midnight? And, the Way Corps was an infinitely larger scale operation. International HQ was less than hour away by air. Wierwille had a plane. We had a small airport about 15 minutes away that could have handled it easily. I was in the program for 2 years, graduated and went back for a third year. (I've told the story here before.) That's 3 years total. Do you know how many times Wierwille visited our program in those 3 years? Think of a goose and the shape of the eggs it lays. Yeah, never. So, please, put to rest the idea that people in the programs had opportunity to learn at the teachers feet. On a very limited basis, there may have been a kernel of truth in the early days. Mostly, though, it was just a hyped up sales gimmick to lure in the naive. edit: In a small sense, we were like soldiers. We weren't consumed with wining the war. We were just trying to stay alive for another day. Wierwille devised the battle plan. He was "the source".

"So there I was was, getting nowhere with my basketball career, while I watched far less talented players advance their careers by leaps and bounds. I said "God, give me something that will make me stand out and I promise to lead others to the greatness of The Hoop. Just like that, the ball jumped out of my hands and spun in a most unconventional manner. Through the hoop it went, as snow began to fill the arena. And that, keeds, is how the hook shot came to be."

Santa Claus will always be real to those who never dare to question his existence.

That's just what bullies do. They take credit for other peoples' accomplishments. Sometimes it's blatant, sometimes it's subliminal. People who haven't come to the realization you eventually came to might go to the grave thinking that topic originated with Rivenbark or, worse, that she was the recipient of divine inspiration.. Your effort to understand it was not at all wasted. It served to teach you a much more important lesson about yourself and about the importance of validating sources. You learned from it. Those whose opinions remain the same, apparently, did not. Who's the winner?

Here's a problem that coexists with the idea of everything having to fit. (Or, maybe it's merely another facet of the same problem. I'm not sure.) Members of the inerrant camp are of the opinion that every individual word included in "THE WORD" must have originated directly from a divine source, as indicated in II Timothy 2:15. According to this line of thinking, God must have had some obvious or hidden motive in what He said, where He said it, how He said it and so forth. This assumes that the authorship was unquestionably divine. It's a major stumbling block. It's probably tripped up more people than we can ever imagine. As long as the stumbling block remains, nothing will ever truly "fit" in the way that advocates of inerrancy insist it should. People will continue to play Biblical Twister, Scriptural Pickup Stix, Divine Dominoes and Jehovah Jenga until the ends of the earth. In doing so, they may be be missing the forest for the trees. Ironically, people don't seem to have this problem when considering the lessons of Aesop or other writers of mythical works. They enjoy the freedom to explore outside the confines of perfection. Biblical students will too often deny themselves that luxury. It's a pity, really.

The lucky ones, that is.

......... But you could return to your old community if you were from an elite group that was influential or likely to bring in big money or bring in "big" names or you were part of one of the families that were highly connected in TWI. There was always a trophy mentality in The Way. "If we could just get (big sports/music/film star) to take the class, people will be lining up to sign The Green Card." It's a popular sales technique. We see it all around us. Some big name, popular star uses a particular product so "it must be good". They got special treatment in The Way. It was part of the marketing plan.

This should have been on The Green Card. "Enables you to trade your spirituality for a pot of beans."