Rocky

22 hours ago, Ham said:

One of my grandkids came up with the question- who do you hate the most.  Fair question I suppose..  I don't think I wanted to answer it.. so suggested a better question would be "who is your greatest enemy.."  who is stopping you from being what you want to be.. the answer:  "the devil..". OK, so as a Christian, we believe in redemption- what power does he really have.. none. Then the next candidate.  The current Politician of dislike.. my answer- too easy of a target.  They are too easy to find and blame- dime a dozen.

Finally the whole room agreed on who to hate, who to blame- along with "you have to love yourself here.."  heh

 

I'll be honest here.  Sometimes I can really hate myself.

I cringed when I read your answers. Religious (not necessarily limited to fundamentalist) frameworks, the whole gamut of Christian and Muslim, and maybe Jewish (but I don't know enough about Jewish faith or traditions to say with any degree of certainty) engulf their followers, notably indoctrinating them from infancy as much as possible in adversarial mindsets.

Why does it have to be that way? Am I right when I posit that it may not have to be that way? IDK (I don't know).  

As to hating yourself sometimes, I would love to offer you comfort and encouragement. IOW, I hope it's possible for you to discard whatever in your mind causes such feelings or beliefs or thinking or whatever.

This may or may not be foundational truth, but it can be comforting and encouraging. 

1 hour ago, Nathan_Jr said:

It has been said that birth control was discouraged or forbidden for women involved in The Way, Inc, but abortion was approved, even encouraged and mandated, effectively making abortion a form of birth control.

Does anyone remember how or why the prohibition of birth control was doctrinally justified?

Or any documentation thereof?

3 hours ago, chockfull said:

I actually think exactly the opposite.  This girl was involved with TWI only 2 years and look at all the detrimental effects she suffered.

That to me speaks so much more loudly than whatever authenticity you think she is missing by including others stories also footnoted.

Thanks for your thoughts. I appreciate your criticism. Glad what she wrote speaks to you.

How and why did the author decide to associate with TWI? Who told her what? How did she feel when the first person/people witnessed to her?

That's something that might grasp the attention of a reader.

Each of us here on GSC has her/his/their own story to tell... tell IT.

If they find out, they’ll think I’m weird.

In the winter of 1987, my Sociology professor clutched a stub of white chalk, drew a pyramid spanning the height of the blackboard, and crowned it with an X. Thirty students, many half my age, surrounded me in a beige classroom. None of them knew my secret.

“Okay. Last week we discussed gender inequality in the workplace,” Dr. Schaffer said. “Tonight, we’ll examine autocratic groups and how they operate. My not-so-elegant drawing represents their hierarchical power structure. Religious ones are often called ‘sects,’ or ‘cults.’ By the way, I’m saying, s-e-c-t-s, not s-e-x.” When laughs died down, she said, “The leader is X.” She underlined the X. “He or she dictates the group’s beliefs and behavior.” Dr. Schaffer straightened her red print scarf and examined our faces one by one. Students rearranged notebooks and clicked their pens. Tonight’s lecture was far from news to me, but I drew the pyramid anyway, mimicking other students, trying to fit in.

Edge, Charlene L. Undertow (p. 1). New Wings Press, LLC. Kindle Edition. 

This is how Undertow begins. If you're still reading my comments, by all means, tell me what's the difference between Undertow page 1 and any part of the substack article?

Near the end of Undertow's Preface, 

My title invites the question, what makes The Way International a fundamentalist cult? Here is the crux of my answer: Wierwille believed in scriptural inerrancy, a cornerstone of Christian fundamentalism. As the biblical scholar James Barr tells us: “It is this function of the Bible as supreme religious symbol that justifies us in seeing fundamentalism as a quite separate religious form.”

Edge, Charlene L. Undertow . New Wings Press, LLC. Kindle Edition. 

How many words does the substack article take to say essentially that much?

Another professor wrote this about Undertow:

“Charlene Edge has created a deeply human story of her conversion, commitment, disillusion, and disaffiliation from an evangelical Christian cult movement, The Way International. With balance and grace, she gives the reader a compelling portrait of the group’s leader and his fraught relationship with his followers that stands as a warning beacon to all those drawn to charismatic prophets and their high-demand communities.”

Edge, Charlene L. Undertow . New Wings Press, LLC. Kindle Edition. 

I challenge anyone who would take issue with my view to point out where in the substack there's anything approaching a deeply human story of the author's conversion, commitment, disillusion (etc.) with TWI.

Here's what Karl Kahler, author of The Cult that Snapped wrote about Undertow:

“A tenderly written, intensely personal narrative about being swallowed alive by a cult. Charlene Edge’s encounters with the abusive Victor Paul Wierwille and her firsthand observation of how The Way’s Research Department twisted the Scriptures are enlightening and chilling.”

Edge, Charlene L. Undertow . New Wings Press, LLC. Kindle Edition. 

Is there ANYTHING in the substack that might be tenderly written, or intensely personal about having been swallowed alive by a cult?

The person who wrote that substack took a HUGE risk emotionally. At least I figure she did.

But did she really accomplish what she intended? I don't know what she intended.

But all she seems to have accomplished is to reiterate what she read elsewhere, perhaps on GSC.

IF she wants to tell her story, she has a good bit of rewriting work to do.

And that's nothing to be ashamed of.

But it's also nothing to boast about at this point. 

If you need a refresher, I recommend Undertow. Not that Penworks is soliciting praise. She's not.

But Undertow is HER STORY. Can any reader on this GSC thread reasonably characterize the substack article similarly to how a cult researcher characterized Undertow?

“Charlene Edge writes with clarity and sensitivity. This memoir on her experiences in The Way International will help readers understand the subtleties and complexities of cultic groups.”

Edge, Charlene L. Undertow . New Wings Press, LLC. Kindle Edition. 

16 hours ago, chockfull said:

She has a blend of her story plus supporting evidence which consists of others stories all with referenced sources unlike “the collaterals”.

That's her claim. And you believe her why? Because you already believed it before you read it?

If you didn't have a massive amount of confirmation bias, what in her essay convinces you of any claim she makes?

9 hours ago, Nathan_Jr said:

My recounting is corroborated by hundreds of reports and articles about the Way online. In addition there are thousands of personal experiences recounted in social media posts that echo my memories and validate many reports of extremism, sexual and financial abuse. At least three books have been written about the fake scholarship, traumatic experiences and abuse in The Way. These authors and myself all fell victim to The Way under Victor P. Wierwille’s direction.

Does she provide footnotes to the hundreds of corroborating reports and articles?

That's still weak sauce. It doesn't present anything that could convince anyone who doesn't already believe it.

IOW, confirmation bias.

In order for it to be anything with communicative power, she needs to rewrite the entire first draft

My greatest enemy is societal ignorance.

Have you ever considered how life could be without some religious framework permeating our world view and giving us no alternative to thinking there is an enemy around every corner?

4 hours ago, chockfull said:

She has a blend of her story plus supporting evidence which consists of others stories all with referenced sources unlike “the collaterals”.

i mean maybe those of you heavily invested in writing memoirs can figure out how to stay in first person and come off “more authentic”.

Rather than be irritated by her switching from first person to third person voice I look at it like at least she did a better job than her “father in da Verd”.

The Way Internationals continual denial of plagiarism claims has karma coming back around to bite them in the butt with accurately footnoted anecdotal accounts of immorality.

She can do what she wants, obviously. It's not a matter of me (anything). It's a matter of what she wants to do or accomplish with what she writes.

More power to her. However, for her to see more impact (power) from her writing, she's got some work to do.

If all she wants is to say it, great. She'll get all the feedback her readers care to give her. 

5 hours ago, oldiesman said:

Hi Penworks, thx for that!    I know of one other interpretation by TWI that was posted on GS once, from Free Spirit Magazine arguing against late-term abortion written by D. Craley that if the baby can live by itself outside the womb, it's presumed to have its own soul and shouldn't be aborted.   I think the piece was from the 80s.    But that quote from 1971 is amazing and should have settled it!

Regarding D Craley, I'm confident he would never have been in the shoes of a woman with a late-term pregnancy. If he wrote such an op-ed, bless his heart. But it's important for anyone giving any thought to what such a woman would be going through, I suspect NO healthy woman, with a healthy pregnancy, and a healthy fetus, would even be considering aborting.

Just sayin'. Not opining in this comment about the morality of abortion at any stage of a pregnancy. Just trying to imagine such a scenario.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08N866JX4/

A very quick search on Goodreads.com brought this title, Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art by Judith Barrington.

I haven't read the book, but about 20 years ago I took a college class on Newswriting, because I was working for a small newspaper and didn't have a journalism degree.

The instructor was a seasoned journalist and editor. Beside the basic who, what, when, where, how, and why, he drove home that news writing is NOT done well in passive voice.

That's even more important in memoir. EVERY human has a story, actually LOTS of stories.

Stories make humanity sane, actually. What in the world did humans do BEFORE the internet? Before message boards? Before the printing press?

If they wanted to effectively communicate important lessons from generation to generation, they had to have LOTS of storytellers.

Everyone here CAN be a good storyteller, even Mike. Even me.

But it's a skill that needs to be developed and sharpened throughout one's life in order to be effective.

/rant

5 hours ago, chockfull said:

2 Way Corps examples - Victor Barnard and Steve Sann

Yeah, those two definitely are not reasonable Christlike models of behavior. But so what?

What is the purpose of any person writing any memoir or memoir like short piece?

2 hours ago, chockfull said:

Now back to regularly scheduled abortion convo.

That would be a violation of GSC rules. 

2 hours ago, Nathan_Jr said:

It was constantly reinforced that women were inferior in teaching and treatment and we were told not to use any birth control, leading to many unwanted pregnancies. The Way would then support and pay for abortions, which were not a sin according to their teachings.

I've been trying to figure out why this substack doesn't sit right with me.

The way this person wrote it, she is NOT telling HER story.

That won't mean anything to anyone who needs to hear HER STORY.

Her story might help people needing to escape the cult or wise up before they get caught up in it.

This quote is just weak sauce.

WHAT did this human see and hear? Did SHE experience an unwanted pregnancy? If so, how did it make her feel? How did she cope with the emotional and medical ramifications of the pregnancy? What was HER outcome?

Maybe this human writer needs to read some of the work on vulnerability Brené Brown has published.

Btw, a discussion about abortion policies in and of itself is a political topic.

A retelling of history of TWI is retelling of historical events. For them to matter to readers, they have to come off as authentic.

54 minutes ago, chockfull said:

Another personal account of damage experienced by a member of TWI.  This person highlights the step by step indoctrination process….

https://jenniferhaha.substack.com/p/black-friday-cyber-monday-cult-expose?utm_campaign=post

Victor P. Wierwille! 

The version of this someone sent me yesterday had a claim about it being illegal to quote Way Corps grads. That was a deal breaker for me. But this one, though VERY long appears to not have that claim in it. I appreciate her formatting of Victor's name.

44 minutes ago, waysider said:

Oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged via the placenta, not the lungs..

Picky, picky, picky. 

3 hours ago, waysider said:

"The Word" said whatever Wierwille wanted it to say. Problem solved.

Or as I like to say, self-justifying rationalization. 

45 minutes ago, Nathan_Jr said:

Sounds to me like she's a Christian, but it doesn't really matter to me. We agree on at least one thing, though: grabbing women by the ***** is not very Christ-like.

Sounds like it to me also. And yes, grabbing women by the vulva is not very Christlike. 

5 hours ago, Raf said:

Again, neither of these women owes me an explanation for anything. But IF they were looking to persuade me, they did not.

 Then again, IF they just wanted to say what they said, more power to them. They didn't persuade me of anything either. However, why would ANYone demand they justify their belief? Maybe they just want to say what they wanted to say.

Religion despite the fundamentalist perspective we embraced for a(n apparently brief) time in our lives, my view is people are not persuaded by logic, except some of the time in American courts of law. And not even then are people (even judges/justices) convinced by facts absent emotional arguments.

I just don't give two hoots why any person claims to be a Christian. I DO believe, despite significant emotional events that cause adults to change their views dramatically (i.e. Apostle Paul), in the world today, and despite decreasing embrace of churches (as we understood the term before we even had heard the Greek word ekklesia), many people are Christian because that's how they were raised. IOW, cultural anthropology. 

Then again, for people who still hold to the view that to be a "genuine" Christian, one must believe that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead), more power to them for their belief. And more peace to them by hopefully letting go of the need to convert others.

1 hour ago, Raf said:

Finally listened to this video and read up on Ms. Ali.

Neither impressed me much from a religious standpoint. They didn't make or defend an argument for Christianity, but they expressed strong feelings about being Christian, with which I cannot really argue.

Neither of them owes me an explanation, for that matter, but I guess I expected more. That's on me.

Of course, what's a more reasonable expectation than for a person professing to be or adhere to a given flavor of faith to say she WANTS to believe it?

Now, IF such a person declares she intends to offer an intellectual or academic argument for the particular faith, that would be a different story.