Oakspear

That was one of Martindale's main points of rebuttal in his "Galatians Tapes", that "Patriarch" was used sparingly in the bible and Wierwille met none of the qualifications.

I also question that no one recognized that he was speaking Greek; but then again Wierwille mangled Greek so badly maybe they just couldn't tell

When it all hit the fan my family and I were not active in The Way. We kind of drifted away in 1983, mainly because we didn't get along with the local leadership, not because of doctrinal issues or because we thought anything was wrong at New Knoxville. We made the decision to get involved again in 1990 and were indoctrinated early on with the "Galatians tapes" and the points of view of those who had stayed through the exodus. Someone I knew who was out sent me a copy of the POP - it made no freakin' sense to me - like a few others had said, there were no specifics. To me it was just a rambling bunch of self-serving crap. Even after getting out and reading it again on GS in the light of more information, it still seemed like a rambling bunch of self-serving crap.

Most of my kids were of the same opinion as you.

That went on even back in the early 80's. I remember a new Limb Coordinator showing up, thinking that there would be 12 twigs in out town. He was supposed to double as the branch coordinator and another Corps grad had the assignment of twig area coordinator, overseeing 3 or 4 twigs. What he found was that the previous LC had split all the twigs just before placements so that there were 12 itty bitty twigs, some with only 3 people in them at placement time. By the time ROA rolled around most had re-merged and the guy found 5 medium-sized twigs.

Assuming for the sake of argument that tongues were "real", it appeared to me that most people's tongues did contain only sounds commonly found in the speaker's native language. Occassionally you'd get someone who knew a little bit about language and linguistics and you'd hear the hard "ch", glottal stops, clicks, and other "foreign" sounds. Good point. Usually when I spoke in tongues it sounded like what someone once described as a cross between a Thai sportscaster and a Klingon warrior. I was usually called upon often in those "excellors sessions".

Then there was the Oakspear Family exodus: my oldest son left, I was kicked out and my ex-wife and older kids sort of stopped going and the rest of the kids were glad they weren't being made to go.

Pfffst...I'm not trying to protect anyone, and you and I obviously disagree as to the import of Wierwille's words in this context. In general we disagree on a lot of things, so let's just leave it at that. New favorite beer: Rasputin Imperial Stout: like a "beer shake".

Oh, so it's God that wants to publicly put down the so-called top leaders? If the "leaders" said one thing, and apparently Wierwille was saying it too, then God tells Wierwille otherwise, why wouldn't Wierwille just tell the leaders "Hey guys, God told me that it wasn't going to replace the original PFAL...let's move on" - but no, he has to point out how he's getting revelation and everyone else was wrong, but he, the mighty Wierwille was talking to God...geez, the ego... Yes, it was abundantly clear that he couldn't make up his friggin' mind and was putting the blame on God. "Doctor"...

I've seen reports of similar statements by Wierwille, more often in regard to research. Why would a leader put down his top follower/leaders in this fashion? Puff himself up maybe?

Why would you think it would be deleted? :blink:

I remember hearing that in my first class and wondering why the way that verse was translated would help sell bibles. I thought it made no sense, but soon pushed it into the back of mind with all the other common sense that I ignored for 25 years.

I believe there was a mass exit in the 60's of folks who were with Wierwille from his church days. I believe that the exodus in the late 80's was by far the most dramatic.

As I recall, when he taught Defeating the Adversary it was in front of a live audience (I was there) but decided to do the subsequent classes without an audience. That's just my rememberance though...could be wrong.

I was

In general TWI "offshoots" get lumped in with TWI because they're...offshoots. Different branches...sometimes really different branches...but the same root. That's my observation, others may have different things to say. What is an "open theist"?

:smilie_kool_aid: :smilie_kool_aid:

Beer's a vegetable, right?

And I too am performing sacrifices of small animals on your behalf...that reminds me, I need another canister of propane and some BBQ sauce.... Now that is a good question!Were the authors of the so-called apocryphal books inspired? Was Joseph Smith inspired? Or, on a less controversial note, what about the writings of the Church Fathers and other theologians "accepted" by the mainstream? Were they inspired in their writings?

RE: Like I said upstairs, I think that the word "perfect" communicates as well as any other. The way I look at it, especially after reading a few of the recent posts by you and Geisha, the original text, if one accepts inspiration and/or inerrancy, while not dictated by God, certainly had his "stamp of approval". You know, as far as being insulted goes, some days I just have a thin skin. The majority of posters here are Christians, but not all of us, and sometimes I just feel the need to remind folks - hellooooooo...disbelievers here...hellooooo - I've been around here since almost day one and have a respectful rapport with Christian posters, Geisha among them, who aren't surprised by the contributions from the pagan at the back table...one of the reasons that I get involved in doctrinal discussions is to better understand how I got sucked in back in 1978 when I first was exposed to The Way...as most GSers can tell you I often contribute some good stuff to these discussions...despite being headed straight to hell (but Geisha is praying for me...thank you sister G! )

Nothing wrong with the word "perfect"...I think it communicates well. I personally don't agree with your premises, but I respect your belief and think your quest for the originals would prove exciting and rewarding for one who believes as you do. Good luck!

If one believes that the "originals" were perfect, then why wouldn't such a one want to try to recover them, or at least get as close as possible? I think, assuming that there were perfect originals, the quest to recreate them would be an exciting adventure, more preferable than throwing up one's hands in frustration that they no longer exist.

Just a bit thin-skinned today G Anyway, I'm leaning a bit about a different way to view inerrancy, focusing on the message, rather than the details. After all as was mentioned before, the science that we take for granted today was not even thought of, much less developed in the biblical era. I like the reference to the biblical concept of inspiration being "non-Koranic". I had not considered that before, even though I knew that the Koran is considered by its adherents to have been perfectly transmitted to Muhammed without regard to his grammar, literacy etc. - that it was in fact in existence in its entirety before it was written down. In some respects (just some - not all!)this is not that far removed from my own view of the bible these days, although admittedly from a non-Christian POV. I believe that the bible was written in great part by people who were moved to put their experience of or with the divine into writing. Not that they were dictated a text to scribble out. Where I differ is that I don't believe that the experience of the writers of the bible is necessarily the universal path. I think that the TWI view of inerrancy skewed our view of what it is or could be. Let's not fall into the trap of believing that TWI's take was representative of what Christians believe.

I think that we're getting somewhere defining inerrancy (or accepting others' already existing definitions) as being something other than what we were taught in TWI. Inerrancy in the message, rather than looking for inerrancy in scientific detail. I might suggest that grafting the TWI viewpoint onto what others' are saying here is not honest...in the same category as Wierwille's chronic mischaracterization of what Trinitarians and Christians in general believed. You just can't help being insulting, can you? I make an effort not to refer to the bible has "happy horseapples" or some other euphemism, sometimes I wonder why I bother. Yes...I read this part too.

It was little bit more than simply planting the idea that a suggestion was equivalent to a command. Think of the "frog in the frying pan" illustration. Control progressed gradually.