WordWolf

Actually, he could have gotten BETTER results had he worked with the original sources above-board, rather than hiding them and pretending they didn't exist. And by "didn't exist" I mean "a class of Leonard's that became the entire PFAL class" and "a book of Stiles' that became the entire White Book" and so on. He did his students a disservice and wounded Leonard by demonstrating an UN-Christian lack of integrity. Only dysfunctional families operate with secrets and lies and pretend things are one way when they are not. If that's my ONLY choice for a family, then give me a university where I can at least get HONESTY and INTEGRITY. Of course, I'd much prefer a HEALTH FAMILY that ALSO has honesty and integrity-which is what I insist on now. Or vpw was making a buck and building his organization and fan club, breaking the law and disrespecting his fellow-Christians in the process. One or the other. You like it because that's the way he did it. If he'd done it WITHthe footnotes, you'd be arguing FOR that. If he printed the books on goatskin, you'd argue for THAT. As we all easily saw from books like "Babylon Mystery Religion", it is possible to COMPLETELY cite your sources, give credit where it is due, and STILL have a VERY user-friendly book. Most of us don't blame God for vpw plagiarizing the works of other Christians, and vpw certainly knew how to market "his" classes. Give the man credit for his skills-he was a MASTERFUL marketer. He had no need whatsoever for God or anyone else to show him how to position himself in the market.

Actually, that's called "hedging his bets" or "covering his bases". If someone caught something he lifted, this is his excuse covering it. The truth of the matter-plus the original quote, would read as follows: "Lots of the stuff I teach is not original." Truth: Virtually NONE of what vpw taught was original, nor the product of his own work. "Putting it all together so that it all fit-that was the original work." Truth: vpw took BG Leonard's class, retained 100% of its contents, added nothing, changed its name from "Gifts of the Spirit" to "Receiving the Holy Spirit Today", changed the originator's name to his own, and taught that. Later, he split the one class into 3, and filled in the blanks with material completely lifted from Bullinger, Stiles and a few others. (And changed the name again.) So, from the beginning, it ALREADY fit. vpw changed NONE of it in the early class, and he retained all of Leonard's work in one or another of the levels. "I learned whatever I could, and then I worked the Scriptures." Truth: All the material he picked up, he used in the form he picked it up in. The only changes he made-with one cosmetic exception-were in incorporating each work into one class. The initial "PFAL"/"Receiving the Holy Spirit Today" class was taught THREE MONTHS after vpw took Leonard's entire class for the first time (his initial exposure, he INTERRUPTED a class IN PROGRESS, remember), which is insufficient time to even BEGIN to compare Scripture to a 3-week class. Thus, it should come as no surprise that "vpw's" class was a near-perfect photocopy of Leonard's class, with nothing added nor removed. This was confirmed eventually by people who are now graduates of BOTH courses. "What was right on with the Scriptures, I kept, but what wasn't, I dropped." Truth: In the initial classes, he neither added nor removed ANYTHING. In later classes, his additions from more sources required him to make certain choices to select WHICH source he was going to use for something. (Eventually, sources will conflict.) So, the upshot of vpw's comment was to claim that he had a few sources for a few things, then he went off and overhauled them, and "made them his own" by understanding them in his own way. It was an offhand comment made in one book that some people bought. The truth of the matter was that vpw lifted his classes entirely from the bodies of work of others, and without their work, he would have been NO class at all. (In fact, many people today consider that to be the case.) That there is zero attribution-and a complete absence of their names-in the books that were completely derived from their work, while those same books say that vpw used the Bible as his guidebook and textbook after trashing all his Christian sourcebooks- tells a far different story than this quote is being purported to tell.

Modaustin, since Mike is either unable or unwilling to answer you (or his selective reading is skipping your posts), the relevant comment referred to page 12 of this thread, towards the top, Mike's post as of 1:18am Eastern, 12/20/05, post 223 on this thread, the part after the red sentence. Anything else, Mike will have to answer you more specifically.

That's your opinion. When it came to "Jesus Christ Our Passover" and "Jesus Christ Our Promised Seed", vpw-at most-contributed an introduction/preface to each, plus his name. The research people who wrote the entire contents are not even mentioned. A more honest-although STILL not wholly candid-approach would have been to write "EDITED BY", rather than "by". Most people would view that differently from you. You made the same claim about EW Bullinger, and THAT was disprovenas well. At MOST, any team effort would say "edited by" and the head's name- otherwise, he's vulnerable to legal action. Universities prize intellectual honesty and the reputation of same, so that's a major deal. We're supposed to trust your version of what they said?

[When a post is that size, that's all they come away with.]

I expect many things amaze you, WTH. In this post, this was hardly a case of the pot calling the kettle black, but- how did Gary Gygax put it again? The tarnished kettle's besooted vision causes it to suspect it detects a spot of tarnish on the silver tray it beholds.

[Mind you, this is the guy who complains about the length of MY replies to HIM. Courtesy would call for separate posts addressing each person. Typical.]

It bore repeating.

Basing ANY part of your argument on ANY utterance of Dave McPherson largely WEAKENS and TAINTS your argument. Dave has a personal axe to grind against dispensationalism and the Rapture doctrine, and credits them to various misfortunes in the life of his father. Dave has shown an eagerness to make any kind of claim to undercut them-whether or not there is even the slimmest evidence to justify such a claim. Here's the text of her vison. (That's VISION, SINGULAR.) http://www.bibleprophesy.org/vision.htm The upshot of it-and tell me if you see it differently- is that Mc Donald was expecting the church to live thru the tribulation (she was NOT a pre-tribulationist as Dave invented), and that she was scared the church was not READY. At most, she was a "partial rapturist". You read it. Me and Dave have now made opposing claims. Read it for yourself and see how you translate it.

I can name the artist, but I'll wait and see if someone can produce the title before my subconscious kicks it up. ===== Oh, and yes, it was "Shattered", by the Stones. If they performed it at 1/2 time, that was just plain funny.

"Love and hope and sex and dreams are still surviving on the street" "I can't give it away on 7th Avenue!"

Lord of War.

*reads the link* Typical Jack Chick. I notice that this relies almost entirely on Hislop's "the Two Babylons." I am aware that Woodrow repudiated Hislop's "the Two Babylons" in his book "the Babylon Connection?" after initially supporting it in "Babylon Mystery Religion." So, it's easy to find a book that makes a stronger case than Hislop, who threw claims around and didn't support them. (Example from the tract: "IHS stands for Isis, Horus and Seb, the Egyptian Trinity." This is without substantiation, since there's no connection between Geb/Qeb (who spelled it "Seb"?) and Isis OR Horus. If you wanted to go for an Egyptian syncretization with Christianity, you'd connect Isis and Osiris to things, but they don't spell "IHS".) Priests are supposed to be "little Jesuses"? I must have been out sick that day... Oh, and as for "the pope not caring about my soul"... I don't know much about Benedict, but John Paul II, I believe he VERY MUCH was concerned about the souls of all. In previous centuries, I could easily see Jack Chick easily leading the "burn her!" "build a bridge out of her!" mobs with torches.

"Did God truly teach VP The Word like it hadn't been known since the 1st Century?" As I keep pointing out, there's at least 2 (or 3) problems with this single claim. A) EVERYTHING vpw taught was already KNOWN before the supposed 1942 promise. Bullinger's work was in circulation, Leonard was teaching. Others-like Clarence Larkin-released books and charts resembling the classes. Everything vpw taught was all in circulation before he taught it. B) vpw learned it FROM other Christians-their books and classes. It was not a study-session with God-it was a photocopy session with his xerox machine. C) vpw, the homiletics student, remained deficient in his understanding of church history and other matters until his death. As such, he was unaware that if a god actually DID make such a promise, it was a poorly-informed god. As it was known in the First Century, The Word was the Old Testament, plus one or 2 circulating books of the new. THEY didn't have copy machines. They had a DEcentralized group that was big on power and very short on academic study. The money circulated freely to where needs were, and widows and orphans were taken care of. Compare that to vpw. ALL academic study. ANEMIC miracles (compared to them.) Everything centralized. Widows and orphans? "You'll always have the poor-now send me your money." So, the snow job is irrelevant to how bogus this promise was. Although, if there WAS a promise, it was NOT from the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if he was so deficient as a Christian that he spent his life unable to distinguish between THOSE 2 voices, then why should I trust him on ANYTHING?

Leonard never made a claim of a "miraculous" event. This, however, is from Leonard's foreword to his book "Gifts of the Spirit"... "One day God spoke to me. 'If thou wilt wait patiently before me, I will give thee the revelation concerning that which is written in My Word touching these things; the revelation my people need to bring them out of their chaos and confusion.' I believed God. For months I waited before His presence in solitude. During those wonderful days, He revealed the truth to me concerning the gifts of the Spirit. As He did, these things were proven by acting upon the knowledge thus received, and by examining the results in light of His Word."

*wild guess* "Swordfish"?

"I can't give it away on 7th Avenue!"

Correct. You DID get that fair and square-by remembering- and not by looking it up online, right? I figured, since the sequel was in theaters, this might be fresh for a number of people.

"It is the oldest story in the book; he desires the one thing he cannot have."

Good point. *checks* The link SHOULD have been http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=4115

Good point. Is there a fundamental difference between the showoff on the motorcycle, and the preacher claiming God showed him secrets hidden for 19 centuries? Were both just ways of saying "Everyone-look at me! I'm special! Listen to me-I have special answers!" His job-which he accepted-was to pastor his congregation. Instead, he applied a heavy-handed approach, and kept looking for ways to get people to listen to him, and looked for bigger audiences. Where does "shedding light" come in, and what does it mean in this context? I like flashlights. They shed light. I'm sure that's not what you mean..

Sharp fellow. As to the handful of teens at Stuyvesant, I might go so far as to claim it was overcompensation for being #3 in schools behind Bronx HS of Science and Brooklyn HS of Technology, but I don't think that's it. *snicker* I think it's just a handful of kids that have no idea what they want, and no idea what they're doing, and have insufficient boundaries imposed by their parents (they can find an empty apt regularly?), and they're trying out what they're thinking of as pleasure without consequence... I figure sooner or later, thru hurt feelings, actual thinking or discovering they have a disease, they'll realize there ARE consequences. Hey-if the drugs-and-free-sex generation that attended Woodstock grew up to be the yuppies of the 80s, I think a handful of kids with no rules won't wreck Western civilization.

Harmonica.... "In fact-I don't mean ANY of this-still my confession draws you near...." "the Hook", by Blues Traveller. Only song I know offhand that mentions Anne Boleyn. :) I THINK that's it.

We can't read his mind-but we can review his actions. Here's what we know-from twi SOURCES. He started out as a kid on a farm who avoided farmwork. Rather than inherit the farm, he was convinced he'd do better with a college education. Initially, he had not decided on the ministry-he considered it one option among SEVERAL, like business and so on. Until he met R1nker, he did not BELIEVE the Bible was God's Word. By that time, he had completed his undergraduate work and gotten a Bachelor's degree, AND had been preaching for a year. When faced with many areas to study-Bible languages, Bible history, church history-he selected "homiletics", or "preaching", which, compared to everything else, is an incredibly "soft option". He picked the course with the least work. Only a few months into a "lifetime serving God", he was frustrated and repeatedly considered giving up. All of this is "public record." Adding that the neighbors all thought he was a showoff, a bully, and was a lousy choice for a minister, and adding that his personality didn't improve thru the entire decade of the 1940s (supposedly following a promise of God), I think the completed picture supports strongly that he was not "called" to the ministry except by ambition.