Raf

Seriously, there were so many unimaginably cool moments throughout the movie that I'm going to have to start a separate spoiler thread so that I don't ruin it for anyone. Without spoiling anything for anyone,

Pippin rocks! All hail Pippin!

Okay, I don't know if this is a spoiler or not, so, be forewarned if you, like me, are one of those who has not read the books...

Still here? Good.

I need to apologize to dizzydog and Steve! for jumping on them about the third elven ring. Turns out they simply don't mention it in Return of the King, and therefore, you didn't ruin anything. Mea culpa.

Holy God.

Sorry, I hiccupped.

Now that I've had a good night's sleep to digest this incredibly amazing astonishing masterpiece of a movie that never ends...

WOW!

Holy God!

WOW!

There, I'm done.

So much I've never heard of before:

Marriage is just for Christians? I don't recall ever hearing that from anyone at any time.

I won't officiate your wedding unless you join CES? Well, ask Steve! and chinson how I feel about that.

Sign this form if you want to be a fellowship coordinator? They've sent me no such form.

All of this may be because I don't associate myself with CES at the highest involvement level. But I'm surprised to hear a lot of this stuff.

Galen,

Some of the things you cited sound like they are motivated out of a pure heart but can too easily be abused or lead to rampant legalism. I pray CES as an organization (or STFI or whatever) has the integrity to resist the temptation that is certain to come of those efforts.

Is the new name more culty? I'm not really all that comfortable with it yet. Waiting for it to grow on me.

SRTS: If you're going to ask me something, ask me something. If you're going to walk away from the thread, walk away from the thread. Can't have it both ways.

Holy God.

Holy, Holy God.

Wow.

It was...

Oh my God.

Oh my Holy God.

Grow up.

If you're going to walk away, walk away. But don't play this "I'm going to walk away just as soon as I play a little bit more playground namecalling, then I'm going to walk away and I really mean it."

Walk away if you want.

You took a cheap shot and you got called on it.

You know, there's nothing noble about picking a fight and then walking away from it. Noble would be not picking the fight at all, or at least to have an intelligent discussion about your feelings without resorting to juvenile namecalling.

[This message was edited by Rafael 1969 on December 17, 2003 at 19:10.]

SRTS:

You're simply mistaken to compare giving in TWI to giving in CES.

One laid a guilt trip on you and accused you of robbing God if you gave less than 10 percent. The other tells you to set the amount according to your heart and give whatever you want.

Your bitterness at TWI is causing you to judge CES inappropriately. You're simply wrong to compare the two.

As for this statement:

quote:

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(beyond the normal "pressure" that comes from being part of a faith community).

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You should note that I was not talking about giving, I was talking about the pressure of accepting doctrine, which is a normal thing in any church. Catholics will exert a certain normal amount of pressure on you to accept their doctrine. Pentecostals will. Buddhists will. Every church will. It's normal. That's why I put "pressure" in quotes. To show that CES wants you to agree with them, but that they don't cross the boundaries of normal "church" behavior in doing so.

There's a variety of opinions on CES/STFI at the Cafe.

In my opinion, they are far less controlling or demanding than TWI. I've never felt pressured by them to do anything, give anything, or believe anything (beyond the normal "pressure" that comes from being part of a faith community). I have my disagreements with them and have never, not once, been told to drop my disagreements or drop my involvement.

On giving: they believe in free-will offerings and they do NOT believe that tithing is necessary in the church.

I have other thoughts: write me privately.

The short story is that their orginal mission was not to be a "church" but a clearinghouse for info. Their main goal was publishing books and tapes.

They came to realize that they are a fellowship community with a history and doctrine, and rather than deny that, they embraced it.

I'm surprised this hasn't come up sooner, as the news has been out for months already.

Christian Educational Services is changing its name, sort of. The new name:

Spirit and Truth Fellowship International.

CES will continue to exist as the production arm of STFI.

you're strange, tom.

Count me among the lucky. I was only in for 11 months.

My twig coordinator pegged me early as someone who would likely lead a twig in the near future, so just a few months after taking the PFAL class, I was invited to the New York Limb Coordinators Conference. That was either in March or April of 1989, I forget which.

It was at this time that Vince Finnegan announced that John Townsend and Ricardo Caballero had been removed from the Board of Trustees. (My response: Who? So?) It was fairly obvious that Vince did not expect to be associated with TWI that much longer.

I month or three later, we got a letter naming all the New Yorkers on the payroll who were being fired. It was a fairly long list. We were not told who was replacing them (which infuriated me because, if you're going to fire all my local leadership, you ought to tell me where to go for fellowship if I still want to associate with you. They never did).

So Word Wolf and I determined, what the hey, let's go to the Rock and see if we can't figure some things out for ourselves.

The rest is a story I've told many times before and I'll recap here:

The idolizing of Martindale was more than I could stomach, and when Donna referred to him as "the spiritual head of this ministry," I knew for certain I would never return.

And that was that. No pain. No tearing at my family. No abuse from "leadership." No micromanaging of my life and finances. Just a decision that Christ, not Martindale, is the head of the church.

The end.

Hee hee hee hee.

Actually, I think that cup's already been spilled at the cafe before.

But if anyone starts talking about who dies at the end, or revealing that the butler did it, I'm going to have to open up a can of whoopass!

Here's a trivia question:

which Greasespot poster goes nuts whenever someone posts a question which is subsequently answered which contains a significant spoiler if you haven't read the books yet?

Anyone?

Anyone?

quote:

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They are probably all over the United States but for sure I know they are in Memphis. They are no longer in TWI but they still run PFAL classes (on Beta no less) and twigs like it's 1979... But they will not listen to any criticism of their "father in the Word" VPW nor accept that any of the doctrine is in error.

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Hmm. Now where have I heard that before?

A whole week?

Where I come from a week is seven days.

This movie opens in FIVE!

:)-->

I've been telling people that these movies are to this decade what The Godfather was to the 1970s.

I've heard that Faramir is a nicer guy in the books. I never read them. But I like his character in the movie, especially with the added backstory: dang his father is being such a pthtpthtph!

Some things I like about Faramir:

He shows sympathy for one of Sauron's troops (post mortem, when it's safe).

He really loved his brother.

He resisted the temptation to take the ring. I know, the temptation is not in the book. But still, it reminded me of the way Aragorn resisted the temptation at the end of the first movie (also not in the book). It was noble.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how his character is handled in Return of the King.

Oh, yeah, and the beat down of the Uruk Hai was a nice touch. It would have been nice if the others (besides Gandalf and maybe Aragorn)had shown a bit more surprise at what they were witnessing.

Hmm... what to do with a three hour movie?

I know, make it LONGER!

I bought the extended version of The Fellowship of the Ring as soon as it came out. As far as I was concerned, it outclassed the theatrical version in every way. So much depth was added with the addition of these scenes, and even though it closed the action, it enhanced the living daylights out of the storytelling. So I had really, really high hopes for the extended edition of The Two Towers.

Unfortunately...

My hopes were not high enough. This DVD blew me away! I didn't like the Ents in the theatrical version, but something about how it's played out here makes me appreciate them more. Maybe it was the way Merry and Pippin fell asleep while being carried across the woods by Treebeard. Oh, he's supposed to be kind of boring? Oh, I get it. Well done! Well done!

And Merry and Pippin really get their due in the extended edition.

Some other things I liked:

The discovery that Aragorn is 87 years old.

New scenes with Boromir and Faramir. Their father is introduced as well. Since he's an important influence in the next movie, it was a good thing to add him.

As I first heard it, a newbie is someone who is new on the Internet, new to message boards, or new to a particular message board.

More recently it's been used of someone who's new to any experience like, say for example, joining a cult, or an offshoot.

"Sequels suck!"

"Hi. No, I really mean that. Hi."

"Hello, Sydney."

All from Scream 2

Ok, I gave it another try and, I'll admit, it is watchable. It just seemed like they were trying to hard and forgot to have fun.

I'll go to the theater to see the next movie, which I believe is called "The Matrix: Craptacular Crapfest of Crappy Crap."

quote:

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raphael from living epistles wrote me an email just asking why i questioned so much. i found this site through his and continued to read up on the history of the way.

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No Way,

I remember that chat. It was a few months ago, maybe more, right? I contacted you because I was surprised to read your questions on a Christian message board that had nothing to do with TWI or cults, and you were asking sincere, honest questions. Welcome to the Greasespot Cafe! I hope to read more from you.

Raf

O Holy Night. Most versions. I haven't really heard this ruined, although I prefer hearing it done by a tenor.

Little Drummer Boy as sung by Air Supply. Very nice.