waysider

May I presume you've never taken the time to give an honest look at Actual Errors in PFAL?

BUMP

As I see it, part of the problem in this discussion is the manner in which we are using the word "theology". In the context of this discussion, I believe we are referring to a particular comprehensive system of beliefs that Wierwille employed at a practical level. Individual parts of the whole may have been fine. But the whole package is contaminated by the parts that are not. Consider for a moment the current health concerns with tainted peanut butter. Is every ounce of that peanut butter tainted? Doubtful. But how do you extract the salmonella by itself and leave the peanut butter intact? Like a friend of mine is fond of saying, "You can't separate flea poop from pepper." The parts of Wierwille's belief system that promoted this thinking are like the flea poop in the pepper. They contaminate the whole system.He used the whole pepper shaker to spice his daily living standards. The pepper, though it may not itself have been contaminated, served as a vehicle to deliver the flea poop.Therefore, as a whole, his theology (belief and practices system) is hopelessly flawed.

Sorry Apparently, this one is not easily recognized from just one line. It's--- ----- The YardbirdsWould someone take the next one, please?

Education is a great thing. I think people should take advantage of as many educational opportunities as they can. Go to college if you can, even if it's community college. The purpose of college, after all, is to learn HOW to learn. You can do that at community college. With that said, though, formal education is not for everyone. One development that I have personally been witnessing lately is that employers are much more focused on what an employee can immediately contribute as opposed to assigning a value to a list of credentials. This is especially true in the trades and blue collar sector. People who have hands on skills seem to be able to find work easier than those with advanced degrees. I know of one PhD (engineering) who lost all his long term consulting contracts as a result of an economic downturn for his clients. And it's somewhat of a misconception that high school is free. In parts of rural Ohio, for example, student busing ceases at the high school level. High school students are expected to find their own way to school. Some of these kids live 5 and 6 miles away from the nearest high school. You simple can't walk or ride a bike down these dangerous country roads. There is no public transit. The kids have to pay other kids to transport them, get part time jobs to pay for their own transportation or rely on Mom and Dad . Many school districts have instituted a "pay to play" policy for sports, arts and other extra curricular activities. These activities are a vital part of a well rounded educational program. Many parents simply can't afford to keep their kids in these programs. Some of the urban areas are instituting dress codes that require the students to wear uniforms. These uniforms are not for street wear. I'm not judging the value of these uniform policies, I'm simply saying this is an added expense for cash strapped parents. None of this is meant to imply justification for dropping out of high school. My point is simply that school is not really "free". There are so many variables and individual situations, I just don't see where one blanket statement can sum it all up. that's my to too two cents.

Oldies CF&S was a grooming tool, a primer of sorts. Just because people sat through the class and opted for a moral lifestyle is no proof the class was valid. It's simply an indication that the class did not affect them negatively. Wierwille used the separation that Dispensationalism provides as a means to excuse his bad behavior. He rationalized that since he was living under grace and already in receipt of sonship rights, he could do whatever he pleased and it was OK. He used the separation of body, soul and spirit to rationalize abortion. In his thinking, the baby was not alive because it hadn't taken its first breath.( That's how he defined the beginning of life.) We're not trying to prove whether these beliefs (theology) are accurate or not. That is what the doctrinal forum is for. What should be apparent, though, is that he used his belief system (theology) to excuse deviant behavior in himself and other leaders. If a theology is constructed in such a manner as to promote unacceptable behavior, it's flawed. Plain and simple. In short, he used theology to get sex and never acknowledged the application of said theology was flawed. That is what sets him apart from some of the mainstream religious figures who have been publicly exposed in sex scandals. I'm confident there have been other cult leaders who have done similar things. That doesn't make it right.

I'm not sure I follow you. Although I'm a big believer in getting as much education as you can, there are people who beat the odds and succeed despite their lack of it. The next time you pass a Wendy's Restaurant, think of R. David Thomas. Click HERE and HERE and HERE

I think we're kinda saying the same thing, Taz.

Mr. B. Most of us in the early days were not thinking like that, aside from the hope of the gathering together. The emphasis on rewards at the bema, etc. came a bit later. We knew about rewards, of course, but it was not a driving motivation. I never heard that part about beating up unbelievers.

Wierwille Theology It is acceptable for a minister to engage in extramarital sex as long as said minister observes the theological premise of the Grace Administration. In other words, if the theology promotes the behavior and the behavior promotes the theology, the two are inextricable from each other. ************************************************ Wierwille used his pseudo theological tenets to rationalize deviant behavior. **************************************** " If that's the case, that'd mean truth is contingent upon someone's behavior at a certain point in time. Truth is truth, behavior is behavior" "Truth" isn't even a part of this discussion. If you want to debate the meaning of "Truth" I suggest you visit the doctrinal forum.

Wierwille didn't just teach his brand of theology and leave it up for grabs. He also taught how to apply it, both by virtue of formal instruction on how to misapply it to scripture and by the example he set with his perverted lifestyle, which was supposed to serve as an example to us in how to live according to this theology.. The theology and its application were intertwined and inseparable. Thus, his theology in its comprehensive form was flawed.

I doubt that many of us were thinking that far into the future.

And this is something that is missed by people who do voluntary service, such as a "work weekend". Somewhere in their mind, they know they are going back to their family, friends, support system, when the weekend is over. They will have the freedom to openly discuss and evaluate the event without concern for retribution. The actual amount of labor they may provide that particular weekend is really quite irrelevant.

You're putting the cart in front of the horse. If a basic tenet of a belief system facilitates immoral behavior, it stands to reason the tenet, hence, the belief system (theology) must be flawed in some manner. Unless, of course, your belief system fails to acknowledge the behavior as being immoral, despite the societal mores of the system in which it resides. In this instance, one of those specific flaws is the usage of dispensational theology to excuse immoral behavior and dismiss the perpetrator from accountability. Wierwille proposed that, because this is the "Grace Administration", as defined by dispensational theology, it follows that the most basic of laws, the ten commamdments, does not apply to this day and time. Based on his logic, murder or bank robbery would be acceptable as long as you are "spiritually mature" enough to justify and rationalize it. If you disagree that the validity of dispensationalism should be questioned and discounted, that's your choice. Feel free to explore that avenue in the doctrinal forum. This discussion is not about the concept of "seven administrations" but rather, about how Wierwille applied that concept to exonerate deviant behavior. It's what the rest of the world (the secular faction) calls "rationalization". Click HERE for an explanation of rationalization.

Allow me to clarify it for you. It's generally referred to as "changing the subject".

Once again, may I point out that this discussion is not about the concept of dispensationalism? Yes, it factors into it, but, any further discussion of it would best be handled in a separate thread. IMO And BTW, I (personally) remember a guy who used this stuff to justify sex with his 8 year old step daughter. The courts did not agree with his assessments, thank goodness.

Continued: After work, we all met at limb HQ. Someone from each house was responsible for going back to their house and preparing a pre-determined dinner for their house and bringing the meal and place settings to limb HQ. Every house made the same dinner. We had a food co-op that handled all the logistics of the meals. Participation was mandatory. I think it cost $6 dollars a week. (Minimum wage was something like $2/hr.) If you didn't pay, you didn't eat but you had to sit at a table. No one was allowed to loan you the money. We ate as a branch, at folding tables. Each table had a host and hostess and we followed proper etiquette. We had half an hour to eat dinner. Then, we worked the rest of the evening, either in the garden, doing property maintenance, working in the food co-op, etc. Next, we drove back to the complex, where we met in twigs that were comprised of people who were not in our houses. That lasted 30-45 minutes. Then we went back to our houses and washed dishes, prepared breakfast for the next day, had household meetings etc. ( Houses were cleaned on Saturday afternoons and laundry and personal chores were done on Sunday afternoons.) At midnight, it was lights out, no talking. There's more but that's the general picture.

No. In a college dorm, you are still connected to the outside world. I can't speak to the Corps living experience but I can speak to the Fellow Laborer living experience. There were about 50 of us. We lived in a block of 3 bedroom townhouses, about 30 minutes from Limb HQ. We slept 2 or 3 to a bedroom. No pets. No extraneous belongings. Most of us kept what we had in foot lockers that served double duty as tables. Beds and dressers belonged to the program. The only living quarters at limb HQ was a farm house that the limb leaders lived in. There was another building that we called the BRC. It was, at one time, a party house (banquet facility). Limb was set on a rural property. We had a large garden where we all worked and grew much of the vegetables we ate. Watered Garden could probably tell you more of the garden specifics. We all met every morning at 5:30 as a whole group in one of the basements for prayer, mannies and announcements. If you were on breakfast detail, your day started at 5AM. Next, we ran "to the tree and back" which was just under a mile, down a dark country road. Then, we ate in our "houses" as house families. Every house ate the same pre-determined breakfast. Usually, it was familia, oat groats, wheat berries, and such. After that we left for full time secular jobs. No part time jobs allowed. We were to use those jobs to witness and sign people up for PFAL. If the job was such that it wasn't conducive to that, you were supposed to find another job that was. And, remember, there weren't many jobs in our rural area. Any leads we got, we turned over to local twigs. We were not permitted to socialize or date outside the group and could not leave to go into town without special permission. More in next post.

Another aspect that has occurred to me is that we were physically removed from our support systems. WOWs were sent hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles from home to live in strange towns, in unfamiliar cultures with people who were at times of dubious character. Way Corps and Fellow Laborers lived in communal settings, isolated from mainstream society, with no phones, no television, disconnected from reality. The only support system we had was each other. There was no internet. Rarely was there enough money (or free time) to make a costly long distance call home to family or friends. What would you tell them, anyway? You weren't even sure yourself what you were seeing, how could you describe it to an outsider? Being physically removed from a support system is something I don't think you can ever grasp if you have never gone beyond local involvement, regardless of how many voluntary work details you may have been involved with. Physical isolation------That was a big factor in our vulnerability.

I agree that the theology pertaining to sex wasn't specifically taught to the rank and file. In fact, in Fellow Laborers, if one were caught having sex, it would result in a rapid dismissal. Looking back, though, lots of little pieces to the puzzle come together. For example, why would Wierwille teach the sorts of things that were taught to the rank and file in CF&S? Grooming is the only explanation I can think of. Why, in the Advanced Class, did he teach that adultery was really referring to "spiritual adultery" and, more or less, denigrate those who weren't "spiritually mature enough" to understand its deeper meaning? Why did he teach in the AC, that there was a devil spirit responsible for blinding peoples' understanding of "deeper matters"? (Surely you wouldn't want to admit to not understanding deeper spiritual matters, would you?) Lots of incidents that seemed to make no sense at the time, suddenly become much clearer in view of the larger picture. And, it goes beyond just the sex. There was his inordinate "fondness" for alcohol consumption that was passed off as necessary because he was carrying such a heavy spiritual weight and had renewed his mind to handle it. (Don't let your common sense trick you into considering something may be out of line, just "renew your mind".) That was his way of saying that his way of thinking was right and yours was wrong. Even as early as the PFAL class, he was promoting his attitude on this subject when he taught about smoking and non-smoking Christians. "Do as you fool please", he said. (paraphrased) And there was the phrase "Do what you like as long as you like what you do." which he delivered with a wicked grin. He used his bogus interpretation of dispensations, artificially giving unprecedented significance to different Biblical eras to rationalize his loose morals. He promoted a foot loose and fancy free life style for the "spiritually mature". At the same time, he promoted a line of thinking that seemed to imply that if you weren't seeing "truths" that were deeper than what was written, you were a spiritual weakling (or worse), thus encouraging people to come around to seeing things his way whether they really did or not. It wasn't a secret he kept hidden from the masses. It was an entire, distorted belief system that he openly taught and endorsed. It was right under our noses the whole time, hidden in plain sight. edit: spelling

HUNT CLOSE!

Sick at heart and lonely, deep in dark despair

Dispensationalism lives at the very core of Way theology. Wierwille based his whole "if you can handle it" philosophy on the concept of the Grace Administration. His "to Whom it is written" thinking is addressed very early, session 5 to be exact. Is the administrations line of thinking valid? That's a topic best discussed in another forum rather than veer off course on this one. And, in fact, a search will reveal that this very topic of administrations has been discussed previously. I think Wierwille knew he was off base on the Grace Administration concept. (Bullinger or no Bullinger) That's why he carried it a step farther by teaching that when "adultery" was mentioned in the Bible, there was a secret, profound meaning behind its usage. Simply put, he taught that adultery was really referring to worshiping false gods. He even assigned it its very own devil spirit in the Advanced Class, the "spirit of whoredoms". Then he used the administrations lessons to "prove" it. Not satisfied to stop there, he instituted the "lock box" and even resorted to vile methods to insure the lock box stayed closed. He was really no different than the common child molester that tells his innocent, young victim that their relationship is a very special one and must be kept secret. As John so aptly noted, the difference between what Wierwille did and what others such as Swaggart, Baker and others did is that Wierwille actually used theology to justify his actions. That is simply inexcusable for a man in a position that is supposed to be above reproach.

Click HERE.

Maybe I'm mistaken. Wasn't J0nny "grandfathered" in?