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Come to think of it, Charles Manson wanted to be a rock star. Didn't he audition to be one of the Monkees? Imagine the beginning of a Monkees episode. Here we come walking down the street etc. Hey Hey we're the Monkees...all the while their faces are on screen with their first names...Mickey...David...Peter...Charles (with that twisted look that was all his own). That woulda been cool.

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"When twi stayed the course, God opened big doors for them."

Any examples?

How about the fact that this "cornfield cult" you keep denigrating had over 100,000 people take pfal foundational, and got to be in the top 5 most dangerous religious cults. Satan was very concerned about us. We even got Bob Dole talking about us. AND!!!!! We had people from all over the world coming to the ROA. How's come we even got THAT far if God wasn't involved. You speak with forked tongue. AND!!!! People actually got delivered from many things. TWI would have fizzled out before the end of the 60s if God was not healing and blessing people big time. No genocide here, let's deal with reality!

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How about the fact that this "cornfield cult" you keep denigrating had over 100,000 people take pfal foundational, and got to be in the top 5 most dangerous religious cults. Satan was very concerned about us. We even got Bob Dole talking about us. AND!!!!! We had people from all over the world coming to the ROA. How's come we even got THAT far if God wasn't involved. You speak with forked tongue. AND!!!! People actually got delivered from many things. TWI would have fizzled out before the end of the 60s if God was not healing and blessing people big time. No genocide here, let's deal with reality!

Some big, fat claims in that brief paragraph. And not one of those claims has any factual basis.

Okay, we all might reasonably accept that more than 100k souls took the PLAF class. But "top 5 most dangerous religious cults?" Perhaps that was just snark. But in the context you set forth, I don't know how your "Satan was very concerned about us" is snarky.

"People actually got delivered from many things." Vague, subjective and without any reference point that can reasonably be taken seriously. There's more... but why bother. "let's deal with reality!?" Do you mean some obnoxiously unscripted television show? Because you didn't present any other kind of reality.

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johniam - you and I think differently... I don't think it's so much a matter of categorical disagreement as it is a matter of thinking differently. From what I've read here at Greasespot, I like you personally in spite of our disagreements. This is a thread you started, so I'm going out of my way to respect that, and you have said much that is worth thinking about... for instance,

"Some people here say that VP/twi was insignificant, Not enough numbers to have discernible impact. Others say it was a cult. Dangerous. Ruined lives. Those are opposite messages. TWI's dark side didn't stop God from blessing people in it. Even the catholic church does much good. They have a dark side. To the present day. TWIs dark side didn't stop the devil from hurting people in it. I don't think of myself as one of the "lucky ones". I got to know God in twi. He's still there. Still answers prayer. Still heals. Putting twi in the box called 'cult' is no different than putting them in the box called 'God's ministry'. IMO"

I would say that Wierwille had tremendous impact on a number of individual lives. Whether that was a large enough number, even up to 100,000, is open to question. I don't think there were ever more than about 30,000 "standing grads" at any one time. If there were ordinarily about 20,000 people attending the ROA, that means that two-thirds of TWI's active followers were camped out on that cornfield. And even 100,000 followers is not very large in terms of religious organizations.

How many people are still following Wierwille? Probably more people than there are Shakers, because the Shakers believe in celibacy... but not by much. TWI is going the same way as Koreshanity, and as grads of the original (1967 recording) PFAL class die off, so will TWI.

Wierwille preached some things that are not normally preached in conventional Christianity, i.e., we are sons of God with power, God has committed to us the Word and the ministry of reconciliation, but in his teachings, Wierwille obviated these things. We were sons of God with power as long as we cleared everything first with leaders who were closer to the root, whose decisions were often arbitrary and nonsensical, and who had no real knowledge of what was actually going on. God had committed to us the ministry of getting people to sign the green card and pay up, by hook or by crook.

Wierwille's impact upon greater Christianity has been ephemeral for two reasons: first, none of his work has ANY scholarly validity because of his plagiarism, and second, he was a really, REALLY crappy writer. He was powerful with a microphone on a stage, but transposed into the printed word, the things he said were at once a strange combination of outlandishness and banality. His legacy will die when the 1967 PFAL class finally dies.

Was God present in TWI? Yes he was. The problem arises when we consider the truth that God was also present EVERYWHERE ELSE! Wierwille was wrong in crediting the things God was doing to PFAL and Wierwille's "ministry." Who was delivering all the deliverance you received in TWI, johniam? In John 14:13 Jesus said "And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son." Jesus didn't say "That will YOU do by your believing and a power of attorney!" Jesus didn't say "That will God do!" Jesus said "That will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son!" Who was glorified in TWI? Wierwille, PFAL and our own believing.

I agree with you when you say it would be wrong to call TWI "God's ministry." TWI was and is no more God's ministry than the several types of Orthodox, the Coptics, the Roman Catholics, the Lutherans, the Calvinists, the Mennonites, the Anglicans, the Methodists, the Baptists, the Wesleyans, the Pentecostals, the Charismatics and the bazillion-and-one other Protestant denominations. We are ALL God's ministries! If there was anything exclusive about TWI, it was Wierwille's multi-level marketing scheme.

TWI was and is cult. Wierwille and his successors made/make their followers deployable to a hidden agenda, and that is the definition of a cult. It's not a matter of subjective feelings. It is a matter of objective evidence.

Love,

Steve

Edited by Steve Lortz
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My definition of rock star is two fold:

1) someone who actually plays in a popular rock band

2) any one who...

a) connects with their culture enough to have discernible impact

b) because of a) is allowed to disrespect things like government, religion, education, public mores, etc.

One of my window cleaning accounts is an Irish pub/restaurant in downtown St. Louis called the Dubliner. Inside there are 2 posters on the wall. One is of prominent Irish politicians, the other is writers. I never heard of ANY of the politicians. I heard of about half the writers; people like George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats, and James Joyce. Then it dawned on me that those writers were the 'rock stars' of their generations. They didn't play in bands, but they connected with their communities, and they were allowed to disrespect things in their culture. Politicians have their time in the spotlight, then they're mostly forgotten. How does this relate to twi?

The men and women of God in twi were like the politicians. They spoke to us publicly; they were the face of the organization. Were there writers? Sure, but something was missing. By writers, I mean not just Elena Whiteside or Dennis McGee. We had musicians, comedians, painters, etc. But none of those were allowed even a hint of criticism. DID we criticize? Sure, but it had to be in secret. One of the last ROAs I attended I remember LCM talking about someone there who had "spoken against VP and against LCM and against twi". LCM called this person a dog who had to be muzzled.

I can see that religion might have to handle criticism differently than mainstream culture. Religion has to juggle their God, who is holy and perfect and cannot be disrespected,with their people who are imperfect and capable of doing any unspeakable thing anyone else could possibly do. I can't picture the catholic church or any other religion allowing anybody to promote music or literature displaying their "bloopers".

But criticism is healthy. Even in scripture we're supposed to check and balance ourselves (Gal. 6:1, Rom. 12:2, etc.). Countries and religions which are extreme in suppressing criticism tend to stick out like the sore thumb that they are. IMO what has happened to twi wouldn't have if certain things had been addressed freely. But they couldn't because...wasn't John Schoenheit's life threatened if he told anyone what he knew about certain things? Sounds like suppression to me. I guess the only true 'rock stars' of twi culture are here.

It annoyed the heck out of me we were even discouraged from trying to repeat VPW et al's research, his conclusions. Simply asking, be it in a little fellowship in the field or the top leaders at HQ . . . "Where did this idea even come from? . . . I don't see it." . . . Not really being critical . . . but it was still squashed under the mantra "The Research has already been done! Quit re-inventing the wheel and go make sure all this grass is the same height!"

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Come to think of it, Charles Manson wanted to be a rock star. Didn't he audition to be one of the Monkees? Imagine the beginning of a Monkees episode. Here we come walking down the street etc. Hey Hey we're the Monkees...all the while their faces are on screen with their first names...Mickey...David...Peter...Charles (with that twisted look that was all his own). That woulda been cool.

Cool but completely fictional.

he never auditioned for the Monkees.

http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/monkees.asp

Please consider fact-checking at least SOME of your statements

before hitting "add reply."

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quote:

Charles Manson's group had a handful of members. In the scale of humanity,

both the numbers of members and their murder victims are "insignificant"

(STATISTICALLY, considering that there's over 200 million people living in the

US this instant.)

That same group was a cult, dangerous, and it DID ruin lives.

If you had a family member who was in it, or who was murdered by them,

you would consider them a big deal and worth discussing.

Yeah, but Charles Manson's group is irrelevant because God had nothing to do with it.

I noticed you changed terms since the last one suited you so poorly.

You said

"Some people here say that VP/twi was insignificant, Not enough numbers to have discernible impact."

We addressed what would be meant by "insignificant." (Statistically, twi was and is

insignificant. On an absolute scale, those whose lives were ruined would consider it "significant."

Now you suddenly stopped discussing "insignificant" (a term with a specific meaning in statistics)

and switched to "irrelevant" without noting you did so.

"Irrelevant" in reference to WHAT? It's a RELATIVE term and needs a point of reference

to define it. In discussing internal combustion engines, eternal salvation is "irrelevant."

When discussing eternal salvation, internal combustion engines are "irrelevant."

And so on. Charles Manson's group is relevant to discussing statistics because they had a

number. Statistically, the group was "insignificant" on a national scale because they were a handful

of people who killed less than a handful of people. We lose more people every single day due

to heart attacks than Manson's group killed in their entirety.

But I've noticed you prefer to flee terms with specific meanings and cling to terms that can

be "creatively interpreted."

You made a similar mistake (accidentally or intentionally) above when you confused

"irrelevant" with "insignificant".

So then Christianity is irrelevant????

God had everything to do with twi even getting as famous as they did.

No He didn't.

vpw ripped off several products from several people, plagiarizing them and impressing

people by lying and saying it was all his own work. Later, he began claiming that

God Almighty taught him this stuff, but it was all from the work of others.

Except for a VAGUE passing comment buried in a book almost nobody ever read,

no mention seems to have been made of the source materials as source materials.

vpw found out the hippie Christians were having great success. He went to meet them

in person, try to get into some orgies, tried to get the Christian hippies into

orgies, and tried to impress them with his supposedly unique knowledge he claimed

came directly from God Almighty. They didn't suspect he would lie and con his way

through them, so some of them believed him. THEY were the ones who recruited all

the people that swelled twi's numbers. All significant growth in twi can be traced

to them and the people they brought in. That's why there was almost nobody in twi

until then, and the membership swelled directly as a result of their involvement.

twi got a different kind of notoriety when people got scared of youngsters in odd groups

and made all sorts of claims about twi, accidentally giving them free publicity.

NONE of that required vpw or twi to be anything remotely resembling CORRECT,

let alone a movement of God, per se.

When twi stayed the course, God opened big doors for them.

twi never "stayed" any kind of course God Almighty would have approved.

The Christian hippies opened big doors by reaching the young folk

and relating to them as anti-establishment, which is easy to use to reach

young folk. And when vpw clamped down on them, twi growth stopped exploding

and began to trickle.

Numbers are incidental when God is involved.

Ok, we went through "insignificant" and "irrelevant", and are now

on "incidental."

Actually, the numbers are directly relevant to the "significance" we

addressed earlier. I notice you laud numbers when you think they

support your premises, but spurn them as soon as it's shown they

undercut your premises.

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How about the fact that this "cornfield cult" you keep denigrating had over 100,000 people take pfal foundational,

The numbers suddenly went from "incidental" to your main focus.

That was fast.

And incorrect.

It was based on the long-discredited idea that 100,000 people took the foundational.

No, supposedly 100,000 people SIGNED UP for it.

Not everyone who signed up showed up for Session 1, and not all of them

made it to Session 12.

When I took it, 7 of us were signed up.

6 of us made it to Session 1.

3 of us made it to Session 12.

If those numbers were actually representative of twi as a whole,

less than 50,000 people took the entire foundational class.

And that still says little about them.

Saying 50,000 people took a class hardly qualifies as

"God opening big doors" for people when it represents DECADES

of twi recruitment. The "Jehovah's Witnesses", the Mormons,

and Scientology claim numbers that dwarf that easily.

(Compared to each, twi is statistically "insignificant.")

and got to be in the top 5 most dangerous religious cults. Satan was very concerned about us.

The panicky people were worried about twi for a few years,

but compared to the Moonies, considered twi to be very small potatoes

for the exact same timeframe.

Furthermore, in that same timeframe, the number of people panicking about

youngsters in twi was NOTHING compared to the number of people panicking about

youngsters playing Dungeons and Dragons. Was satan very concerned about

them also?

It should be obvious that the panics were manufactured by small, easily-frightened

minds, and were not a supernatural attempt to hit twi because twi was almost a

rounding error when compared to the overall panic.

We even got Bob Dole talking about us.

Bob Dole mentioned twi almost in passing when discussing cults.

The Senate is supposed to look out for the public welfare.

So, they did some inquiries about cults. Was that because twi was causing a

big stir at the time? No, it was because Jim Jones had just caused a big

stir, and they wanted to know if all the other cults were similar ticking

time-bombs ready to go off. They were not, and so the Senate hearings

didn't amount to a modern-day witch-hunt, at least not on the part of

the US government.

No, it was panicky individuals who were convinced they should be scared

of ALL those groups, including twi.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443686004577634230036422926

"For a few years in the late 1970s, Moon was the most notorious public face of a cult scare. Through that decade, a series of small religious groups earned a controversial reputation by drawing young people away from their families, often to isolated compounds. These were the years of the Children of God, the Hare Krishna movement, The Way International, and the Unification Church—the "Moonies."

"The Jonestown massacre of 1978 (a mass suicide instigated by Jim Jones, leader of the People's Temple cult) suggested that this total obedience might extend to real violence. When then-Sen. Bob Dole chaired a joint congressional session on "the Cult Phenomenon" in 1979, a parade of witnesses presented the problem in sensational terms. One described cults as "one of the most dangerous threats in the history of this country.""

Many lives were destroyed or thrown off track by the influence of such cults. But the problem was nowhere near the scale suggested by the media, religious leaders or even the U.S. government.

Cults had no great power to brainwash, as indicated by their embarrassingly poor retention rates. Most recruits stuck around for a year or two before drifting away, either gravitating to a new group or returning to normal life."

The panic over cults resulted partly from savvy media manipulation by a variety of interest groups. Mainstream religious organizations played a role, as did networks of families who feared that they had lost their children. More sinister were so-called deprogrammers, self-appointed experts who would—for a hefty fee—kidnap cult members and reverse the "brainwashing.""

So the media decided that the rise of cults was the nation's most important religious story. The topic received vastly more attention than several other developments that, in retrospect, were incomparably more significant. The 1970s marked a historic resurgence of evangelical Christian faith, for example—a new Great Awakening that reflected a general return to orthodoxy across the religious spectrum. And in South Korea itself, we see the triumph not of cults but of sober, mainstream, Christian churches.

In other words, a lot of important things were happening while the media were chasing moonbeams."

===================================

Bragging that twi was famous because they made it into passing

references of Senate committee hearings is pretty desperate.

AND!!!!! We had people from all over the world coming to the ROA. How's come we even got THAT far if God wasn't involved.

You don't get out much, do you?

Interested people show up for events from all over the world all the time.

Ever attend the World Science Fiction Society's convention? If so,

you showed up at a meeting that has had people show up from all over the

world, and has been HELD on 4 different continents. People have traveled

to each over great distances. That's dedicated to Science Fiction.

They get further than twi, and have lasted a lot longer,

without the involvement of a higher (or lower) power.

College students from all over the world attend US colleges. Many of them

show up at National Conventions of Alpha Phi Omega every 2 years

(which is when they are held.) Since they're college students, any

travel is, of course, a significant event. That's dedicated to service,

primarily to the community where the individual colleges are located.

They've been around a LOT longer than twi, and get further than twi,

without the involvement of a higher (or lower) power.

Every year, people from over 20 countries show up in Pittsburgh for

a few days of puppet shows, cartoon discussions, and mascot displays.

They show up from North and South America, Australia, all across Europe,

as well as Asia. (The numbers and exact locations fluctuate between

years.) They get that far without the involvement of a higher

(or lower) power.

Attendance numbers for a group are hardly evidence of the involvement

of God Almighty, and it's kinda sad when one's reduced to making

such an obviously false and easily-refuted claim.

You speak with forked tongue. AND!!!! People actually got delivered from many things.

A vague claim, and one that doesn't require that the location and the

setting actually BE of God. God can work with anyone, anytime and anywhere.

Supposing it's true that people were delivered, it's not required that twi

have any kind of connection to God that people got the deliverance there.

People get delivered from afflictions and saved during huge revival meetings

in stadiums and in convention halls. That doesn't mean the stadiums and the

convention halls have any kind of connection to God Almighty.

TWI would have fizzled out before the end of the 60s if God was not healing and blessing people big time.

Sure explains why the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses fizzled out

decades ago. Oh, wait, they didn't-they started long before twi and

claim far greater numbers than twi, and they're not "Pentecostal"-

which means they're not drawing people in with claims that healing

is even POSSIBLE, let alone ACCESSIBLE.

Besides, twi was on life-support up UNTIL the end of the 60s when vpw

conned godly young Christians who were making a difference in California.

Reliable accounts of healing and blessings can be traced to THEIR

involvement.

No genocide here, let's deal with reality!

Ending a string of unsupported, unsupportable, disproven claims with an appeal to reality appeals to my sense of humour.

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The remark about the top 5 most dangerous cults was from the anti cult books I skimmed in Christian bookstores. Just like I'm not afraid to come here, I was never afraid to read the books like 'Mindbenders' and 'Youth, brainwashing and the extremist cults'. At least a few anti cult books had a top 5 or top 10 listing of cults. The moonies and the hare krishnas always took the top 2 spots. The next three were us, the children of God, or Garner Ted Armstrong, in no consistent order.

I believe the devil is real. He was more concerned about the Lord Jesus Christ than he was about anything else...and all in vain. He lost. But he's still the god of this world, and no matter how many people see him under every rock erroneously, he still has a kingdom including fallen angels, people he can control, and people he has deceived, just like we were taught in twi.

YES, I think he was VERY concerned about twi. You say VP wasn't scholarly and a crappy writer? The Pharisees thought that way about Jesus. They thought he was a joke. Each of us has our own individual take on the differences between spiritual knowledge and natural knowledge. No amount of fact will blur that. IMO VP had an effective, consistent writing style. Didn't anybody ever coach him? He seemed to have good command of the English language. He was very thorough in making the points he made. A thirty four hour class on the bible and he got how many people to sit through it??? Must've done something right.

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"The Pharisees thought that way about Jesus. They thought he was a joke."

You're comparing VPW to Jesus?? :biglaugh:

"VP had an effective, consistent writing style."

For a high school freshman, perhaps. For someone who suppoasedly had a graduate degree?...not so much.

"He seemed to have good command of the English language."

Looking back at the way he handled throughly vs. thoroughly, with distinction/without distinction, etc. you may want to rethink that assessment.

"A thirty four hour class on the bible and he got how many people to sit through it??? Must've done something right."

The graduation rate, continuation rate was dismal. I suggest there were those who sat through to the end for no other reason than they had paid for it and there were no refunds. It's called the Concorde Fallacy. It doesn't prove there was anything "right" about it. Think of it this way: You buy a pastrami sandwich. After the first bite you realize it's the worst pastrami you've ever had. But, you finish it anyway. Why? It's paid for. That's not rational..... Toss it in the trash.

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The remark about the top 5 most dangerous cults was from the anti cult books I skimmed in Christian bookstores. Just like I'm not afraid to come here, I was never afraid to read the books like 'Mindbenders' and 'Youth, brainwashing and the extremist cults'. At least a few anti cult books had a top 5 or top 10 listing of cults. The moonies and the hare krishnas always took the top 2 spots. The next three were us, the children of God, or Garner Ted Armstrong, in no consistent order.

Those books were so poorly-researched,

reading them while in twi promoted staying in twi!

"If that's the best the detractors can come up with, then twi's doing fine!"

They stopped at silly or meaningless complaints and never found anything REALLY

worth objecting to-which did exist.

After the top 2 spots, everything else was really small potatoes,

as society goes. So 3-5 together weren't worth worrying about.

There's always been people ready to panic about the next fad to destroy

society. So far, it's been destroyed by television, rock and roll music,

comic books, and Dungeons and Dragons before I stopped keeping track.

Their panics all started with a real concern, then were blown wildly

out of proportion. Might as well have said that one pool table would

equal the moral corruption of our children.

I believe the devil is real. He was more concerned about the Lord Jesus Christ than he was about anything else...and all in vain. He lost. But he's still the god of this world, and no matter how many people see him under every rock erroneously, he still has a kingdom including fallen angels, people he can control, and people he has deceived, just like we were taught in twi.

Even if you're completely right,

that has nothing to do with various manufactured moral panics.

If you ever stumble upon any legitimate scheme of his,

nobody will believe you. You've squandered your credibility

endorsing too many silly panics and dismissing too many

legitimate concerns. Any system that regularly produces more

"false positives" than correct hits is defective and disregarded.

YES, I think he was VERY concerned about twi.

I think twi served his purposes nicely.

vpw diverted some of the House of Acts Christian hippies,

and turned them from preaching to salesmen for twi.

That's a net gain for satan.

twi also provided a vehicle to teach that fornication is ok under

certain circumstances and God is cool with it.

twi also provided victims for rapists-who raped them.

So, satan would be concerned about twi- and be very interested in

making sure they kept up his work!

They could preach all they wanted from the pulpit, but in action,

they served him quite a bit.

You say VP wasn't scholarly and a crappy writer? The Pharisees thought that way about Jesus. They thought he was a joke.

A) As has been pointed out, this is another supposed comparison putting Jesus

in the same sentence and category as vpw. I'm insulted for my Lord to be placed

in such company.

B) The Pharisees didn't think Jesus was a crappy writer.

The Pharisees didn't think Jesus was a joke.

They went out of their way to try to discredit him. Their attempts to outsmart him

failed spectacularly, whether it was trying to get him to object to paying taxes,

or to get him to repudiate the Mosaic Law penalties. In each case, he demonstrated

wisdom they were unable to match. Considering the lengths to which they ended up

going in order to have him arrested and tried, it should be clear to everyone honest

that they really put forth their best efforts to take him out.

The Pharisees took Jesus very, very seriously.

C) vpw was never scholarly. He deliberately steered as far away from "scholarly" as

possible, especially when he majored in "Homiletics", the SOFTEST option available

and he was able to succeed based on a gift of gab over genuine scholarship.

Further, if he actually liked academics, he would have done his own work and NOT

based it all on plagiarism and copying things over without stopping to understand

them first.

Furthermore, you NEVER saw him actually WRITE ANYTHING. He gabbed into tape

recorders. Later, other people transcribed, and where necessary, they made corrections

or deleted when his discourses were too error-ridden to be corrected when typing.

And what he DID say was often based on plagiarizing others, That's why he has

no consistent style for "his" books- they were plagiarized from different people

with different vocabularies.

Each of us has our own individual take on the differences between spiritual knowledge and natural knowledge. No amount of fact will blur that.

No, but a lack of understanding how natural knowledge works

leads to a lack of understanding of how spiritual knowledge works

since we build our knowledge of what we learn now on the foundation

of what we learned before. If we built it upon ignorance, the foundation

is shaky.

IMO VP had an effective, consistent writing style. Didn't anybody ever coach him? He seemed to have good command of the English language. He was very thorough in making the points he made.

In any one book, the style was "consistent." From book to book, it varied widely.

There was no need to "coach" him-just to "coach" the people actually doing the writing.

THEY had a decent command of the English language- and their style went up as greater

talents were available. That's why JCOPS and JCOP have a much more effective writing style

than books like the Orange Book.

And he made plenty of errors, as has been documented here beyond any REASONABLE doubt.

Often, he spoke at great length about something- and was completely wrong about it.

He made a nice-SOUNDING discourse on the difference between "kingdom of heaven" and

"kingdom of God." Meanwhile, the terms are Biblically interchangeable- which is why

they were used interchangeably.

If you think vpw HIMSELF had a good command of English, again,

you need to get out more.

A thirty four hour class on the bible and he got how many people to sit through it??? Must've done something right.

Yeah-a manic sales force was in effect talking the thing up as the greatest invention

since sliced bread. So, students were surrounded by people telling them how fantastic

this class was. Trying to be honest and say it wasn't, was difficult in the face of

so much peer pressure.

Furthermore, the rates of completion of Session 12 let alone retention past 6 months

fell far short of your imagination. When I took "the class", we had 7 students signed

up, and 3 of us finished session 12. So, more than 1/2 the class dropped out,

despite there being no way to truly "fail" the class.

I didn't see dropout rates like this at college for teachers that were HATED.

We can see they must have done something WRONG.

Edited by WordWolf
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quote:

TWI was and is cult. Wierwille and his successors made/make their followers deployable to a hidden agenda, and that is the definition of a cult. It's not a matter of subjective feelings. It is a matter of objective evidence.

Funny, twi made me and my family 'deployable' to not being welcome at any fellowship. Too "contaminated". Easy come easy go, eh?

Since then, my family has interacted with 4 twi spinoffs and 1 Presbyterian church. The 4th of the spinoffs we have now been with for over 10 years, so several comparisons come to mind. First, the similarities.

1) there is a chain of command. Reverends, researchers, etc.

2) there are classes available which spells out the belief system

3) there are regular fellowships available to attend which are pretty much the same as twig: praying, singing, manifestations, a teaching from the word, and fellowship afterward

4) there are several branch type meetings and weekend get togethers each calendar year

5) there is a strong sense of community, just like churches have

Now the differences

1) nobody is pressured to go to fellowship, go wow, go corps, etc. although those things are available, yet loosely connected.

2) nobody is discouraged from going to college, having a secular career, whatever

3) only 15% of abs leaves the area, the rest is used to help people who have needs (in 2006 weather knocked out power for 8 days; we were given $$$ to pay for motels we had to stay in. It was 100 degrees outside, and I'm sure we weren't the only ones who benefitted from this) Yes, this is at the discretion of leadership. Isn't everything? Isn't that the kind of thing churches should help people with? In twi 85% of abs went to HQ.

4) nobody is told their believing or commitment is screwed up if they don't come to fellowship for awhile because a personal situation comes up

In twi our agenda was to run classes and I'm not so sure it was really hidden. It wasn't for everybody, but nobody stuck a gun to my head. I heard plenty of reproof, some I received, some I did not. No matter what "evidence" you could cite, the conclusion that twi was and is a "cult" is a subjective feeling. My inclination that twi was valuable is also a subjective feeling. There are some things that only God can totally sort out.

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I'm glad you started this thread, johniam! At first I was put off by the "rock star" analogy. Rock stars were different things, and had different connotations when I was a callow youth, though two of my favorite songs are Life's Been Good to Me So Far and On The Cover of the Rolling Stone.

I first took the foundational class on Power for Abundant Living in July of 1980, went to the Rock of Ages immediately after graduating, and fell in love with The Way International... at least that's the way I saw it at the time. I actually fell in love with the people in my home twig, because I knew that they really did love me... they really did... and I attributed that love to ALL of the people up and down the Way tree. I in turn wanted to share that love with other people, and I promoted Power for Abundant Living. I lived that way for about seven years, with the degree of commitment progressing over time. I helped run PFAL classes in Muncie, Indiana, and in February 1982 I moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, to work for Dave Arneson, who was also a believer. I helped run classes in St. Paul, all sorts of classes, not just the foundational.

In October of 1981, while at the anniversary celebration at HQ, God laid a very specific desire on my heart, to "be in the fortieth anniversary wave" of WOW Ambassadors. As soon as I agreed to go (not out loud, but in my heart) God gave me to understand that it would make an eternal difference. So I went, and served in Tucson, Arizona, from August 1982 to August 1983. When I returned to St. Paul, I moved to the suburb of Newport where I coordinated a Twig for two years. We started out with about a dozen people, and by the end of the two years, we were about 4 times as many, and we split the twig when I left. While I was in Newport, we ran a foundational class at the twig level, the first time that had been done in the branch in quite a few years.

In the fall of 1984 I entered into the apprentice year of the 16th Way Corps, and in the fall of 1985 (EXACTLY 30 years ago) I went into residence at Emporia, Kansas. I didn't have any sense that God had called me to the Corps. It was just that all the people I really liked hanging out with were Corps, so I figured I would become Corps also. After finishing the first block at Emporia, I was sent to Gunnison, where I spent the next block. During my whole time in residence, I had to do "crisis believing" to get my tuition together at the last possible minute. There were a number of factors that came together during the last few weeks of that block. The first was this; I knew that if I tried to stay in residence and put a better spiritual partner twig together at the same time as working the in residence program, I would not be able to do an adequate job of either, so I was inclined to drop out of residence, go home to Indiana where I would build an appropriate spiritual partner twig, and then re-enter training with the 18th Corps. The second factor was the reading of The Passing of A Patriarch on Corps Night shortly before the end of the block. That raised a million questions in everybody's minds, including the Corps Coordinators', and DIDN'T provide a single honest, practical answer to any of those questions!

At the end of the block in the spring of '86 I returned to Indiana where I spent most of my time taking care of my ailing parents. I associated with the local Twig in Anderson, and the branch coordinator in Muncie allowed me to participate in the twig coordinators' meetings, even though I wasn't coordinating a twig at the time. I assisted the branch coordinator and his wife when I could.

All that time, I loved The Way International and promoted it in every way I could. It was in the spring of 1987 that things began to change. That tale will have to wait for another telling in the not too distant future!

Love,

Steve

Edited by Steve Lortz
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quote:

No matter what "evidence" you could cite, the conclusion that twi was and is a "cult" is a subjective feeling. My inclination that twi was valuable is also a subjective feeling. There are some things that only God can totally sort out.

John, there's plenty of subjectivity when you're unfamiliar with how objective criteria on cults squarely marks this subculture for what it really is.

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So there I was, in love with The Way International (and Dr. Wierwille) for about seven years.

Did the Bible seem to make sense? Yes, as long as I ignored a few small difficulties. Did I see miracles? Yes I did. Did I receive revelation? Yes I did. Did I see God working? ...um... well... that's what I was told... Did I see the devil working? ... I was told that too... and I told others... but was I right?

How did I fall out of love with Wierwille and his organization?

When Chris Geer read The Passing of A Patriarch at Corps Night, he raised what seemed like endless questions and provided NO answers. Everybody at Gunnison... and I mean EVERYBODY... had questions, but communications from Headquarters was shut down entirely for about a week, or at least that's what we were told. That was the beginning of the "fog years."

The Passing of A Patriarch purported to be Wierwille's last will and testament regarding The Way International delivered to Geer in the UK. Wierwille was supposedly extremely disappointed with Martindale and the Trustees, but no genuine reasons were given for that disappointment. If I remember properly, Geer mentioned gambling among the Trustees and came down very heavily on Don Wierwille. Everybody knew that there was "spiritual trouble" at Headquarters, but nobody was willing to put their finger on what the specific problem was, nor how we could deal with it, besides speaking in tongues for the Trustees.

I had moved back to Indiana where I had the branch coordinator's confidence, and was within easy driving distance of Headquarters. I would go over there and have lunch with some of my 16th Corps friends who were in residence at HQ. There was NO scuttlebutt at HQ that I was aware of. A severe clamp had been put on the transmission of ANY information, at ANY time, in ANY place.

At some point, Martindale came out and said that all the spiritual problems of the ministry were the result of the people on the field being slack in how they were running the foundational classes. When I heard that, giant red flags started flapping all over my field of vision. You see, I had been formally trained in leadership, and had exercised leadership as a sea-qualified Third Class Petty Officer in the submarine service, long before I had ever heard of TWI. During the seven years I was in love with TWI, I had assumed that all the upper level leaders of TWI understood leadership as well as I did. The first principle of leadership is, that as a leader, you take FULL responsibility for everything that happens under your command. By refusing to accept responsibility for the problems at the Trustee level of TWI, and by trying to palm that responsibility off onto believers who were the farthest removed from the Trustee level, Martindale proved to me that he was NO leader. And I began to question how Wierwille could have appointed such a sap to such a key position.

I had begun to seriously question Wierwille's judgment.

More later, as time permits...

Love,

Steve

Edited by Steve Lortz
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quote: I'm glad you started this thread, johniam! At first I was put off by the "rock star" analogy. Rock stars were different things, and had different connotations when I was a callow youth, though two of my favorite songs are Life's Been Good to Me So Far and On The Cover of the Rolling Stone.

When I was an asst mgr for Burger King in the 80s, part of my training included information about the word "coke". Originally, it referred to coca cola, a copyrighted product. By then (the 80s), any soft drink could be called a "coke". This doesn't even consider that cocaine is called coke. But, as a mgr on the clock I was not to call anything a "coke" other than coca cola. I think the phrase "rock star" has evolved in a similar way. There's no copyright issue, but in the 60s and 70s a rock star was Mick Jagger, John Lennon, or Jimmy Page or somebody like that. Now people can be called that in many situations. There's even an energy drink called rock star. Back when Dennis Rodman still played for the Bulls, teammate Steve Kerr compared him to a rock star; said when they'd go somewhere, like the mall, lots of people would follow him around everywhere. I think Jesus may have been the first true rock star. He was not mainstream, he disrespected the powers that were, and people followed him around wherever he went.

I was mildly shook up when twi started imploding. The most sane thing anyone told me was that God's still God. I agree that LCM succumbed to pressure. It's easy to speculate who, if anybody, would have stood upright, but the damage has long been done.

Edited by johniam
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So... where was I? Oh... for seven years I had been in love with TWI because the people in my original twig had loved me, and I attributed the same kind of love to all of the rest of the people involved with TWI, including Dr. Wierwille.

Before anybody jumps in and says "he wasn't really a doctor, you know" let me say this: Wierwille had carefully crafted a public persona... the kindly old Bible scholar we saw on the main stage at the Rock of Ages, who would occasionally get all fired up about respect for the accuracy and integrity of God's wonderful matchless Word. When I say "Dr. Wierwille" I am referring to THAT persona, and that was the only persona I had direct experience of. Before I became involved in the Way Corps, I never had any personal encounters with Wierwille, and by the time I did get involved, Wierwille had died. To me he was "Dr. Wierwille" and I loved him because I thought he loved me.

But from 1986 forward, I had begun to question the dead man's judgment because he had picked Martindale, who when it came to leadership was a total idiot, to take over the helm of the organization Wierwille had founded. How could that have happened? How could such a wise, godly man have been so fooled? A DOCTOR, even?

In the spring of 1987, the branch coordinator in Muncie called an emergency twig coordinators' meeting. His name was Ken. He washed windows for a living, and he had been servicing an account at a hotel in Indianapolis. Who should walk up to him as he plied his squeegee but John Lynn. John was giving a presentation at the hotel about all the problems that were plaguing The Way International, and John invited Ken to come in and listen. Ken hesitated. We had ALL been warned about listening to ANY of the defectors from TWI. The Trustees said "Multiple centers of reference cause confusion." But Ken had been praying for God to let him know what was going on, so Ken accepted John's invitation, and that's where he found out about the debauchery of the Trustees.

Ken was reporting these things to us at the emergency twig coordinators' meeting, when one of the fellows present put up his hand. That fellow had a girlfriend, who we all knew, who was in residence with the 17th Corps at HQ, and he told us she had alleged in a letter that Martindale had propositioned her. That got me upset. If it was true, then the leader of the ministry I loved was using his position, not to love God, love His Word and love His people, but to take advantage of people to satisfy his own carnal lusts. A few days after the emergency twig coordinators' meeting, I managed to get over to HQ and spend some time with the lady. She confirmed to me personally that the report about Martindale was true.

That was the moment when my love for The Way International turned inside out.

Even if it had at some point been "God's ministry" its leaders were laying "with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation" just like Eli's sons in I Samuel 2:22. The deacons don't deac, the elders don't eld, and you can't trust the Trustees...

Fr@nklin Smith was the limb coordinator of Indiana, and he was fired by the Trustees because he had a copy of Schoenheit's paper on adultery. That was pretty stupid of the Trustees because then, Smith made copies and sent them to anybody who wanted one. The body of Schoenheit's paper wasn't very controversial... just stock quotations from the Bible about adultery being a sin, but the devastating parts of the paper were the appendices, where Schoenheit used the Word to shred about a dozen or so of the lamest excuses I ever heard for a man to stick his private part where it doesn't belong. As I read those excuses, I realized that Martindale was too stupid to have made them up. Those excuses were the ones that Wierwille and the other Trustees had been using for decades.

I began to see through "Dr Wierwille" to the real man who had exercised such an influence over my life. I began to trust my sisters in Christ who came forward with testimony about how Wierwille had drugged and raped them.

One of the leaders who had left TWI came through Indianapolis and gave a presentation of Athletes of the Spirit. She used the pause and the rewind buttons to examine the production in detail. She asked the questions "what did they say?", "what does that mean?", "what is happening on the screen when they say it?" and "how does that line up with other Scripture?" The result was stomach turning. AotS glorified one person, and one person only, Craig Martindale. And at the very climax of the whole thing, the "man of god" receives revelation from God to murder a helpless human being... damn... DAMN! How Christ-like is THAT! While Martindale was taping the segment where the "man of God" defeats the lascivious devil spirits, he was screwing those same dancers who were portraying the devil spirits!

Some of us had a bootleg copy of Power for Abundant Living, and we began to go through it using the stop and rewind buttons and questions similar to the ones the woman asked when she was presenting the truth about Athletes of the Spirit. We weren't able to get beyond the first three tapes (1&1/2 hours). Wierwille PREACHED many things that were true about the Bible and Jesus Christ, but the class was FULL of contradiction. The things Wierwille TAUGHT about the Bible and Jesus Christ were often the exact opposite of what he was preaching. Despite Wierwille's charismatic use of the English language, despite the fact that people who believed what Wierwille preached got results, Power for Abundant Living itself was a fraud. During the course of our involvement with TWI we were weaned off of walking in accordance with the spirit, or even walking in accordance with the written Word, and trained more and more to walk in accordance with Wierwille's fleshly dictates.

Were there people involved with TWI who loved other people with the love of God? Yes there were! It seems to me, johniam, that you were one of those people who were loved, and who in turn loved other people with the love of God. I like to think I was one of those people, too. But Wierwille was not, and neither were any of the Trustees.

Is the conclusion that TWI was and is a cult based on subjectivity only. No. Margaret Thaler Singer (not to be confused with Margaret Sanger of Planned Parent infamy) is a psychologist who has studied organizations that use thought reform, and has been called in court cases to testify on the cult-like behavior of various groups. She has been asked what the difference is between the Marine Corps and a thought reform cult, and she says the difference lies in this: that the Marines know from the get-go what they are letting themselves in for. Cults make their followers deployable to a hidden agenda. Singer wrote a book called Cults in Our Midst that you might want to read if you're interested in learning more.

You say your agenda, to run classes, was not hidden, johniam. And that was true. But while running classes was the overt agenda of TWI, the real, covert agenda of Wierwille and the Trustees was to get money to supply their WANTS and to allow them to operate the levers of power within the organization, to garner adulation and hero-worship for their own egos, to gain willing body servants that they didn't have to pay, and to engineer a social system that would permit Wierwille to have sex with whomsoever he wanted, willing or otherwise, whensoever he wanted, and with no consequences whatsoever.

How can we be certain? In Deuteronomy 19:15b, Mark 18:16b and 2 Corinthians 13:1b, God's wonderful matchless Word tells us that "in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall a matter be established." Nowhere... and I mean NOWHERE... does the Bible ever even imply that "multiple centers or reference cause confusion!" There are plenty more than two or three witnesses to the predatory behavior of Wierwille and the Trustees.

We got upset when Wierwille was criticized because Wierille taught us to identify with HIM... Wierwille never taught us that our primary allegiance should be to Jesus Christ, and HE is the one we should identify with. Wierwille stole the thankfulness, the honor and the glory that we should have rightly been giving to Jesus Christ and took it for himself. Wierwille was not Christian. He substituted himself for Christ in our estimation. He was an enemy of Christ.

I am sorry if you find these things painful, johniam. The real causes of your pain are not the truths I am speaking, but Wierwille's lies that you and I both believed for far too long.

God bless you, johniam, in the name of Jesus Christ!

Love,

Steve

Edited by Steve Lortz
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Steve - thanks for these three wonderful posts that set out your history (and perhaps something akin to the history of many of us). You present your account very clearly. I especially liked: " I had been in love with TWI because the people in my original twig had loved me, and I attributed the same kind of love to all of the rest of the people involved with TWI..." The hook that got most of us, it seems.

Thank you again.

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This is not painful for me. You probably think my conscience has been seared with a hot iron. Whatever. Just a few questions. You say that, well...

quote:

We got upset when Wierwille was criticized because Wierille taught us to identify with HIM... Wierwille never taught us that our primary allegiance should be to Jesus Christ, and HE is the one we should identify with. Wierwille stole the thankfulness, the honor and the glory that we should have rightly been giving to Jesus Christ and took it for himself. Wierwille was not Christian. He substituted himself for Christ in our estimation. He was an enemy of Christ.

I never thought VP was Jesus. OK, specifically what did you do to make Christ the object of your allegiance. Specifically, what PEOPLE are involved. Sounds to me like you scrapped VP and now have the same "allegiance" to other people. God called us to a body and Christ is nobody's twig leader; He's seated at the right hand of God. SOMEBODY has to be your twig leader or where you get your information from. VP was always saying "I didn't die for you". He said he represented Christ but so does every Christian minister.

You and others must also believe that multiple centers of learning causes confusion. You and others here seem to believe that any professional person, Christian or not, who says anything about cults is speaking the gospel. So, when people like me show up with a different center of reference, this is a problem. I read that attached article Penworks posted. Sounds like same old same old. That was NOT the twi I was in. Looking at everybody in any group like they're cult robots until proven innocent is, at best, thinking evil, and at worst, bigotry.

Back to that multiple centers of reference thing. There doesn't have to be a scripture for it. God gave everyone free will. We consider multiple points of view because we CAN! If you're in a football game, huddled up, and the play is given (offense OR defense), that is NOT the time to consider other points of view. But there's plenty of time after the game, or between plays to analyze and comment, not just in football. Overall, the AOS confused people, but there were some points of similarity.

Just because VP helped himself to things he shouldn't have doesn't define twi 100%.

Edited by johniam
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. . .

Looking at everybody in any group like they're cult robots until proven innocent is, at best, thinking evil, and at worst, bigotry.

. . .

How should you view followers of twi then? I don't see avoiding rattlesnakes as thinking evil or bigotry, but I also don't look at them in any trustworthy way.

Edited by Bolshevik
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This is not painful for me. You probably think my conscience has been seared with a hot iron. Whatever. Just a few questions. You say that, well...

quote:

We got upset when Wierwille was criticized because Wierille taught us to identify with HIM... Wierwille never taught us that our primary allegiance should be to Jesus Christ, and HE is the one we should identify with. Wierwille stole the thankfulness, the honor and the glory that we should have rightly been giving to Jesus Christ and took it for himself. Wierwille was not Christian. He substituted himself for Christ in our estimation. He was an enemy of Christ.

I never thought VP was Jesus. OK, specifically what did you do to make Christ the object of your allegiance. Specifically, what PEOPLE are involved. Sounds to me like you scrapped VP and now have the same "allegiance" to other people. God called us to a body and Christ is nobody's twig leader; He's seated at the right hand of God. SOMEBODY has to be your twig leader or where you get your information from. VP was always saying "I didn't die for you". He said he represented Christ but so does every Christian minister.

You and others must also believe that multiple centers of learning causes confusion. You and others here seem to believe that any professional person, Christian or not, who says anything about cults is speaking the gospel. So, when people like me show up with a different center of reference, this is a problem. I read that attached article Penworks posted. Sounds like same old same old. That was NOT the twi I was in. Looking at everybody in any group like they're cult robots until proven innocent is, at best, thinking evil, and at worst, bigotry.

Back to that multiple centers of reference thing. There doesn't have to be a scripture for it. God gave everyone free will. We consider multiple points of view because we CAN! If you're in a football game, huddled up, and the play is given (offense OR defense), that is NOT the time to consider other points of view. But there's plenty of time after the game, or between plays to analyze and comment, not just in football. Overall, the AOS confused people, but there were some points of similarity.

Just because VP helped himself to things he shouldn't have doesn't define twi 100%.

Why would you even care what anyone thinks of you?

Sounds to me like you scrapped VP and now have the same "allegiance" to other people.

Again, what gives you the right, or even just the "insight" to know what's in someone else's heart?

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