Jump to content
GreaseSpot Cafe

Dr's Last Teaching - LOST for 17 Years!


Mike
 Share

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, WordWolf said:

Princeton Theological Seminary is a real seminary that has no connection to Princeton UNIVERSITY other than both being in Princeton NJ.  However, conflating the 2 when discussing vpw is almost de rigeur for some people-  lcm did it long before you.  AFAIK, vpw had a real Masters, but after that, went to a degree mill for his "doctorate."  

They are affiliated but not the same. PTSem is now revered as one of the top seminaries in the country with one of the largest theological libraries on the planet with an endowment of over $1B. It's selective. It's a serious institution for higher learning. 

victor said he received a Master of Theology in practical theology. This is broad and must be tailored by the student for focus. One available tract of practical theology is preaching. This may have been victor's focus, as he later went on to purchase a mail order doctorate in homiletics. (A ThM in preaching may also explain how he got off the hook of learning Greek and Hebrew.)

I wonder what PTSem was like when he attended. Was it quite as rigorous as it is today? I can't seem to find the dates of his enrollment. Just vague generalities loosely sketching a timeline. Was it during the war? Was this his cop out to avoid the draft? Or were other laws in place then to allow him to skate out of service to country?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Crikey, I go out for the day and come back to find five pages of increasing hilarity.  It's been a laugh a post from p.38 onwards.  Can't even begin to answer any of what's written for the tears of laughter rolling down my face.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Twinky said:

Crikey, I go out for the day and come back to find five pages of increasing hilarity.  It's been a laugh a post from p.38 onwards.  Can't even begin to answer any of what's written for the tears of laughter rolling down my face.

You cant make this shonta up!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On another thread,Rocky wrote:

4 hours ago, Rocky said:

My dear Mike. I suspect there are subconscious reasons why you've posted the same s*** so doggone many times over the last two decades. My view is if you had any writing skill lending itself to credible persuasion, you'd have made your point LONG ago.

In like manner, I suspect those with whom you now so vociferously bicker (I hesitate to call what you do or what those who take your bait do as argumentation) also have some reasons hidden from consciousness.

MOST of what both sides post is nigh on undecipherable. If they have any desire to persuade you, they are as delusional as you are.

Do ANY of you have ANY self-awareness or ability to reflect on what you're doing, i.e. accomplishing nothing except for possibly feeding those subconscious concerns you harbor and act out?

Been thinking this for a while, and some of you may not agree, but for those who keep picking up on Mike's outrageous and ludicrous claims (which occasionally includes me) - do you think perhaps you are harming Mike?  Because the more he persists in defending the indefensible, the more he is pushed into that place that he feels compelled to keep on saying what he says.  He hasn't time to process what's said because he spends that time "defending."

Doubtful if leaving him alone for a while will change his mind, but it might stop him getting worse, more deeply entrenched.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Twinky said:

do you think perhaps you are harming Mike? 

Thats an interesting question. On one hand if anyone has mental or emotional issues (Im not saying Mike does) trying to verbally beat them into submission is certainly going to crystallize the indefensible as valid in their perspective and heart. On the other hand there is people should be able to discuss their position and if they persist in being overly obnoxious and keep going against the forum rules then those at GSC certainly have every right to hold them accountable....however that occurs may or may not have much of an effect...or even be helpful to the individual.

 

1 hour ago, Twinky said:

He hasn't time to process what's said because he spends that time "defending."

Doubtful if leaving him alone for a while will change his mind, but it might stop him getting worse, more deeply entrenched.

Personally, I can back off a bit. Maybe try and stick to the material at hand and keep it actual and factual. Perhaps back off on trying to argue minutia and stick to relevance. I cant promise this is going to be an immediate change..but I will do my level best. I appreciate you and Rocky speaking up. Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, waysider said:

Meh. Mike disappears for extended periods of time and is unchanged when he returns. Gotta give him credit for one thing, though. He's thoroughly mastered that "Stand, no matter what!" schtick.

Certainly has. I have to admit part of my motivation is to represent the truth and past that the way international, and mike are tying so hard to bury. You guys had been doing that before I started posting here in 2009 and if it wasnt for those efforts I may not have made it out when I did. However, I need to do better at how I handle things in the sense polluting the threads here with "I know you are but what am I " type arguments dont help at all either. With that stuff I can do better. Not that Im going to quetly slink away either...just not in my nature.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Twinky said:

On another thread,Rocky wrote:

Been thinking this for a while, and some of you may not agree, but for those who keep picking up on Mike's outrageous and ludicrous claims (which occasionally includes me) - do you think perhaps you are harming Mike?  Because the more he persists in defending the indefensible, the more he is pushed into that place that he feels compelled to keep on saying what he says.  He hasn't time to process what's said because he spends that time "defending."

Doubtful if leaving him alone for a while will change his mind, but it might stop him getting worse, more deeply entrenched.

 

No I don’t think confronting illogic, presenting facts to support truth, and correcting illogic with logic and scriptures is harming Mike.

I think Mikes idol is harming Mike.  I think it is also harming those who mentally hang around TWI with the same illogic.  I think Mikes idol is harming the leaders in TWI.  I think Mikes idol like the golden calf that Moses dealt with is preventing the larger part of the grads of PFAL from hearing God.

I leave him alone when his mouth isn’t moving to spread idolatry.   Otherwise I usually try to respond with truth and logic and mostly have drifted away from humor, but sometimes indulge.

I find the dilemma in Proverbs about addressing a fool regarding his folly to be a real one.

Yes I also find it tedious and would join you in a vote to ban the troll as more than 10 years of tolerance without any indicator of any change to me is enough evidence to see it is not going to change.

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...
On 12/29/2022 at 8:36 AM, Mike said:

I can agree and sympathize with much of your post here about keeping your distance from TWI-4, and from your past with TWI-3, -2?, -1?

But the opening, about looking at the boat wake model I strongly disagree.

"No VPW was a fake man of God because when you do as Jesus Christ instructs and don’t listen to a man’s hype but look at the wake behind their boat all you see is faux.  And destruction in the wake. "

Let's compare how you and I look at the boatwake of the PFAL film&collaterals since 1968.  I do not mean to look at the boatwake of VPW, because that is no loner available to view first hand.  The film&collaterals wake is a lot more visible.

Let’s compare how we sample opinions and attitudes of grads.

I see a massive number of massively blessed for eternity people.  They are popping up more and more via the Internet, and in lots of ways. 

You obviously see how eagerly I seek out and attempt rich fellowship and correspondence with antiPFAL grads, such as yourselves here at GSC. You see how I cross the boundaries of pro versus anti in grads’ attitudes towards film&collaterals. I cross these barriers all the time, and unceasingly since 1986.

BUT do you see how eagerly I seek out and attempt rich fellowship and correspondence with proPFAL grads ???  No you don’t because I don’t do that here.

What befell TWI-2 and TWI-3 has now befallen you folks: insularity.

I don’t mean absolute insularity, but insularity relative to the major schism in the grad population: proPFAL versus antiPFAL.

I am able to find common ground here and make some civil conversation that can lead to progress for the grad population.  Well, I try to do the same thing with proPFAL grads everywhere, on the net and locally. 

None of them, hardly, are as intense on the special*collaterals as I am, but they like them in varying degrees.  I run into a different set of resistances to my message with them.  It is challenging for me there, sometimes, than it is for me here.

There are a couple of extreme collateral fans like me scattered about, but we are aging and dying off pretty fast. Bill Winegarner was a proPFAL fan just a hair less intense than me. In his last year on earth, 2022, he self-published a beautifully hard bound Transcript of PFAL’68, the film class. He had made it himself or with friends.  He and I worked a little on fixing an earlier flawed version around 2001.

I have made it my business to stay in contact with all my grad contacts since 1971. I refuse to recognize the walls of insularity I saw being erected QUICKLY after the POP, snapping into a crystalized sub-cult mode. Further snapping, some of it good, happened in the decades after 1986, but the big ones happened then.

I cross the walls the best I can, and I am learning to do it better, and the walls the moderately proPFAL grads threw up in the late 80s have eroded and gates installed and some leveled.

You folks probably spend very few hours per week in friendly useful fellowship and rich discussion with moderately proPFAL people who have the collaterals in their living room bookcase. There are obviously a lot of them on the net for sure, and a small bunch of known ones in the R.O.A., the read-only audience.

I know a bunch of moderately proPFAL grads locally, and scattered all around the country a larger bunch.  From my perspective, the blessings from film&collaterals were massive, and the flesh failures of many who participated in distributing those blessings do not erase those printed books, nor the blessings received from them.

The flesh failures NEED TO BE DEALT WITH better than the ways TWI-2 and TWI-3 dealt with them.  I am thankful that some TWI-4 people are willing to approach these topics with me in private. They are figuring out how to handle and sort out both the assets and the liabilities TWI-3 handed them a few years ago.

So I see changes in how lots of grads out there are changing, both Innies and Outies.  By “out there” I mean outside this small active GSC fellowship of about ten active posters. Is anyone ready for a new phase in the recognized mission here?  Do you really want to go out, one by one, aimlessly maintaining an anti-idol for anti-worship for a dying audience? 

Socks, are you out there reading this?  You have often been a voice of moderation here. Can you see a change toward constructive criticism here as being possible?

 

 

 

 

I haven't been following this, so I just saw it while browsing notifications.  If you're asking - can I see a change happening here (at GSC) toward constructive criticism, I wouldn't know, I'm not active enough on the current GSC platform to have a valid opinion. If you're asking could it (actually) be possible for (a) change toward constructive criticism to happen on GSC - well, "all things are possible" with God so I'd suggest starting there. 

I see the value of what I learned in PFAL. Specific to PFAL, over the last 50 plus years I've learned a great deal about the world of VPW's time and life and the theological soup he ladled from, if you will. I've learned a great deal in addition to that too. Call PFAL a very big data point in my timeline but it's one of many. I don't mean to diminish anyone's contribution to me from that era, but the contributions he did make to me are not going to be obvious to most and could even lack significance to others. I can always say I do appreciate that we were able to work together, for a time, on Way Productions and the outreach of the gospel through music. 

I'd offer this - in a very broad way I think that GSC as a whole (historically, across all membership and activity levels) has always had a flow of constructive criticism. Not all of the contributions are equally constructive or in the same ways of course but it would be arguable that at some baseline the purpose of the running dialogue is, has been, constructive for those involved or observing. Put another way, if it was important and meaningful to them, it was important and meaningful and that could be useful, constructive, helpful to someone, regardless of what it added to anyone else purposes - or if it added anything at all. So while you or I have our own purposes, they may not be the same purposes as others and if it's not, that won't mean that others aren't accomplishing or at least trying to do their own work. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, socks said:

I haven't been following this, so I just saw it while browsing notifications.  If you're asking - can I see a change happening here (at GSC) toward constructive criticism, I wouldn't know, I'm not active enough on the current GSC platform to have a valid opinion. If you're asking could it (actually) be possible for (a) change toward constructive criticism to happen on GSC - well, "all things are possible" with God so I'd suggest starting there. 

I see the value of what I learned in PFAL. Specific to PFAL, over the last 50 plus years I've learned a great deal about the world of VPW's time and life and the theological soup he ladled from, if you will. I've learned a great deal in addition to that too. Call PFAL a very big data point in my timeline but it's one of many. I don't mean to diminish anyone's contribution to me from that era, but the contributions he did make to me are not going to be obvious to most and could even lack significance to others. I can always say I do appreciate that we were able to work together, for a time, on Way Productions and the outreach of the gospel through music. 

I'd offer this - in a very broad way I think that GSC as a whole (historically, across all membership and activity levels) has always had a flow of constructive criticism. Not all of the contributions are equally constructive or in the same ways of course but it would be arguable that at some baseline the purpose of the running dialogue is, has been, constructive for those involved or observing. Put another way, if it was important and meaningful to them, it was important and meaningful and that could be useful, constructive, helpful to someone, regardless of what it added to anyone else purposes - or if it added anything at all. So while you or I have our own purposes, they may not be the same purposes as others and if it's not, that won't mean that others aren't accomplishing or at least trying to do their own work. 

 

Thank you, socks.  I miss your presence here, and am glad to see you check in some.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, socks said:

but the contributions he did make to me are not going to be obvious to most and could even lack significance to others. I can always say I do appreciate that we were able to work together, for a time, on Way Productions and the outreach of the gospel through music. 

Great post BTW. The section you stated that I quoted sums up quite a few things for me. To loosely quote Wordwolf "Im glad I got involved when I did and Im glad I got out when I did". My life was bettered by the programs I participated and my time in the way international from where I was when I first got involved at 23. (It was never bettered by their cultish practices and philosophies to be clear, those things caused damage) I did have a series of undeniable miracles God performed in my life and I was given a calling and a purpose. As a youngster I only saw that purpose in context of TWI. Now I understand that the way international wasn't necessary in and of itself, but it did serve as a vehicle where I learned much and did much for God and helping others. I think this mostly summarizes my field experiences...then I went to HQ on my apprectice year in 1999.

I spent the next 9 years being exposed to all the flim flammery that had been happening around TWI HQ in Ohio, Gunnison, the wife swapping at Indiana Campus and such...and I was flat out devestated. Then the more I was involved with things at these locations the more obvious it becamse to me that there was major evil afoot that was accepted and perpetuated by the Board of directors and thier inner group. I was telling myself during this time that I could change it from the inside if I was to stick around long enough...well those plans were interrepted when the directors set their sights on me and all heck broke loose for a couple years as we battled it out culminating with my permanent departure. My sin? Having a child born with kidney disease and being demoted for it and disagreeing with their decision. Thats illegal BTW, but who cares about such things in context of the directors.

In the grand scheme of life I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that way international doctrines are corrupt, their classes are corrupt, on down the line and a little leaven leaveneth the entire lump. However, God's providence and plans were never thwarted. Scripture never returns void and I did greatly benefit from my time in TWI and during my way corps training I was able to devote a lot of time towards study and such and that benefits me to this day.

My conclusion in the matter is people's mistajes, even though grevious at times, are not able to hinder God's purposes in the lives of the elect and his purposes will be fulfilled in us all. So I praise and thank God and praise and thank my Lord Jesus Christ for revealing themselves in me and others. TWI gets no credit though, and neither does wierwille and I say this because they demanded all the credit when they are servants the same as me, yet the act like they are the head of the body and it's quite distasteful. So...ramble...ramble...on and on...hehe...Ill st

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, OldSkool said:

9 years being exposed to all the flim flammery that had been happening around TWI HQ in Ohio, Gunnison, the wife swapping at Indiana Campus and such...and I was flat out devastated. Then the more I was involved with things at these locations the more obvious it became to me that there was major evil afoot that was accepted and perpetuated by the Board of directors and their inner group.

To frame the violation of the marriage relationship issue as such is to consign the women in question to being considered chattel.

 image.png

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, OldSkool said:

Thanks!!

Btw, right up until the suffragist movement in the 19th century, American women WERE treated as chattel.

Talk about insane! The Wierwille [private] Interpretation really WAS all about taking our country back in time.

IMO there is NFW the current "leadership" of the cult can change the corporate culture such that it can possibly root out the evil entrenched from the very beginning. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, Rocky said:

IMO there is NFW the current "leadership" of the cult can change the corporate culture such that it can possibly root out the evil entrenched from the very beginning. 

Which by default makes it a corrupt organization.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The problem I see is the unshaken underlying viewpoints.  For example “constructive criticism”. Even this term shows a predisposition towards preserving the entity long term.  Things shared are evaluated against whether or not they “help TWI long term” or “hurt TWI long term”.  

The greatest help I see long term for TWI is disbanding.  That would immediately solve the current imbalance of power between leader and lay follower.  And would immediately end the idolatry.

The greatest construction for the genuine body of Christ happens outside of being constantly subjected to TWIs framing of fact, policy, or scripture.  Outside of getting hyped for the new PFAL class.  Outside of WOW and the Ways programs.  Outside of reminiscing about things that occurred with others while under false authority.  Outside of needing to whitewash Wierwille or defend his lifestyle.

The Way is constructing a building for their own lusts of power and control under the guise of constructing for the Lord Jesus Christ.

What is most constructive is canceling that construction project and starting one with correct blueprints of common Christianity.

What is least constructive is enabling the current higher ups and following them.  And getting back on the hamster wheel running their classes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/27/2002 at 1:11 PM, Mike said:

No, George. If you read my posts more carefully you'll see I'm saying:

"Don't waste my time and yours with the facts. I've already seen them all, long before you did, and I've FINALLY made up my mind."

 

Damn those facts to hell! Good for nothing time wasters facts are.

If evidence and reason aren’t sandy enough, I’ve got to worry about those facts clogging up my beleeeving machine. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Nathan_Jr said:

Damn those facts to hell! Good for nothing time wasters facts are.

If evidence and reason aren’t sandy enough, I’ve got to worry about those facts clogging up my beleeeving machine. 

Does this relate to the discussion?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...