Oakspear

In the later Martindale years the teaching was that God would tell you in a way that you would be sure that it was him. That makes sense, but the only way most people "knew" it was God talking to them was if the "revelation" came true, if it didn't, well, it wasn't God. But there still wasn't a clear-cut way to tell ahead of time whether it was revelation or not

That's two (count 'em - two) testimonies!

The 3 Levels of "Confrontation" It was in the bible: If you have a problem with your brother or sister, go to them first; if there is no response, then bring a witness or two, and only if after the confrontation with witnesses do you bring it before the whole church. The result of "Neglecting to hear the Church" would be that the non-listener would be "as a heathen man and a publican" (where the application of M&A came in) There wasn't anything wrong with this IMHO, of course you go to the person that you have a problem with first. Probably 90% of the time two people can get it all worked out one-on-one. Most of the rest of the time bringing in a neutral witness solves the problem. Going to "the church" would most likely be reserved for the hard core trouble makers, who want problems. The way I saw it applied was different: A leader would notice that "Joe Believer" was in some way not living up to "The Standard of the Word". "Larry Leader" would then "confront" this person about there lack of meekness, slothfulness or what have you. This was not a loving admonition, but an attempt to control. Some time later, "Larry Leader" would notice that insufficient change had been made in the area that was "confronted". Larry would then hand-pick some "witnesses". He would fill them in on all points of the previous "confrontation", and convince them how "off the Word" Joe Believer was. The second "confrontation" would take place, often with Larry Leader trying to trip up Joe Believer and catch him in contradictions. Added to the original violation was "disobeying leadership". Joe Believer has no opportunity to convince anyone that his actions weren't "off the Word", or that Larry Leader was wrong in any way. Anything that Joe says is held against him. Frequently Larry Leader unilaterally escalted the "confrontation" to third stage and Joe was put on probation or M&A'd immediately. The Doctrine was a framework for people to resolve their differences, the practice was a method used by "leadership" to control peoples' lives.

All the talk about Hawk's pear juice got me waxing nostalgic. :D--> The day before we were to fly out to Steve and Cindy !'s wedding in April I came down with a sinus infection. There wasn't time to get to one of those high falutin' modern "doctors", so I made do with pain killers and over-the-counter medication. It was not a pleasant flight. :(--> During the GS pre-wedding "party in the pastor's room" I partook of a wee bit of Hawk's possibly-legal-in-a-state-or-two Pear Juice. By the time we went back to our room I had no pain, no swelling, no discomfort. I was cured. Coincidence? Or the amazing anecdotal healing power of another alternative medicine?

Less filling! :D-->

Whether you call it plagiarism or not, Mike, that's what it was. It is arguable whether or not this plagiarism was justified, not whether or not it existed. Your views on what constitutes plagiarism have been effectively debunked. It's only "sharing" when the person in possession of the thing or idea agrees to let others use it. It's stealing when that person does not agree, or is unaware of the "appropriation". Rafael may decide that he "needs" my extremely hip felt hat (seen at Weenie Roasts for the last two years), but that does not give him the right to come into my home and take it for his own use. If I decide to let him borrow it, or use it when he sees the need, then I have given permission, and sharing has occurred.

How about marriage counsellors? Expensive or otherwise.

Mike: Wasn't the context of your statement on ethics regarding Joshua, WWII, etc plagiarism? Who was in danger of dying if Wierwille didn't plagiarize? I don't want to get involved in ethics discussions either, but I am continually amzed at the contortions that you go through to justify Wierwille.

Very nice. I've had a few of those situations myself. Coming back from an Advanced Class Special one year we were driving west on I-80 and saw what looked like a mirage in the distance, kind of a fuzziness in the air. It looked like it was moving toward us. Turned out it was rain, moving like a wall toward us. We watched as it moved toward us, rained on us, and in about five minutes passed on. So what. Neither Galen nor I are trying to use these weather phenomena to justify becoming the final arbiter of biblical truth. The Tulsa story is even more suspect IMHO than the 1942 gas pumps story. In that one, airplanes were grounded, busses were cancelled, the city shut down. And nobody noticed it? What did he say tyo the Heart Magazine woman? Maybe he talked to angels? Right. And he couldn't have looked out the window?

Subject: Letter To America Personal Letter from John Cleese To the citizens of the United States of America, In the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect: 1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour', skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise". You will learn that the suffix 'burgh is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary". Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed". There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won't have to use bad language as often. 2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize". 3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents - Scottish dramas such as "Taggart" will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is "Devon". If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become "shires" e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire. 4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as "Men Behaving Badly" or "Red Dwarf" will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness. 5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through. 6. You should stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2005. You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called "rounders" which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs. 7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public. 8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day". 9. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour. 10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps". Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers. 11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself. 12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer", and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager". The substances formerly known as "American Beer" will henceforth be referred to as "Near-Frozen Knat's Urine", with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose products will be referred to as "Weak Near-Frozen Knat's Urine". This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Pilsen, Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion. 13. From November 10th the UK will harmonise petrol (or "Gasoline" as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon - get used to it). 14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun. 15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776). 16. Last but not the least, and for heaven's sake.....it's Nuclear as in "clear" NOT Nucular. Thank you for your co-operation and have a great day.

When I got involved in TWI in Queens NY, there wren't very many Way Corps, you had to go several steps up the ladder to find one. We had nine or ten branches on Long Island with not one led by Way Corps. Never heard Martindale's name mentioned, and if I did I promptly forgot it. We tended to think that Dubofskey, Finnegan and Lynn were more likely candidates (2 NYers and our Limb Coordinator - made sense to us ;)-->) Only when I went WOW in 1980, and had a 10th Corps guy as a family coordinator, did I start hearing about Craig. A few months into the WOW year the announcement was made. Our Limb Coordinator at the time asked me shortly after the announcement what I thought of the "President-Elect". Of course I'm thinking of Ronald Reagan, who was just elected for the first time (nobody elected Martindale). I said something like, we'll just have to wait and see, I don't know if he can do the job LC was quite shocked, until I explained myself

Wasn't in the Way Corps, wasn't in the military, only went WOW once: 1977/78-78/79: lived with my parents in Queens, NY 1979/80: Way Homes in Queens NY - moved halfway through the year 1980/81: WOW in Nebraska - moved mid-year from Sidney to Kearney 1981/82: Nebraska WOWvet program - moved mid-year 1982: got married and never again moved because of TWI; in fact, still in the same city that I was asiigned to when in the WOWvet program

On one hand, maybe the site really is under construction and would have been whether GSers showed up or not. But the timing is certainly such that a reasonable doubt has been generated. One way or another, note the contrast between GS and Family Tables: Despite being an anti-TWI site, pro-TWI people post here, as do pro-PFAL and pro-Wierwille people. Yeah, we pile on and beat on 'em, but they can say their piece. On Family Tables there are strict limits to what you can post; nothing negative, nothing that raises questions about TWI, in other words, nothing but the ol' company line. Gimme GS any day

I don't remember ever hearing who was supposed to do weddings in TWI. Early on I assumed it was ordained clergy. Later a non-Corps twig coordinator performed a wedding in Spanish, mainly because none of the reverends or other Corps in the area could speak Spanish. I always got the impression that they wanted to hold control of who was getting married in the hands of an area's top leadership (LC, RC etc) - and not just let anybody perform weddings.

glad that I could be of service ;)-->

Galen: You must have driven some "leadership" folks crazy :P--> Here you are, performing weddings, even though you are just a lowly "Joe Believer", getting kicked out, then resurfacing somewhere else in the world. I can just see it: "Well, we've gotten rid of him...hey, who's that in the second row?"

Dateline San Diego, February 2805 C.E. (AP) Scholars unearthed a rare English edition of Power for Abundant Living today in the ruins of ancient San Diego. As any schoolchild knows, English is a dead language that was spoken at one time in North America and other scattered parts of the world, but was supplanted by Tagalog after the Phillipine Hegemony required all public records to be in that nations language. Before today, the only Power for Abundant Living (PFAL) versions extant are translations of translations, since there are no "originals" left. Religious scholars are therefore unsure what PFAL really means due to shoddy translations, proofreaders' oversights and outright forgeries. In fact the Japanese-Bulgarian version of PFAL has Wierwille repartedly referring to "integrity" when it is common knowledge that he had none. PFAL scholars are busy fabricating new definitions of English words as this article goes to press

Hey Mike - thanks for the recognition of the partial reality of my spoof. Personally, I don't need HCW to validate my opinion that you are wrong, but it is interesting in that his previous posts indicate a respect for Wierwille on some level, yet he says that Wierwille did not put his own work on the same pedestal that you do. I don't believe that PFAL is god-breathed, then again I don't believe that the bible is either.

Of course it's possible that Wierwille figured out some things that Bullinger did independently, but I would say that itr's unlikely in light of times that he quotes Bullinger, but clearly doesn't understand what he quotes.

HCW: You were thrust into a bad situation and expected to lead. You at least recognized that your situation was impossible and you were not trained to handle the craziness that you were put in the midst of. (Have you read The Cult That Snapped? Great story by the author about his interim year as a WOW family coordinator 3 years after yours - same region coordinator too!) What turned Way Corps into Corps-Nazis was being in tough situations and not realizing that they were in over their heads. Figuring that telling people to renew their minds and to read the collaterals would solve all their problems.

LOL...me too!Actually my argument isn't with you Sirguess, it's with the "ministry" that claimed that they could discern the original intent of the guys who wrote the bible down, would get incredibly anal about some things, yet pull definitions out of their butts if it was convenient. Kark Kahler has a section in his book where he reviews his notes from a teaching tape about "athletes of the spirit". It's amazing how much butt covering and back pedaling goes on, not just from Martindale, but Wierwille and Cummins too. Anyway, I can't be the devil's advocate...I don't believe in the Devil peace to you as well

You can demonstrate why Paul would do something, why it would make sense for him to do it, but not that he actually did it. I guess it's a valid opinion as anything else, but you can't get the bible to back it up.

Sirguess: I suppose he could have, but where is the evidense that he did? Let's suppose that some military equipment carried over to athletics: spear = javelin for one. The problem is that the context is military. What athletically is equivalent to quenching the firey darts of the wicked? Martinmdale claimed it was a discus -->. The word for sword is (surprse) SWORD, not spear or javelin; the word for helmet is HELMET. Et cetera :D-->

Here's what I predict Mike will say: You claim that you heard doctor say that. That is only hearsay, since I did not hear him say it. Furthermore, what is God breathed is the PFAL book, not doctor saying that the PFAL book was not god breathed. If doctor had said in the PFAL book that PFAL was not god breathed, I would check my own understanding of what is written. Since PFAL IS god breathed, then seeing it written in PFAL that it IS NOT god breathed must be a proofreader's oversight, or a figure of speech. If Wierwille's writing cannot contradict the godbreathedness of PFAL, how can his own alleged words, reported by someone who has obviously not mastered PFAL? (which is god breathed)

I flipped open the back of my bible a minute ago and found my notes that I was required to have there before I could go to the Advanced Class, or the Advanced Class Special, or Mardi Gras or something :D--> It lists all the athletic terms in the "church" and "leadership" epistles, gives a brief definition and lsits the occurences. It's interesting that NONE of the words that TWI listed as athletic terminology in the bible occur in Ephesians 6 except for pal?, translated "wrestle". As I recall, the athletic imagery in Ephesians 6 was based on this word, everything else had to be athletic for it to "fit". By the way, I don't believe that using an athletic analogy, or image invalidates the verse about the Devil coming to steal, kill, and destroy. Metaphors, analogies and other figures of speech serve to illustrate one aspect of a concept. After all, Christians are called douloses as well...are we literal slaves? Nothing demonstrates TWI's dishonesty at research more than the athletes of the spirit.