Brushstroke

Hi Phil,

Did you ask Fr. John the same question "why did they die"? I'd be interested to know if his answer makes any sense or more sense than twi.

I believe God wants his children to live in prosperity and health; i.e., wants the best for his kids in all situations. But when his children get killed, why do these things happen?

TWI's attempt to explain this might be something like this: Peter and Paul, who certainly were great believers, died like this because for whatever reason they were not believing God for deliverance in that situation. Could they have been delivered? Yes. What would have delivered them? believing God for deliverance.

Jesus said among other things:

Luk 10:19 Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

Mat 21:22 And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

Comparing the twi answer with answers from other religions is one reason why I haven't abandoned the twi teachings. If twi teachings deny reality, and make little sense, answers from other religions make even less sense to me. For instance, the answer from Fr. John (not putting words in his mouth) might be "it was God's Will". Doesn't make sense to me. God wills his children to die like that? I can't believe God would want his children being killed that way when he has given us power to overcome satan and tells us what to do to overcome satan. I believe God would want deliverance for his children from those situations.

In any case it would be interesting to compare both views and see which one makes more sense to you.

Hey there oldiesman. I was going to respond to this earlier, but I had my college algebra class to get to, so here I am.

Now, the "law of believing" essentially states that positive belief = positive outcomes in life, and that negative belief = negative outcomes in life.

With this, let me put this scenario into your head. Suppose things with Stephanie (my girlfriend who is involved with TWI) and I don't work out, but we wholeheartedly believed that they would. The law of believing, in this case, is negated. It's too black and white, the law of believing doesn't account for chance and probability in the world. If you really want to say that this law applies to something like physical death, then Peter and Paul, two of the greatest leaders of the early Church, one of them having directly been in contact with Christ Himself, would have had insufficient belief.

There are many problems with this, one of which I have already stated: the lack of probability.

1. Is TWI judging their faith? Christ did say, "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you" did He not?

2. This law turns God into a tyrant, or it turns Christian theism into a twisted form of deism. Let's say we have a guy named Bob, and Bob is having problems with his finances. He sincerely prays to God to help him, though he is still distraught with fear and doubt. And will God help him? Well...not if he doesn't rightly believe! But of course, Jesus (I know this is implying He's God, as I believe He is, but His deity is not the point here so if you wanna debate that, start another thread) certainly helped Peter when he fell into the water and cried out "Lord, save me!" (Matt. 14:22-33) and Jesus did not rebuke him and say "believe harder and I'll save you!" Did Christ not also say "Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"? (Matt. 11:28) Will He reject those who are tired, depressed, laboring --- those He does not see fit as "rightly believing"?

Or, on the other hand, is God merely a passive bystander (deism) looking on at us as we believe that we will receive abundance in our lives? This is what the law of believing suggests. It suggests that our believing is what causes results, nothing of God's doing. Or is it to say that God is some sort of cosmic philanthropist who gives us whatever we desire, as long as we believe we'll get it? What happened to Christ's response to the rich man who ran to Him and said "Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me." (Mark 10:17-31) Some translations say he went away crying because he was so rich. God wants us to live for Him, and He'll provide what we need. You don't need that new car or that new stereo system, and you will be healed of your wounds with time, God's will that all creation be redeemed will not fail. If there are any holy people in the world, they're monks. They give up everything for complete devotion to God. The law of believing directly contradicts Jesus' own words. You're trusting in your faith, not God.

3. The law of believing is unnecessary. You can believe positively or negatively if you want, there is no need of a "law" regarding which you believe. And besides, making it into a law puts too much definition on life, which as we all know is entirely random. God sends rain on the just and the unjust. Bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people, and vice versa. Rain can be a good harvest, or it can be a depressing day inside your house. This law if it really exists, especially when comparing it to the law of gravity, makes "good" and "bad" definable. Something could be good to one person, it could be a positive outcome, and it could be bad, a negative outcome, to another person. Who decides what is positive and negative? God? But wait, I thought it was the believer who operates the law? Does this imply that the believer will also interpret what is good and what is bad in his life? Or just interpret everything as good or everything as bad?

There are so many things wrong with this law of believing. And besides, what's the fun in having this mortal existence be positive all the time? Why not try to mix it up a bit? I find a certain strange goodness in all my artwork, even that which is depressing. It makes me kind of sad, and so what if it does? In this fallen world, you cannot have faith and gladness without doubt and fear.

So enough of my rambling (but I do hope you read that). Why were Peter and Paul killed for their faith? It's a fallen world, s**t happens. God wants us to be happy and prosperous, yes, but He also lets these bad things happen for the strengthening of our faith. To die for your faith truly is an honor, it shows your devotion. They were happy and prosperous! Not in wealth, but in faith. Not saying death is good, but they're alive in heaven with all the other saints and angels, I assure you.

~Phil

Some of you here know the situation with my girlfriend and I. It's in another thread in this section of the forum titled "The Way International: What does it teach?"

I just got back from church and I brought the "blue book", The Bible Tells Me So with me to show to my priest. He looked at it and says he certainly believes there are some incorrect teachings in there, not only that conflict with Orthodox Christianity (as well as with Protestant and Catholic Christianity, of course), but also that he sees the psychological danger in this "law of believing." Fr. John made a very good point about Sts. Peter and Paul the Apostles, two examples of people that died for their faith. Eusebius of Caesarea writes that Paul was beheaded in Rome, and Peter was crucified upside down! If they were "wrongly believing," as Wierwille claims, then why did they die and was their great faith that they died for in vain? Why did Wierwille himself die of cancer? It's essentially a denial of reality.

So my priest has instructed that I just gently talk with her about this, maybe not be so intellectual about how I feel, but take a more...holistic...approach to the situation and ask her questions about how TWI has helped her spiritually, or ask her to tell me of experiences where God has healed her or helped her through her faith. He thinks that this is where I should start, and he has a point. If I were to start with an intellectual discourse on why I believe TWI is wrong and start showing her so many documents about how TWI has caused emotional damage to so many people, it may cause her to get angry at me or cause her to regress and just deny all of it. He also thought about maybe sending her a book. Not necessarily to convert her to my faith but to just put some ideas in her head and let her know there's something else out there. Since she sent me one, it would only be fair, right? He suggested Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. He believes it's probably the best introduction to orthodox, mainstream Christianity, that anyone could ever read. And luckily, I have a copy. I think I might just send her it, but not the one I have...it's all beat up and stuff. I can probably find a copy for about $5 at Barnes & Noble, even cheaper than that with my employee discount there lol.

Just thought I'd give you guys a heads up as to what's been going on. Feel free to post any comments or suggestions you have to add.

Thanks again for all your help everyone. :)

~Phil

Phil

Allow me to put this in the perspective of a non-member.

Suppose you were told by the Eastern Orthodox Church, to which you belong, that unless you gave them 20% of your gross income(preferably more), not only would they cut you off, the devil himself would bring death and destruction to you and your loved ones. What would you do? (Supposing, of course, that they had programmed you to believe they were telling you the truth.)

BTW----The former president of TWI said that if you ever left "the true household" of The Way after having heard "The Truth", you would be a grease spot in the road by midnight.

That's why this place is called Grease Spot Cafe!!

I honestly cannot relate. I have never been one to be so sucked into something that I cannot use my own reason. But if I were truly brainwashed into believing that kind of threatening, I suppose I would probably end up giving them that 20% they'd be asking for.

Hi Phil.

Oh the joys of the web.

Chai? You're my kind of guy.

I grew up in the Way. I also have family still involved. So, my perspective on this my be a little more current and true to the experience of an 18 year old. My experiences as a teen in the Way (twi) were somewhat less intense than that of my twenties. I'm 33 now and have been out for about eight years. I've been in contact with a number of twi teens on myspace for a couple of years now and many of the things they say are the same ol' same ol' but on the other hand there is a more accepting nature amoung quite a few of them. I would attribute this to a number of things including a slight change in the PR of twi in recent years (loosening the grip a bit), a cultural change (more "open minded"), access to the internets, lack of deep interaction with the twi and among other things the naivete' of youth.

Since the last big implosion of twi, the sex scandals of their last charismatic leader, things have toned down quite a bit in terms of the amount of intrusion into their followers lives. This of course, as it did before, varies with what the temperament and zeal of the local leader is. So, if what some of the things that the above posters have said sound a little outrageous and apparently untrue upon your initial interaction and examination of twi, believe me, they are not. Things, as I said, have toned down a bit but the underlying doctrinal and practical issues have not been addressed and therefore in time their effects will rear their ugly heads again.

These sex scandals, the recent ones and the ones of the former and founding leader, are generally quickly swept under the rug and categorically dismissed. They did happen about a decade ago. People in twi that are your age don't really remember much about twi at that time. These scandals have/had a doctrinal basis and were not just the actions of overreaching, sociopathic, megalomaniacs (they were that too), but the actions backed by a twisting of biblical doctrine.

When I was 18 I thought I knew more about the Bible (or accurate Bible) than pretty much any preacher, minister, or clergy. I was mistaken to say the least. My view was one born from a narrow scope of Christianity, willful ignorance, and just plain stupidity. So, I thought I was pretty hardcore. Still, unlike some, I was pretty accepting of others and didn't carry the hate in my heart as some of the leaders clearly did. This continued as I got older and went to college and it was perhaps the begining of my challenges with leaders.

When I was a teen and in my early twenties there were not a lot of local "Way believers" in my area my age so I did date outside "the ministry." My parents were leaders, but were not hard a$$es like some and they didn't confront me as a teen. I'm sure they assumed as I got older I would find a nice young Wayfer. As I got older though, the pressure whether explicit or implicit was there a lot more and I either did my best to get the young ladies I dated into twi or I kept it secret. Not long before I left, I did date someone long distance in TWI. My local pressures and my apparent and later intended direction of leaving TWI seemed too much for that relationship to withstand in my mind and it didn't last. That is the ultimate outcome of "interfaith" relationships in TWI. They can not last with the wayfer getting taught and directed to get increasingly involved and committed to "the ministry." (I don't know if you have noticed it yet, but that term in twi is not used as a "ministry" of this or that, like a youth ministry or an outreach ministry, but as THE ministry, the one and only true ministry.) As an Advanced Class Grad (the third of the Way of Abundance and Power Class three part series [formerly the Power For Abundant Living PFAL class]) we were instructed to not date below our own spiritual level. In other words, as an Ad. Class Grad I was at a higher spiritual plane that someone who was a Foundational or Intermediate grad. In the Corps (the Way's training program for those that want or think they want to be lifetime leaders) this is no longer a suggestion to be obeyed but an enforced requirement. At 18, and the last couple of high school years, I did not date, because of my internal struggle of dating someone who was not a "believer." When I got to college I quickly but temporarily put that struggle aside. :D

So the simple fact that you are in an internet relationship with someone in TWI tells me that your "girlfriend" is not yet that seriously involved in TWI. I doubt the seriousness of the idea of leaders keeping tabs on the relations of all their teenagers. But if they did, I would think that regardless of how they left TWI, whether voluntary or involuntary, whether peacefully or in a raging fury of accusation and screaming, I think that nearly everyone here will agree that leaving TWI was the best thing that ever happened to them.

SO, I would not be swayed in your internet love , but do not get involved with TWI and do not go into this thinking you are going to get married. That will almost most definitely not happen. I know between the age of 18 and 25 I thought I was going to marry three different people. Thankfully that didn't happen. I won't tell you who to love, just to be careful. The internet is a great thing, but so is good ol' fashioned dating.

If you would like to PM me, feel free. I didn't really scratch the surface of your questions (there is a lot to them). My "story", in part at least, is here. You have to get past all the inside "way-speak" in a lot of it and some of my weird humor but it gives some insight on someone who grew up in TWI, written from the perspective someone who had only been out a year or two. So there is a lot of anger in there. I can say I have moved on quite a bit, but re-reading that still brought tears to my eyes a couple of times.

peace

"Resident art freak," eh? Funny, I'm actually an artist lol.

Anyway, what you have said here has helped. It really describes our situation as I perceive it. When she and I first met in a chatroom (the FrostWire chat server, if any of you are familiar with it), it was actually in the wake of a religious discussion in the main room on there. When she and I started talking about religion and spirituality one-on-one, she was very nice, but I swear I had this gut feeling that the things she was saying were not coming out of her own mouth. It appeared to me that the things she was saying were just things Wierwille or other TWI leaders may have said through the years. I can't quote anything as I don't remember exactly what she said, but she mentioned things like the law of believing, or the idiom of permission, and an interesting one was "God in Christ in us." Typical Way terminology, I'm learning.

Okay, so flashback to nearly 9 months ago. So here we are in July, out of the chatroom and on MSN Messenger. We clicked with each other immediately. We didn't talk much about our religious beliefs after that, I assumed the terms she used (which even at this point I KNEW were not her own) were simply something that your typical evangelical Protestant church had taught her. Maybe she was nondenominational, maybe Baptist or Presbyterian, who knows? But then we started talking about the nature of Jesus, was He divine or not? Is He God? I noticed she had a clear belief that He is not God-incarnate. I found this...odd...to say the least. I thought "Well, I know she's not a Jehovah's Witness, but what church does she belong to?" So we talked for awhile about this (and we seem to be able to talk about things like this and not get mad or angry at each other or have our feelings hurt, which is good) and we just agreed to disagree--we still do.

So, we're talking on the phone about two weeks after we meet online. A couple months down the road, she wants to send me a book, titled The Bible Tells Me So, she says it's a very uplifting book since we met in the wake of something that happened to me which I would rather not speak the details of, but to make a long story short, what happened before she and I met led me spiraling into depression. But okay! Fastforward to January, just a few months ago from today. She tells me she's pretty much liked me as more than a friend for quite awhile, almost since we met. Oddly enough I felt the same way, so here we are...trying to figure out where to go with this. Shortly before this, back in December, I said I would come visit her, and this confirmed my visit. I'm visiting her in May. In wake of what I have seen here at this forum, I expect to have an interesting discussion with her parents regarding TWI, because they seem far more involved in it than she does. She and her siblings, I believe, just go along with what they've been raised to believe and aren't really so seriously involved in the organization itself, despite the fact that she is very devoted to her faith and they have a fellowship meeting every Sunday. Sometimes she's talked about going to her friend's house and one of the higher-ups being there and leading their fellowship meeting. I guess her friend's family is more heavily involved.

And don't worry lindyhopper, she and I don't have plans to get married. We're not even thinking about that at this point. It's kind of serious between us, but not that serious. I mean, hell, we haven't even met in person. Her parents...they're the ones that I'm worried about. For some reason I have this image of her dad and I getting into a theological debate while I'm there. What I would like to know though, is how should I approach her parents if they ask me anything pertaining to TWI or of my beliefs as an Orthodox Christian? What if they ask me to join? :blink:

~Phil~

Hey everyone. I'm Phil, call me Brushstroke if you like. I'm a painter, so I thought it was a fitting username. Anyway, I didn't notice this part of the forum until now. I guess this is where new members come to introduce themselves, eh? I suppose I would qualify lol.

I was never a member of The Way International. I don't intend on becoming one obviously, but I figured I would come here because my girlfriend is a member of this group. When she sent me a book, The Bible Tells Me So, apparently dubbed "the Blue Book" by many here, I read parts of it and did a little research on TWI. This is when I became worried, when I read about their history and their doctrine. I'm an Eastern Orthodox Christian, so obviously there are huge differences in our beliefs on almost every level, I would say even on levels that TWI doesn't even touch on. I came to this board to further educate myself about TWI so that I can actually talk with her about this sometime or another. We've talked about our beliefs before and we still love each other the same. I don't let these kinds of things interfere with relationships and I don't believe they ever should, but I am simply concerned for her, considering this organization's history and apparent control on its' members. So, just thought I'd pop in and say hi. :)

Would there happen to be any other Orthodox Christians on the board here?

~Phil~

Hi, Phil. Welcome to the Spot. The first mocha Latte' is free!

There are a lot of folks here more learned and eloquent than I in explaining TWI's somewhat unusual beliefs. I will address what I remember about the teachings about Jesus Christ.

The Way International teaches that there is One God. They teach that Jesus Christ is completely human, but is God's only BEGOTTEN Son. They teach that God placed soul life (nephesh kai) in the fallopian tube of Mary as she was ovulating, that this soul life was in the form of a sperm cell that held all perfect genes, and thus Jesus's conception was without sex and without sin, because the life of the flesh is in the blood and the blood comes from the father's genetic contribution (which may yet be disproven via the human genome project). Thus, while Jesus was human, he was also the son of God, and thus had supernatural powers.

As far as the holy spirit, God is Holy. God is Spirit. Whenever this is capitalized in the Bible it refers to God. When not, it refers to the gift of holy spirit which God gives every individual at the moment the confess Jesus Christ as their lord and savior.

Now, that may not be a good explanation, and I don't want you to think it in any way reflects my personal beliefs. Victor Paul Wierwille, founder of TWI, once wrote a book "Jesus Christ is NOT God" which someone may sell you on E-Bay.

Other than doctrine, they are rather exclusive in their attitudes toward other Christians.

My experiences that caused me to leave are rather extensive. Some of them you can find by simply clicking on my name to the left of this post and reading some of my former posts. Ditto about everyone else in here.

Browse around the site. There are some good articles.

Enjoy the latte'!

WG

Hm...I don't understand that idea of Jesus' conception at all.

Eh, anyway, thanks for the latte! Do you guys happen to have chai tea? :)

Phil,

Welcome to GS cafe.

It's unusual that the doctrinal differences don't come between you and your girlfriend. From the twi perspective, it's usually very important that relationships are with folks who are likeminded doctrinally. Anyway, hope you get some answers.

Well, I think one of the main reasons why is because of the situation she and I are in. We're both 18, we met online, and we haven't actually met in person but we consider ourselves to be together...aagghh it's complicated. I'm flying up to see her in May. But anyway, doctrinal differences may prove to be a challenge later on. We'll see, I suppose.

Thank you all for your generous welcome, and I'll take a look at some the articles here.

Hi. My name is Phil. I was wondering what TWI teaches, what its' doctrines and beliefs are. I'm an Eastern Orthodox Christian myself, but my girlfriend is a member of TWI, and we've had a few discussions about religion/politics before, and I can see that we apparently view things very differently as far as things like Jesus Christ being God-incarnate (or not), the Trinity, and a few other things. I don't believe religious differences should come between two people who are in a relationship, and they don't come between us. Hah...God bless her...Stephanie and I can talk about anything and we still love each other the same. Even so, these differences I find a little odd and disconcerting as I haven't come into contact with a lot of Christian groups that don't believe that God is a unity of three Persons, or that Jesus isn't God, or that believe in speaking in tongues as a visible manifestation of your salvation, etc. I guess it's evident that I do know a little about what The Way believes, but I'd like to get a much clearer picture.

So, who better to come than to you guys? What exactly does The Way teach and where does it get its teachings from? And if you don't mind sharing, what were your experiences in The Way and what made you leave?

Thanks! :)

~Phil~