Oakspear

We're not trying to "overun" it. But thanks anyway.

The power we had...if we only KNEW IT!

I haven't "joined" anything, but on an individual level, anything that is an absolute gets my attention. Any system of thought or belief that discourages questioning sets off the alarms. Any deriding or disparaging of those who aren't in the know raises my hackles.

Maybe you were taught WRONG Hmmm...maybe she believes suicide is wrong/sinful I think that the statistics would not back up that belief. Part of the hard-to-prove "law of believing"

I wonder if they realize how many of us 90's wayfers stayed in because Mrs. Wierwille stood with them? When I came back to TWI in 1990 after being away for a few years, I was confused by conflicting stories from the Martindale loyalists and those who left after P.O.P. - I figured that if Wierwille's widow was standing up there with Martindale, then that was a good indicator of where I should stand. Yeah, thanks loads Mrs. W

and type slower

use smaller words rascal

Doncha think "mistress" sounds sexier and more mysterious?

yeah Frank...being "outside the household" made me, by definition, wrong...unsound mind and all that. My wife at the time was still "in" when I was kicked out. It made resolving disagreements between us very easy for her: she was right, I was wrong, since she was "in the household" and I wasn't.

Rascal: You ARE the mistress of darkness, aren't you?

and another thing ; - ) If the only way your god can get his "word" out is through a lying, abusive, egomaniac, then perhaps you need a new god.

If one believes that what was taught in TWI was NOT "The Word of God", then how is criticizing their doctrine blaspheming God?

I really wonder how many people were good, loving people before they got involved in twi in the first place,whether they changed and after leaving 'reverted back' to their good, loving nature ??!!

It was obvious that Wierwille got some of his material from Bullinger, but it was not generally lifted word-for-word. Possibly because Bullinger's 19th century writing style was hard for many people to read. I assumed that the "not taught since the First Century" stuff was "Receiving the Holy Spirit Today" and other books and classes. When I started hearing that Wierwille came up with his doctrine independently of Bullinger, I found it hard to believe, and assumed that those who said it did not know what they were talking about.

and THAT, my friend, is the "natural" source of the oxygen!

jwbm: Different song, but not a bad one!

"Weakness Brings Down Strength" is another example of Martindale or Wierwille making some statement as if there was no other possible way it could be, and declaring it to be TRUTH. Does "weakness" ASWAYS bring down, or corrupt "strength"? They would give examples like rot in a fruit taking over the whole fruit, which would be true IN THAT CASE, but why assume that SOME examples of weakness bringing down strength would mean that ALL weakness would bring down ALL strength? I think it depends. They used this statement to keep us isolated from non-Way people, claiming that they're weakness would corrupt our strength. If this was true, then how could witnessing ever work? How could whole cities in the Book of Acts turn away from their old beliefs (weakness by the TWI definition) to following Paul (strength)?

Martindale was one of the idiots who was saying that the Louie, Louie lyrics were evil, or dirty or both. I'd hear Way Corps people parrot it, and then ask them what the words actually were. They never knew. The way I heard it, the classic Kingsman version is hard to understand for two reasons: it was recorded in one take, so some of the words were kind of mumbled over, and everything was recorded by one boom microphone, the singer having to shout UPWARDS to be heard.

Good point about the studying: when did he do it? Another point: how many times was Wierwille "ready to chuck the whole thing"? Right before the supposed "snow on the gas pumps" incident he was ready to throw in the towel until God talked to him. That was 1942, after he had been a minister for only one year. What year was it when he went to Tulsa and spoke in tongues for the first time? 1951? After nine years of "God teaching him the Word like it hadn't been taught since the First Century" he was ready to quit again, because he wasn't seeing results. And where did the lady who told him to teach about the abundant life (Rosalind Rinker?), rather tha negatives, come in?

As I recall, Martindale referred back to Bullinger's "Witness of the Stars" when talking about the riddle of the sphinx

John, maybe it's because in retrospect, the fruit in Wierwille's life did not indicate anything godly. And why blame the devil when he obviously had free will.

This may be a good time to remind folks of "The WayGB". On the night I was confronted by TH & company, they had printouts of several of my posts as Twyil. They compared some of the things that I was posting to things that I brought up to my "leadership" and saw enough similarities to investigate.

When we are deceived, a valid argument can be made that we are still responsible for being decieved,and with what we do with the deception. Everyone "owns" their own actions. Sure, I can see it...makes sense...logical. I don't totally buy it myself, but it's not a wacky proposition by any means. BUT the deceivers are responsible for deceiving, indeed for the very attempt, whether people fall for it or not. Independent of the response to the deception, trying to deceive is grounds enough for mistrusting the deceiver and re-examining all that was taught by him. Some posters seem to be saying that it was alright for Wierwille and company to deceive, since no one forced us to be deceived, to believe a word of it. The emphasis is wrong, in my opinion, taking it off the deceiver, turning it into a kind of caveat emptor. Heck, I know enough about self defense to prevent most people from punching me in the face, as long as I'm awake. If I drop my guard, or am compalcent, and get decked anyway, my assailant still gets busted. The judge isn't going to say "Tom is responsible, since he allowed himself to get hit"

Okay, some of you guys don't think plagiarism is wrong, or feel that it's justified, great, but it's still plagiarism. Some of you feel that the off the cuff mentioning of great men that Wierwille said he learned from is a substitute for attribution, great. I did not hear about the plagiarism until I was in my last year in TWI. But I really think that if I had known about it early on, it would have made a big difference for me. Here's why: I never thought VP was perfect. I never thought that everything that came out of his mouth was god-breathed. But I did tend to give him the benefit of the doubt in areas that I didn't quite understand, because he successfully portrayed himself as a godly researcher. If I had known about the plagiarism within the first few years of joining up, I doubt that I would have given him that benefit, and would have put up with a lot less.

G St. G: Hah! No explanations, and as far as I know, they still stick with Martindale's teachings. John Reynolds called me after I sent him a letter and told me that I should get together with TH, who would be teaching WayAP "live" in my city, and have him explain the doctrines I was having trouble with, since, according to Reynolds, TH would be "working the Word" in preparation for teaching the class. TH told me that he didn't need to work the Word; the Trustees backed the class, and that was good enough for him. During his teaching of the class he told me that, even though you couldn't scriptually back up Martindale's interpretation of Eve's temptation as a homosexual encounter with The Devil, it "must be" true because of what we know the Word says about homosexuality. It will be interesting to find out what's in the new class they're coming up with, or if they have quietly changed some of Martindale's crap.