Broken Arrow

Amen to that! Same here! I could say the same thing about other countries, it's not just the Americans. "I'm all for telling your story but maybe let it be done as a genuine warning to others and bringing bad people to justice" Isn't that what's being done here? "and not as a therapeutical/celebrity/money spinning exercize. Unwittingly that oftenly ends up quasi glorifying the crime!" Who says that's the case here? Are you familiar with the story we're talking about? This all just sounds like anti-American sentiment and supposed cultural superiority to me. Am I wrong?

Michelle Knight isn't writing the book herself either. Much like when Princess Diana had help from a journalist when she wrote her tell-all book about the Royal Family years ago. I don't think there's an American connection there. Then there's Princess Fergie being caught on film years ago accepting 500,000 pounds from a journalist in exchange for access to Prince Andrew. Again, I don't see how someone telling a true story of abuse happening to them is an "American thing". This is not off topic because we're still talking about the book.

This is no different then Philomena, a British woman who became pregnant at the age of 15 in 1952. Her father forced her to move into a Catholic convent where she gave birth. Her child was eventually given to an American couple pretty much against her will. The convent refused her any information and engaged in a cover up. In 2003 she went to the United States in search for her son and eventually found out about him. A story was written about this by a British author, who then published a book. Eventually an Englishman made the story into a movie that stars British actress Judy Dench who I'm sure you've heard of. It's a good movie by the way, worth watching. It actually kind of parallels some of the religious abuse that's often discussed here. So publishing a book about abuse, then producing a movie based on that book, where both writer and subject make more than a modest some of money, isn't just a "very American thing" now, is it?

I guess I'm just thinking that the appeal of TWI-ness was mainly to the boomers and young folks are looking for different stuff these days. I could be wrong. There have always been offshoots and cults around, some of them no longer exist. So I suppose that even if TWI and its offshoots cease there'll always be something around to abuse and enslave people.

My personal opinion, for what it's worth is that it will almost completely die off once the "baby boomer" generation dies off and then will completely die off once their children's generation is gone. I'm talking about the offshoots too. I don't pay a whole lot of attention but from what I can see, not much going on with the youth. Frankly, the youths don't seem to be much into anything worship-wise with this post-modernism thinking descending upon us all. Just an opinion though.

I went to Israel back in 1981. A lot of things are still done the same way as in the time of Jesus such as shepherding. Some customs are the same as the time of Christ. What I thought was really cool was that they told us that olive trees live for a very very long time and it's suspected that many of the trees that are in the Garden of Gethsamane were there when Jesus was. That means some of those trees "heard" Jesus pray the night he was captured. You can still buy bread the way they made it in times of old. However, since that time the land has been conquered and occupied by other cultures such as the Turks, whose customs have had a huge impact on the area. The Sea of Galilee is gorgeous. You'll be surprised at how close together everything is. Things seems farther away from each other when you read the Gospels because, of course, they went everywhere on foot back then. It's true, there are multiple sites where they think Jesus was born and was buried. I don't think they know for sure where Armageddon is. They have a good idea. At least that was true in 1981. As far as weather, and information that is of any practical use, I can't tell you much. I was there in January. I needed a medium jacket for most of the tour, if that tells you anything. As far as currency, at the time I was there, American currency was widely accepted by everyone. So I carried a lot of $1 bills and was fine. You are beset by beggars, usually children whenever your tour bus stops. One word of advice, stay with your group, don't wander off. A lone westerner walking around in say, Jerusalem is not a good idea. I'm excited for you, you'll have a great time!

Received and downloaded. Thank you for sharing.

Now that you mention it, I think they did some sort of mass wedding at Rock of Ages '74. I wasn't around in'70 so I don't know about that.

This is really more of a shout out than anything, but maybe there are some Brown's fans out there. Anyway, the latest news coming from these football "super geniuses" is that Vince Young has been signed on as quarterback. As a Browns fan, I would just like to say, "Oooooh!" You mean the same Vince Young that was supposed to take the NFL by storm and washed out of every team he's signed with? Well, aren't we the lucky ones?

Thank you, Mark. I appreciate your kind words. I enjoyed reading your article. I particularly liked the section where you explain how Jesus taught about true leadership when the two disciples asked to be seated at his right and left hands. I also found your discourse on civil authorities helpful and I agree with you about your "favorite" rationalization, which is just another way of saying, "The devil made me do it." I could say more, but I don't want to derail this thread.

Related to this topic is what was taught concerning Jesus Christ himself. Way teaching states that the believers take the place of Christ. It also states that Jesus Christ is Lord and the head of the body. It's kind of hard to deny that since it is plainly taught in scripture. However, praying to Jesus was akin to idolatry. So was speaking to Jesus, and no one was to say that they had a relationship with Jesus. Yet, he was Lord and head of the body. He never talked to us though. I guess that made him a silent Lord. According to them, Jesus came to earth, died on the cross thereby redeeming us, then he went to the holy retirement home in the sky that is at the right hand of God and today he says and does absolutely nothing but he's coming back. Was TWI even a Christian organization?

I actually had a point when I last posted, though it's hard to tell. Wierwille and TWI in general railed against the Trinity as unbiblical and pure conjecture when in fact what he taught had even less biblical evidence that he/we were criticizing at the time. Furthermore, he taught that believers today take the place of Christ here on earth. We even had a song about it ("Today I take his place, and live in love and grace, I can do all he did and more"). The Bible clearly teaches that believers are ambassadors for Christ, but I know of no scripture that states that anyone takes the place of Christ. That's pretty heavy, you know? I have a theory. I question Wierwille's motivation for denying the Trinity? I think it's because with the Trinity out of the way, the road to MOG status is shorter. If believers take the place of Christ, and if God gave Wierwille special revelation concerning the Word of God, that made VP top believer. If he was top believer, than he, in fact, took the place of Christ on earth as was hence the MOGFOT. Does this make Jesus Christ God? Hardly, but it does bring into serious question the motivation of the man who indoctrinated us with his non-trinitarian views. Then again, maybe I'm stretching things too far. I'm open to that.

It appears to me, after reading over some material on the economic and immanent trinity, that you cannot believe the economic trinity without also accepting the immanent, or ontological trinity. Does not the economic trinity simply explain the relationship the believer has with the supposed Godhead? There is no way Wierwille would endorse the economic trinity even if he knew what it meant. No, what Wierwille taught was this concept we used to know as the "Great Principle". That is, "God's Spirit teaches His creation in you, which is now your spirit, and your spirit teaches your mind." That is what was taught in the "Advanced (ooh, Advanced!) Class. If you take a step back from that, that statement is not biblical. In fact, there is more evidence of an immanent and economic trinity being a biblical concept than there is of the "Great Principal". As far as Tertullian coining the term "trinity", it's true he invented the word. Alistair McGrath,in his book Christian Theology,an Introduction points out that Tertullian had a penchant for coining new phrases. He says, "(He) was responsible for coining 509 new nouns, 284 new adjectives, and 161 new verbs in the Latin language." He adds, "Happily, not all seem to have caught on." So the word Trinity is yet another word in a very long list of invented words. The word Trinity is simply an attempt at explaining a process that many believe is biblical. Of course, the debate rages on.

How many remember the "Real Clean Window Company"? I can't remember who it was, but some guy, I think in Texas, came up with the concept of starting this company and he wanted to market it to believers to get them involved. Basically, what it was was an attempt at franchising. Anyway, people would go get "trained", then they would start their own company. They had to give 30% of their take to "Real Clean" and lots and lots of people did it. I may have this wrong, but I think I may have heard about it when I was College Division in '76. Anyway, that's the genesis of the window washing thing, I think. Pretty soon, even us Wayfers got wise to the fact that we didn't really need "Real Clean" after all because they didn't do squat. We gained the clients ourselves, so why not split from "Real Clean" and keep the 30%? Which is what ending up happening and "Real Clean" was washed away. I washed windows when I was W.O.W and it was a good way of making spending cash. But I was single then and very young. The guys that stayed with it got older eventually and it became a pain for a lot of them. What's great money when you're 22 stinks when you're 45 with a few kids. Remember Steed Oil? That was a craze for awhile.

Steve was Limb coordinator of Idaho in 85-86 so I think he stuck around at least until Corps Week '86. Eventually he started an offshoot (don't they all) called Pacific Northwest Fellowship. LCM threw a tizzy over people starting to revere BG Leonard. If I'm not mistaken, I think Leonard was present at Rock '85, but he didn't speak. If Sann was upset by that he never expressed it to us in Idaho. He kind of hinted that he was tired of being a top leader in TWI and that he wanted to do something else on more of a local level. A lot of people liked him. He was easy going and unlike most other twi leaders. In my experience, he had an idea of "cool" and he really didn't let you in to his circle if you didn't fit that definition. Apparently, he had something more in mind than running an offshoot. To be honest, I'm a little surprised. He didn't seem to be conniving or underhanded or anything weird like that. But, it has been over 30 years. It's a shame.

Let's not forget that according to Wierwille's teaching cancer was a devil spirit. So Wierwille died of cancer but he was also the Man of God for our day and time and God taught him the Word directly. So, what's the case here, did Wierwille get possessed? If he did, how did his mind get so unrenewed? Or was Wierwille's teaching wrong. If it was, then how could God have been wrong when he taught Wierwille the Word? And, if he was wrong in this teaching, What else was he wrong about?

The Idaho Limb home in Boise was pretty luxurious and the state didn't officially have enough people to really qualify as a Limb. One day, we corps were granted the "privilege" of spending a "State Corps Weekend" at the home of the Limb Coordinator's home. We were told that it was actually "our" home. We got to spend the entire weekend working on the house and yard of the LC. Of course, it wasn't just the LC's, it was all of ours. It just so happened that the LC's family was the only one that lived in it. That and a couple of staff members. Idaho was pretty spread out so it took Corps that was not in Boise many hours to drive there. In my case, it was a 9 hour drive one way. I was a WOW and I worked at McDonald's. By God, I'd better be there though. The Limb at Georgia wasn't exactly a shack either, though we never had to do anything as ridiculous as the Idaho thing. Granted, this was in the early 80's.

I'm sure you've probably already done this, but tell them. Steel them about what's coming up. Kids listen more to their parents than we realize. Sometimes they act like they don't. My daughter sat through the Geer thing and I about had a nervous breakdown. One of her aunts paid for it. It was at a "family camp". Eeesh! Anyway, I sat her down and first of all tried to convince her not to go but she was 18 and she wanted to prove it. So then I just told her what was coming, what people would probably say to her. She came and said, "Wow, you were right!" She never engaged the process. Close call but the end result is she understands me and her mother a lot better. I wouldn't recommend putting your kid through PFAL, but in my case, it all worked out.

Yeah, but you didn't need the Internet for that, all you needed was a dictionary! Thanks Excie! Thank you WG! Glad you had a great service! Say hello to Mr. Garden.

Yeah, but you didn't need the Internet for that, all you needed was a dictionary!

Good for you! I was referring to those who would say they were not able to prove it wrong. I'm glad you had the initiative to look stuff up. I sure didn't.

I realize this particular topic has been discussed here before at least the doctrine of it. I have another angle I would like to discuss. II Timothy 3:17 says, "That the man of god may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works". Wierwille makes this big deal about the word "throughly" and goes off on the diatribe about the Word means what it says, says what it means, yadda yadda yadda and that the word is "throughly" and not thoroughly". He said "throughly" implies an inside job, and you know the rest. I checked Greasespot a couple of years ago and saw where the word "throughly" is an archaic form of "thoroughly" and is properly translated "thoroughly". I read this and thought, "figures". The other night I decided look up "throughly" to see for myself what was said and surely enough Webster's Dictionary says "throughly" is an archaic form of the word "thoroughly". I didn't at first really care but soon I became angry at myself. I was involved in TWI from 1974 to 1989 that would be from ages 17 to 34. During that time I graduated from high school, college, and then the Way Corps. I even wrote a "research paper" (I use the word "research" lightly).I learned how to use a dictionary when I was 9. So I asked myself why did I not open a dictionary and look up this word anytime during the 15 years I was in TWI? It took me about 45 seconds to discover Wierwille was wrong. I could have done this anytime. So why didn't I? As I thought more about it the answer came and it's rather sad but explains a lot. The truth was, I didn't WANT to find out that Wierwille was wrong. I had too much invested in TWI for it to be wrong. Having to admit that what I believed was actually a lie was more than I could bear. After all, I had invested myself in, supported, and decided my life's calling was going to be my involvement with TWI. I needed to believe I was dedicated to a worthy cause. So I looked away, avoided, and ignored things that would interfere with my career in The Way. If TWI was wrong I felt I had nothing. This is idolatry. Yes, Wierwille and the rest of the leadership deceived, abused, and engaged in practices the Bible calls sin. But Wierwille and the Way International also spoke to something dark in me that I took to heart and supported. I didn't know the practices that were going on. Then again, I really didn't want to know either. I have to take some responsibility for that, I believe. It all stopped working eventually of course and I ended up leaving. But that's another story. As a side note, did you ever run into anybody when you were in TWI that said they took PFAL to prove it wrong and when they couldn't they decided it was all true? I did on quite a few occasions. You know, they couldn't have tried all that hard. I debunked Wierwille's teaching in less than 45 seconds with the simple use of a dictionary.

Everybody but my dad ended up in TWI and we all were saddened by his "lack of spirituality". He passed away in 1980 due to a heart condition. Good man.

At another time I had a similar conversation with my father about the wonder class, PFAL. I actually had thoughts of him sitting through the glass and basking in the wisdom of the Word of God for the first time in his life, the poor blind man. So I said, "PFAL is the greatest teaching on God's Word since the 1st century". So he asked, "Have you studied all the past Bible teachers over the last 2 thousand years to be able to make that statement? Even if you have, who is it who decides whose teaching is the 'greatest'? What do you mean by 'greatest teaching' anyway?" I think I said something like, "Ummmm..." Then he said, "That comment you made...it's called 'hype'". He again said, "They're selling you're buying." I marveled at just how "carnal" my dad was. My dad was a pretty wise man actually but it was all lost on me at the time. what a gift I had! Still, I think he looked forward to the day when a coherent thought would actually form in my brain.

My father was not particularly anti-TWI, but he was anti-stupid. He didn't like it very much when anyone, especially his son, rattled off statements that weren't well thought through. When I was in TWI, my dad was the age I am now which is in his 50's. One day, for some unknown reason, I said to him, "Dr. Wierwille is the man of God for our day and time". Not one of the brighter statements I had ever said to my father. He responded with, "What do you mean by that?" So I told him that VPW was God's man on earth for us today to teach us the Word. So he said, "Like the Pope? Do you think Wierwille is the Pope?" "No no no", I said. Then I went on some sort of soliloquy about how God showed VPW "The Word" but I avoided the part about the snow and gas pumps. After I finished, my dad asked me, "So how does one become the man of God? Who decides that? Is there a committee, is there some sort of umpire, what?" I just told him how VP promised to teach the Word like it had never been known since the 1st century if God would teach it to him. So that made him the man of God. My dad said, "So this Wierwille guy has some sort of special insight, right?" I said yes, he did. Then my dad responded, "So that's all it takes. Study the Bible, claim you have some sort of special insight, then proclaim yourself the man of God. Is that pretty much it?" Then we went off into an argument where I defended Wierwille and my dad kept saying things about who decided this or that to which the answer kept coming back that it was Wierwille and only Wierwille that decided that he was the man of God. To end the discussion, my dad said something like,"Look, you want to do this Way thing fine. But let me tell you something, Wierwille's selling and you're buying". I shook my head in pity at how spiritually "blind" my father was. Isn't that something? I lamented at what I perceived was my father's blindness. Yeah right.