We left not only because he had to write this but because he was fired for it. It made no sense. It made me turn my back on TTW after 15 years. That's how stupidly they handled it.
I get this which makes Schoenheit's "Forward" interesting to read.
"In 1982 or 1983 Rev. Ralph Dubofsky and Rev. Vince Finegan came to me. Dr. Wierwille had asked them to do some work on the subject of adultery. Ralph and Vince wanted to know what I knew and if it would help them. I was genuinely surprised at how little I knew about the subject from the Word of God. This paper is the result of those years of study."
"As I struggled to control my mind, I realized that I did not have a scripture to grab onto for support. I literally was not completely positive as to what the Word of God had to say on the subject."
This was understandable, because after all, vp never taught it in the Christian Family and Sex class so how were people supposed to know.
That's where vpw's cadre of sin came in. First, they procure the victim and get them to go to him in private. Afterwards, one of them "coincidentally" ran into her as she left, trying to make sense of what happened. This exit counselor, so to speak, can tell her how she was privileged and so on, and watch her for signs of exploding. If she seemed ready to spill the beans on having been raped/sexually assaulted, then the exit counselor passed word. Quickly, she's announced as unworthy in some way and kicked off grounds. This attacks her self-esteem while she's trying to make sense of things, and let's some innocent people possibly see she was kicked out for supposedly some weakness on her part (kept vague, of course.) She's immediately put on a nice, slow bus. That's really cheap, and since they're in the middle of nowhere, it will take her a day to reach home if she is close, dayS if she is not. That gives the twi propaganda machine lots of time to contact all the leadership in the person's home area and destroy her reputation. That way, if she says something to them, they've already "poisoned the well." Furthermore, it isolates her further, damaging her self-esteem even more.
Any time someone was any kind of liability, twi shoved them on a bus. Sometimes it meant a person took a WEEK to get home, because they were in no shape to go home alone, and got lost somewhere in the US. That happened a few times. lcm documented vpw doing it in his book "VP and Me." (We discussed that in the thread "VP and Me in Wonderland.") A man in residence evidenced some sort of event- he was incoherent. Any normal place- where having a fiduciary responsibility to care for people they accepted responsibility for- would have had him taken to a hospital and evaluated. What did vpw do? He CONFRONTED the man! As if this was a sane response. Then he sent the man home on a bus. lcm worried about the man getting home, but vpw told him to stop worrying and the man would get home. A WEEK later, he turned up at home. That's the most anyone at twi knew about what happened to the man. He showed up at home a WEEK later. I wish we had details about his ordeal, and about what medical situation had happened. Was it acute malnutrition or sleep deprivation? Was it some undiagnosed brain condition? Was it something else? We'll never know, and vpw never cared. We know at least one woman got sent home (IIRC, after getting raped hitchhiking on LEAD when she was sent alone on someone's vehicle) and she was a mess psychologically when she left. Nobody cared. She was in no shape to take care of her connections, and she got lost somewhere in the US. Several days later, she made it home.
Thanks WordWolf for filling in the blanks of what I remembered hearing.
If anyone wants to read my first-hand account of being on staff at HQ and talking with John right after he was fired, it's in Undertow, Chapter 54: Clampdown. I got his permission to use his real name in my book.
If anyone wants to read my first-hand account of being on staff at HQ and talking with John right after he was fired, it's in Undertow, Chapter 54: Clampdown. I got his permission to use his real name in my book.
Does anyone know TWI's current position on this issue? How do they explain the firing of John Schoenheit for rightly dividing the word on adultery?
Surely, they don't dispute the thesis of his paper.
EDIT: JuniorCorps wasn't alone in leaving over this issue. How does TWI defend against this legitimate reason. They must be prepared. After all, those postcards about "coming home" were sent to former dupes they must know left because for this very reason.
Does anyone know TWI's current position on this issue? How do they explain the firing of John Schoenheit for rightly dividing the word on adultery?
Surely, they don't dispute the thesis of his paper.
EDIT: JuniorCorps wasn't alone in leaving over this issue. How does TWI defend against this legitimate reason. They must be prepared. After all, those postcards about "coming home" were sent to former dupes they must know left because for this very reason.
These days they don't justify anything. "that was a long time ago. It's OK now". I usually say "The foundation of TWI is rotten. You can pain the walls all you want. "
These days they don't justify anything. "that was a long time ago. It's OK now". I usually say "The foundation of TWI is rotten. You can pain the walls all you want. "
Yes. Exceedingly, abundantly rotten. Of course they are dismissive of rape, adultery and bestiality fetishes.
What I'm asking is, do they NOW teach John Schoenheit's exegesis on adultery? I don't need to be shown what the Bible says about adultery to know it's wrong, but many do. Schoenheit's paper seems to me to be a thorough exegetical treatment of the issue. Without the appendices, I could imagine TWI turning a paper like that into a collateral pamphlet. (Changing some words here and there to claim it as original.) That is, if they are really trying to distance themselves from their filthy past.
They remade PFAL into PFALToday, cutting the duration by 50%. Though that's the easiest edit to make, It's a step in the right direction. Teaching Schoenheit's thesis is another righteous step. It could demonstrate real change without having to admit anything. They want to distance themselves from their past. They want people to beleeeve they've changed. So simple.
If anyone wants to read my first-hand account of being on staff at HQ and talking with John right after he was fired, it's in Undertow, Chapter 54: Clampdown. I got his permission to use his real name in my book.
Unfortunately, my copy of your book was accidentally ruined when my water bottle soaked it while in my bag, so I can't refer to it.
John S. wrote, "In 1982 or 1983 Rev. Ralph Dubofsky and Rev. Vince Finegan came to me. Dr. Wierwille had asked them to do some work on the subject of adultery...This paper is the result of those years of study."
In his Additional Comments, he said, "My paper is quite accurately presented here in WayDale. I wrote in through the summer of 1986 and handed it in to the research department in September of 1986."
Do you or anyone else know more about why vp wanted such a study done? Was he having doubts about his ideas about adultery being accurate? Or was he counting on the study exonerating him? Did the fact that he was having serious health issues at the time have anything to do with this request?
I ask because according to WIERWILLE'S CERTIFICATE OF DEATH, John Juedes wrote about wierwille wearing an eye patch and that ,"Witnesses at the Rock of Ages 1983 reported that Wierwille's speech began to slur during a hymn-sing, and he had to leave the stage during a teaching because he was having trouble communicating. Although rumors suggested Wierwille had two strokes, no specifics were generally announced."
Also, why did it take JS around 3 years to study the topic and then begin to write it and hand it in after wierwille's death? That was a long time to keep him waiting, even denying him the privilege of actually getting an answer. Did he possibly share his results with vp privately before his death.
Finally, is John Schoenheit still willing to talk about the paper and answer questions?
Wow! The famous adultery paper by John Schoenheit. I took the Class called "Living God's Word as a Family"...(an evolution of the old one by VPW), nowadays TWI places more emphasis on adultery, fornication, and child-rearing than on marital sexuality (nicknames for genitals LOL)
On 6/17/2025 at 3:00 AM, Junior Corps Surviver said:
We left not only because he had to write this but because he was fired for it. It made no sense. It made me turn my back on TTW after 15 years. That's how stupidly they handled it.
self-justifying rationalizations through and through (by TWI and Victor Wierwille).
These days they don't justify anything. "that was a long time ago. It's OK now". I usually say "The foundation of TWI is rotten. You can pain the walls all you want. "
Just another way to gaslight people (those still donating to their not-for-profit church).
8 hours ago, Charity said:
Do you or anyone else know more about why vp wanted such a study done? Was he having doubts about his ideas about adultery being accurate? Or was he counting on the study exonerating him? Did the fact that he was having serious health issues at the time have anything to do with this request?
I was going out WOW and on our way to Amarillo I flipped into a manic psychotic episode and they put me on a bus. I got off the bus in Oklahoma City and was acting crazy and the police picked me up and put me in jail. A warden took it upon herself to look into my purse and fortunately my parents’ address and phone number were in it. (They had moved) and she contacted my dad who flew to OKC and took me home. Without these “fortunate” occurrences God only knows what would have become of me. It’s only because God took care of me not TWI. By the way, I didn’t really want to go WOW in the first place but was pressured into it by my twig leader. I’m bipolar but was undiagnosed at the time.
My stepson is bipolar. I was reproved and corrected for having compassion and encouraging treatment. Because he was left untreated and no one got the green light to cast out the disorder, he is now in prison.
"John S. wrote, "In 1982 or 1983 Rev. Ralph Dubofsky and Rev. Vince Finegan came to me. Dr. Wierwille had asked them to do some work on the subject of adultery...This paper is the result of those years of study."
In his Additional Comments, he said, "My paper is quite accurately presented here in WayDale. I wrote in through the summer of 1986 and handed it in to the research department in September of 1986."
Do you or anyone else know more about why vp wanted such a study done? Was he having doubts about his ideas about adultery being accurate? Or was he counting on the study exonerating him? Did the fact that he was having serious health issues at the time have anything to do with this request?"
"Also, why did it take JS around 3 years to study the topic and then begin to write it and hand it in after wierwille's death? That was a long time to keep him waiting, even denying him the privilege of actually getting an answer. Did he possibly share his results with vp privately before his death."
Charity,
I read that and thought about the same things you did- at least, when I was pasting it at the start of the thread. I'll go over what we know.
We know that vpw was unrepentant and went to his grave, either unaware he was sinning, or willing to pretend, to the end, he wasn't sinning. We had an eyewitness say that, in his final hours, vpw was trying to scour his memory, and find where he'd "gotten off the Word" and blocked his own healing. Either vpw lied for that person- and knew he had sinned- or vpw told the truth- and he really didn't see what he'd done as "off the Word" when he raped and plagiarized and all the rest. Now, it's been said that, as people approach their final hours, if they see them coming, they look back over their lives, and may repent of wrongs. vpw didn't repent his wrong- he repented his lack of deliverance, because, to him, other people were things that he could use for his benefit. He wasn't "exploiting people", he was "using things." That's how he saw others.
We know RD wasn't consenting to the rapes, and at the first sign there was one, he started to make a fuss- which is when the cadre gave him the bum rush off campus, making sure he spoke to nobody, kept an armed guard and attack dog in his presence, and so on. I suspect VF wasn't consenting, but I have no evidence other than my conviction.
So, vpw was fine with adultery. RD and VF were NOT fine with adultery. RD and VF approach JS and say "Dr W wants adultery studied from The Word." I believe RD and VF told JS this. I do not believe vpw told RD and/or VF to look into this. I think they took it upon themselves to request this, and tacked on vpw's name to make sure it was taken seriously.
JS had given 2 accounts as to why this paper was written. One says that RD and VF said vpw requested it. The other says that he studied this because he was propositioned, and realized he didn't have any verses come to mind to say not to commit adultery. Taking as given he's telling the truth as he remembers it, I think there were 2 events, which he conflated.
In the first event, JS has his incident, and does his own research as to what is and isn't acceptable to God re: adultery.
In the second event, RD and VF approached him. He finished the paper and had it ready to go in a few months.
So, it's all speculation, but it's good speculation. I think vpw never requested the paper. I think JS studied the subject and didn't write the paper. A few years later, he was approached and asked to write it- and he finished it in a few months, revisiting the previous study, and speaking to women at the time, which is how he got the appendices written.
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waysider
And then there was the one who didn't.
edit: Different situation, but dealt with in the same manner.
Edited by waysiderclarity
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Charity
I get this which makes Schoenheit's "Forward" interesting to read.
"In 1982 or 1983 Rev. Ralph Dubofsky and Rev. Vince Finegan came to me. Dr. Wierwille had asked them to do some work on the subject of adultery. Ralph and Vince wanted to know what I knew and if it would help them. I was genuinely surprised at how little I knew about the subject from the Word of God. This paper is the result of those years of study."
"As I struggled to control my mind, I realized that I did not have a scripture to grab onto for support. I literally was not completely positive as to what the Word of God had to say on the subject."
This was understandable, because after all, vp never taught it in the Christian Family and Sex class so how were people supposed to know.
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waysider
Simple.
Write:
The Teacher
Box 666
New Knockabout, Ohio
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Charity
Thanks for the belly laugh waysider
.
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Charity
Thanks WordWolf for filling in the blanks of what I remembered hearing.
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penworks
If anyone wants to read my first-hand account of being on staff at HQ and talking with John right after he was fired, it's in Undertow, Chapter 54: Clampdown. I got his permission to use his real name in my book.
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waysider
Thanks. I just put that on my list of re-reads.
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Nathan_Jr
Does anyone know TWI's current position on this issue? How do they explain the firing of John Schoenheit for rightly dividing the word on adultery?
Surely, they don't dispute the thesis of his paper.
EDIT: JuniorCorps wasn't alone in leaving over this issue. How does TWI defend against this legitimate reason. They must be prepared. After all, those postcards about "coming home" were sent to former dupes they must know left because for this very reason.
Edited by Nathan_JrGloves
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Junior Corps Surviver
These days they don't justify anything. "that was a long time ago. It's OK now". I usually say "The foundation of TWI is rotten. You can pain the walls all you want. "
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Nathan_Jr
Yes. Exceedingly, abundantly rotten. Of course they are dismissive of rape, adultery and bestiality fetishes.
What I'm asking is, do they NOW teach John Schoenheit's exegesis on adultery? I don't need to be shown what the Bible says about adultery to know it's wrong, but many do. Schoenheit's paper seems to me to be a thorough exegetical treatment of the issue. Without the appendices, I could imagine TWI turning a paper like that into a collateral pamphlet. (Changing some words here and there to claim it as original.) That is, if they are really trying to distance themselves from their filthy past.
They remade PFAL into PFALToday, cutting the duration by 50%. Though that's the easiest edit to make, It's a step in the right direction. Teaching Schoenheit's thesis is another righteous step. It could demonstrate real change without having to admit anything. They want to distance themselves from their past. They want people to beleeeve they've changed. So simple.
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Charity
Unfortunately, my copy of your book was accidentally ruined when my water bottle soaked it while in my bag, so I can't refer to it.
John S. wrote, "In 1982 or 1983 Rev. Ralph Dubofsky and Rev. Vince Finegan came to me. Dr. Wierwille had asked them to do some work on the subject of adultery...This paper is the result of those years of study."
In his Additional Comments, he said, "My paper is quite accurately presented here in WayDale. I wrote in through the summer of 1986 and handed it in to the research department in September of 1986."
Do you or anyone else know more about why vp wanted such a study done? Was he having doubts about his ideas about adultery being accurate? Or was he counting on the study exonerating him? Did the fact that he was having serious health issues at the time have anything to do with this request?
I ask because according to WIERWILLE'S CERTIFICATE OF DEATH, John Juedes wrote about wierwille wearing an eye patch and that ,"Witnesses at the Rock of Ages 1983 reported that Wierwille's speech began to slur during a hymn-sing, and he had to leave the stage during a teaching because he was having trouble communicating. Although rumors suggested Wierwille had two strokes, no specifics were generally announced."
Also, why did it take JS around 3 years to study the topic and then begin to write it and hand it in after wierwille's death? That was a long time to keep him waiting, even denying him the privilege of actually getting an answer. Did he possibly share his results with vp privately before his death.
Finally, is John Schoenheit still willing to talk about the paper and answer questions?
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Joe Maslow
Wow! The famous adultery paper by John Schoenheit. I took the Class called "Living God's Word as a Family"...(an evolution of the old one by VPW), nowadays TWI places more emphasis on adultery, fornication, and child-rearing than on marital sexuality (nicknames for genitals LOL)
I can type the index of the class if you wish.
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Rocky
... nevertheless still emotionally immature.
self-justifying rationalizations through and through (by TWI and Victor Wierwille).
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Rocky
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Rocky
Just another way to gaslight people (those still donating to their not-for-profit church).
Does it matter anymore?
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Charity
What are you talking about "Birth Death Certificate?" That would be silly.
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Charity
Are you questioning my right to ask the questions? If it doesn't matter to you Rocky, then just say so.
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outandabout
I was going out WOW and on our way to Amarillo I flipped into a manic psychotic episode and they put me on a bus. I got off the bus in Oklahoma City and was acting crazy and the police picked me up and put me in jail. A warden took it upon herself to look into my purse and fortunately my parents’ address and phone number were in it. (They had moved) and she contacted my dad who flew to OKC and took me home. Without these “fortunate” occurrences God only knows what would have become of me. It’s only because God took care of me not TWI. By the way, I didn’t really want to go WOW in the first place but was pressured into it by my twig leader. I’m bipolar but was undiagnosed at the time.
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Nathan_Jr
My stepson is bipolar. I was reproved and corrected for having compassion and encouraging treatment. Because he was left untreated and no one got the green light to cast out the disorder, he is now in prison.
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WordWolf
"John S. wrote, "In 1982 or 1983 Rev. Ralph Dubofsky and Rev. Vince Finegan came to me. Dr. Wierwille had asked them to do some work on the subject of adultery...This paper is the result of those years of study."
In his Additional Comments, he said, "My paper is quite accurately presented here in WayDale. I wrote in through the summer of 1986 and handed it in to the research department in September of 1986."
Do you or anyone else know more about why vp wanted such a study done? Was he having doubts about his ideas about adultery being accurate? Or was he counting on the study exonerating him? Did the fact that he was having serious health issues at the time have anything to do with this request?"
"Also, why did it take JS around 3 years to study the topic and then begin to write it and hand it in after wierwille's death? That was a long time to keep him waiting, even denying him the privilege of actually getting an answer. Did he possibly share his results with vp privately before his death."
Charity,
I read that and thought about the same things you did- at least, when I was pasting it at the start of the thread. I'll go over what we know.
We know that vpw was unrepentant and went to his grave, either unaware he was sinning, or willing to pretend, to the end, he wasn't sinning. We had an eyewitness say that, in his final hours, vpw was trying to scour his memory, and find where he'd "gotten off the Word" and blocked his own healing. Either vpw lied for that person- and knew he had sinned- or vpw told the truth- and he really didn't see what he'd done as "off the Word" when he raped and plagiarized and all the rest. Now, it's been said that, as people approach their final hours, if they see them coming, they look back over their lives, and may repent of wrongs. vpw didn't repent his wrong- he repented his lack of deliverance, because, to him, other people were things that he could use for his benefit. He wasn't "exploiting people", he was "using things." That's how he saw others.
We know RD wasn't consenting to the rapes, and at the first sign there was one, he started to make a fuss- which is when the cadre gave him the bum rush off campus, making sure he spoke to nobody, kept an armed guard and attack dog in his presence, and so on. I suspect VF wasn't consenting, but I have no evidence other than my conviction.
So, vpw was fine with adultery. RD and VF were NOT fine with adultery. RD and VF approach JS and say "Dr W wants adultery studied from The Word." I believe RD and VF told JS this. I do not believe vpw told RD and/or VF to look into this. I think they took it upon themselves to request this, and tacked on vpw's name to make sure it was taken seriously.
JS had given 2 accounts as to why this paper was written. One says that RD and VF said vpw requested it. The other says that he studied this because he was propositioned, and realized he didn't have any verses come to mind to say not to commit adultery. Taking as given he's telling the truth as he remembers it, I think there were 2 events, which he conflated.
In the first event, JS has his incident, and does his own research as to what is and isn't acceptable to God re: adultery.
In the second event, RD and VF approached him. He finished the paper and had it ready to go in a few months.
So, it's all speculation, but it's good speculation. I think vpw never requested the paper. I think JS studied the subject and didn't write the paper. A few years later, he was approached and asked to write it- and he finished it in a few months, revisiting the previous study, and speaking to women at the time, which is how he got the appendices written.
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