Another part of Saint Vic's scam was the more than abundant life schtick.
Just what is a more than abundnt life?
........
So_crates.........
Wierwille was nearly 51 years old when he filmed this 1967 class. Clearly, thru the years......he used cunning and stealth to plagiarize from others. Often, he'd tweak paragraphs, phrases, poems, and one-liners just enough.........to hide the source.
Hell........the guy even stole "The Red Thread" teaching from Oral Roberts.
Much of what we saw in wierwille's foundational class and stories was ..........pre-emptive strikes. You see, wierwille was crafty.......and spent decades hiding in the shadows and hitch-hiking off other's work and reputations. IMO.......that is why the "hitch-hiker" analogy in pfal was so strikingly real. Wierwille WAS the hitch-hiker.
He being a drunk......wierwille expounded on the "drunk story" and challenged all student to NOT judge. And, that he went back to his office and knelt and prayed to God that he would never teach another negative sermon......blah, blah, blah. Well?.....did he teach other negative sermons? Yep.
Parlaying all this together.......heck, wierwille told us that he'd need to read it "line by line, and word for word BEFORE he would call the Great Apostle Paul a sex pervert!" WOWSERS......sex pervert? Who was even thinking that.....besides wierwille? Was THAT a pre-emptive strike.....to squelch "rumors" of wierwille's sexual predation? I think so.
So......when your thread addresses this "more abundant life"..........it's a pre-emptive strike to get us to solely focus on "the more abundant life is SPIRITUAL"......
Yet, wierwille stayed on church payroll until August 1957.........never served one day on any "mission field" helping others
Later, surrounded himself with harleys, motor coach, plane, bodyguards, etc.
Parked his motor coach at Indy 500 to hobnob with big wigs....
Tried to entice wealthy donors and celebrities to come to hq...
Exploited the way corps to work for free at every event.....
Etc.....
Bait-and-switch.........starts class with John 10:10.......but then, cherry-picks all over the bible to stake his claim that "the abundant life means spiritual abundance."
One can get a better feel for what the Bible refers to as the abundant life by reading John 10:10 in its full context. Hint: it's not what Wierwille said it is. Wierwille clearly sucked this verse out of context in order to give the impression the abundant life is a material entity. " I looked all around me and saw the the unbelievers were living a more abundant life than the believers". So, if it's spiritual, what was it that the unbelievers had? (rhetorical question)
One can get a better feel for what the Bible refers to as the abundant life by reading John 10:10 in its full context. Hint: it's not what Wierwille said it is. Wierwille clearly sucked this verse out of context in order to give the impression the abundant life is a material entity. " I looked all around me and saw the the unbelievers were living a more abundant life than the believers". So, if it's spiritual, what was it that the unbelievers had? (rhetorical question)
What’s your thoughts on the context of John 10:10 waysider? It’s a subject I’ve been looking at for quite a while now. And I agree with you about that verse being lifted out of context and a doctrine built on it. Thanks for your insights.
What’s your thoughts on the context of John 10:10 waysider? It’s a subject I’ve been looking at for quite a while now. And I agree with you about that verse being lifted out of context and a doctrine built on it. Thanks for your insights.
I don't know about the context of John 10:10.
However, I do know the context of the pressed down shaken together running over verse: forgiveness.
One can get a better feel for what the Bible refers to as the abundant life by reading John 10:10 in its full context. Hint: it's not what Wierwille said it is. Wierwille clearly sucked this verse out of context in order to give the impression the abundant life is a material entity. " I looked all around me and saw the the unbelievers were living a more abundant life than the believers". So, if it's spiritual, what was it that the unbelievers had? (rhetorical question)
Exactly, waysider.........those of us who sat in the pfal class 20 times or more, can probably summon wierwille's voice inflections when he stated this.
This was a faux pas..............a remark or blunder in a public setting.
Wierwille BLUNDERED right out of the gate in this pfal class. It was sitting there like a pile of steaming cow-schit on a flat rock.......within the first 5 minutes of his class.
Wierwille equates the more abundant life......with material possessions.
He looked around and saw unbelievers with more stuff, better stuff.........and thus, unbelievers were living "more abundantly" than believers
OMG........the continuity of his premise (JC bringing "a more abundant life") stumbled right out of the gate!!
The FIRST verse in this class......and wierwille screws up. He admits, without grasping his error, what HE deemed "more abundant" ---i.e material things.
Which begs the question.............where was that "in-depth spiritual perception and awareness" (cough, cough) DERIVED FROM that wierwille claimed?
Much of what we saw in wierwille's foundational class and stories was ..........pre-emptive strikes. You see, wierwille was crafty.......and spent decades hiding in the shadows and hitch-hiking off other's work and reputations. IMO.......that is why the "hitch-hiker" analogy in pfal was so strikingly real. Wierwille WAS the hitch-hiker.
He being a drunk......wierwille expounded on the "drunk story" and challenged all student to NOT judge. And, that he went back to his office and knelt and prayed to God that he would never teach another negative sermon......blah, blah, blah. Well?.....did he teach other negative sermons? Yep.
Parlaying all this together.......heck, wierwille told us that he'd need to read it "line by line, and word for word BEFORE he would call the Great Apostle Paul a sex pervert!" WOWSERS......sex pervert? Who was even thinking that.....besides wierwille? Was THAT a pre-emptive strike.....to squelch "rumors" of wierwille's sexual predation? I think so.
Skyrider,
I agree with you whole-heartedly. As a matter of fact, the more one looks at PLAF, the more they can see just how full of pre-emptive strikes it is.
Even the law of believing is nothing more than a pre-emptive strike. By making this "law" a foundational principle in The Way, Saint Vic had a catch all excuse for all the evil one would encounter in the ministry. Then, of course, it was time to renew your mind.
What’s your thoughts on the context of John 10:10 waysider? It’s a subject I’ve been looking at for quite a while now. And I agree with you about that verse being lifted out of context and a doctrine built on it. Thanks for your insights.
In light of the context - I think wierwille’s behavior showed he had more in common with the thieves, robbers, hired hands and wolves than with the good shepherd Jesus Christ!
wierwille’s use of John 10:10 was actually the bait used for cult entrapment.
“Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber.2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” 6 Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.
7 Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep....John 10:1-13 NIV
I got involved in TWI in ‘74 in NY and remember a flyer someone made for handing out when you witnessed - one particular detail of that flyer I still can vividly recall - in bold letters it said “you can have whatever you want”.
...thinking of when LCM would rant about the abundant life of John 10:10 was primarily spiritual to our corps I wish I had the ballz to jump up and say “that’s not what wierwille said in PFAL !” There’d probably be a long silence ...then I would mutter “uhm ...do I still have to do bless patrol tonight or do you want me to pack up and leave right now?” This would be included as DVD bonus features alternate ending of my film “Escape from Rome City”...which has me leaving during my corps assignment after figuring out PFAL and TWI had NOTHING to do with material or spiritual abundance! It was and still is a big scam - - a royal ripoff !
The irony of using this particular scripture out of context is that, in the blink of an eye, it shifted the focus from Christ to one's own self. That doesn't simply obscure the message, it contradicts it. You (not Christ) become the central figure, by operating the law of believing and faithfully following the formula for success. To say that Wierwille wasn't operating a bait & switch scheme would be a naive denial of reality.
The irony of using this particular scripture out of context is that, in the blink of an eye, it shifted the focus from Christ to one's own self. That doesn't simply obscure the message, it contradicts it. You (not Christ) become the central figure, by operating the law of believing and faithfully following the formula for success. To say that Wierwille wasn't BRAZENLY operating a bait & switch scheme would be a naive denial of reality.
With corpse required to read Dale Carnegie's book on persuasion, on reflection it's very clear.
Pre-emptive strikes in pfal...............coined by DWBH.
Giving credit where credit is due.......Buried in a deep discussion, DWBH made reference that wierwille, in pfal, pre-emptively mitigated accusations from his past.
And......hoping that DWBH finds the time to write a book.
On 2/16/2016 at 4:47 PM, DontWorryBeHappy said:
Hi All!
My 2 cents FWIW...... I think that entire rap about the drunk showing up at choich, whether invented or real, is part of a subtle thread which runs throughout piffle. It's like the red thread. What is it? An attempt by vic to pre-emptively mitigate the accusations which had been thrown at him effectively before this filming project in late 1967. Namely that, vic was a drunk and a "womanizer". These went as far back as Van Wert and were definitely part of why the UCC dangcanned him. They fired him and then he wrote his "resignation" letter in August, 1956 or 57.
Upon moving it all back to the family farm where he grew up in New Knoxville, the locals, who couldn't stand young vic when he lived among them, were not shaking their heads that the boy was fired by the Church for drinking and carousing with his young secretary Rhoda Beckett, a Mennonite from NY, along with others in his congregation. The "rumors" were quite effective because first of all, they were factual, and secondly, the NK residents were quite well aware of vic's varied peccadilloes while he terrorized the town's girls and bullied the boys. So, when he returned to the family farm after being fired by the UCC, H.E. bought up the shares of the other siblings, and he was back home facing the reputation he had made for himself as a young man in town and the rumors, which everyone knew were true, of why the church fired him. And so the feud was rekindled and continues today even though no wierwilles are left in twit.
Piffle was filmed in Dayton. The biggest fellowships were in Troy, Xenia, and several towns surrounding New Knoxville like Sidney and St. Mary's. Vic's church along with all the whispers about the fired UCC guy who had his own church now. The rumors never stopped and now followed him wherever he went. So, he constantly did everything he could to squelch, deny, and minimalize the rumors even in piffle. Examples? The drunk story. Vic was a boozer since high school. Everybody knew it. He'd get dangfaced and race his motorcycle all over the place doing "tricks" and scaring people. He was the prankster, practical joker who consistently ....ed people off. The NKers knew all this. So did Shelby and auglaize county sheriffs. So, the whole drunk story was throw in there not to teach grace but rather to obviate vic's "license to sin" practice of grace. How did he respond to the drunk guy incident? He became one! But, we don't need to confront him. We need to love and forgive him by god's grace just like vic
Did for the drunk and like Jesus does for you. "That's the living thing to do."
Then, in that section in Acts where he's "handling" Paul's thorn in the flesh. Remember? "Whaddya think his back looked
like? Whaddya think his back looked like? Why some even accused the great Apostle Paul of being a sex pervert! A sex pervert! Imagine that? Well I'd sure as heck would need to be absolutely sure I was right before I'd lay something like that at the feet of the greatest apostle in the first century church! That's riiight! A sex pervert! Lordy Pete!". Sound familiar? Interesting he'd throw that one specific charge in there that is NOT recorded anywhere in scripture. Again, a pre-emotive strike to obviate the other FACT about Vic that followed him his whole life. A drunken molester of women and a bully. And, the pre-emptive obviating was quite effective all through the 70's. But, then the facts caught up with them all, and down fell the cradle, baby and all. Vic was ALWAYS on alert. But the young jerks like da forehead, Beence finnegan, wrenn, lynn, and a bunch of other young turks were lazy. They had it handed to them and thought it was their right. Didn't take long before they all got caught and when the heat started turning on Vic, he retired and got outta dodge. And, when he died he left Geer behind to take it all back from the guys who screwed it all up......his oldest biological son Don, his best friend Howard, and his best student da forehead. He died a "winner" and took his balls to the grave with him. Which is why his son Don, at the end of a Yak Twig meeting in the motorcycle shed in 1986, tearfully screamed......"He's .... dead and still he tortures me from the grave!". Nice legacy.
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skyrider
So_crates.........
Wierwille was nearly 51 years old when he filmed this 1967 class. Clearly, thru the years......he used cunning and stealth to plagiarize from others. Often, he'd tweak paragraphs, phrases, poems, and one-liners just enough.........to hide the source.
Hell........the guy even stole "The Red Thread" teaching from Oral Roberts.
Much of what we saw in wierwille's foundational class and stories was ..........pre-emptive strikes. You see, wierwille was crafty.......and spent decades hiding in the shadows and hitch-hiking off other's work and reputations. IMO.......that is why the "hitch-hiker" analogy in pfal was so strikingly real. Wierwille WAS the hitch-hiker.
He being a drunk......wierwille expounded on the "drunk story" and challenged all student to NOT judge. And, that he went back to his office and knelt and prayed to God that he would never teach another negative sermon......blah, blah, blah. Well?.....did he teach other negative sermons? Yep.
Parlaying all this together.......heck, wierwille told us that he'd need to read it "line by line, and word for word BEFORE he would call the Great Apostle Paul a sex pervert!" WOWSERS......sex pervert? Who was even thinking that.....besides wierwille? Was THAT a pre-emptive strike.....to squelch "rumors" of wierwille's sexual predation? I think so.
So......when your thread addresses this "more abundant life"..........it's a pre-emptive strike to get us to solely focus on "the more abundant life is SPIRITUAL"......
Bait-and-switch.........starts class with John 10:10.......but then, cherry-picks all over the bible to stake his claim that "the abundant life means spiritual abundance."
.
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waysider
One can get a better feel for what the Bible refers to as the abundant life by reading John 10:10 in its full context. Hint: it's not what Wierwille said it is. Wierwille clearly sucked this verse out of context in order to give the impression the abundant life is a material entity. " I looked all around me and saw the the unbelievers were living a more abundant life than the believers". So, if it's spiritual, what was it that the unbelievers had? (rhetorical question)
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JayDee
What’s your thoughts on the context of John 10:10 waysider? It’s a subject I’ve been looking at for quite a while now. And I agree with you about that verse being lifted out of context and a doctrine built on it. Thanks for your insights.
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So_crates
I don't know about the context of John 10:10.
However, I do know the context of the pressed down shaken together running over verse: forgiveness.
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JayDee
Forgive who for what?
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So_crates
Us forgiving one another compared to how much God forgives us.
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skyrider
Exactly, waysider.........those of us who sat in the pfal class 20 times or more, can probably summon wierwille's voice inflections when he stated this.
This was a faux pas..............a remark or blunder in a public setting.
Wierwille BLUNDERED right out of the gate in this pfal class. It was sitting there like a pile of steaming cow-schit on a flat rock.......within the first 5 minutes of his class.
The FIRST verse in this class......and wierwille screws up. He admits, without grasping his error, what HE deemed "more abundant" ---i.e material things.
Which begs the question.............where was that "in-depth spiritual perception and awareness" (cough, cough) DERIVED FROM that wierwille claimed?
.
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So_crates
Skyrider,
I agree with you whole-heartedly. As a matter of fact, the more one looks at PLAF, the more they can see just how full of pre-emptive strikes it is.
Even the law of believing is nothing more than a pre-emptive strike. By making this "law" a foundational principle in The Way, Saint Vic had a catch all excuse for all the evil one would encounter in the ministry. Then, of course, it was time to renew your mind.
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T-Bone
In light of the context - I think wierwille’s behavior showed he had more in common with the thieves, robbers, hired hands and wolves than with the good shepherd Jesus Christ!
wierwille’s use of John 10:10 was actually the bait used for cult entrapment.
“Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber.2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” 6 Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.
7 Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep....John 10:1-13 NIV
I got involved in TWI in ‘74 in NY and remember a flyer someone made for handing out when you witnessed - one particular detail of that flyer I still can vividly recall - in bold letters it said “you can have whatever you want”.
...thinking of when LCM would rant about the abundant life of John 10:10 was primarily spiritual to our corps I wish I had the ballz to jump up and say “that’s not what wierwille said in PFAL !” There’d probably be a long silence ...then I would mutter “uhm ...do I still have to do bless patrol tonight or do you want me to pack up and leave right now?” This would be included as DVD bonus features alternate ending of my film “Escape from Rome City”...which has me leaving during my corps assignment after figuring out PFAL and TWI had NOTHING to do with material or spiritual abundance! It was and still is a big scam - - a royal ripoff !
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waysider
The irony of using this particular scripture out of context is that, in the blink of an eye, it shifted the focus from Christ to one's own self. That doesn't simply obscure the message, it contradicts it. You (not Christ) become the central figure, by operating the law of believing and faithfully following the formula for success. To say that Wierwille wasn't operating a bait & switch scheme would be a naive denial of reality.
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Rocky
With corpse required to read Dale Carnegie's book on persuasion, on reflection it's very clear.
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skyrider
Pre-emptive strikes in pfal...............coined by DWBH.
Giving credit where credit is due.......Buried in a deep discussion, DWBH made reference that wierwille, in pfal, pre-emptively mitigated accusations from his past.
And......hoping that DWBH finds the time to write a book.
The subtle thread which runs throughout pfal
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