chockfull

Sure - we all move on. With different timings, paces, ideas. Things cycle here as well. The nature of forums is such that it's either going to be dead or there is going to be a flame war going on. Forums of all natures seem to cycle between the two, and a balance of that is probably normal for a forum. The flame wars are tedious, mostly to those reading, and to those posting too. However, beyond the cycling of activity on the forum I always remember the purpose of the forum. The Way International's morning cup of reality. And ANYONE with even a remote attachment to or involvement with TWI needs a morning cup of reality. The whole cult functions with a remarkable aversion to any type of reality other than the one they manufacture. I have moved on. But I still post as part of my volunteer Christian service to help others who, like myself, desperately need that morning cup of reality.

We are not isolating bad things VP did as though good things didn't exist. We are presenting both sides of the story. VP only presented the good side, and lied and covered up the bad side, including firing people who taught it was wrong. Remember the adultery paper? Remember John Schoenheit sharing his story about just wanting the Word to get out and influence people, then finding himself fired, excommunicated, and slandered? You have a good feeling about VP because the splinter group you attend, while not being under TWI's authority, like so many other splinter groups base their existence on "the Word VP taught". Thus you and your group, like TWI excuse grievous sin not excused by God, sweep it under the carpet, and live in a rose colored delusional world where all you need are these Bible sharings that you perceive to be originally taught by VP. In reality they were not, as it is very clearly laid out in this site how much of his teachings were plagiarized from other ministers. Groups even excuse that, saying "what does it matter as long as the Word is taught". It matters. It matters to God. It matters to Christians. It matters to communities. All we are doing is holding up the standard of what the Bible says leadership should be in our day and time. "husband of one wife" is pretty clear as a leadership standard. Serial adultery would be violating God's Word as a standard for leadership. Having an unwritten doctrine of serial adultery for the leaders in a ministry is sin. So apparently you have a problem with the Bible and its "moral superiority". You see Christianity is based upon knowing the truth and the truth setting you free. If a man's words prove that he does not know the difference between truth and lie, then it is impossible for him to come to the truth, as the words of truth won't be recognized. It's not the truth's fault, it's the man's fault for conditioning his conscience to lies, and developing a conscience seared with a hot iron. There are higher standards for leaders. That's why Jesus taught it was better to have a millstone hung around your neck and you be drowned than as a leader using your spiritual authority to hurt those lesser than you.

Calling things like they are is not moral superiority. Adultery is sin. A continued practice and doctrine of adultery among a leadership group is sin. It is not moral superiority to state this. Look - the vast majority of businesses seem to be able to run without this type of doctrine traversing their top executive ranks. A Christian organization is supposed to offer people something better than an example of ongoing and indoctrinated sin, and at that a worse moral example than your average non-Christian organization. The disturbing part of this paragraph is you putting VP in parallel to Moses, David, and Paul. VP was a plagiarist and a serial adulterer. He even used the record of David's story to introduce wrong doctrine - that all the women in the kingdom belonged to the king, and that adultery in the Bible didn't mean what VP practiced, but instead a "spiritual" adultery consisting of removing yourself from under VP's authority, or "not standing". God's ways are higher than our ways is a nice little trite statement trying to introduce mysticism in to where there really isn't a place for mysticism. VP was a wolf in sheep's clothing. God's higher ways here would include seeing through the sheep costume and smelling wolf. Perhaps one day you will aspire to this rather than making excuses and deifying and enabling sinners. You didn't ask the right question here. That would be "God didn't talk to VP and tell him to teach the Word like it hadn't been known since the first century and confirm it with a snowstorm?" And the answer to that one would be ONE BIG FAT NO!!!!!! That was all VP hype and lies, and none of God. If Stan Musial didn't use his spiritual authority to have sex with young women with devastating consequences, then in my book he was a better man than VP. And I am not "judging him after man's judgement". I am judging him by the very standard he purported to teach - God's Word. And if you don't do that, you are an enabler, and share some responsibility in the sin.

Rosalie's goals are vastly different than VP's "Word Over the World". I've heard several repeated private in-person comments that seem to indicate her goal is to make HQ "Self Sufficient", meaning not needing income from any followers around the world to stay going. Already internationally the only money coming in is bookstore sales. The $$ stay in the country. So mostly HQ is funded by USA members. (On a side note, it's a ludicrous claim that they don't have any members. The $$$ support them, they want to stay in control of them, etc.) The old bag's main goal seems to be preserve the cash and drive everyone else out that doesn't share a vision of her as a matriarchal substitute for Jesus Christ.

Agreed, and awesome link.

Scripture also talks of Pharisees, whose protoges are threefold the children of hell they are. VP is the living epitome of this verse. His protoges - Craig and then Rosalie sure fit the bill described there.

Just thought that if we are quoting Proverbs that the verses regarding advice concerning adultery might be appropriate. Even better if the top TWI leadership knew and practiced these verses like other verses describing leadership qualities in Timothy PRIOR to founding a ministry...

Proverbs 7:22 "He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks."

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Jane, I have noted this pattern all the way up to the BOD. The leadership thinking IMO that has crept in is that it is "OK" to lie to people, to hide information, and to cover all based upon that verse "that the ministry be not blamed". They equate Paul's actions of refusing to live off of offerings amongst more immature Christian churches to avoid accusations of conflict of interest to justify their lying, cheating, stealing and trading in human flesh. BOD members will lie directly to your face. Know that. If they will, then it is the rare specimen that you would find at the Region and Limb level that would not do that. Also know that those "inner circles" is where they will lie less to each other. I don't mean not lie. I mean lie less. And yes, as you describe, the "corporate culture", or "ministry culture" in TWI is that your life is supposed to be an open book to your leader. Which means if you lie like they do, it is not so that "the ministry be not blamed", it is spiritual contamination. And they think that somehow they are "standing in the gap" for God. They will have a rude awakening when their life review is underway at the return and Jesus Christ points out all their hypocrisy and abuse.

Both books certainly give a more accurate behind-the-scenes look at TWI and the real story than Elena Whiteside's "The Way Living in Love". That book was more like the starry-eyed cult-think made-for-tv version of TWI with no look behind the scenes other than a conversation with Wierwille where he further embellished the snow story and the "revelation" confirming him as like the next apostle or something.

Including being involved in her kids lives as opposed to marking and avoiding them for their problems and cutting off all communication. What kind of mother does that? Not even those with a kid on death row. It's all right - Jesus Christ will make it all come out in the wash. I'm sure he'll be well able to point out all of the crucial points in the kids lives where if she would have cared at all or taken ANY positive action at all it would have made a huge difference. He'll be well able to point out the hypocrisy in micromanaging everyone else's life while her own is in shambles - neglecting her God-given responsibilities and politically manipulating moving herself into the presidency of a ministry - what a lie!!! People do lie to themselves and deceive themselves just like I John says. And when it all comes out at the return, people's works will be consumed and the evaluation will be that she had her reward - being recognized as "President" in all of it's little various manifestations.

I know this is old, but wanted to bring up a point. The accusation made was that this site is full of people who feel like their 20's and 30's were stolen in the '70's and '80's. In every accusation there is an element of truth, so I thought I'd dig into it. For there to be a group of people who used to be associated with an organization that feels this way means that there is an organization that abused people in the '70's and '80's. One isolated incident is an anomaly, however, the vast majority experiencing the same thing means that perhaps the person with blinders on is the one that still is in the organization and still excusing away the abuses of the organization while blaming the victims of the organization. Is it really the vast majority? Let's look at numbers. Out of all the people, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, who took TWI's foundational class, how many are still associating themselves with the organization? Current membership is purported to be in the 2000 - 3000 people in the US. So even taking the least total number of 100,000 FNC graduates and 3000 current members, this points to about a 3% retention rate. Corps grads? Less than 5%. What does this show? At the least common denominator that TWI sucks at taking care of their own. Would you find a university with these numbers? Never - even the worst retention rate university. Any organization that is financially dependent upon membership contributions with that kind of retention rate basically is circling the round bowl treading water to avoid being flushed. The ONLY way this org is surviving is hording the property and money garnered during its heyday of the late 70's and early 80's. You have a very legalistic group at the top that operates on strict obedience to the President. You have a paranoid political environment at the top where everyone is afraid and no free thought or expanding or dissenting opinion is tolerated. You have the private lives of the people at the top in direct opposition to what they teach publicly. The sneering down-the-nose look at ex-TWI members like those on this site who are piecing their lives back together and living them with the freedom that God intended rather than the indentured servitude to Pharisees that TWI offers kind of depicts the exact attitude that you will find pervasive throughout all of TWI leadership. It's sickening to God's stomach. Those Pharisees need to repent. But they won't because they think they are too egotistical. They will not receive reproof and correction from the scriptures. The real motto of the leadership - the Way Corps is not "It Is Written". It is "It Is Position". Because of primary concern is the position of the person speaking, not the scriptural truth of what is being said. Christianity is designed for the masses. For the sinners. For the downtrodden. It was never designed to construct a hierarchy of idiots whose greatest reward in life is their stupid little positions and titles. As scriptures state, they have their reward. The rest of us can live our lives and develop ourselves with our Lord and Savior to lay up rewards that are not paper mache and plastic like that.

Just wanted to start a traditional Merry Christmas greeting thread for everyone. One that involves no 'Nilla Wayfer holiday song rewrites, one that no longer wonders whether or not when a Way leadership wishes you "Happy Ho Ho" that they are actually talking about prostitutes. What are my plans? 1) Rum n Eggnog 2) Singing Jingle Bells in the Original ( I put a little "uh" at the end just to emphasize that I'm NOT singing about SIT) 3) Gifts 4) Fantastical whimsical stories about Santa and Reindeer 5) The megawatts in the outdoors (Clark Griswald, look out buddy!!!) 6) A smoker going all weekend 7) More Rum n Eggnog (Eggnog optional)

It's all fine. With all the arguing on this thread I don't fault people for not dropping that mindset for a bit while we adjust. Really, either way with the approach should be just fine. The most important thing we did to make it so was to get out from under the abusive authority of a cult.

Your post carried a side tone insinuating that word studies such as the ones we did in TWI were wrong, and that you "rely on the experts" to do your language study for you instead of doing word studies. I simply have and expressed a different opinion. And I also pointed out that to us, Wierwille was an expert at one time, so at least to me that merits caution as to which expert I want to rely on, and a preference for checking experts work myself. As far as controversial or argument, at this point on this thread, if I express an opinion there are at least 3 people (you, waysider, wordwolf) who will take it the wrong way, immediately contradict it and try to draw me into an argument. Raf has refrained from this lately. I'm not arguing with you guys. I tend to go beyond simple sound judgement and discernment in association to teachers - in my experience, the teacher's position is one of power and there are many teachers, not just TWI ones, that succumb to this and make poor judgements which creep into their teachings. So I prefer to listen to experts, yet check their work myself. If you have a different opinion, great, but my expectations are a lack of personal attack or snide comments, and behavior commensurate with a Christian person in discussion. If that's too much of a problem for you, I don't really have to post on this thread ongoing. Valid observation.

There is nothing harmful about looking up the Greek words dechomai and lambano in lexicons and concordances. I can do that without subscribing to anyone's theology.

How about it?

Yes, I've heard this TWI line before. This is used to justify paying overqualified staff members minimum wage or just over "on a need basis". I just recently read a study that was trying to correlate money to happiness. The interesting results were that the correlation disappeared once the income rose a percentage above the poverty line. So the one thing left out in that analogy is that it's also possible to not have any money, and lack a lot of things. Actually, that is common sense. If your baseline needs are not being met or if meeting them consumes all of your energy, then you are going to lack a lot of things. Once you get into the middle class range, there's a lot more leeway. TWI causes the problem by their lack of care for their own people, then uses rote clichés to convince people the problem is with them, and all prosperity, satisfaction, happiness requires is to adjust their attitude and obey their cruel taskmasters. This is evil, this is using people, and this by any just means SHOULD cause TWI to lose followers. And it is. It just takes a little more time to manifest what with all the lies propounded in their public position. It's even more evil when they pay their leadership position people better - so the people tasked with fielding the complaints and keeping people happy themselves aren't experiencing the problem and have an unspoken threat hanging over them such that if they aren't 100% compliant that their positions and salaries will be busted back to the minimum wage range.

I absolutely agree with you that the approach of TWI is to lay out a theology and mask it in "literal translations according to usage". However, the underlying encouragement to search the scriptures was a good thing. What they meant by search - not so much - God doesn't need us reading the blue book over and over again for hours trying to extract some deeper meaning from it. In mainstream Christianity there is a wide variance to people's approach to and attitude on scripture study. And again, post-TWI people have to make a conscious decision on which way they want to go there. As far as "word studies", to me this is no different than what I do in reading - look up words unfamiliar to me in a dictionary. It expands my understanding and connection with the author. I don't really see a way in which this would be a harmful recommendation.

Me too, but as the proverb says don't let the hypocrites keep you from church, and don't let the megalomaniac cult leaders shoddy research keep you from Bible study!!! I don't want to nitpick words here with you. I was responding to a comment that stated in so many words that Bible study isn't the way to make scriptures speak deep meaning to us. My point was that no Bible study certainly isn't a better way to accomplish that.

Studying scripture, involving looking at original languages, and utilizing tools such as lexicons which are like a dictionary for a dead language like Koine Greek, is not something that is anywhere near unique to TWI, as much as you would like to tie those two together. Ignoring study, and trying to figure out which "expert" to follow, IMO is not a better recipe for "making scripture speak deep meaning to us". Following the wrong person is what got us into this mess in the first place.

Many scholars don't give the LXX - Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament the same kind of weight or nuance translation that they feel was given to New Testament Greek translations said to be done by Timothy and Paul. Just pointing this out because the OT records of Amnon and Tamar and the agape word translation there would be from the LXX. It would be generally more accurate to work with the Hebrew in these records as that language in the OT was protected by the jot and tittle notation.

To me the whole point of the sidetrack on ciphers was just to note possibilities. My approach on what God would or would not do is more scriptural.

At this point I am viewing this as a possibility of why SIT would not be deciphered by linguists, but as far as direct evidence to support this, all I see is the I Cor. 14:2 indicating others won't understand. I would consider it a stretch to try and extrapolate from that verse any kind of proof or conclusion that God would be using encryption techniques on the tongues language He would be energizing. I just leave it as a possibility that if He states in scripture others won't understand that He has some kind of means of ensuring that is true. So for anything research or write up related to me it would be a footnote. My blend of logic and scripture. Yours may differ.