Rocky

Even Satan can recite scriptures, no?

Perhaps a valid longing. But how will you "know" if you find some? How do you know that it always blesses the hearer?

There. You revealed the essence of what's going on with you. You declared that you speak for God. But that's just not true. You don't know what's in DWBH's heart.

Two possible (likely) factors: 1) you don't seem to have grasped the essence of your audience; 2) you aren't clearly communicating your message. I get your frustration. Online message forums are very limited in their ability to communicate nuances that often are a part of nonverbal communication.

Just mistaken.

So, now if you speak it or write it, it's God speaking? Hubris much?

Perhaps rrob is the infrequent wayfer who thinks he can reason some sense into the reprobates at GSC... Hey rrob, nice try but you're spinning your wheels.

As best we could tell, Garth has passed away.

The REV. "We have worked to keep the REV as a literal translation whenever appropriate, like the ASV or King James. It is not a “dynamic equivalent translation,” such as the NIV, although there are times when, to make good sense in English, we had to depart from a strictly literal translation. Our goal is to eventually have an “essentially literal” translation of the Bible that more closely represents biblical truth than any other translation currently on the market, and also one that is written in today’s English." The language they use to describe their translation screams Private Interpretation. "Whenever appropriate" according to whom?

Technically, that's a question for an attorney. Change the "could" to "would" and it becomes subjective and a matter of how severe the public perception becomes.

Good thread to bring back from the abyss... Since 2004, to my knowledge, two books by former TWI insiders have been published: Losing the Way: A Memoir of Spiritual Longing, Manipulation, Abuse and Escape by Kristen Skedgell (2008) " A riveting and finely crafted true story, Losing the Way recounts how the daughter of East Coast intellectuals was recruited into a well-known rightwing Bible cult, The Way International, where she was manipulated, betrayed, and abused, before being rescued by the worldly mother she rejected. Skedgell shows how easily an idealistic young person can be swept away by a spiritual quest and the quiet malevolence lurking beneath the religious exterior of a false leader." and Undertow: My Escape from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International by Charlene Edge (2016) "Charlene Edge’s riveting memoir about the power of words to seduce, betray, and, in her case, eventually save. After a personal tragedy left her bereft, teenaged Charlene rejected faith and family when recruiters drew her into The Way International, a sect led by the charismatic Victor Paul Wierwille. The Way became one of the largest cults in America. Charlene gave it seventeen years of her life. Believing that God led her to Wierwille, she underwent his intensive two-year training program, The Way Corps, designed to produce loyal leaders. When Wierwille warned of a possible government attack, she prepared to live off the grid. She ignored warning signs of Wierwille’s paranoia and abuse—he condemned dissenters as the Devil’s agents, he required followers to watch pornography, he manipulated Corps into keeping his secrets in a “lock box,” he denied the Holocaust, and he surrounded himself with bodyguards. She married a Corps graduate and they served across the United States as Way leaders, funneling money into Wierwille’s bursting coffers and shunning anyone who criticized him. As obedient Way Corps, they raised their child to believe the doctrines of Wierwille, the cult’s designated “father in the Word.” Eventually Charlene was promoted to the inner circle of biblical researchers, where she discovered devastating secrets: Wierwille twisted texts of Scripture to serve his personal agenda, shamelessly plagiarized the work of others, and misrepresented the purpose of his organization. Worst of all, after Wierwille died in 1985, shocking reports surfaced of his secret sex ring. Amid chaos at The Way’s Ohio-based headquarters, Charlene knew she had to escape—for her own survival and her child’s. Reading like a novel, Undertow is not only a brilliant cautionary tale about misplaced faith but also an exposé of the hazards of fundamentalism and the destructive nature of cults. Through her personal story, Charlene Edge shows how a vulnerable person can be seduced into following an authoritarian leader and how difficult it can be to find a way out.

John's wife Hope asked me to post this letter and some associated follow up. He wrote it and sent it 17 years ago this week. In a sense, it contains some of the same stated concerns the R & R group has stated much more recently. I think it's about 5 pages altogether. Of course, more than 30 years ago, another group of then soon to be former TWI leaders tried to get the attention of the hardheaded and hardhearted hoarders of millions of ABS dollars. So, for your reading pleasure, here's what John wrote in June 2000. Richeson Letter to Rivenbark June 2000.pdf

Fig pep

How cool is that?! Have fun.

In October 2016, cult leader Victor Barnard was sentenced to 30 years in prison for sexually assaulting two teenage girls for nearly a decade. Tonight’s episode of In An Instant will focus on the family of Lindsay Tornambe, one of Barnard’s victims. When Lindsay moved to Minnesota to live with Barnard’s River Road Fellowship, he called for her family to let Lindsay live with him and nine other “maidens” in his home. It was then that she was forced to undergo nearly a decade of sexual abuse at the hands of the cult leader. Read on to learn more about Victor Barnard. ----- Of course, many readers here already know most of these facts, most importantly that Barnard... "Before starting his work as a solo cult leader, Barnard was a member of a Christian sect called The Way..."

That's heavy, dude!

btw, T-Bone I'm confident you know this but maybe not everyone does... one doesn't have to own a Kindle to read Kindle e-books. I use the free Kindle app on both my computer and phone. :)

This 99 cent "book" is the transcript of a speech Bertrand Russell gave nearly a hundred years ago. Russell had no use for religion, but his insight on Free Thought and Official Propaganda is illuminating in light of our experience with a fundamentalist cult... if you dare read it.

He paid the bills... his MLM scheme provided her with an "abundant living."

Top of the page, right side of the dark blue bar.

You can watch it online. AETV.com

Did you forget where the doctrinal forum is? That's probably where you could get the attention of people who might be interested in engaging regarding those questions.

That was my thought too.

Rocco Errico