Oakspear

Why would we expect to find official documentation of how some doctrines were twisted and abused?

I expresssed no preference for simplicity or complexity. You presented simplicity as "the way it is" apparently because that's what you prefer. Who wouldn't want everything to be simple and easy to understand? That's no guarantee that that's the way it's going to be. Before you respond, at least make an attempt to understand what I'm saying.

I don't disagree with you, waysider, but we're not talking about the same thing. There's definitely a case to be made that TWI, and biblical literalists in general, spend too much time straining over gnats, and too little time just loving God & people. What I'm talking about is that in the context of believing that "all things that pertain to life and godliness" can be discovered by careful study of the bible, TWI did a shoddy job of honest research, and that we who were in TWI often took shortcuts, falling back on things that we had heard in PFAL in lieu of doing the research ourselves. Wierwille promoted PFAL as a class that would teach us the keys to reading and understanding the bible, and some of those keys were indeed taught, but much was simply spoon-fed to us. How many of us, when "researching" a concept for ourselves, simply checked to make sure that the verses that Wierwille quoted were actually there, or that a certain Greek word was what he said it was, but never dug to ascertain if the meaning that he applied to the verses were correct, or if the definition that he assigned to a word was accurate?

Initially I posted in response to your statement that there is no feeling, it either happened or it didn't. There are plenty of people who "feel" things that don't exist, but that they hope for. I'm not assuming that what people think happens when they get "born again" is real. If it's not real, if it didn't happen, that does not preclude people from believeing that something did happen, to have a "feeling" about something that just isn't there. But perhaps they're not, despite what you want.

On another thread a poster was asked for "chapter & verse" to back up an opinion about speaking in tongues. Several verses from Romans 8 were supplied. Another poster questioned whether they were in fact referring to SIT. This got me thinking about how many times in PFAL and later classes our research was based on assumptions and definitions that could not really be supported. I see it often enough that I question whether many who say that they have "researched" for themselves the information in PFAL have done more than re-read the "research" that Wierwille did. How often, when checking a Greek word, does the definition that you learned in PFAL pop into your head, even if there is no basis for that definition? Or when reading a passage of scripture does Wierwille's undocumented "orientalism" come to mind?

This is a good example of the limitations of doing "research" while wearing "Way-colored glasses". Wierwille said that those verses referred to speaking in tongues, but it's not really clear that they do.

There's a thread about this somewhere From what I saw, there were things not directly taught in PFAL where people inferred things like "if you don't speak in tongues you're not born again". It's not that big a leap from "speaking in tongues is the external evidence of the internal reality" to "if someone doesn't speak in tongues you have no evidence (external manifestation) therefore you don't know that they're born again" to "I never heard them SIT, maybe their not born again" to"someone who doesn't SIT is not born again". Wierwille didn't teach it, but it was prmoted informally in some areas.

In my opinion, yes, but the example is different in kind from the point that I was making. The addition of a third (or more) choice includes the possibility of being mistaken.

Thanks for the good words... You know, for the last 5 years or so that I was "in", there were a lot of screwy things going on that I knew were wrong, but did not think to lay at the feet of the Trustees, but chalked up to individual leaders "not doing the Word"; figured that they were isolated incidents. Same thing for any of the insanity that took place over 20+ years. It was reading the things that other people wrote that were similar to what I had experienced that convinced me that there was a pattern involved.

I knew a few people who were in Chicago that year, including a former girlfriend. I was in Nebraska at the time

This is a false dilemma. There are at least THREE choices: "It" happened "It" didn't happen You thought "it" happened even though "it" didn't This is not a commentary on the validity or reality of the experience. Reducing an argument to black & white often is an oversimplification.

On a Sunday afternoon in August 2001, I received a phone call from T*m H*rr*cks, my Branch, Limb & Region Coordinator. He told me that I "was no longer welcome at Way fellowships or functions" due to my belief that I "did not believe that the Trustees were leading the minsitry in the right direction". This phone call followed a meeting that I had with him, his wife D------, and my local fellowship coordinator a few days earlier where I was confronted with my non-orthodox opinions and my posting on Grease Spot. This was the culmination of about a year and a half of examining Way beliefs and practices following the announcement of the Allan lawsuit. In early 2000, we were told of the lawsuit and the subsequent ouster of Martindale, and told to not check the internet for information about the lawsuit. That evening, and in the following days I found several websites with information about the dark side of TWI, including WayDale. I became a regular poster, initially as a defender of TWI doctrine and an apologist for their practices, but eventually changed my mind. Many thanks to all of those who helped me in those early days when I was sorting it all out and lioving the "double life" as an innie who wanted to be an outie. Thnaks in particualr to: Washington Weather: for giving me the heads up on TH and his wife igotout: for posting his letter to RFR, as well as his home phone number - his example inspired me to write a similar letter to John Reynolds laleo: a friend from years past who supported and encouraged me Abigail: who's life parralled mine in so many ways, and who convinced me on more than one occassion that I wasn't insane Hills Bro, Mandii, Wacky Funster, Steve! & Cindy!, (as well as Abigail & Sushi and laleo) who opened their homes to me on my cross country adventure in 2002 and last but not least...pawtucket: who keeps this site going, and who i had the opportunity to meet on several occassions

Our "leader" would require that everyone else keep the teaching short, but would usually go one for a 1/2 hour or more, sometimes in excess of 45 minutes, himself. When he wasn't teaching her would drone on and on during announcements

Never saw this, even through 2001. The married woman, even if ordained, was always second banana to her husband, but plenty of married women taught all kinds of fellowships, even as far as Sunday meetings at the auditorium.

Good, then you're in agreement with everyone else on this thread who hasn't said that it did :P

Whether or not these incidents can be called unwritten policies depends on whether or not you believe that the Corps were doing the will of Wierwille (and later Martindale) when they implemented them. It depends on whether or not you believe that Way Corps and other local leaders could get away with doing things differently than what was mandated from "The Root" for very long. I can recall several incidents when a local leader didn't do what he or she was told, or taught a doctrine that varied from the company line. That leader was privately reproved and corrected (or at least not in front of non-Corps) and then began to quickly, obviously and often clumsily, teach the "correct" doctrine, all the while pretending that it had never been any different. But some of these "unwritten policies" persisted, and cropped up in many areas. It is difficult for me to believe that some rogue Way Corps were out there teaching doctrines and practices contrary to what the top dogs wanted, and nobody ever found out <_< Despite some posters' view that the Way Corps ruined the "ministry" and the "movement of the Word", it was all but impossible to get ahead without being in lockstep...ahem...likeminded agreement...with Wierwille and Martindale

BrambleMoon WolfRaven SilverThistle Yeah, some folks do take those names pretty seriously. <_< Some of the problem that I have with pagan/Wiccan authors at times is that many of them seem to practice a variation of "the truth needs no defense". Dorothy Morrison did a talk on moon magic a few years ago in Omaha. I asked what I thought were some respectful questions and was dismissed rather rudely. Grimassi was here last year and was happy to engage the token skeptic (me) in intelligent conversation.

What I like about him is that he at least makes an attempt to document what he believes, rather than just claiming that some fairy toild him. Yeah, I get that it's a "craft" name. Why not "Bramble" for a craft name?

A suggestion by a leader is tantamount to a command. Despite being told that leadership wasn't going to tell us what to do, we were badgered to death when we didn't.

Regarding the so-called "orgies" by the teens at ROA: In the early 90's I had some inkling that some, shall we say, "inappropriate" things were going on in the tents. Never witnessed anything, just heard rumors and a little putting two and two together. My own teenage boys were required to sleep in my tent, and I made sure that I knew where they were at all times. Some other parents sent their teenagers to the ROA with other adults who provided no supervision, just a ride to the ROA and back home. When I approached "leadership" about some of my conerns, I was literally laughed at and reproved for "thinking evil". A year later Martindale got on his high horse about the teen sex, etc, and all of a sudden parents were required to do what I had been doing all along.

Hey! That was Carl who brought that up, not me!

Happy 6th Anniversary John & Hope. You guys were an inspiration to me during my last year "in".

Plenty of Wiccan opinions to go around! I've been reading a lot of Raven Grimassi (why do Wiccans so love the name "Raven"?) who makes a good case for pagan/witchcraft traditions surviving into modern times.

The ROA was fun when I was single and had no responsibility. I could take off for a week with little consequence financially, sleep in a tent, or in a hotel room with 12 other people, and look at it as an adventure. The road trip aspects of ROA week were part of the fun. But as others have pointed out, it wasn't nearly so friendly for families, nor for people with carreers or professions, as opposed to minimum wage jobs.

We, as ex-wayfers, sometimes refer to Wierwille's sources as obscure nobodies that wouldn't have been heard from apart from The Way. We sometimes forget how small a blip on the radar of Christianity TWI is. It takes on a larger image because of how much it affected us. Pick twenty people at random and see how many have ever heard of The Way, Wierwille, PFAL, or anything else that we think was so important.