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Why were we vulnerable?


rascal
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In another thread, as I answered a question asked....I began thinking about this question. I suppose from some peoples points of view and what twi later became, it would be easy to believe that we were all stupid or embraced the evil.

Bolshevik, I hope that you don`t mind...but I think that this is an important aspect of what held attraction for us and why we stayed.....

This question was asked....

*I don't understand why people joined twi. I don't understand why they point fingers so much at a handful of people. Why they play dumb, why they lie about not knowing twi had problems . . . so and so forth.*

I suppose from some peoples points of view and what twi later became, it would be easy to believe that we were all stupid or enjoyed the evil.

People who weren`t there in the 70s have to understand. Many of us were around 17 ...many of us came from disfunctional broken homes with no adult to guide us. Speaking for myself, I had basically had to raise myself because my mom was overwhelmed with the 4 young children that she was left to raise.

We were lonely, divorce placed us as somehow flawed and broken back then. My family story was the same as almost all of my twi friends...I think lonely teens were targeted.

You were invited to a bible fellowship...a bible fellowship for heavens sake...who would have known that there was something wrong with that??

All of a sudden, you had people that cared about you, irresistable to someone whom was starving for affection, you had a new better family...a family with a father that would never leave you. You had someone to lovingly guide you....You had a mission, a purpose in life, God needed you on the front lines spiritually. You were important, somebody needed you, there was a noble cause to fight for. It was exhilerating.

Teens were told that you didn`t need a wordly education, you needed to be spiritually sharp to fight for God, yadda yadda...and these are maybe the first people in your life that have taken an interest in you ... So we didn`t go to college, we went wow and into the corpes...quickly seperated from anyone outside of twi....

The people were incredible, I didn`t care what made them so strong, kind, wise, peaceful, I just wanted what they had.

No, there were no warning signs...not for me anyway, it seemed a wholesome and healthy group and I was thankful.

As a teenager or young adult away at college...as in the case of my spouse...you don`t have a lot of life skills to recognize the danger signs...when you see them eventually (you were carefully protected for a while) you tend to have been taught by then, good sounding spiritual reasons to ignore what your 5 senses are telling you. By the time you reach adulthood...you have had all of your molding...forming of your reasoning processes in twi...you don`t realize that you are not thinking right.

The occasional thing that raised an eye brow, was dismissed as a particular person that messed up....Nobody guessed it was rotten to the core ...until you got close enough to see it ...and that took years.

I think that is why people have such a difficult time believing it today...unless they saw it personally.

I hope this explains that we weren`t just being deliberately stupid or believing that the abuse and cruelty was something we embraced....in all honesty, that this just wasn`t the case. We were lonely kids that thought we had found lifes answeres in a world that had already treated us brutally.

Tens of thousands of us left when we saw the true nature of the beast. Many of us wrestled with the consequences of leaving the ministry that we loved and had spent our lives promoting, knowing that all of the bullies were the ones being placed into position over peoples lives....that for some reason they were trying to run off anybody who was kind or decent....and we saw what happened when the good folks were no longer in place, standing in the gap so to speak between hq and the rest of the people.......the evil that the rank and file believers rarely saw came crashing down on them.

We did the only thing we could do, tell as many people what we had seen and why we had top go.

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This makes perfect sense to me Rascal.

My early life certainly had many of the same factors at work in it to make me more likely to be attracted to virtually anybody who seemed loving and accepting too.

Once when I was in high school after one of my many moves while at a new school I became a burn-out because of all the kids at school they were the ones that were willing to take me as I was. And my bad attitude toward life in general that I felt at that time happened to be a pretty good fit with that crowd too. But for all the drinking and drugs that went with that crowd there are still a few that I would consider friends to this day if I saw them. But then they did not violate me as TWI has done to many.

(added in editing)

I feel it to be true that for me some of my old burnout friends turned out to be better people than TWI leadership, in general.

Edited by JeffSjo
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I think that another reason that so many of us stayed was that after a decade of committing our lives to what we thought was a noble cause....our identities were intertwined with twi. Because we were idealistic, embarked on a mission for God...pure in our efforts and motives....we assumed everyone was.

I truly think that there were tens of thousands of well meaning people involved. The percentage of users and abusers, small. I think that the pure motives of the people on the local level was all most ever saw....

When and if someone got close enough to see the evil...according to don`t worry, and others, they were pressured to become involved or were tossed out and declared possessed if they tried to sound an alarm and change.

I don`t think any of us knew how truly rotten twi was. or we would have never become involved.

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Todays youth face the same problems today...a lack of love, support and guidance. They don`t have the religious cults as prolific as in our day....but they have their own lures....kids with pure hearts, wanting to find meaning in life....vulnerable to any whom offer them love or acceptance...and there will be people there..... willing to accept and love them....but not really...it is just to get them to where they are dependent and then exploit them.

Whether it be drugs, violent partners, and yes, there is even a small cult alive and well in our little town.

We were introduced in twi to small fellowships with the most loving people we had ever met....For the first time in our young lives...we had merit...purpose...an identity.

How did we get from those sweet fellowships to sexual exploitation, physical abuse, families destroyed???

It is a very interesting thing to me now in hind site.

I want to equip my teens and young adults to not be vulnerable.

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Why?

I think that many of us, besides just being insecure kids with the normal adolescent angst and uncertainty that goes with growing up, had issues with their fathers. Maybe he was adsent (or in my case - dead) or just a jerk, but in any case, Mr. Wierwille was able to exploit that void with his "aw, shucks, you're my KEEDS" routine (that sickens me to even contemplate, in retrospect).

Mostly though, I think it was just the times. Tremendous social upheaval, the Viet Nam War still tearing this (and THAT) country apart, and the largest cohort group of teenagers to ever pass into adulthood at one time rewriting just about all of the rules for community, faith, love, interaction. And we got a good portion of that stuff WRONG.

I don't think Wierwille could pull it off today. There's just too many ways to check up on somebody now. But there's no doubt some other way a conman will find his marks. They'll just have to spend a little more time thinking up a plan. The "I'm GOD's man here on earth fer ya" schtick is gonna be a lot harder sell today than it was fer Vic...

Edited by George Aar
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And let's not forget the old "date and switch".

It was a common sales tactic

I confess.

It's what got me to my first twig meeting and motivated me to sign the green card.

By the time the class was over, of course, I had all sorts of other reasons for staying.

(That's where it gets complicated.)

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Yeah George, there is always going to be somone there to exploit the naive or unsuspecting.

Part of the question asked was why are we fingerpointing and whining about it now?

I think that I am just so offended at what was taken from us in God`s name, what was stolen using scriptures as their justification, what many of us eventually DID under the guise of service to God....it is sickening to me.

We allowed indignities that we would never tolerate from any other person....because we were taught that God required this of us.

These guys took what they pleased, without compunction.

How did we get from idealistic teens on a mission to change the world...to pathetic automatons, being exploited for whatever we had of value?

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That is true waysider...we thought that we were getting involved for one reason...they switched it without telling us.

I think that this is important to understand, the manipulation that went into tricking us into thinking that we had to obey, that we had to submit, to ignore our feelings, our conscience....

If it had been a few dozen, we might be able to pass it off as sheer stupidity and shortcomings of the individual...but it happened to tens of thousands of us. Many man of us spent decades in twi and then it has taken decades after leaving to try to regain our critical thinking processes.

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Another big part of the reason, for me anyway, was that we didn't know of any alternatives. There was just enough Bible to make it seem legitimate, but no other Biblical views were presented, at least not honestly or accurately. Some of us really believed it was the only place to get the "rightly divided Word" and for a while were even willing to overlook the bad stuff for the sake of that.

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Yep. We've all heard this song before. TWI has become TWP (Town Without Pity)

When you're young and so and love as we

And bewildered by the world we see

Why do people hurt us so

Only those in love would know

What a town without pity can do

If we stop to gaze upon a star

People talk about how bad we are

Ours is not an easy age

We're like tigers in a cage

What a town without pity can do

The young have problems Many problems

We need an understanding heart

Why don't they help us, try to help us

Before this clay and granite planet falls apart

Take these eager lips and hold me fast

I'm afraid this kind of joy can't last

How can we keep love alive

How can anything survive

When these little minds tear you in two

What a town without pity can do

How can we keep love alive

How can anything survive

When these little minds tear you in two

What a town without pity can do

No it isn't very pretty

What a town without pity can do.

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I can pity both victims and the victimizer.

But it is a lot easier to be angry at the victimizers.

Especially when the victimizers are trying to shut the victims up.

I've sung that song before too.

Edited by JeffSjo
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Yeah, it`s really easy today to point fingers decdes later and say...you dumb arse, you should have been smarter, wiser, quit sooner, not allowed it to continue etc.

The thing is, by the time that we realized there were problems, we had been conditioned to excuse stuff, to not believe in our perceptions, to ignore that small voice inside that was telling us all was not well.

By the time many of us realized that all in twi weren`t as noble in their views....we had made these people our family, we had been told that our *old man* families were conduits for satan...yadda yadda...A lot of us felt that we had nothing but the ministry any more and couldn`t contemplate life without our friends and family.

After all, most of our local fellowships were still the same sweet people we had known for years.

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This makes me wonder something.

People my age, in our generation today seem to have a peculiar outlook or attitude toward life and suffering. I stand as an example. Most people who are born in broken homes these days later come to existential angst which leads to nihilism, and they gain a disdain for religion as a whole. This also accounts for the rising statistics for teen suicide. I wonder, if there were a group similar to TWI that sprung up today, how many like myself, being 17, 18, 19, 20-ish, would join it.

Thoughts?

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A lot of this had to do with the degree of involvement and commitment one invested in the whole thing.

For instance, I was all gung-ho for my first 3 or 4 years. This was before I ventured out of my local area. Then, I had a brief assignment that required me to quit my job and move to another area of the state. It got me to start to question things but I still didn't really see what was going on. After that, I moved again to go into the FLO program. This is where I really started to seriously wonder if the whole thing wasn't some cruel illusion. I mean, here we were, supposedly living a lifestyle that replicated the church of the first century but, in reality, we were living a lifestyle that was contrary to it. It took ten more years to really start to have some confidence that my doubts were well founded. Had I simply stayed in my little local area, I probably never would have seen the ugly reality of TWI in its naked state.

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Waysider said:

And let's not forget the old "date and switch".

Waysider, are you sure don't mean "bait and switch"? It seems to be to me that that is what you are saying, which seeems to be what happened to me. I went in seeing one thing that attracted me and as time went on it switched to something else. The bait was the love and the comerodery (sp?) and then it seemed to switch. So, I left, although I left behind a lot of loving friends which was sad but I didn't want to be around some of the power trips I saw going on either so I left.

Edited by ClayJay
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Waysider said:

And let's not forget the old "date and switch".

Waysider, are you sure don't mean "bait and switch"? It seems to be to me that that is what you are saying, which seems to be what happened to me. I went in seeing one thing that attracted me and as time went on it switched to something else. The bait was the love and the comradery (sp?) and then it seemed to switch. So, I left, although I left behind a lot of loving friends which was sad but I didn't want to be around some of the power trips I saw going on either so I left.

No I meant "date and switch."

That's when someone feigns a special interest in you and leads you on in order to get you to take the class. Then, once they have you in the class, they dump you and find someone else to work on. There are even instances of WOWs sleeping with multiple class prospects in order to close the sale. Once the person is indoctrinated into the fellowship, they "date and switch" another prospect. This very thing happened to me personally, though I did not have sex with the person. I think it was probably a lot more commonplace than many people realize. In the least common denominator, it's prostitution. Sex is being exchanged for a signed "green card" and class "donation".

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For me it was a saftey net.

How could you go wrong with "the bible" I thought.

I wanted Change in my life(boy did I get it!) what a wrong decision!

but

when your at a

point in your life like I was and you really had Nothing to Lose you put it all on the table!

Trust.

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I was honestly seeking to KNOW God. I was raised in a very loving home with great family and friends. But being raised Catholic left me feeling separated from Him, rather than knowing Him.

I went to many different Christian churches seeking His wisdom and knowledge, but they were more about ceremony and maintaining appearances. Not much bible depth at all.

When I met a WOW, they said "The Class" would teach me how to read the bible and understand it for myself. That is what got me hooked. Sure, we were given the "keys" to understanding the bible, but in hindsight, TWI did the same thing..."read and understand it as we have taught you to do."

No questioning allowed because questions imply a doubter. Talk about subtle spiritual abuse set down early in the learning!

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My Husband was snagged by the date and switch. and it lead him into the corps.(his words: Oh I followed a pretty girl into the corps)

For me it was the offer of a class about how to study the bible.

That was all I was doing, was taking the class to learn to read and study the bible.

Then I heard about WOW while in the class and thought I want to do that.

IT was a chance to really get my spiritual feet under me and to repay God for rescuing me.

I came from a terrible childhood and had become born again about 3 years before encountering TWI.

Going Wow for me was a way to take some time out to really focus my thoughts and actions around God and his word.

To share the love and forgiveness and salvation I had received from God and to learn skills and habits that I hoped to continue utilizing for the rest of my life.

I wanted to understand the bible because it had been the thing that had really saved me from my previous life and I had started to see the healing from the word that my heart and mind were getting long before I encountered TWI.

IT seemed like the very best thing to come my way.

I was very lucky... The people I encountered through out my time in TWI were wonderful loving honest people, they were there because of their own love of God and their own desire to serve God.

My WOW family and the other family we were sent out with (I actually think of both as my WOW family.. that is how close we got) were all wonderful honest loving people. We did not use any tactics to get classes together we just spent our time working, reading the bible, holding fellowships in our homes, praying and having a really good time.

I was far away from HQ both in the area I came from and the area I went WOW in. I believe that at the time I was in for the majority of people, unless you were close to HQ, or in one of the larger branches/Limbs you lead a fairly peaceful life with in the twigs and on the WOW field, but this was slowly but surely changing.

The poison of HQ was beginning to seep out from HQ and spread like a dark cloud and it built slowly year after year.

Bad leadership created bad leadership and it had begun to pick up speed right as my husband and I left. Which was 1983.

Now I am not saying that there weren't bad leaders and bad stuff happening to people .. In fact I am pretty sure there was but unless you personally knew someone it happened to or it was your leader putting it out there you wouldn't even know about it. If you were in Corps the stuff you heard was never the whole story. (Coming here and reading the true stories from some of those who were there during the accidents or were the actual victims has been eye opening for me.)

HQ certainly wasn't telling anyone about it, When you did hear stuff it was usually second or third hand so you never were sure if it was a rumor or true or how much of it was true.

This is not to say that I didn't hear the argument that TWI was a cult. Of course I did but it was not the TWI I was a part of. (That being the people I encountered in it on a daily basis.) People were coming and going as they pleased at that time and you were only just starting to be taught that you should be giving 10 percent of your income(gross not Net) and if you were really standing on the word you would be giving more.

Mark and avoid was just starting to be practiced but wasn't called that yet. Very few people knew about some of the horrors being perpetrated on the corps and HQ staff or even on Some of the WOW's. Also they were just starting to really push separating from those you loved. Another teaching that had just started to really be pushed right about the time we left was the whole devil spirits thing. THE whole people were possessed and even things you had in your home.

Slowly but surely they were creating an environment full of devil spirits to be afraid of that were lurking around every corner waiting to posses you.

As if they could once you had filled your heart and mind with GOd and his word. (sheesh )

That was the Teaching that had really made me start to question the whole thing. I was pretty sure there were no devil spirits waiting to posses me, and I was also sure that they would not stick around in my home where I read and studied the word and prayed daily.

I see now after reading what happened after we left that if we had stayed I would have probably lost my Husband or we would have walked out within the next couple of years.

I am glad people come on here and share and point fingers because if they didn't I still wouldn't know all the stuff that happened. I would still be thinking of TWI as just a bunch of Christians who were misunderstood.

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This makes me wonder something.

People my age, in our generation today seem to have a peculiar outlook or attitude toward life and suffering. I stand as an example. Most people who are born in broken homes these days later come to existential angst which leads to nihilism, and they gain a disdain for religion as a whole. This also accounts for the rising statistics for teen suicide. I wonder, if there were a group similar to TWI that sprung up today, how many like myself, being 17, 18, 19, 20-ish, would join it.

Thoughts?

Anyone have any thoughts regarding my post here? I'm really quite curious what you guys think about this.

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Having worked in a high school for a year and a half as well as the mom of a 27 year old daughter, I think the attitude is more of "fark you, get out of my space" if this age group were witnessed to.

There are too many other things to occupy a young mind and the time of a young person; much less boredom that leads to that angst, although I understand fully that it does happen.

I would think, too, that since the younger of your question, those teens still at home, many haven't enjoyed constant parental unit at home, there are some that would walk right in to a place like twi 'cuz of the family need.

Like when we got involved, everyone did so for different reasons, at different times in their lives or tragedy's or needs. There is so much more information available today, I like to think the majority will check things out and be better informed for their decisions.

If my 27 year old wanted to go "back" to twi, there wouldn't be a thing I could do about it but she'd sure have more info. If my 13 year old wanted to check em out, I'd sit on her but also have the access to show her why.

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