Raf

Could you be a tad more specific?

Now THIS, I think, bears repeating...

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We are requiring our man of God to at least be as human as most unbelievers, who don't sexually molest, get drunk, and verbally abuse. They don't even think about it.

We are requiring our man of God to at least be as human as most unbelievers, who don't sexually molest, get drunk, and verbally abuse. They don't even think about it.

We are requiring our man of God to at least be as human as most unbelievers, who don't sexually molest, get drunk, and verbally abuse. They don't even think about it.

We are requiring our man of God to at least be as human as most unbelievers, who don't sexually molest, get drunk, and verbally abuse. They don't even think about it.

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It's amusing to me that people who would not accept these qualities in a candidate for dog catcher excuse them in a person who claims to speak for Jesus Christ.

Mike,

Here's what I wrote:

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Everytime anyone denies what Wierwille did, they call his accusers liars while they live.

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I'm not aware of you ever denying what Wierwille did. Minimizing it, yes. Downplaying it, yes. Misrepresenting it, yes. Mischaracterizing it, yes. Excusing it to your idolatrous ends, yes. But never denying it. So your rebuttal is unnecessary.

Mike, listen to me. Lean in real close...

Idolatrous pigswill!!!

Thank you for playing.

Here's a scenario for you to consider:

God and Jesus Christ are face to face. God talks to Christ directly, tells him everything he needs to know.

I mean, you don't even KNOW how ridiculous you sound! That God would need to send Jesus to the future to read PFAL instead of JUST TELLING HIM TO HIS FACE!

Too true, Rascal.

People can praise Wierwille to the skies, but let someone point out that the emperor had no clothes (pun intended) and all of a sudden it's "waaaaah, stop talking about a man after he's dead..."

You know what? Everytime anyone denies what Wierwille did, they call his accusers LIARS while they live.

I agree and will say again that the value (and/or lack thereof) of what he taught stands independently of his character.

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For instance, when I proposed the image of him learning from PFAL it violated nearly every posters’ cherished image of him being all knowing, just like God.

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You are a master all right: a master of misrepresentation. For your information (twit), the objection was not due to the feeling that Jesus is all-knowing, but rather to the feeling that 2000 years of direct connection with God and being seated at His right hand requires a supplemental education to be found in your flawed orange book. That you should think Jesus ever had something to learn from PFAL reveals (as if it needed revealing by this point) the sad depth of your idolatry.

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If PFAL was given by revelation, then it’s only logical that it would be a high priority target of the devil.

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Since, however, PFAL was not given by revelation, but is the flawed work of a flawed man, it's only logical that honest people would be able to weed out the good from the bad in it and come out the better.

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Originally posted by oldiesman:

I don't need someone to teach me what twi really was. I was there, and witnessed what it was.

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If being on gscafe has taught you nothing else, it should have taught you this:

Although you were there, there was plenty that you did not witness.

Same goes for me.

Getting better at that dodging and distracting bit aren't you.

The point: YOU said, citing a well known Wierwillism, that the gospels are for our learning. But the problem with that is that the word for "learning" in the verse Wierwille quoted is the same word as "doctrine," so the gospels, according to the Bible (the same authority Wierwille was relying upon to make his statement in the first place), are for our doctrine.

Naturally, anything in any book of the Bible that's not specifically addressed to us is not to be carried out by us (unless you've made a habit of accepting sister Phoebe into your church lately). (And Urbanus).

"For our learning" creates the false impression that the teachings of Christ are not for the Church, when many are specifically to the church: this is a truth you will NEVER understand or accept because your idolatrous devotion to PFAL and your inability to go beyond it. A shame, really.

Of course, Wierwille failed to note that the word "learning" in "for our learning" is the same word as "doctrine" in II Timothy 3:16.

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From Oldiesman: The teachings were not present in my life before Wierwille's influence, so I say he's a part of influencing, teaching, expounding these excellent Christian teachings and doctrines to me. ...

From Raf: That's what I'm saying. Speak for yourself. You made it sound, perhaps inadvertently, that Wierwille was responsible for introducing these qualities to Christianity. Or maybe I was just misreading you.

An observation: some folks think its wrong that positive godly experiences of twi be remembered and shared, but instead it's better to have all those goodies supplanted by the abuse and evils. But I believe we should just state it as it was ... both good and bad.

From Raf: I agree.

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Mike,

This is real simple. I don't trust you. You say you were "hurt." Delicious. How? Wierwille wasn't nice to you? Awww, how sad. At least he didn't drug you and have his way with you.

I am more repulsed by the evil you spew to justify his abuse of our sisters in Christ than any vague abstraction of "hurt" you felt at not being appreciated by the man you idolized.

I do feel great sympathy for the things you lost in your life, some of which you have shared and some of which has been wrongly and inappropriately thrown in your face by people who know you personally. You don't know how many private e-mails I've sent to moderators and others here indicating that something said to you was a cheap shot. I won't say how many times that's happened, but it has.

Nonetheless, the key here is the one thing I responded to in your post: not that you have a basic understanding of what the Bible says about sex; not that you have or have not experienced a certain amount of pain in your life, but that you claim not to downplay any hurt that happened in TWI.

You DO downplay such hurt. You do it when you claim Wierwille resisted more than he succumbed, as though HE were the one being sought after by miles of willing seductresses. I don't care how much Bible he taught (for which I am grateful), he was a predator who abused our sisters in Christ for his own lusts.

Go ahead, portray me as cruel and heartless. Coming from you, I consider that high praise, because I do not respect your opinion or assessment of ANY of the motives of my heart.

It should also be noted, Oldiesman, that your failure to observe these Christian doctrines and qualities in the 1970s does not mean that they were not present. It only means that you did not observe them.

Giving Wierwille credit for the presence of these Christian qualities today is ridiculous. They were present long before Wierwille and will continue to be so long after his name and memory are forgotten.

Please correct me if I'm misreading you.

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Originally posted by Mike:

Raf,

You have the empathy of a Craig Martindale.

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You're one to talk.

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I do not downplay any hurt that happened.

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Bull.

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I’ve seen more damage from Puritanism than from licentiousness.

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I've seen more damage from predatory behavior than from Puritanism OR licentiousness. THIS WAS NOT LICENTIOUSNESS! THIS WAS PREDATORY BEHAVIOR, and should be discussed as such.

Mike, leave me out of this.

Not worth it. Never mind. This space for rent.

Oh come on. Someone somewhere made a mistake and got busted. Cynic caught it. Sounds like (and I could be wrong) someone who didn't know better screwed up and didn't realize that no, it's not okay.

So CES will find some clip art and use it instead.

Anyone actually going to lose sleep over it? I mean, it's not like the kid who blundered had a doctorate but didn't know the basics of crediting sources.

"Invited" to study at Oxford?

"Invited?"

When I was graduating high school, I received dozens upon dozens of brochures and pamphlets from every college in the country, including every single Ivy League college. Each of these brochures/pamphlets/undergraduate bulletins was sent in the hope that I would request an application for admission. This is routine. I was not the only one to get these.

I would imagine that someone who graduates from Princeton Theological Seminary would receive such a brochure from Oxford. Everyone in his class probably got the exact same thing. To call it an "invitation" is a stretch. If we're talking about the same thing, he didn't get an invitation: he got an ad.

I could be wrong. Maybe he was "invited" to study at Oxford.

I applied to NYU and was accepted, but couldn't go due to finances. THAT was an invitation. I actually got accepted into the school.

I wonder what he meant by "invited."

Do we have any reason to believe they're not?

Tom Cruise and Jamie Fox in a movie directed by Michael Mann. What could go wrong?

Well, for one thing, an embarrassingly implausible script, with plot twists that defy common sense.

Picture this: you're visiting your mother in a hospital room. At your side is a mercenary killer (and you KNOW he's a killer). You:

a. play cool until you can casually get the killer away from your mom.

b. look for ways to incapacitate the killer and call the police.

c. grab the killer's briefcase and run, leaving the killer alone in a hospital room with your mom.

d. shoot the director and the gaffer, and torture the writers.

If you picked D, then you picked what I wanted to do after Jamie Fox's character chose C.

Nuff said?

Never saw the original. Didn't like the remake at all.

Pat,

Exactly right. VPW and LCM don't fit into the descriptions being criticized for two reasons:

1. Both were married. Sexual contact with followers of TWI was ALWAYS 100% wrong for them, period, end of story.

2. TWI was not set up as "congregations" per se. VPW and LCM were leadership over all, and there was no "other congregation" to turn to (even if they WERE single) to find someone who could consent (under Liberty's framework). Since they were both married, this shouldn't even apply anyway.

I agree with the view that there were some "inner circle" people (not innocent); starry-eyed worshippers (should have known better, but still victims) and outright no argument people who were preyed upon by VPW, LCM and other leadership.

If oldiesman and WTH really agree with what I've said, then they agree that the buck stops with the clergy and that they should not have done what they did, period, end of story, regardless of whether the others involved were helpless victims or paid escorts.

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Originally posted by Steve!:

If this time what you are saying is that SOMETIMES the "victims" are partially responsible for what happened (for example, Raf's point about starry-eyed vixens), but that the minister still retains the lion's share of culpability, then I will agree with you.

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Steve!

In my example, I count the "starry-eyed" among the victims. Just want to be clear.

I think it should be repeated as often as possible that regardless of whether the congregants are victims or vamps, prey or hookers, men of God ought not be doing such things.