johnj

Wierwille probably appreciated the Grace administration not so much because it offered grace (even Moses did, through sacrifice, which is what the Mosaic law speaks so much of), but because it eliminated law. So he could eliminate restrictions against adultery, promiscuity, drinking, etc. It is striking that Wierwille defended and promoted adultery not using orthodox Christian teaching, but doctrines such a the 7 administrations and separation of body, soul and spirit which are very uncommon among evangelical Christians. It's likely he didn't come up with his teaching, then find rationalization in it for adultery. But rather that he was attracted to those doctrines because they suited his desire for sex outside marriage, greed and other moral failings sins). Way theology lends itself to immorality more than evengelical tecahing does, and Wierwille and others made use of it.

Former TWI president Martindale resigned after female followers of TWI filed lawsuits against him, alleging he exploited them for sex. His first thought must have been- "but I haven't done anything wrong." According to TWI theology, he indeed had not done anything wrong. We have a new article on www.abouttheway.org called The Way's Theology of Sex: How Way Leaders Used the Bible to Promote Promiscuity and Adultery it describes in detail how leaders used Way theology to persuade women to have sex with them, and how the Way's sex class prepared students for promiscuous sex. It includes accounts of Kristen Skedgell's sexual experiences with TWI leaders from her book Losing the Way. link: www.empirenet.com/~messiah7/sut_sextheology.htm It is striking that they used core Way teachings to do this. This is much different from clergy scandals in the Christian world (like Jim Baker/ Swaggert) in which the men never try to use the Bible to defend and promote promiscuity.

when The Way Inc was started, VP and Harry were not farmers, did not want to farm, and the place was becoming run down. But they did not want to lose or sell their family land. So they incorporated, gave the farm to the corporation, but kept control of it by giving VP and Harry 2 of the 3 seats on the board of trustees- a Wierwille Majority. It was a neat way to get other people to give them money so they could keep and live on the farm. Others paid the bill, but VP got to sue it just like it was his very own. Nice, but self-serving trick. Every time he told people there were no members of The Way, he must have thought, "the joke's on you suckers who give me money so I can do whatever I want with it- and you can't say anything about it!" But when Wierwilles lost the majority on the board, they lost control of the land. But they never should have had control in the first place, because it was property of the corporation, not theirs. So in the long run the Wierwilles lost the family land anyway. But they didn't realky lose it- the donors bought them out and still let the Wierwilles use it and run it like their own for 40 years. A gold mine for the older Wierwilles, but probably neither a gain nor a loss for the younger ones.

There are several very important Bible passages on Christian family including: + 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, “neither the sexually immoral... nor adulterers... will inherit the kingdom of God” + Galatians 5:19, “the acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality” + Hebrews 13:4, “marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” + Ephesians 5:3, “there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality” + Matthew 15:19, Mark 7:21, “ adultery, sexual immorality... these are what make a man unclean” + Matthew 5:32, 19:7-9, Mark 10:4, 11-12, “anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to commit adultery” + Matthew 5:27-28, “anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” + Exodus 20, “do not commit adultery” In my class on teachings of the Bible which I teach to middle school and early high school kids, we read them all and three are memory verses, even though the part of family and sex is only about 10% as long as CF&S. During CF&S, Wierwille quotes 66 Scripture passages (Instructors Guide for Christian Family and Sex, 1975, pp. 3-5). Students also refer to the “Scripture Sheet” which cites 47 Bible passages. This totals 113 passages between the two, which are a lot of Bible citations. (Some passages appear in both of these places, and chapters like Genesis 2 are cited more than once. If you combine these and allow for overlap, there are about 52 different sections of the Bible cited.) QUIZ: **** How many of the eight verses I quote above do you think Wierwille cites in his CF&S class? ****

How were Wierwille's, Martindale's and Coulter's versions of the sex and family class similar? How were they different? Was the last version any more clear on the biblical stance against premarital sex, adultery and sex outside marriage than W's and M's classes were?

There seems to have been some debate above about whether the pictures shown in CFS were porn (implication- "that's bad") or nothing more than you'd see on statues in the Capitol or broadcast TV (implication- "that's OK"). What was in the pictures? If they showed erections, women's genitals, couples having oral sex or intercourse, then apparently this is equivalent to X rated movies today (I don't know exactly, since I've never seen an X rated movie and avoid R unless its a movei of subtsance and I can fast forward through R portions which often are less than 2-3 minutes). Frontal nudity would gain an R rating today - not for people under 17. In either case, such pictures in theaters are prohibbited to those under 17. Why would a "Christian" class have looser standards than secular society? In the case of any material that would garner an X rating in theaters- there is certainly no place for that in a Christian class either. So- what was the content of the photos and were they R or X ?

Did the Family and Sex class say anything about adultery? What about premarital sex? If you don't remember anything particular about this- what impression did you get from Wierwille (or Martindale or Coulter) about premarital sex or sex outside marriage?

What do you remember about the Christian Family and Sex class? When did you take it? Would your mother have approved of it?

[b]"Women never tell the truth."[/b] V. P. Wierwille, quoted in The Way- Living in Love, written by devout Wierwille follower Elena Whiteside, and published by The Way International's American Christian Press, 1972, p. 199. No, he wasn't kidding. He recounted this story in the same conversation in which he lied to Elena Whiteside about his experiences in Tulsa. He claimed that a blizzard in Tulsa December 11-13, 1951, stopped all trains, buses and planes from moving out of the city. Weather records show that no snow fell the whole week (the biggest snowfall all month was 6 tenths of an inch), and newspaper weather reports indicate that the temperature was in the 50s. We can provide photocopies if you want to see the page yourself. Here's more from the same page: (A man asked Wierwille,) "Aren't you that... preacher who spoke in tongues last night?" I said, "yes, but it was a damn lie...." Then a woman came over to me and said, "I think God sent a man here to meet your need. Meet me at 9 a.m." I thought, "Women never tell the truth." But then I reconsidered.... I just remember thinking to myself, "There aren't going to be any women around when I get the holy spirit...." (Later he met J.E. Stiles, whose wife asked Stiles:) "How long will you be?" And he said, "That's none of your business." That was it, and my opinion of him as a man went up 99 percent. His stature increased in my eyes, just from the way he handled her." (TWLIL, pp. 199-200)

someone above mentioned VPW's definitions for the words lambano and dechomai. In the fact, VP's "research" is ridiculously sloppy and inaccurate. He actually cites 17 different words, not just these two The others are compound words that include lambano and dechomai as part of the words. They are all different words, just as in English compound words like "do" and "overdo" are different words. Also, VPW's "research ignores about half the occurances of lambano and dechomai that appear in the NT. So he includes lots of words besides lambano and dechomai and doesn't even include all the appearances of L and d. Basically, VP just did a study of times the King James Version uses the English word "receive," not really a study of Greek words at all. For all the details on his sloppy and inaccurate "research," see the article "Only Two Words for Receive?" at www.abouttheway.org in the Research and Teaching section.

there was a debate above about whether or not VPW said that the Scriptures were terribly corrupted and he was needed to restore them to their originals. VP wrote "Forgers of the Word" which briefly was available printed with a bibliography for JCNG. It was also distributed in typewritten form to insiders. "Forgers" said what the title suggests- that over the centuries, "Forgers" had completely rewritten much of Scrioture, deleting things TWI now taught (like JCNG) and adding things that TWI now condemned (like JCIG). He says this very plainly, and says that he would undo the "forgeries" This was "carte Blanc" for VPW to cross out any verses in the Bible that he didn't like, and write in any "literal translations according to usage" or "original readings" that he wanted. He literally rewrote sections of Scripture. Probably many of you remember crossing out verses like Mat 28:19 (in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit") because it didn't fit VP's theology, and writing in alternates. Another verse he crossed out was John 21:19 ("by what death he should glorify God") because he didn't like that one either. And no one had the guts to challenge him becausse he was the MOG who taught by "revelation." They didn't challenge him on his promiscuous use of women in violation of his marruage vows, either. So yes, he did go about rewriting many sections of the Bible, on his own authority. He didn't need evidence. For instance, there are no ancient Greek mansuscripts that delete Mat 28:19, but that didn't bother him. His word was above the NT manuscripts. He also didn't care much what the verses actually said, he just knew what he did not want them to say (it's not good when Scripture contradicts the MOG). Mat 28:19 is an example of this too. He gave different versions of what he wanted it to say, and was consistent only about what parts he wanted crossed out.

someone said the written versions of PFAL were more comprehensive than the audio version of PFAL. If you compare the PFAL book to the class, it is apparent that the book is a virtual transcription of the first 4 sessions of the PFAL class. You may also recall that for that reason TWI sold all of VPW's books at one time to anyone who paid (not just proven tithers), EXCEPT PFAL, because it had the same content as the first 4 sessions of the class and they wanted you to buy the $40 or $100 class instead of the $7 book. Money, not wide distribution of "God's Word as it had not been known since the first cetury" was paramont to VP.

Ways Corps graduate Barrie Hill later confirmed that the rally was the Divine Healing Convention, December 11-13, 1951, sponsored by The Voice of Healing magazine, and that Wierwille stayed at the Hotel Tulsa (which was razed in 1973). Hill notes that the weather bureau, newspapers and airport do not record a snowstorm at that time. When she mentioned this to Wierwille, he dismissed these facts by suggesting that the blizzard was "a phenomenon" or that he "spoke with angels" when he called the airport, train station and bus station (Wierwille conveniently blames holy angels for lying to him about the weather rather than admit his fabrication!). It seems amazing that Hill had concrete evidence that VP lied, but still fawned over him in the Oct-Nov 1982 Heart magazine article she wrote about the incident. Wierwille's wife Dorothea recalled that week in a 1996 book of her memories of the Wierwilles' early years called Born Again to Serve. She also was in Tulsa that week and contradicts V.P. Wierwille. She never even implies that the planes, trains and buses were snowbound by a blizzard. The closest thing is when she suggests that there was snow in Chicago (700 miles from Tulsa and hundreds from New Knoxville!) and "sleet forecast in Tulsa by Thursday." (Born Again to Serve, p. 79) This means that there was never any snow on the ground or in the air when the Wierwilles were in Tulsa. Perhaps she couldn't bring herself to make a bald-faced lie as V.P. did. By this, she perhaps implies that V. P. Was lying about the alleged blizzard.

Wierwille said: "...there was a blizzard in Tulsa. All the planes were grounded. So I couldn't get a plane. I tried the trains-- they were all snowed in. The buses-- same thing. The city was snowbound. I just couldn't get out!" (E Whiteside, The Way-- Living in Love, p. 198) However, the Tulsa tribune notes that the temperature that day was 60 degrees, and the overnight low never even got down to freezing. December 1951 records in Climatological Data for Oklahoma show only 5/10 inch of snow on Dec. 8 and 6/10 inch on Dec. 20. Neither date concurs with Wierwille's visit, and neither records anything near a blizzard which could stop all buses and trains. You can see a copy of the Tulsa Tribune at www.abouttheway.org go to photo gallery, then click on Tulsa VP's bald-faced, self-aggrandizing lie. One of many.

humility and love are two of the most important elements in relationships, and all the more so for people in spiritual leadership positions. People trust you when you have them, and distrust you when you don't (and rightly so). And people recognize pretty quickly whether humility and love are there or not, as least when they see you up close rather than just on stage.

The great majority of pastors I have met have good hearts, desire to serve the Lord, and care for and genuinely try to help people. But they also have their faults and shortcomings like everyone else. And there is no shortage of people who are willing to point this out to them in one way or another (witness the number of criticisms on this thread). I do believe that the growth and Bible knowledge of pastors are accelerated compared to those who aren't serving as pastors. This is because both opportunities and demands are much higher. If you had to teach 5 or 6 Bible studies a week for a few decades, do you think your knowledge of God's Word and wisdom would grow? This gives opportunity to grow in ways that others don't have. Pastors also have more demands forced on them than those who aren't pastors. People come to you with severe illnesses, deaths, and you have to minister to each one even when you don't know what to do. A person in the congregation asks for advice on handling prodigal sons, or promiscuous teens, or difficult spouse, or a child who commits suicide- what do you say? Transients and poor people repeatedly come asking for hand outs. Some of them try to manipuate you. Other people have serious spiritual problems- feeling guilt that they feel can't be forgiven, or doubts that threaten their very faith. What do you say or do? Others fear God and can't sense his love. How can you help them? What do you do to help spark people's faith? Or rebuild marriages? And you have to reach out to people even when you find them hard to relate to for one reason or another There is a kind of burden that comes with having people look to you with such needs. Everyone encounters some of these. Pastors over a period of time encounter them all, and more often, and people look to you to answer their needs in a way they don't look to others. So I think if you have a heart open to God and His Word, pastors normally do have a greater knowledge of God's Word and ways than average. Not that they're a different class, but have responsibility and opportunity and demands that others don't.

It seems a lot of people joined TWI when they were young, or grew up in it, and didn't have an adult experience with a good church or fellowship of beleivers with good Bible teaching. When VPW said "you can only go as far as you've been taught," it applied very painfully to them especially. To see the world and the Word through the eyes of TWI is a warped view indeed, and many people have not yet gone very far beyond it.

Teaching a "law" of tithing is easy (besides being self-serving in TWI's case). A law is duty, command, with clear tests and penalty or reward. What Jesus, John the baptizer and the NT teach is an attitude of generosity... if you have 2 coats, give one away (that makes 15% sound cheap), give to him who asks you, invite to dinner those who can't pay you back or invite you back, give beyond your ability, etc. Impossible to even imagine much less do unless you have an inner attitude of love and generosity. Cultivating that kind of true love and giving spirit is much more illusive than law of 10 or 15%. I think it starts with absorbing how generous God is with us. And letting the Holy Spirit form in you the fruit of love and goodness. It's a work of God. "God is at work within you both to will and to do His good pleasure."

It seems to me that people who were in TWI vastly overestimate TWI's impact. Around 100,000 people took the class (does anyone have an accurate number?). This is less than one-thousandth of one percent of the population of the USA, to say nothing of the percentage of world population. The number of people who stayed with TWI for any significant length of time after taking the class is much smaller, nearer one ten-thousandth of one peercent of USA population. I've been in many Christian bookstores, several very large. I've also seen many calalogs of Christian books. But I've never seen one offer even a single book by VPW or TWI. So the influence of TWI teaching on the Christian Church is essentially zero. (Ohter heretics have had inlfuence, but not VPW)

Lynn proudly repeats TWI's phrase, "The Word of God is the will of God." But at the same time he declares that the Gospels, half of Acts and much of Revelation are not authoritative today. In reality, the way splinters count only a small part of the New Testament as the will of God, just as TWI does. The Gospels are the foundation of the "intimate relationship with Jesus Christ" that Lynn admits TWI never taught. A major reason TWI lacked this is because it declared that the words of Jesus Christ were not written to them (or any Christians since Pentecost). This is like telling a bride to have an intimate relationship with her husband, but adding that his love letters were written to another woman. CES wants to restore intimate relationships with Jesus Christ while continuing to hold a major cause of the problem, its extreme view of "administrations" (called "ultradispensationalism"). John Lynn claims that he and CES are keeping the Word alive and moving all over the world (p.5). But whose word are they keeping alive? Wierwille's word.

Lynn says that V. P. Wierwille put together a combination of teachings which were "the Word as it had not been known since the first century"- the phrase be "bought" from Wierwille. He admits that Wierwille was a plagiarist (who stole other's ideas), serial adulterer (who stole others' wives and fiances), megalomaniac (who promoted himself as "The Man of God") and greedy man who used his teachings on the Law of Tithing and Law of Prosperity to induce people to pay for his luxuries. Wierwille undoubtedly does not qualify as a godly leader according to the traits required by Titus and Timothy but does qualify as a false prophet by Jesus' definition. Yet, Lynn honors his teachings and thoughts. John Lynn claims that he and CES are keeping the Word alive and moving all over the world (p.5). But whose word are they keeping alive? Wierwille's word.

Lynn can't think of any group of thousands of young people who go to spread the Word as TWI's WOW Ambassadors and Way Corps did. (Perhaps Lynn doesn't remember many WOWs, many of whom were immature, untrained refugees from college and no where near the gold standard he claims. TWI also set them up for sexual sin by placing single men and single women in the same house}. Apparently he isn't aware of Campus Crusade for Christ International (CCCI), InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVF) (which were founded in the same general time period TWI was) and similar organizations. CCCI was founded by Bill Bright on the UCLA campus to reach students (www.ccci.org). There are now 25,000 staff members supported by donors (mainly full time) in 191 countries. In the last 50 years, hundreds of thousands of staff have spread the Word in campuses and communities. IVCF serves 31,000 students and faculty on 580 campuses (www.intervarsity.org). They are served by 864 undergraduate chapters and 163 graduate or professional chapters led by 871 field staff. They reported 1,986 first time professions of faith in Jesus Christ in 2007 alone and worked on scores of mission projects around the world. InterVarsity Press publishes about 90 new books a year. Most major college campuses today have a CCCI or IVF group. These groups lasted because they weren't built to promote the Founder and the Organization as TWI, but to lead people to Jesus Christ. They also had leaders of integrity.

When Lynn says that TWI was "an amazingly significant Christian movement," (P.4) it appears that he does not have a real picture of what such a Christian movement really is. A genuinely significant movement reaches large numbers of people over a long period of time, makes lasting changes in their spiritual lives, and centers on Jesus Christ. To understand the difference between TWI and genuinely significant Christian movements, it would be helpful to compare TWI to some movements which began during the same time period as TWI and continue today, such as Calvary Chapel. Chuck Smith began the mother church in Costa Mesa, California in 1965. During a two-year period in the mid 70s, it performed over 8,000 baptisms and was instrumental in over 20,000 conversions to the Christian faith. It was success of groups like Calvary Chjapel that attracted VPW to California 3 years after CC was founded, in roder to swipe some followers and whisk them off to Ohio. The church now numbers 20,000, and perhaps 140,000 have counted it as their home church in the last 40 years -- more than the 100,000 people who apparently have taken TWI's foundational course (the average church adds 30% of its membership every five to seven years, though Calvary Chapel has probably well exceeded this given its prominence in Southern California). There are now 1,346 affiliate Calvary Chapels around the world, many of them local mega-churches such as Greg Laurie's Harvest Fellowship in Riverside, California which has a membership of 15,000 and does several Billy Graham-like crusades a year. Millions of Christians hear radio and television programs by Calvary Chapel pastors every year across the nation Calvary Chapel founded Maranatha Music in 1971, which is the dominant force in worship music in the world today. Over 120,000 church leaders have attended their worship workshops and hundreds of millions of Christians around the world use Maranatha music in weekly worship. CC has had a major, ongoing impact by facilitating a new worship style in the Church around the world. It also had a major impact in promoting "nondenominational" Christianity (altho it amounts to a denomiantion). But it helped promote the "nondenominational" emphasis on the central tenets of the Christian faith with a de-emphasis of secondary doctrines that often distinguish denominations. This is what "an amazingly significant Christian movement" is like, and comparing TWI to CC is like comparing a penlight to the sun. One central difference between CC and TWI is that TWI promotes a "Teacher" and one regimented Organization, while CC promotes faith in Jesus Christ and love for their neighbors.

Lynn's letter consider TWI's "research" including its teaching that Jesus Christ is Not God as its flagship achievement. But apparently Lynn does not actually consider TWI research to be worthy of any notice whatsoever. Lynn co-wrote an anti-Trinitarian book called One God and One Lord. But Lynn never once quotes or even mentions JCING. There are 122 books in the bibliography, but it lists not even one by Wierwille or TWI. If Wierwille and TWI were such powerhouses of biblical research they would have to be quoted repeatedly. It is easy to see why Lynn is ashamed of JCING. This "research" book on the most important topic in the Christian faith- who Jesus Christ is- is less than 33,000 words long, and its only footnotes are in chpater 1 (which VP didn't write). This is several thousand words less than there are in a single issue of a magazine like Newsweek. Lynn even contradicts or rejects many arguments used in JCING. Jesus Christ is not God did not convince anyone by sound logic or use of Scripture. Wayers accepted JCING in totality because they totally accepted everything Wierwille said because they believed he was "The Man of God for our day and time" who taught and spoke by revelation. It was not important what JCING said- only that Wierwille said it. They accepted what Wierwille said with blind devotion much as early Mormons accepted polygamy and six-foot tall residents on the moon because their "Prophet" Joseph Smith said so. Cult followers like TWI dutifully obey their leaders while deceiving themselves into thinking that they are thinking for themselves. Lynn and other Wayers accepted Wierwille's writings as sound research (even revelation) because he was "The Man of God," not because it was quality research. Lynn even today parrots Wierwille's lines including "the Word as it had not been known since the first century," which were words of Wierwille. Many ex-Wayers continue to live by "The Man of God" myth even while superficially denying it.

John Lynn also lauds the "biblical research" of TWI. Ironically, he states that it taught the Word as it had not been known since the first century, while also admitting that most of it was plagiarized from others, esp E. W. Bullinger. You can't have it both ways- as unknown for 2,000 years, and as the result of stealing others' writings. The most outstanding characteristic of TWI's biblical research is that is it unknown. If you ask 10,000 people on the street who V. P. Wierwille is, what TWI is and what books they published, you'll get 10,000 blank stares. Regardless of what field of research, quality researchers are known. Wierwille's "research" is unknown because it is extremely poor. Lynn claims that TWI had much more impact than the Reformation. Yet Luther and the Reformation impacts every Christian today. Christians sing hymns and songs that have verses because the Reformation popularized this kind of congregational signing which was essentially unknown before then (called "bar" tunes not because they were sung in saloons, but because they have short bars, or verses, that are repeated). More non-Lutherans than Lutherans read Martin Luther today. His biblical teachings on the Word of God being the sole rule for faith and practice and on grace and faith dominate the Christian church today, 500 years later. We continue to translate the Bible into native languages because Luther launched this practice with his German Bible, which is still in use today. By contrast, Wierwille is unknown. True movements of God are not cloistered in just a few acres of northwestern Ohio. PS: Don't read too much into how the abouttheway.org home page is built. I put it together on PowerPoint and didn't know it had technical limitations when converted to html