Questioning Way International Doctrines (William Barlow)

[waysider]

1 hour ago, JoyfulSoul said:

Without the hand of God on human history I'm just trying to give some atheists some happiness before the nuclear winter.

[Raf]

This is getting obnoxious 

[Charity]

2 hours ago, JoyfulSoul said:

There was already a whole thread about me.  Without the hand of God on human history I'm just trying to give some atheists some happiness before the nuclear winter.

Yeah, I was kind of hoping for one straight answer as to exactly why you left twi or were you kicked out?

[Nathan_Jr]

LMFAO!!

 

24 minutes ago, Charity said:

Yeah, I was kind of hoping for one straight answer as to exactly why you left twi or were you kicked out?

I don’t think he ever said. He went to ROA ‘87-‘88, got blessed in spite of being high all the time, tried to go WOW, but the AC rejected his application, then he hopped from charlatan to charlatan and got kicked out of at least one other cult, IHOP.

It’s hard to tell.

 

[Oakspear]

3 hours ago, JoyfulSoul said:

 I'm just trying to give some atheists some happiness before the nuclear winter.

Almost thou persuadest me to be an atheist

[oldiesman]

On 6/3/2025 at 6:42 AM, Allan said:

Some of THE best teachings I've heard on these subjects were by men after they had left twi...Wayne Clapp's 'Hell is not a place of eternal torment' and John Nessles 'Who is this Jesus Christ' were/are absolutely skillful' brilliant, impactful....

This may be one of the most important topics of our time, i.e., What is Hell?     I think Martin Luther struggled with it; certainly I do.     Still haven't decided yet, still open to possibilities.   Here's another book that I think we discussed at some point in the past:

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=32180704645&dest=usa&ref_=ps_ggl_17730880232&cm_mmc=ggl-_-US_Shopp_Trade_10to20-_-product_id=COM9780595143429USED-_-keyword=&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=17190383924&gbraid=0AAAAAD3Y6guhSTjDY6oAFsx9lSu4SnsCN&gclid=CjwKCAjwo4rCBhAbEiwAxhJlCSy6Q8uurSSH4soZ9p8JiiXjAh8S4jIwrnkXakdETCyLGnk95MVBbhoCj6kQAvD_BwE

[oldiesman]

On 6/4/2025 at 11:32 AM, Raf said:

WW kind of sideswiped a theory I've been working under for the past few years. I've brought it up before but it bears repeating.

I have a suspicion (not enough evidence to call it a theory) that VPW was an unbeliever at heart. In tribute to Mike's thesis about how Wierwille hid great truths in plain sight and we all missed it: He declared himself to be all but atheist after studying the Bible. He no longer believed the words Holy or Bible on the cover (which is grammatically and rhetorically stupid, but you get his point). Being educated about the Bible, its history and authorship caused him to all but lose his faith. He said so!

What if he never regained it?

Bear with me: what if, from that moment forward, it was never about getting God and His Word right, but getting while the getting was good? He got money. He got adoration, He got fame (relative to most of us). He got attention. He got sex. He got power. 

How much of what he did makes more sense if he didn't believe a word of it but knew how to manipulate people to get what he wanted from them? Every time he discovered a niche, he exploited it. "This book is not some kind of Johnny come lately idea just to be iconoclastic..." [if someone has the correct wording, please let me know. I'll be happy to fix]. Oh it WASN'T? Because it was so shoddy I would think that you were selling a title rather than a book. You have a doctorate. You know how to present and defend a thesis (stop laughing, you in the back row. @#$%ing Snowball Pete).

But he was an unbeliever. He KNEW the scholarship about the Bible that people like Bart Ehrman and Dan McClellan are popularizing today. He knew and he stopped believing. And THAT is when the bulls hit started.

The funny thing is, it doesn't negate anything he taught. Just his motives. If McClellan and Ehrman are right, the first Christians really weren't Trinitarians. They weren't what Wierwille espoused either, though some were. Jehovah's Witnesses actually got it right, if McClellan and Ehrman are correct. But even that conclusion presupposes a unified message from the New Testament writers. And they weren't unified.

Here's the problem Wierwille exposed that a lot of Christianity still gets wrong. There WAS NO FIRST CENTURY CHURCH. There were first century churches. Tons of them. And they disagreed with each other about EVERYTHING. 

Another topic for another time.

Bottom line, I'm increasingly coming to believe that Wierwille's rise and ministry can best be explained by the hypothesis that he was an unbeliever from the moment before he became relevant. 

After watching many episodes of "The Practice" and enjoying it immensely, I have to admit, "It's Possible".   

[oldiesman]

On 6/5/2025 at 7:23 AM, Raf said:

I'm an atheist.

I have lots of joy. I also exhibit the fruit of the spirit in much of my life and have been commended many times for doing "God's Work" (to which I respond: "I have to; He won't).

"Atheists are extremely without joy" is a statement of staggering ignorance and bigotry. I trust that is outside your character. Might be best to stick with a subject about which you actually know something 

This opens up a whole lot of other questions for me like, does God work with unbelievers as well.      Maybe the whole rap of "the fruit of the spirit comes from the manifestations" is bogus.       QUESTION for the group:    did VPW make that up or did he copy it from elsewhere... Stiles, Leonard, or somebody else?

[waysider]

44 minutes ago, oldiesman said:

 QUESTION for the group:    did VPW make that up or did he copy it from elsewhere... Stiles, Leonard, or somebody else?

Yes, he copied it.

[Raf]

I no longer have the books that demonstrate what concepts Wierwille lifted word for word. I would suspect Christians would care more about the content than the source when evaluating the doctrines, and that conversation, of course, belongs in Doctrinal (we have a new sub forum dedicated specifically to twi doctrine. Feel free).

The question of whether he plagiarized or made it up stays here.

I don't care much either way. Should we still? 

 

Edited 11 hours ago by Raf

[oldiesman]

7 hours ago, waysider said:

Yes, he copied it.

Do you know who from and what book?

[oldiesman]

6 hours ago, Raf said:

I no longer have the books that demonstrate what concepts Wierwille lifted word for word. I would suspect Christians would care more about the content than the source when evaluating the doctrines, and that conversation, of course, belongs in Doctrinal (we have a new sub forum dedicated specifically to twi doctrine. Feel free).

The question of whether he plagiarized or made it up stays here.

I don't care much either way. Should we still? 

 

Only if one wants to see it in the original... and who knows, maybe there's something there that's different...

[JoyfulSoul]

11 hours ago, Charity said:

Yeah, I was kind of hoping for one straight answer as to exactly why you left twi or were you kicked out?

As I tell my sister, I am my favorite subject.   So OK, the Rock in 87 and 88.   Highlights of my Christian experience.   

Went into the Army.   Met up with a guy trying to establish The Way in Germany but nothing came of it.

Got out in 93 and joined a twig.  Went to the Rock and this time it was awful.  Grounds weren't immaculate as they used to be.  The love, joy and family were gone.  I found LCMs preaching to be caustic and controlling.  It was later that fall I had that demonic episode I wrote about.  Eventually I split with my twig leader and  The Way.

In my experience, The Way changed between '88 and '93.   I know it is different for everybody, many thought it was over before I took PFAL.

A   little extra, would Christianity ever be the same again?   The Way was gone, was that glorious experience of Christianity gone, too?

Sometime around 96 or 97 the providential hand of God (just humor me, OK?) brought me to Morningstar Fellowship in Charlotte, NC.   Truly, it was a 'God thing' (read: psychotic event).  My walk with Christ (in my imagination) opened up new chapters and new vistas and even though the experience of love in Christian family (no thanks to VP, I'm sure)  was never the same, interaction with other worlds became even better- like...way better (don't bogart that bong) ...

Hard getting away from my favorite subject but you did ask.

 

[waysider]

3 hours ago, oldiesman said:

Do you know who from and what book?

I'm fuzzy on the specifics. We discussed this in detail here 10 or 12 years ago. Most of this sort of thing came from Stiles or Leonard or maybe both. The definitions VPW used in the Advanced Class were lifted almost word-for-word from one of them. I think it may have been Stiles. Anyhow, it's all archived here somewhere. I'm not personally very skilled at locating old discussions. But, yeah, it's all here if you're motivated enough to look for it. At the moment, I'm more motivated to catch another episode of Heavenly Ever After on Netflix.

[Charity]

1 hour ago, JoyfulSoul said:

As I tell my sister, I am my favorite subject.   So OK, the Rock in 87 and 88.   Highlights of my Christian experience.   

Went into the Army.   Met up with a guy trying to establish The Way in Germany but nothing came of it.

Got out in 93 and joined a twig.  Went to the Rock and this time it was awful.  Grounds weren't immaculate as they used to be.  The love, joy and family were gone.  I found LCMs preaching to be caustic and controlling.  It was later that fall I had that demonic episode I wrote about.  Eventually I split with my twig leader and  The Way.

In my experience, The Way changed between '88 and '93.   I know it is different for everybody, many thought it was over before I took PFAL.

A   little extra, would Christianity ever be the same again?   The Way was gone, was that glorious experience of Christianity gone, too?

Sometime around 96 or 97 the providential hand of God (just humor me, OK?) brought me to Morningstar Fellowship in Charlotte, NC.   Truly, it was a 'God thing' (read: psychotic event).  My walk with Christ (in my imagination) opened up new chapters and new vistas and even though the experience of love in Christian family (no thanks to VP, I'm sure)  was never the same, interaction with other worlds became even better- like...way better (don't bogart that bong) ...

Hard getting away from my favorite subject but you did ask.

 

I think you know that twi will have none of the preposterous, pretentious and extreme prophetic phoniness that ministries like Morningstar (and IHOPKC, Gateway Church, Bethel Church, and others) prosper in, but they all do share in twi's history of there being sexual abuse.    Now, do they all practice lovebombing like twi - that I do not know.  

 

 

  

Edited 1 hour ago by Charity

[JoyfulSoul]

18 minutes ago, Charity said:

I think you know that twi will have none of the preposterous, pretentious and extreme prophetic phoniness that ministries like Morningstar (and IHOPKC, Gateway Church, Bethel Church, and others) prosper in, but they all do share in twi's history of there being sexual abuse.    Now, do they all practice lovebombing like twi - that I do not know.  

 

 

  

I'm just going to tell you my opinion.  Of course you can disagree.

Respectfully, you're very certain about things you know nothing about.   But, I' m not here to convince anyone of anything, either.

[Charity]

2 minutes ago, JoyfulSoul said:

I'm just going to tell you my opinion.  Of course you can disagree.

Respectfully, you're very certain about things you know nothing about.   But, I' m not here to convince anyone of anything, either.

You know nothing about what I do or do not know.  What I said about those groups can easily be documented.  I will do so if you're interested but not tonight - it's too late.