Oakspear

DannyIt's difficult for many of us ex-wayfers to be able to appreciate all that. One thing we learned in TWI was how to view everything through the lens of PFAL. It then becomes too easy to dismiss the different as "not lining up with the Word", when it just differs from the PFAL filtered version of 'the Word'.

The context makes clear that the rereward are guys who are guarding (warding) the rear.

Another example is when the MOG would mispronounce something, everybody would fall in line and mispronouce it the same way. Martindale was teaching from the OT and came upon the word "rereward" - it was actually an archaic spelling of REARward, but Martindale pronounced it re-reward, as in reward again. I actually heard teachings on how God "re-rewards" us based on this stupidity. Or how many people thought that pleroo was pronounced pleroko, or exegeomai pronouned exegeckomai because Wierwille had trouble with the two "o"s in a row?

Martindale decided, sometime in the late nineties, to send in-residence Way Corps out to live with Corps who were "out on the field", maybe running a limb or a region, for a portion of their training. As he's talking about it on a Sunday night tape, he realizes that he can make a joke out of the name: The Way Corps Field Training program, and starts making WC Fields jokes, and ends by calling it the WC Fields Training program. Everybody gets a big laugh. Except in the next Way magazine there's an article about the program, which they mention that Martindale "in his wisdom" has named the WC Field Training program! And Corps that I encounter call it, with a straight face, the WC Field Training program! Was everybody too scared to ask the MOG if he was joking?

George Harrison maintained until the day that he died that his drug use was a good thing, and was of great benefit to him. I too remember many good times when I was stoned, drunk, or under the influence of some substance or another. I had a lot of good friends during those times, no one can tell me otherwise. The so-called harmful effects of drug use should not overshadow the good that it did for me.

I was a WOW in 1980-81, so I was living in One-Horse, Nebraska as 1981 dawned. It was late 1980 that Wierwille announced that Martindale would succeed him as prez of TWI. I remember thinking "who the heck is Craig Martindale?" Getting involved in TWI in a large area that had few Way Corps, you just didn't hear about LCM all that much. especially since these were the days where "phone hookups" were relatively rare. My WOW year was the first time that I was around Way Corps much. I tended to view the guys in the "chain of command" of the Way Tree like Vince, Ralph, and JAL, as the likely heirs to the MOG. Our Limb Coordinator came out to visit us shortly after the announcement and asked me what I thought about the "President-Elect", which is what Wierwille and everybody else called Martindale. The title didn't sink in with me, since nobody elected him, and we had a real president-elect, Ronald Reagan, waiting to take office in a few months. So my response was "we'll have to wait and see, he doesn't seem too awfully bright". I wish I had a picture of ol' Ronnie's face at that moment. When my WOW year ended I stayed in Nebraska and ended up coordinating a twig and a Way Home. I was also apprentice Corps, but never went in because I was no good at raising money. During this year I really saw how "leaders" in TWI felt that they had a mandate to interfere in peoples' lives. Without getting into a lot of details, I saw in my own life, and the lives of those around me, "leaders" inserting themselves in every aspect of the lives of those they supposedly led. I got married right before ROA '82, and saw the interference continue. I disassociated myself from TWI in early 1983, but was convinced that the problems that I saw were local, and not part of a larger pattern. During the year following ROA 1981, although branch and limb coordinators were no fun to be around, twig was fun, and we enjoyed what we were doing. There were a lot of wayfers in their late teens and early twenties, so there was an active Way social life. Witnessing was a natural thing, because we were always out together doing things. Toward the end of the 1981-82 "ministry year", things began to get more regimented, and got even worse after ROA '82. There was also some lying about how many people were actually active in local TWI. The outgoing Limb Coordinator had split all of the twigs in Lincoln around New Year's 1982, so that there were around ten smallish twigs. However, before ROA, most of the "new people" had left, about half of the twig leaders went into the Corps, and a sizeable group went out WOW. Outgoing LC failed to mention the reduction in numbers, and still had "on the books" ten twigs. The incoming LC was assigned to be the Branch Coordinator of six or seven of these paper twigs, and a Corps grad held over from the previous year had been assigned as a Twig Area Coordiantor of three or four others. Imagine the surprise of the new LC when he found enough people for about four medium-sized twigs, including the one he and his wife were going to run! To me, mid 1982 into 1983 was when things began to really go downhill. Not at all the "best of times".

So pretty much you're saying that you pulled that average out of your a....., er, your ear.

WordWolf isn't filibustering, he's addressing points and pointing out inconsistancies. I'm glad that he has the time for it. ...and Johniam, I don't need a remdial bible-reading course, I know what it says, I just don't accept it as my only source of truth.

...and by the way, I can reject PFAL as a primary source for truth without rejecting any truth that may be contained in it. There are things in it that are true, some that he plagiarized, some that he came up with on his own. Nonetheless, Wierwille, in my opinion, discredited himself as someone that I would trust to present me the truth. So, mastering PFAL? Mastering any other of Wierwille's writings? I don't think so. Again, does that mean that I think it's all false? Not at all. Do I think it's not useful on some level? No. Can I deny that PFAL was a vehicle for many people to learn how to read the bible and to some extent understand it? Of course not. The plagiarism, the lying, the invented definitions of Greek and Hebrew words, the unsupported assertions all make it difficult to accept PFAL as something that should be utilized, let alone mastered. Wierwille's presentation of himself as a scholar of biblical languages was not true, and his understanding of some of his primary sources, like Bullinger, was incomplete. Frequently Wierwille's premises are false, rendering any conclusions based upon them false as well. "Working the Word" and "checking it out for oneself" takes more work than most of us ever put into it, or were even equipped to do.

Rejection of PFAL = rejection of God :o

...and of course it's not arrogant to think you have the nature of God and his (or her) dealings with man all figured out

It was Christmas 1977 when I first heard of TWI, or rather when I first heard about the people who were running a "bible study" in their apartment, that I later found out were part of TWI. My cousin was attending twigs at the home of a co-worker. My aunt asked that I go with her to look after her or something. I began attending sporadically myself; I enjoyed the discussions about the bible. In March of 1978 I decided to take the PFAL class. There was no pressure to attend twig or take the class, or if there was, it was subtle. There were nine or ten branches located on Long Island at the time, none run by Way Corps grads. Few twig leaders were even advanced class grads. For the months leading up to ROA 1978 I was involved only superficially, and that seemed okay with everybody. After the ROA I became more involved. Many of the "original" wayfers who got involved in TWI during the early to mid seventies had left to go WOW or into the Way Corps, although a few were still around. As I got more involved after ROA '78 and before ROA '79, I perceived an attitude that we were in the midst of a changing of the guard from the "good old days" to the more structured times.

'80-'81 Definitely. I was a WOW that year. we saw them in Cheyenne, Wyoming (we lived pretty close, in western Nebraska) and in Minneapolis. Yeah, all my buddies and buddettes got sent to the big "outreach cities"; I was in a town of 5,000.

Ummm...weren't you "weeded out", Oldies?

In my opinion it is a waste of time to wade through Wierwille's works looking for "the baby" or "fish", and throwing out the bones with the bathwater. It is established, in my eyes anyway, that the man was a liar, and a thief and a con artist. Why would I want to use his works as a source for truth?

"The Fog Years" was a term, if not invented by Martindale, was used by him to describe the fog that he felt himself in from listening to Geer. He also used his explanation of what went on in those years to cast a fog over what really happened.

Mex: Don't assume that we all agree that all the things that you mentioned are true.

In the early days of Christianity, it would have been fairly easy for competing factions to spring up. Each of these factions would produce their own literature, some from pure motives, some in an effort to discredit those that they disagreed with. As one group became dominant, literature that supported opposing viewpoints would be supressed or destroyed. Again, some of the surpressing might have been done with pure motives, i.e. to guard the church against what it saw as heresy. As the dominant group consolidated it's power, it gained the means and motive to present the "other" books as heretical. Eventually one set of books were canonized as "The Bible", and anything else was viewed as simply not from God. Not all that surprising. The compiling of the canon of the new testament took place over a long period of time. Even when it was complete, there was not universal agreeement. Anyway, that's my view, based on my interpreation of the available facts. Opinions vary.

The Way, in my opinion, could never make up it's collective mind about Christmas. On one hand, they taught, ad nauseum, about how Jesus wasn't born on December 25th, the wise men weren't there and angels don't sing or have wings. On the other hand, they observed all the cultural Christmas traditions: trees, gifts, decorations, etc. On the gripping hand, they changed the name to "Household Holiday". The Jehovah's Witnesses, agree with 'em or not, are at least consistant in this regard. They say that they're not going to observe holidays, and they don't. TWI talked big, but never really gave up the traditions. And "Household Holiday" was so stupid, it was almost beyond comprehension. What 'holiday' was the 'household' celebrating anyway? And if that wasn't stupid enough, it was shorted from HOusehold HOliday to Ho-Ho. P.S. What I was trying to say in the description following the Thread title was I'm Amazed That I Never Kicked the Crap Out of Someone for Saying 'Happy Ho-Ho'

dmiller: Have two beers, I think you sprained something writing that post. I hate to be nitpicky (okay, I like being nitpicky) but although Bullinger says that nachash means "shining one", nachash is a normal Hebrew word for serpent aka snake. Blueletterbible.com says that nachash means serpent, but that it derives from the word "to hiss". But even assuming that Bullinger is correct, the root of a word only gives an indication of the meaning of a word, and is not always a reliable guide to the actual meaning. Words change, and as they branch off from the root take on shades of meaning and connotations that are not in the root. Bullinger (and Wierwille) often referred to a word's root to plum (or is it plumb?) meanings that weren't necessarily there. Anyway, we know it's not a literal snake, mainly because it's talking, not because it's the word nachash. There are literal references to snakes that use the same word. D*mn, now I need a beer, and it only 2;30AM.

TWI publically taught that the priorities were:1. God 2. Spouse (if you had one) 3. Children (if you had them) 4. The work of the ministry (as distinct from God) 5. Secular Job, school, etc But, as most of us know, the practical application was much different. You were doing God's will by running this class; you were taking care of your spouse by driving to Ohio and sitting through the advanced class; it was best for your children to be at such-and-such an event. During my time in TWI, especially the last five years, the pressure to do everything TWI was constant.

...and you should be proud! My own son is in the military...thankfully far away from Iraq.

The whole story about the devil, the incarnation of evil, tempting man and woman to disobey God and therefore experience evil themselves still leaves man with the choice of succumbing to evil or not. Adam and Eve made the wrong choice while still in the state that God had created them in, before being supposedly tainted by Lucifer, and before becoming like him. Jesus Christ came in order to "save" man from his sinful state and restore him back to...what? The state in which they succumbed to "evil" in the first place! Humans, including those alleged first humans, have within them the ability to do good, or to do evil. They have the ability to choose one or the other, or any one of the shades of grey in between. They can also be taught, or persuaded to do good rather than evil.

Joking or no, dmiller, your post that I responded to indicates that you believe that an allegorical interpretation is not possible, not that you don't agree with it. Yes, I got it that you were using humor to make your point. :P Actually, arguing from the point of view that the bible is true, the position that the devil is a literal being can be supported more easily than a figurative devil can...in my opinion. It really has nothing to do with an agnostic view. There are Christians who do not believe that the bible is talking about a literal adversary when it talks about the devil. A typcal agnostic wouldn't even get to the existance of the devil, being so busy wondering about the existance of God. I'd agree with that. One could hardly believe that God is a figurative representation of "good" while believeing in a literal devil. Possible, i guess, just not likely. With respect, I don't really think you do see where I am coming from. I put forth the idea of a figurative devil as a possibilty, in response to this: ...not as a statement of my own personal belief. I personally do not believe that there is a devil, literal or figurative. I thought that the statement "my bible says he does" did not take into account differing Christian beliefs about the devil and evil. Again, with respect, I'm not sure that you really know what I believe. It is certainly a valid biblical position that there is both a real God and a real devil. It does not necessarily follow that a "real" God means that there is a "real" devil. I think I clearly labelled my remark about a "talking snake" as sarcasm <_<

Nice smiley dmiller. So (he asks with sarcasm creeping into his voice, or at least his font) you believe that the bible is 100% literal? No figures of speech? That really was a talking snake in Genesis?