E. W. Bullinger

Dear Georgio: I doubt if you have a case. Most states give minors seven (7) years after they reach the age of majority to file a case. Some states only give two (2) years. EWB

Dear Mike: Merry Christmas Mike. I have two quick suggestions. 1. Only have one open thread at a time. 2. Please answer the honest questions posters asked in your previous threads. EWB

Don't ask me why, but I always crack a smile when I hear the MacKenzie brothers doing "The Twelve Days of Christmas". "....and a beer in a tree" EWB

Dear Exie: How are you doing? Here are a few things to consider about birds. While African Greys are great talkers they also get bored easily and they live real long. A bored bird can develop bad habits such as feather pulling and screaming. Parakeets are not really good talkers, but they are inexpensive and you can gauge if your child is responsible as a caretaker. Another choice not mentioned is a myna bird. They are great talkers and they do not live as long as parrots. However they are fruit eating birds so they have loose stools. Also they are not as cheap as they were years ago. I think the government has stopped the importation of wild birds from India. Best of luck with your new pet! EWB

Dear 2027: I never met any of the WOWs. However I did meet the townswoman who was responcible for trying to get them fired from their jobs and evicted out of their WOW home. She was so mad when she heard I moved to town. I guess she thought she had run off all of the Wayfers. Ironically her son was in the Way Corps, so I think that is why she felt she had to do that stuff. I remember Beleivers from Frankfort, Louisville, Lexington, Somerset and London Ky. EWB

Dear 2027: Welcome to the GreaseSpot. In the 1980's I used to live in Elizabethtown Ky and I went to a twig in Pleasure Ridge Park. I sure do miss the beautiful countryside of rural Kentucky. EWB

Dear Mike: Your reasoning does not make any sense. You stretch the rules of ethics, logic and the bible to justify that VPW was the man of God for all time. You do not even consider the possibility that your hero was not 100 percent perfect. Do you not understand the beauty of the scriptures? How a man like Moses will all of his doubts of his ability could lead the children of Israel out of Egypt to be the lawgiver? How a sinful man like Paul could check his loathing for his former self and write so many wonderful epistles to us! The truth of the matter is that not only was VPW dishonest for plagiarizing others works, but he was also lazy. He could have easily re-written all of those manuscripts and make them totally his work. Yet he chose a dishonest shortcut. EWB

Dear Mike: I am afraid that your sources are faulty. Bullinger always cited his sources and if he wrote a book based on someone else's idea he credited them. A good example of this is "Witness of the Stars" in which he publically thanks Miss Frances Rolleston for her collecting and organizing the names of the stars from mediaeval Arab astronomers. The reason Bullinger could write so many books is that he was a language expert. He could read Biblical Greek and Hebrew as easily as English. He also strove to correspond with some of greatest biblical scholars of his time. He always said that the work for all of his books was the result of his preparing for his teachings and sermons. A good example of this is his "A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament". It was published in 1877 and he had worked nine years on it. Six of those years he was in a succession of jobs such as assistant curate and curate. Which means he was an assistant to another minister. The final three years he was a vicar of his own church, but it had a disastrous fire and most of those three years were spent in borrowed facilities while he led a pledge drive to rebuild without the help of a curate. So it is very safe to say that he wrote that book without the help of a "graduate student". Now it is recorded that he had a personal secretary while he was with the Trinitarian Bible Society. It is very doubtful that this person was used for anything other than the official business of the society. While Bullinger was there they had undertook the translation, printing and distribution of bibles in Portugese, Hebrew and Breton (a French form of a Celtic language). He undertook to oversee all of these works both in person and via correspondence. Bullinger also was responsible for the copyrights of the societies work. He also did many speaking tours all over Europe to churches and auxiliaries because he was also responsible for fund-raising. I an era before the telephone was commonly available it appears that this person was responsible for maintain a very heavy letter correspondence for Bullinger in the work of the society. Now it is recorded that his niece Elizabeth Dodson took dictation and wrote letters for him as he grew older. He suffered from a respiratory problem that tired him easily and he had arthritis of his hands. In his later years he published a journal/newsletter called "Things to Come". He was the editor, yet he published many articles from other worthy biblical writers. It has never been recorded that he put his name on another man's work. I find no references to a "Berean Bible Students Association". However there was a contributing writer named Charles Welch who was being considered to put together the New Testament portion of the Companion Bible after Bullinger died. He was passed over for another editor and he got mad and started publishing his own journal called "The Berean Expositor". EWB One last note. The Trinitarian Bible Society was an organization that undertook to make the scriptures available to everyone. They did not publish the Companion Bible because their bylaws stated they would only distribute "The Holy Scriptures without note or comment".

Dear Mike: You wrote: "Bullinger did it this way. Much of what he did was the grunt work of his graduate students." To the best of my research Bullinger never had 'graduate students' or the Victorian equivalent of them. He was a curate and later a vicar. He also worked part time at a workhouse school and later he was the chaplin of a woman's prison ministry. For many years while he was doing other things he was the secretary of the Triniatian Bible Society. I see no record of him having any assiatant. Most of the work in his Companion Bible and other books were based on his preparation for his preaching. In his later life most of his income was royalties from publishing. EWB

Dear Dovey: "OLG" is mike's abbreviation for Old Leadership Grad. It means anyone who was leadership from the 70's to when VPW died. Mike thinks that it was these people's fault that Way lost it's spiritual bearings. EWB

Dear Mike: It seems that I must count your further explanation to mj on the last page as a semi-apology. This fussy Victorian was hoping for a more sincere regret, but it looks like we have to take what we can get. My concern was that you deliberately bait, tease and antagonize people at this site and then publically with great sarcasm chide mj on poor punctuation. This was after you went ballistic with another poster who was sarcastic to you. While it is true that I do not know the relationship between you and her, it is wrong to publically humiliate her because of a perceived shortcoming. If you feel you must say something at least do it privately without the sarcasm. The truth is I do read her posts and I see a woman who has a great heart that cares deeply for other people. I give her posts greater spiritual importance compared to your thinly veiled infomercial. EWB "Apology Monitor OLG"

Dear Mike: You ask an excellent though off topic question as to why I keep coming back to this thread. The answer is simple: I am studying commitment. Martindale taught that commitment is infections and that it inspires others. He did a two part teaching called "The Salt Covenant" in which he taught that even commitment to a wrong ideal is magnetic to others. While your arguments for the idea that PFAL is the Word of God are illogical and non-biblical; your commitment to it does make it attractive. I came here for the sheer entertainment of watching you try to sell a faulty premise to others. Mike, I look at all your efforts to see if you can get the people to turn off their knowledge of scripture, logic and your own conflicting posts to swallow your kooky thesis. So far I see no takers and no one is fooled by your transparent explanation that posting here is witnessing to the WayGB. When you accuse me of derailing please remember you asked the question. EWB P.S. You never did apologize to MJ.

Dear Mike: How dare you to accuse MJ of sloppy writing skills when your own writing style is so unfocused and difficult to read? Do not give yourself airs that this difficulty is due to the deep "data" you are presenting. This is just an external manifestation of the confusion within your mind. I think Steve Lortz "OLG extrordinaire" had the best view of this whole thread. You are presenting a dissertation before a panel of your peers and the burden is on you to prove your thesis. All you have managed to do is confuse the cafe with your strange suppositions, tax them with your difficult writing style and then infuriate them when you refuse to answer reasonable questions. It is appalling for you to try to humiliate MJ. This hard-heartedness is an excellent example of the fruit of your years of VPW "research". You owe her a sincere apology. EWB

Dear Mike: I am sorry that I wrote such a harsh post, but your recent thread habits have prompted this. I still stand by what I said, but perhaps I said it in a way to deliberately hurt your feelings. As a form of reparations for this I will tell you why I came to my conclusions. Your posting here is dishonest for two major reasons: 1. You claim special spiritual knowledge, yet you evade, tangentially answer and appear to delight in agitating people on this site. 2. Your arguments do not follow the rules of logic, grammar or the bible. It is spiritually dishonest to claim special knowledge and then when people ask legitimate questions you ignore or evade their queries. Sometimes when people point out reasonable inconsistencies you often change the subject or engage in name calling. At times you appear to deliberately antagonize people to encourage their participation in this forum. This is disgraceful because many people come here as a place to heal from their Way experience. Remember the old Way saying that each person is worth one? It is not right for you to trample on people's feelings because you are on a special mission. The Word of God is supposed to be simple enough for a child to understand it. Yet many of your explanations require us to ignore the rules of grammar, logic or other plainly written scriptures on the same subject. This is in direct violation of the PFAL class that you so highly regard! Because of these inconsistencies it is very easy to discount many of the things that you say. EWB P.S. Thank you for your gracious invitation to answer my question privately. In fact it was that offer that prompted this less harsh reply. Unfortunately I do not think that you have the answer. If you did you would have already answered me months ago.

Dear Mike: Why is it when you ever receive any warranted criticism you resort to name calling? It would appear that you are being childish. It is biblically dishonest to withhold scriptural answers from people who ask genuine questions. In my last post I brought up your dishonest handling of questions. The reason I did not list my question was to save you work. I am no longer interested in hearing the answer from you. You have demonstrated yourself to be an untrustworthy person who is unfit to answer important spiritual questions. However, coming from a spiritualist background I am intrigued as to how you will answer Steve's inquiry. Perhaps you might put the effort you would have spent on my question to answer to Steve's compelling query. I only come to this thread for entertainment purposes. So do not spend any of your precious time on my question. EWB

Dear Mike: My post I left yesterday about you being a spiritual fraud was not a recent idea of mine. I have had this opinion of you for several months. I needed to say that because I see you up to your same dishonest posting habits. I know you consider that the bible is unreliable, but here is a verse that was taught in PFAL: Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. II Cor 13:1 As a WOW I was taught that when we did outreach we were to answer people's honest questions. It is our duty to love people by teaching them the Word of God. You try to impress people with your educational background and years of study. When people ask you honest questions that are related to your posts your either evade the question (I'm too busy right now) or you say that their heart is not right and they have to master PFAL to get an answer. This is biblically dishonest. I do not even know if I would be a practicing Christian today if it were not for my first twig coordinator who taught me advanced class material shortly after I first came to fellowship. So if you can not answer someone's honest question it either means that: 1) you do not have the answer, 2) you have the answer but you do not want to help them. You claim to have the answers so it must mean that you do not love us enough to answer them. You have become a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. The bitter irony of this whole situation is that of all the people on this site I was your most likely candidate to seriously consider what you say. I am still thankful for my time with the Way ministry and I still believe most of what I was taught. So if you have managed to arouse my suspicions; what hope do you have to win the trust of those who were hurt by leadership? Sadly I come to your threads to be entertained. I come to see what preposterous or idolatrous ideas you promote. The only good thing that has come out of this thread is that I can see the wonderful heart of some of the people who post here. EWB P.S. I asked you my question four or five times in my private e-mails to you. I have seen at least five other people ask the same question. If you did not answer it months ago, I doubt if you could answer it now.

Dear Mike: The reason that I have made such a big deal about you not answering questions is because this proves that you do not have the answers you claim to possess. The one thing that blessed me while I was involved in the Way Ministry was their willingness to meet needs and answer questions. A few weeks after my first visit to twig I told the coordinator that I was involved in spiritualism and I had questions about how spirits work. He took me to the bible and gave me answers that put my heart at peace. To this day I have not had any interest to consult with a spiritualist or to go to a seance. That was because the Word of God answered my questions. In contrast to this you have evaded or refused to answer honest questions posed to you. It is because of this that I know you are a spiritual fraud. EWB

Dear Steve: You truely do deserve the title "Steve Lortz, OLG Extraordinaire" EWB

Dear Steve: In respects with getting a straight answer from Mike I think you are beating a dead horse. In the twenty three (23!) pages of this thread I see very few clear answers from Mike. I also want to complement you for your honest discussion of your personal life a few pages ago. I too came from a spiritualist background and I know the siren call of ?the inner voices'. I have a suggestion, why don't we give Mike a nickname? I suggest "horse whisperer OLG". Horse whisperers believe that they can communicate with animals and get answers or results that no one can duplicate. In the bible horses are often associated with idolatry. What are your thoughts? EWB

Dear Thomas Heller: The reason that I confirmed that Steve was an "OLG extrordinere" is that he asked if he was worthy of the title. I thought that his careful reading of Mike's confusing infomercial and his patient waits for Mike's circular replies earned Steve the right to that appellation. Since British Victorians loved to give titles can I give one to you? On the previous page you ended a post with "ditch diggers anonymous", but that is sort of hard to work into a name. In your last post you made references to two 1930's movies. What do you think about "1930's movie OLG"? EWB

Dear Steve Lortz: You have earned the right to use the nickname "O.L.G. extrordinare". EWB

Dear Mike: Actually I think I understand you better than you might imagine. I would have more motivation to mastering the PFAL materials if I did not see so much idolatry of Wierwille in your posts. EWB

Dear Steve Lortz: I need to compliment you on your thoughtful and well-worded posts to this thread. The host of this thread has many bad habits as to how he defends his thesis. Therefore it is difficult for a few posters not to resort to name calling or personal attacks when answering him. Your use of logic and a calm voice does have a soothing effect on this thread. EWB P.S. Here is a possible answer to your rhetorical question regarding why Mike does not cite a reference for other places that this figure of speech is used: he wants everyone to search PFAL for the answer. This thread is a very thinly-veiled soapbox for him to "preach the Word of Wierwille".

Dear Mike: It seems quite baffling to me as to why you are so fiercely possessive of this thread. The GreaseSpot cafe is open to all who want to talk about their experiences about the Way International. I am appalled that you stoop to fart comments when Oakspear makes the prophetic comment that ?he feels a filibuster coming on'. You do not ?own' this thread and if people want to interrupt your infomercial....then they are entitled to do so. Dear Lalao, MJ, CoolWaters and especially Steve Lortitz: I find this whole topic of the interplay of the physical and spiritual realms to be very interesting. Before I came to the Way I was involved in spiritualism. It is my opinion that they have the best explanation for this whole area of scripture. I am forever thankful to the Way for answering my questions about this stuff and getting me to quit playing around with spiritualism. EWB

The song "Far! Jag kan inte få upp min kokosnöt!" was written by Povel Ramel. Translated it means "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts!". He has written over 800 songs usually with very witty lyrics and double entendres. Yet when you hear them a second time they seem to be just a simple and almost childish song. This song reminds me of this thread because Mike has read into cryptic remarks by VPW and lauded his writings above scripture. This is clearly idolitry and something that I myself have heard VPW preach against. This whole scenario is as goofy as the song. My own personal thoughts are that Dr. Wierwille is dead and God only works through living leadership. This precedent is found in both the Old and New Testaments. So why should I take my time and master teachings from a dead man or from a class that is no longer available? This is as foolish and nutty as the outlandish lyrics of the song. EWB