WordWolf

Ok, I covered 1-3 so far.... 4) The purpose of going door-to-door was to SELL PFAL/WAP CLASSES. There were pep talks that said things about blessing the people and stuff, but the intent was to SELL foundational classes, pfal in the 70s/80s, wap in the 90s/00s. Why? Well, it was faster to sell a class, and the goals were more concrete. Supposedly, someone might want to stay in the group once they finished it. (Of course, it failed miserably with wap, since wap only worked with people who had a background in twi for a year or more, and didn't question lcm's poor explanations.) The MAIN reason it was to SELL CLASSES, though, was because selling classes meant selling seat in the class, which meant that twi made more money. (ALL TWI CLASSES WERE ORGANIZED AS PROFIT-MAKING VENTURES. TWI CLASSES WERE NEVER DESIGNED TO 'BREAK-EVEN' OR EVEN CONSIDER THAT AN OPTION.) So, if the person just paid for the class, then twi made a profit. If the person stuck around, they'd be leaned on to tithe, and twi makes 10% plus whatever else they could be squeezed for- lcm said 15% and the goal was 'everything beyond your immediate need', and there were always MORE classes and MORE books, and whenever "the bookstore" was run at an event, even items like concordances were priced retail after twi got a ministry discount, so twi ALWAYS made every penny they could. Oh, and don't ever think they PAID the people who ran "the bookstore" at events. Unless you were at hq at the permanent one, they were unpaid volunteers. Remember, your money is always welcome at the way. Sometimes, you are welcome to accompany it. (Ask me for more details later.) 5) Requirement for hours going door-to-door? The answer to that is pretty much the same as the answer to 3). Let me know if you need more info after rereading it.

I don't know how questions about twi don't end up in "about twi", but I'll give this a shot. 1) If you mean "infant water baptisms", no. twi taught/teaches that water is unnecessary, but a baptism in holy spirit IS necessary, and that requires no ritual. Occasionally, a parent may do some sort of "dedication" ceremony-declaring they will raise their child up according to the Lord/twi doctrine, but I haven't heard of that becoming common, standardized, or a requirement. (Then again, if it HAS, it would not surprise me.) 2) twi has always been fond of inflating their numbers. They've claimed over 100,000 people have been members, when perhaps, at most, 100,000 ever took their foundational classes-both verions. What that means is there were maybe 100,000 people who signed up for pfal and wap. Please note that many or most who took wap had taken pfal, but wap was mandatory sooner or later. Not everyone who signed up made it to Session 12, not everyone who made it to Session 1 completed Session 12. (That's using pfal Sessions, I don't know what the final session# was for wap.) And not everyone who completed pfal was there past 3 months or past 1 year. Using my own pfal class as a guesstimate, 250,000 of the people claimed were every actually attendees, and that was across the entire history of twi, not as attendees the entire time. (Many people who joined in the early 70s were gone by the mid-70s, and so on.) So, for "membership" at any one time, I'd say between 1/5 and 1/10 of that would be more accurate, meaning between 50,000 and 25,000 at their biggest. The best guesstimater I've ever heard was that 1/2 the current twi members attended ROA. (Although occasionally new people attended.) So, take the number of attendees in any year, double it, and you have the "membership" for that year. Attendance#s at ROA were consistent with attendance#s overall, proportionally, and I got the statistics to back it up. :) Someone once said that 24000 attended ROA '84, if only for a day or so, and that they figured worldwide attendance to be somewhere approaching 40,000 that year-their apex of membership. If we are being generous, I'll say 40,000 at the most, with 30,000 as the biggest possible US attendance, with the remainder across all other countries. That changed in the years between 1985-1990. vpw died in 1985, and he'd appointed lcm as his successor a few years before. lcm was unable to pull off the mysterious "I have a connection with God that you don't" thing vpw did. Around 1985, some leaders protested "difficulties" at the leadership level, and cg wrote up "passing of the patriarch." The next few years are what lcm himself called "the fog years", and ended in 1989, when lcm "drew a line in the sand" and demanded all twi people declare an oath of loyalty to him, and anyone who didn't wasn't welcome in twi anymore. That heavy-handed maneuver used to work when vpw used it on SMALL numbers of people in his "way corps" program, but when lcm tried it on a large scale at that place and time, it blew up in his face. A FEW people had split 1985-1987, but 80% of the group left 1989-1990. (ROA 1990 had fewer than 20% of the attendees ROA 1988 had.) Since then, the group has been hemmorhaging members. They have nothing with which to draw new people, and other Christians have more to offer their CURRENT members than they themselves do. The organization currently has 4 types of members: A) those in power who must keep the group together or face unemployment B) those inside so long they're terrified of the outside world and other Christians C) those kids who've been educated to be terrified of the outside world D) members who are looking for a good chance to leave. A number of years back, twi quoted ALL membership as 5000 worldwide. That included small children. The group is still in "negative population growth", but they went back to hiding their numbers. Based off a more recent meeting, and skipping those not old enough to take their classes, membership is somewhere closer to 1500 adults, possibly 2000 total members overall, but more likely less at present, and never likely to INCREASE. Numbers of losses can slow, but they won't REVERSE. So, membership peaked in 1984 at approximately 40,000 worldwide. Membership as of 2006 is probably about 1,500 worldwide. With numbers being hidden by twi whenever possible. 3) Door-to-door.... There apparently was a short, aborted program to "sell" pfal door-to-door in the 1970s. Most people don't remember that, since even those "in" at the time often heard nothing about it. In the 1990s, after more than 80% of the members had left, lcm tried lots of things to increase the amount of money coming in, and to increase numbers. (He'd chased off most of the people-and most of their tithing, more importantly.) One of them was requiring door-to-door in some areas. Further, at some points, all the corps grads in state were called in for a statewide ("limbwide") meeting. When they arrived, they were paired off and told to go door-to-door. At some points, wows (one-year committments to go "sell pfal") would go door-to-door. That was more often than other people doing it. So, there's different types of people to answer this, thus, different answers. I AM aware that the 1990s under lcm was a period of INCREDIBLE legalism and anal-retentive record-taking and rules-following were richly rewarded and wildly encouraged. During that time-period, I would be VERY shocked if each person wasn't required to keep records. I do know someone said they were told to keep track of what blocks they'd covered before, so they'd skip them next time.

I was asked about a formal discussion on this sort of thing. vpw and lcm ridiculed other Christians for THEIR ceremonies, then turned around and made their OWN. What ceremonies do you remember, when did they happen, and what happened at them?

How did I become in charge of answering all the questions? :blink:

Please keep the articles up, whether there, here, or somewhere else easy to find. They're a valuable resource. (And TWI really, really wants you to take them down.:) )

GrouchoJr, 8/3/06, 5:24pm, the "Hippies, conspiracy" thread.

Since you asked... That's attributed to Lawrence Tribble, circa the American Revolution. From "The Great Awakening", the poem's called "Awaken." One man awake, awakens another. The second awakens his next door brother. The three awake can rouse a town, By turning the whole place upside down. The many awake can make such a fuss, It finally awakens the rest of us. One man up with dawn in his eyes, Surely then multiplies.

If it's not, it should be!

We have noticed, whenever we've interacted with them, that most seem emotionally dysfunctional, haven't we? And even the slightest disagreements have resulted in condescension and the expectation that the dissenter will toe the line. And the entire "we can transform the wreckage that have stymied thousands of GSC'ers" smacks of a knowledge and attitude that they are better than everyone else more than a realistic appraisal of their assets. I'm picturing a bird and a plate-glass window. Plus, if they weren't on a "better than everyone else" kick, trying to bail water out of the Titanic would seem a bit more futile.

lcm never found the verses saying that fornication and adultery are wrong for the same reason a thief can't find a policeman.

Around 1971, one of the participants gave this description. (TW:LiL, pg-43-44) "The Corps program is the best. To live here and have the Doctor work with us is extraordinary. He allows us to see the ministry through his eyes. He shares everything with us. And sometimes it's a bummer. But he lays it out. The idea of the Corps is to transmit the commitment and dedication of the ministry to us so that we can teach others where he can't be himself. It works by osmosis here. I can't quite express it in words, but I can feel it and see it and know it. It's learning to be keen and sensitive to the spirit of God anywhere and anytime. We are really privileged to be able to do this here. I'm not saying this is the only place it can be done. It's possible to reach that point of knowledge and zeal anywhere if people work the Word and renew their minds. But this, the Corps program, is the fastest way. What we learn here in two years would take ten to fifteen years in the outside world to learn." Far from an objective position, but it's exactly the impression vpw wanted broadcast at the time the book was written, so that's approximately the documentation of an advertisement made in that year. So, that's what he was SAYING it was at the time.

I almost linked back to Superman 3.... Now, how's THIS for a link? Pootie-tang Chris Rock Dogma

He also downgraded "sin" into "broken fellowship". As Raf has pointed out, "broken fellowship" is ONE CONSEQUENCE of sin, not the same as sin. Taken as an aggregate, the sum total of what he said on sin was FAR more in terms of encouraging permissiveness than mourning and refraining from sin. Not that beating people with a terror and complex over sin is a goal either, but most Christians have a much healthier position than the 2 extremes. We don't have to choose between "the leader can rape the women because he doesn't condemn himself in that which he alloweth" and "you can never, ever make the slightest mistake or you'll be a greasespot by midnight". We've been delivered from BOTH of those.

If you count a few people who don't post daily, he IS idolized, no qualifiers. Let's try to keep names off the threads of people who haven't consented to tell their stories here, though, 'kay? ======== Based on this recollection, that possible story sounds a lot more probable.... Dot: "When I laid out some word to VPW on adultery his response was "What so ever things are pure...think on those things" He said it was MY THINKING evil is what made it evil. He also told a small group at Emporia one night to teach their children about their bodies, "you can brush their nipple with your hand and show them how it hardens. You can show them not to be ashamed of their body reactions" Then he shared about the African Tribe where the Father broke the hymen of the daughters to get them experienced in sex to prepare them for marriage --he thought it to be beautiful. VPW had already let me see his dark side. Sitting there I thought OH MY GOD, this is subtle but he is teaching this group that it is beautiful to teach your daughters how to have sex, it is just not accepted in our culture! He was standing behind his sex problems and setting us up to have sex with our godly "family" as well as the earthly one."

[WordWolf responds in brackets and boldface, and trims down the original post.]

Adds spacing and punctuation to the post... Your choice what to go into and not, but if you can tell us some of it while leaving names and obvious identifiers out, it might be very useful to someone or other here. So, if you can be persuaded to share a bit more? (If not, hey, thanks for what you've shared so far.)

Tommy Flanagan, aka the Pathological Liar, aka the Liar. His most famous claim was his marriage to Morgan Fairchild.

You presented the "orthodox vpw" position on adultery and whether or not it's ok for us to commit it. That position follows up by dismissing all clear OT passages and all Gospel passages as "different administration." (And there's people here who would STILL say that-whether or not they would elect to POST it.) Therefore, the "obvious" response from the "orthodox vpw" position would have been dismissing the Proverbs acct, and then the Gospel acct, as invalid due to administration change. Rather than wait for someone to make what's the "standard" response before replying to it, I saved time and replied before the fact. (That makes it a general refutation of the "orthodox vpw" position.) Technically speaking, you personally had not posted that yet. When I was saying "you", I didn't mean "Tom", I meant "anyone holding this position"- a more general "you". I should have made that clearer-but most attempts would still have looked like I meant "Tom" no matter what I said. Please keep in mind- if you're going to use the same answers vpw gave, you're likely to get the same answers vpw would get if he were alive and posting them here. Healthy communication is a 2-way street-which means both of us need to be alert.

When you mentioned what was done to women, you made it clear you weren't condoning it. When you presented vpw's "argument", you made NO such distinction. Therefore, if you were not endorsing it, you gave the impression you were-so don't blame me for responding accordingly. If you want a more casual discussion as to whether a particular passage may or may not mean what vpw claimed it meant, we have those on separate threads in Doctrinal. And we phrase them more clearly. I myself had 2 different threads a few months back, examining 2 different bizarre claims of vpw, and I labelled them clearly-I wanted to know if there was Biblical justification for either. On each, we had an interesting discussion. Nobody thought I was holding forth either one.

Correct! For those who don't know the movie in their sleep... that was when they went to rescue Morpheus. They were wearing long jackets and carrying bags over their shoulders. Weighed down with machineguns and machinepistols and stuff. So when he reached the security checkpoint, Neo opened his jacket and showed a BUNCH of guns as he drew. Go, Ca D!

New movie. "Could you please remove any metallic items you may be carrying, keys, loose change... ..Holy sh*!"

I'd say that factors in less than you're describing. I myself agree with the some of the material in "his" teachings. Very few people would place me on the "pro-vpw" side of discussions. (I'd say harming me figures into the fantasies of a few "pro-vpw"ers by now...) I believe that was the answer that was given. I believe that this is unBiblical, and was NOT the main reason. (Oil and falafels...) It was an immoral and unethical doctrine. It was unBiblical and unChristian. Therefore, it could NOT stand up to scrutiny. Therefore, hide it. Proverbs 6:20-33. 20My son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother: 21Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck. 22When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee. 23For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life: 24To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman. 25Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids. 26For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adultress will hunt for the precious life. 27Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? 28Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? 29So he that goeth in to his neighbour's wife; whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent. 30Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry; 31But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house. 32But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul. 33A wound and dishonour shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away. ====== They didn't "handle" it because it's not "handle-able". Next you're going to say "that's Old Testament". So I'll check in with my Lord. John 8:2-4, 10-11. 2And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. 3And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, 4They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.10When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? 11She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. ==== He called it a SIN and said to stop. Next you're going to say that-although it was our personal Lord that said this, there was an administration change and now it's ok. Romans 2:1-23 1Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. 2But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. 3And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? 4Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? 5But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; 6Who will render to every man according to his deeds: 7To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: 8But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, 9Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; 10But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: 11For there is no respect of persons with God. 12For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; 13(For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. 14For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: 15Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) 16In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel. 17Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, 18And knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law; 19And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, 20An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law. 21Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal? 22Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? 23Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God? Adultery dishonours God in ANY "administration." Galatians 5:16-21, 25 16This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. 17For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. 18But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. 19Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 25If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. ==== That's the first 4 works of the flesh right there-including adultery AND fornication. The diametric opposite of the fruit of the spirit. II Peter 2:13-15 13And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you; 14Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children: 15Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; ===== There's the "adultery-sin" connection again. How about the word "fornication?" I'll skip the before-Pentecost references to save time. Acts 15:19-20. 19Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God: 20But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood. Acts 15:28-29 28For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; 29That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication[/b]: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well. Romans 1:28-30 28And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; 29Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, "Reprobate mind": Greek for "void of judgement", couldn't find the right thing with a GPS locator. "convenient": Greek for "proper". Quite a list of evil things fornication is listed with... and they're all the result of a mind void of judgement. I Corinthians 6:9a 9Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. Funny how God keeps adultery and fornication in the lists of sins.... I Corinthians 6:13-19 13Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. 14And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power. 15Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. 16What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. 17But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. 18Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. 19What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? ========= Seems pretty clear that fornication is a sin-and a sin against his own body. Complete picture AFTER Pentecost on adultery and fornication? "Bad things. Do not do them." Actually, YES-talking ONLY about meat. Behold the context! I Corinthians 8:1-13 (the entire chapter) 1Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. 2And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. 3But if any man love God, the same is known of him. 4As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one. 5For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) 6But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him. 7Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled. 8But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse. 9But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumblingblock to them that are weak. 10For if any man see thee which hast knowledge sit at meat in the idol's temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols; 11And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died? 12But when ye sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ. 13Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend. ========= Looks like it's a chapter about our liberty in EATING FOODS OFFERED TO IDOLS. And why we shouldn't anyway. What else is it about? NOTHING ELSE. Obviously going to have to get really tricky- we saw a mighty list of after-Pentecost against adultery AND fornication. It's a "plausible case" only when you're willing to discard the MANY CLEAR verses for the few unclear verses. Bullinger (and thus vpw) said that was a big no-no. And it should be self-evident that Bullinger was correct. That would be the wording used by them. However, it's incorrect, as we can all see. This was not a "plausible explanation." The inner circle was "conditioned to believe anything that Wierwille told us." And those who might look this stuff up were told not to. At least one person got kicked FROM the corps for making a corps paper on adultery. Ever see this? http://www.greasespotcafe.com/waydale/misc/adultery.htm Schoenheit got canned over this. There was an EXCUSE, a PRETEXT, but it was NOT going to stand up to scrutiny- thus the HIDING. I think he believed it long before he taught it to staff and corps. After all, he believed it when he went to the House of Acts, since he let it slip to J1m D**p that God was ok with orgies. Some believe he was specifically trolling for Biblical answers at the time, and others may say he specifically brought it up because he was trying to find PARTICIPANTS. I believe he believed it before ever introducing the Bible, and singled out verses that could be made to suggest he was right. Then he hid that from the majority of people, and taught it to the most loyal of the loyal. (He winnowed them out of the corps-which meant he was sifting from among the loyal.) People believed him because he had "an understanding of the Bible unequalled since the first Century Christian church." Bingo. 20 points. He still had the strength. Doesn't mean he "was still in fellowship with the true God." He was in violation of the Mosaic Law at the time. You almost lost me, but I think I agree.

*sends Bluez a pm*

Calling for memories in the 1977-1980 bracket now...