Oakspear

Good story Wolf, you know, if I'd have been thinking back in the day, I would have done the equivalent of a squid pie, maybe some "Happy Eid" or "Hanukah" stamps on my abundant sharing envelopes.

Still clinging. <_< Very few of us here are writers by profession, trained to use their words in a precise and unambiguous manner. We write things that sometimes aren't clear, then go back and clarify. Most folks accept the clarification, and refrain from telling other posters what they meant, what they were thinking, what their main point was. Despite the mention of the cost of lunch and all the rest, do you really think that posters are claiming to have literally missed meals and been in misery over a stamp?

Why does time have to have an end? How many groups and prophets have predicted the "end times" and been wrong? More than a few. I don't think Jesus is coming back.

I never had a leader expect me to work in his "secular" business, but I spent plenty of time cleaning leader's homes and mowing their lawns as if it was their due. Whether we fell for it or not, there was an expectation that we should be "blessed" to do work for our leaders that they should have been doing themselves. TRhis became even more ludicrous when they were working full time for TWI and had no 40 hour gig to go to.

The stamp, and the small cost of it was not the real issue. Many posters have said so, and explained their reasoning. One poster has ignored these explanations and chooses to cling to a misunderstanding, or perhaps a deliberate mischaracterization. No one has said that they were in misery due to having to pay for postage. No one said that they missed any meals due to paying for postage. These statements are either dramatic exagerrations or strawman arguments. So, there's documentation to supposedly substantiate that twigs were truly self-supporting. This in no way indicates that they actually were.

Hmmm...no whining! Just more subject changing and distractions! <_<

I disagree that those who have brought up the cost of a stamp are whining. No one is claiming that the cost of the stamps put them into financial ruin. The spotlight should more properly be cast upon the multi-million dollar "ministry" that "whined" about twig leaders deducting postage and money order costs.

My many years in a cult and my refusal to participate in online support groups has made me angry and bitter and bereft of a sense of humor.

Why would you apologize for not posting? :huh: Your favorite vice? I went through your posts and the vast majority of your posts are on two threads, including this one where you are promoting your business. It does not appear that you participate in GSC other than chasing ambulances.

That is an example of doctrinal error, since the dead are dead

When i was involved in TWI I had 6 children at home. They got colds, they got the flu, heck they got chicken pox. My ex-wife and I got colds and flu. We were "reproved" once for our family being sick, since, especially since some of the kids were pretty young, either the ex or me would stay home with sick kids on twig night, we were missing "the greatness of the Word". So I started keeping track in a planner who was sick in our twig. After about three months, Mr. Leader sought to reprove me again, demanding to know why things hadn't changed. I presented him with the statistics that showed that he and his wife were sick more often than anyone else in the whole fellowship and that the fact that I had eight people in my home only made it look like we were sick all the time. He looked kind of stunned and found something else to reprove me for.

As I remember it, Martindale was talking about habitual practical error leading to doctrinal error, not that every single instance of practical error lead to doctrinal error. Not to beat the traffic analogy to death but there's quite a few people who believe that it's legal to drive up to 5 mph over the speed limit, or that keeping up with traffic that is exceeding the speed limit is legal.

So, what does this mean? That you "looked things up" and didn't find anything to disagree with? What do you mean "you never got far enough along to argue if any point was true or false?

It goes to show you that many equate "the Word" with the organization, especially when there are offshoots whose teachings are indistinguishable from TWI's

Finest kind, tater

Martindale did teach that practical error leads to doctrinal, although I suppose there are arguments that can be made either way. The way he explained it was that people would twist doctrine in order to justify their practices, and when you think about it, that is what TWI leadership did. He had a verse to back up his thinking, but I don't remember what it was.

Thought maybe you were one of us

There were times, even during the mid-to-late 90's when I thought that everything was fine, nobody was bothering me or sticking their noses where they didn't belong. But then they came for me... Unless they specifically disavow the practice of running peoples' lives for them, then the possibility of it popping back up is always there.

At some point, maybe the 90's, we weren't supposed to get a signature on a green card unless it was accompanied by the full "donation". In the mid-90's, when I believe the "donation" was 40 or 50 dollars, I would temporarily hire people to put flyers in doors at something like 5 cents apiece, when they got 1000 flyers done, the $50 went to cover the class. In my observation, it was pretty easy to find people who wanted to take PFAL back in the 70's and early 80's, and a lot of them stuck around. It became more and more difficult in the early 90's. And the ones who did take PFAL hardly ever stayed with it. It became even more difficult to recruit during the Way of Abundance & Power days.

Speaking of Karl, if you read the whole chapter that the exerpt is quoted from, he does the best job that I've seen describing the wackiness and lack of actual research that went into the whole athletes of the spirit concept. There's a presentation that he describes involving not only Martindale, but Wierwille and Cummins as well, that includes the infamous "there's gotta be a text that says such-and-such" statements, bending definitions, out-of-context interpretations, and in short a great illustration overall of how "research" in TWI was a self-serving bunch of bullsh--

Less confrontational, kind & gentler....yakkity smakkity... ...so what? When Pawtucket interviewed me for "Episode Seven" a few years ago, one of things that I brought up was that it wasn't so much whether "leadership" actually interfered in peoples' lives, but that they thought that they could. No matter how "nice" they act, do they still reserve the right to stick their noses in?

It's controlled by TWI, the status of being a separate corporation is just on paper. They never revealed, when I was in, that Gunnison was a separate corporation.

I work in retail grocery, not as bad as the toy stores & department stores, but still very much holiday driven. People who are in the store 52 weeks a year, twice or 3 times every week suddenly don't know where anything is We close one day each year: from 6PM December 24th through 6AM December 26th. I don't feel the slightest bit of guilt standing at the door at 6:01 and telling people that we're closed.

Pretty much...nice change o'pace

I'd love to see them try and take on the Jesuits. They have two weapons, surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... their weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... their three weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... okay four...no... Amongst their weapons.... are such elements as fear, surprise....never mind