Breaking Vows

[Tzaia]

Brainfixed made a comment about not getting married because of the vow thing and the possibility of breaking a vow. That caused me to remember how TWI used vows to keep people doing things that they knew were wrong for them.

I've been married for nearly 30 years and was married to someone else before that and what I think is that people don't take their marriage vows seriously (at times), but both people hopefully have an inkling of what they are getting themselves into. It's serious stuff and you don't enter into it lightly or blindly. However, it is a reciprocal agreement - both parties have certain obligations that have to be met in the here and now. For instance, you don't pledge sexual fidelity to someone while they promise to be faithful to you in the future. Everyone sees the folly in that.

What TWI (and at least one splinter that I know of) did with vows was abusive. I don't believe they gave most people the opportunity to make an informed choice. Signing the "green card" was my first glimpse of how vows were treated. I literally said that I didn't want to take the class and was told I had made a vow. I made very sure after that incident that I knew exactly what I was getting myself into. So when people started pressuring me into going WoW, I looked into what was involved and there was no way I could commit to that. Same thing with WC. There would never be a good enough reason to leave in TWI's eyes after making the commitment. Of course that didn't extend to TWI not being able to kick me out if it wanted to.

In CES there were a number of people who signed agreements to attend a Momentus weekend that had no idea how those agreements would be used against them. You "agree" to a certain set of ground rules, never thinking in your wildest dreams that the agreement will come back and bite you. The agreement consists of allowing them to verbally and emotionally abuse you. You agreed to it, and the Momentus team absolutely held people to that agreement. When I questioned the wording of that agreement, it was minimalized by the recruiters what that impact could be. But the reality was that there was no legal recourse on my part if I signed the agreement. I refused to do the weekend because of the lack of accountability on the part of Momentus built into the agreement.

I don't know what kind of "hold harmless" or other kind of agreement one had to sign to be a WoW or WC, but I'm assuming that TWI had some sort of agreement in place that kept it from getting into deep do-do in case someone died or was seriously injured during one of those hare-brained "believing" "spiritual growth" exercises. TWI had to have something in place to release them from liability.

So in essence, when one made a "vow" with TWI, it was one agreeing to do whatever the organization wanted and absolving TWI from having any responsibility for outcomes. There was no reciprocality (new word I just made up) to the vow other than TWI's "promise" that adhering to the vow would bring you closer to God or cause God to look favorably toward you.

Once you think about it, the whole notion of making promises on behalf of God is rather ridiculous.

[JeffSjo]

My former splinter group leader, Victor Barnard, has at least ten younger women in his control through vows that were taken in their relative youth.

One of them actually came to twig and said,"I'm married to the Christ in Victor." And now I have heard uncomfirmed reports that her parents have left the group and moved back home to Pennsylvania. If I were a betting man I'd bet they didn't leave with their oldest daughter though. :(

Yeah, those stinking vows as pertains to a supposed ministry and supposed MOG, not just gaining followers, but messing with young heads for the rest of their life.

[cheranne]

Yes,it is like Lets Make a Deal with God! Then you get the donkey behind curtain #2 and a Helmet full of bull.... you can't take off your head!

[Bolshevik]

I kept getting told on WayD, "If thou vowest a vow, defer not to pay it" . . . :blink: eh?

course I kept asking silly questions like "what are we doing? Is there a point to any of this?"

I was also told that if I were in the army I'd $h!t when I was told to $h!t.

still don't know what we were doing.

[waysider]

still don't know what we were doing.

You were salesmen.

[Bolshevik]

You were salesmen.

well then, the commission was lousy!

[waysider]

well then, the commission was lousy!

There was commission??? LOL

[Bolshevik]

They also said a WayD vow is like a marriage vow. WayD is practice for marriage.

I tend to think they were just making it up as they go.

[OldSkool]

They also said a WayD vow is like a marriage vow. WayD is practice for marriage.

I tend to think they were just making it up as they go.

OMG - is that goofy or what?

[brainfixed]

i think that because people mix religion with government that people don't get that in america "marriage" is a legally binding contractual agreement so that even if they think they're doing some romantic religious thing "before god" in a church and taking vows that say something like "love, honor and cherish, in sickness and in health, for better and for worse, until death do us part", well then those are legally binding words that if brought into a court of law the "injured party" can clean out bank accounts and get ahold of other financial assests, make the "injuring party" pay off marital debts, get long term support not only for children but for the "injured party", and bring things back into court over and over again depending on the longevity of the marriage. i work in a field that deals with this all of the time and maybe older people think the "no fault" divorces really are "no fault" but nowadays since public assistance is so limited and so hard to get and state budgets are going to hell in a hand basket i see it all the time when the "injured party" is "counseled" to find fault, document fault, how to "trigger" fault, stay in the marriage for as long as possible so that certain laws will kick in (changing from state to state) for the best "benefits" of divorce, what to do, where to go, what to say and what documentation to have ready when the "injured party" is ready to make a move and all that. i am always seeing that divorces nowadays are so often up to 5 years in the planning by the "injured party". be very very careful before you take a vow "before god" because in america those are legally binding words and the courts don't very much like to look at the religious end of things because there's a whole other world that says "freedom of religion" means that two consenting adults were of legal age and legal wherewithal to know what they were getting into, so unless one or both of the marrying partners were minors, the argument that the "before god" vows were taken while in a cult and the "before god" part was distorted to the point of not understanding will not usually fly.

[leafytwiglet]

They also said a WayD vow is like a marriage vow. WayD is practice for marriage.

I tend to think they were just making it up as they go.

Dumb question here what the heck is WayD????

Edited for spelling errors

Edited December 17, 2009 by leafytwiglet

[waysider]

Dumb question here what the heck is WayD????

Edited for spelling errors

Way Disciple (Newer version of WOW concept)

[leafytwiglet]

Way Disciple (Newer version of WOW concept)

Thanks Waysider

Sheesh why the change in names.... oh yeah because the word was already over the world according to LCM

I missed that whole mess thankfully

[Bramble]

I'really thankful my marriage is nothing like my wow year. No ranting leadersh1+, no wondering how to pay next months rent, no hearing how wow sis and I should do all the houseold chores as prep for marriage and let the guys be men of God...aka lazy order spewing machines...

[excathedra]

vow wow bow wow

i can't even talk about this, it's so absurd

[cman]

twi could not be honest enough to vow anything

i vow to not let vows keep me from doing what i know is the right thing to do

[waysider]

Looking back on my TWI days, it wasn't breaking vows that caused me grief. It was keeping them.

[Twinky]

Looking back on my TWI days, it wasn't breaking vows that caused me grief. It was keeping them.

Ah, Waysider...ain't that right!

[Bramble]

Vows made to a TWI program were sacred and carried huge consequences if broken because they were made to GOD, but ordinary vows like marriage or child support were not nearly so important and could be broken--sometimes leadersh1+ even counseled divorce or giving up child custody to get out of the payments, so you could do a ministry program.

Family wasn't nearly as important as a ministry program! God not being all that interested in family or childrearing, but in winning converts.

[waysider]

Vows made to a TWI program were sacred and carried huge consequences if broken because they were made to GOD, but ordinary vows like marriage or child support were not nearly so important and could be broken--sometimes leadersh1+ even counseled divorce or giving up child custody to get out of the payments, so you could do a ministry program.

Family wasn't nearly as important as a ministry program! God not being all that interested in family or childrearing, but in winning converts.

[cheranne]

Looking back on my TWI days, it wasn't breaking vows that caused me grief. It was keeping them.

Like breaking a curse from candy coated bitter sweet satanism.

[chockfull]

An interesting thing to examine is what vows did TWI ever make to any individual? I've heard more than once leadership saying "the ministry owes us nothing but the Word, but we owe the ministry everything".

In every godly vow, there is an equal amount of commitment upon each party to fulfill the vow. In a marriage vow, each partner commits to keeping their promise, upholding their portion, giving their all. Yet TWI expects vows to be made to them (and they pretend to stand in God's place for this), yet they vow nothing themselves.

This is an arrangement where someone is getting used. It's very convenient for the people requiring vows yet they themselves are required nothing.

James 5:12 speaks of this:

But most of all, my brothers and sisters, never take an oath, by heaven or earth or anything else. Just say a simple yes or no, so that you will not sin and be condemned.

The OT law consisted of God vowing a vow to take care of His people and they vowing to have Him as their God and no other. Yet in the NT this type of thinking is discouraged. A parallel verse is Jesus teaching this in Matt 5:34.

One more area where people are getting fooled.

Edited December 23, 2009 by chockfull

[waysider]

I've heard more than once leadership saying "the ministry owes us nothing but the Word,

Interesting. They didn't even keep that one. Just gave us a hodge-podge version of VPW's personal interpretation, which he slanted heavily in the direction of his own agenda.

[Ham]

Pretty high priced for little or nothing..