waysider

Wierwille came of age in rural America during The Great Depression. I personally think a lot of his attitudes and practices regarding women and marriage were gleaned from his personal experiences during his formative years, not from any study of the scriptures or some supposed Divine connection. And, since he was the lead dog in the TWI pack, the other simply fell in step. Just my opinion.

Content: Nudity, foreplay, afterglow, genitalia (both male and female) He even had photos of different shaped penises. And lots of aside comments like "aren't her breasts just beeeeautiful?" and "isn't that gorgeous?" Those probably aren't exact quotes. Pretty darn close, though. I'm sure there are others here who remember the asides as well. R or X Rating: By today's standards, they would probably be R though I think in the early 1970s they would have been considered X (was there a rating system in place back then?). Certainly not appropriate for students as young as 13 years old. Yes, there were many students that young. One poster even stated he was 11 when he took the class. Wierwille rationalized this by saying---and I think this is a quote----"What better place to learn this stuff than in the family?" How someone could defend this drivel by implying it's part of some great knowledge that hadn't been known since the first century is beyond my comprehension. Unless, perhaps, they too had been part of wierwille's secret little club and feel a need to exonerate him in order to vicariously exonerate themselves.

Would you be more likely to believe it if you heard first hand testimony from his victims? There is plenty of that here. I highly recommend the GSC radio episodes listed on the home page. You might also want to look at "Actual Errors In PFAL". Personally, I don't believe God ever revealed ANYTHING to him., especially in light of what we now know about how his hallmark works were plagiarized, in many cases, word for word. He didn't even bother to change the names of the fictitious characters (Maggie Muggins, Snowball Pete, etc.) that he uses in PFAL, a class that he stole from BG Leonard, and others. His "revelations" regarding conspiracy theories in the mid 70s came from propaganda he accessed directly from white supremacy groups and Liberty Lobby. The man was a fraud. It's a startling realization to be faced with after putting so much value in what he supposedly represented. I, for one, definitely would not compare his life to Stephen, Paul or Jesus Christ.

Oh, sure I can see why it would seem that way just looking at it with your 5 senses.

Remember when they went from hardbound to paperback? I wonder what the spiritual significance of that was.

I think "bum's rush" might better describe it. :D

Sorry, seaspray Equating a drunken, plagiarizing, habitual lying sexual predator with the Apostle Paul seems a bit ludicrous to me. You might want to spend some time reviewing some of the information on the home page. Things like "Losing The Way" and "Through The Fog Years" in addition to "Actual Errors in PFAL" and VPW's death certificate which reveals that he died from cancer. (In the Advanced Class, he claimed cancer was caused by devil spirits.) Not trying to bust your chops, really. Welcome to GSC.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

You went through that whole "genitive this and genitive that" tap dance and then concluded wierwille must be right because It appears that it would fit in light of the Red Thread, Jesus Christ is the King. ?????

If you're stating that as an opinion, that's fine. However, if you're presenting that as a statistic, you'll need to cite a source. I'm puzzled why you think VPW would develop a class that was "99% aimed at married couples who weren't having sex" at a time when the ministry was comprised, to a high degree, (IMO) of young single people.

I'm curious how you arrived at that conclusion.

Would your mother have approved of it? No, she didn't.

Fox-Trot or Polka?

Who's stopping you?

The secret chamber pot in PFAL

Another twisted interpretation of my statement. Now let's discuss that point, shall we? Maybe no one will notice it's a diversion from the original topic.

You are clearly remembering a much different survey. Even with just "x"s, as you say, it would definitely be possible to determine authorship by virtue of response. Class lists were kept to validate Advanced Class eligibility. It's been stated here, by first hand participants, that the Way Corps "Birth To Corps' papers were not held in confidence. None of this excuses such a sorry example of a "class" that was supposed to be part of a Biblical research and teaching effort.

Another strawman. The essence of what was being stated was that the questions sought specific personal information regarding sexual activity.. The exact verbiage of each question is irrelevant to the larger context.

Two pages or two hundred pages. It's a moot point. People, outside of that isolated Way Corps class, sat through a class that used a two page "syllabus". That is the class that is being referenced in this discussion. If you want to debate the value of the materials in the other 34 pages, by all means, start another thread and do so. Your continuation of the page count discussion is a distraction from the heart of this thread.

I have seen someone post a copy of a survey that was supposedly the one you are referring to. The one they posted was NOT the one that was used in the classes I was involved with. Your description is more in agreement with the one I remember, questions about sexual history, homosexuality, abuse, etc. As to where they went: We were supposed to put them into an envelope immediately, without looking at the responses, seal it, and send it to HQ. I always did exactly that. I can't answer for anyone else on that matter. What became of them once they reached HQ is a valid question. I wish I knew. edited to add this: Yes, they were anonymous but HQ had a list of students in every class. They had to keep that for determining eligibility for the Advanced Class. So, suppose you had a class of 10 people, 7 were female , 5 of them were married and, of the two remaining single women, only one went into the Way Corps. I think you can do the math.

That's one of the real dangers of isolationism/insulationism. It's part of why parents try to keep their kids from getting mixed up with the wrong crowd. There's no outside reference to gauge reality. I'm sure as a former FLO, you probably remember how we lived in our own little world out there in the middle of Podunk, USA. No phones, no TVs, no newspapers, no real contact with the outside world except for our 9-5 secular jobs. And even that was isolated because we weren't supposed to be there to benefit ourselves. We were supposed to witness to co-workers and turn the leads over to local twigs. We were supposed to be going to those jobs as representatives of The Way. If the jobs provided limited opportunities to do so or conflicted with FLO scheduling, we were supposed to move on. We were being used as unwitting drones in wierwille's business endeavor. So, yes, I can certainly "relate" to this sort of mind set.

That's a real can of worms. Apart from an obvious sidetrack into a discussion of abortion itself, there are many first hand testimonies here of people who can cite personal experiences of how the "options" were presented. For many, there are painful memories that they may not want to share again. In other words, TWI did not always "support" a right to choose between full term and abortion.

That's a bona fide gem, Steve!