Craig's Loyalty Letter

[oldiesman]

Hope, thank you for being so thorough in your recollection of the events and where you stood; you've made lots of great points.

[Zshot]

quote:

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Originally posted by oldiesman:

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I think a problem with your viewpoint Alfakat is, you leave no room for Craig or TWI to be correct or godly in anything. Every decision has to have some sort of an evil motive behind it. I think that's why its so hard from some folks to see that Dr. Wierwille or Craig Martindale or any other BOT, sometimes made godly reasonable decisions.

OM,

Will you please elaborate on a few examples of "godly reasonable decisions"...

It seems to me, that most decisions were "self serving", in either "short term" or "long term".

IMO, "godly decisions" will not ultimately do harm. The scars caused by vpw and lcm still cause great pain to many.

[CoolWaters]

OM, please define "godly" and "word".

I mean, seriously, how can anyone define men as MOGs when they used the bible to defend obviously unbiblical stances?

I Corinthians 3 addresses the undefendable action of putting people in a "with me or agin me?" position. Let's not forget I Corinthians 12...and Jesus...who chastised his disciples for having the same concerns.

So please, OM, define "godly" and "word".

[oldiesman]

Here's what I think was godly:

quote:

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A line has to be drawn; so make up your mind whether you are going to stand with us as Staff moving God's Word or go the route that has been set in the last couple of years, which I believe has gone very sour.

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Moving the Word in this context is running PFAL classes, preaching the Word, teaching, fellowshipping, praying, etc., all the stuff we did in TWI that was godly.

Edited March 23, 2004 by Guest

[CoolWaters]

What is godly about that?

[alfakat]

quote:

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Originally posted by oldiesman:

Here's what I think was godly:

quote:

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A line has to be drawn; so make up your mind whether you are going to stand with us as Staff moving God's Word or go the route that has been set in the last couple of years, which I believe has gone very sour.

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Moving the Word in this context is running PFAL classes, preaching the Word, teaching, fellowshipping, praying, etc., all the stuff we did in TWI that was godly.

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and did that happen in the next 3 years to offset the debbil spurts from cg??? or did it lead to more control, homo witch hunts, lcm and the magic zipper, on and on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.....

how come it did NOT right itself, om?? care to hazard a guess????????????

[WhiteDove]

OM

Some things to consider re your post:

posted March 23, 2004 15:07

Here's what I think was godly:

quote:

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A line has to be drawn; so make up your mind whether you are going to stand with us as Staff moving God's Word or go the route that has been set in the last couple of years, which I believe has gone very sour.

Moving the Word in this context is running PFAL classes, preaching the Word, teaching, fellowshipping, praying, etc., all the stuff we did in TWI that was godly.

First of all they had admitted in letters that they were "in a fog" hardly a leadership quality-at least not one I would want to follow. Also that they were not "moving the word" but had failed to do so. They were not planning to run PFAL even then, they were not promoting fellowship but instead unfellowshiping and the only prey ing I saw was on unsuspecting young girls....

Edited March 23, 2004 by Guest

[oldiesman]

quote:

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and did that happen in the next 3 years to offset the debbil spurts from cg??? or did it lead to more control, homo witch hunts, lcm and the magic zipper, on and on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.....how come it did NOT right itself, om?? care to hazard a guess????????????

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Alfakat, I will tell you what I strongly believed at that time, and opine what I believe the next 3 years would have been like. I believe if folks like VF and others in my state and area decided to stay with TWI, try to start fresh and give TWI and the BOT a clean slate to work with at that time, things may have been better for a while. Problem was, just about everyone in my vacinity left TWI so it couldn't right itself, cause hardly anyone was left. In my state, feelings against TWI and the BOT were very strong against.

I can't speak for other areas of the country but as I tried to suggest earlier, decisions made subsequent to the 1989 letter (many of them we agree were very bad) stand on their own and were separate from the letter itself.

Edited March 23, 2004 by Guest

[oldiesman]

A month after the 1989 letter, I wrote a 3-page letter to VF, sent it to him at the limb by federal express, beseeching him to stay and stand with TWI and Craig, because I thought at that time that all of our goals were the same, that we all wanted to bless and help folks with God's Word and in that sense we were all likeminded, and we could simply all start with a clean slate. What I hadn't realized at the time, was how far VF had gone against Craig. He really thought Craig was worshipping other gods. Someone who was once Craig's best friend turned into one of his worst enemies.

VF never responded to my letter, and when I saw him at a meeting a couple of months after that, he was calling me carnal.

Edited March 23, 2004 by Guest

[Raf]

quote:

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He really thought Craig was worshipping other gods. Someone who was once Craig's best friend turned into one of his worst enemies.

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By this time Craig had already convinced himself that HE was the HEAD OF THE CHURCH. These are not my words, they're Donna's, uncontradicted by Craig. So in a sense, VF was RIGHT in his assessment of Craig. Craig had already rejected Christ and esconced himself in the Lord's rightful position.

[Raf]

quote:

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I can't speak for other areas of the country but as I tried to suggest earlier, decisions made subsequent to the 1989 letter (many of them we agree were very bad) stand on their own and were separate from the letter itself.

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Nonsense! They had the same root! That letter was the trunk of an evil tree, and the decisions which followed were the fruit of that tree.

[oldiesman]

quote:

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By this time Craig had already convinced himself that HE was the HEAD OF THE CHURCH. These are not my words, they're Donna's, uncontradicted by Craig. So in a sense, VF was RIGHT in his assessment of Craig. Craig had already rejected Christ and esconced himself in the Lord's rightful position.

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Raf, that's news to my ears. Do we have a reference?

And why didn't VF share that with me, when I spoke with him personally? ( i don't expect you to know the answer, just wondering)

Edited March 23, 2004 by Guest

[Raf]

Forgive my mistaken wording: although I think the meaning is the same.

At ROA 1989, Donna Martindale specifically referred to her husband as, and I quote, "the spiritual head of this ministry." Now, had she been talking about the titular head of an earthly ministry, I would have agreed. But spiritual head?

VF didn't share that with you because he wasn't at ROA 1989. But can you stop and think that maybe he had observed enough to know already that this is what the BOT was thinking at the time? You can't think Donna's statement came out of the blue while she was on stage one August night. Logically, this had to be something that was stated and repeated in Craig's echo chamber (maybe not the same words, but certainly the concept).

I'm not saying the people who left were not carnal. I'm not saying the people who stayed were carnal.

But LCM was. Period. There was no godliness to that letter, and the only point he had, which was valid, was still carnal.

Edited March 23, 2004 by Guest

[pjroberge]

If you will remember on a thread a month ago, BG Leonard predicted in 1985 that TWI would fall because of idolatry. BG didn't miss the mark, did he?

Edited March 23, 2004 by Guest

[Kevlar2000]

quote:

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...and when I saw him at a meeting a couple of months after that, he was calling me carnal.

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Why? Did he forget your name? :D-->

I have no opinion on whether or not VF was "godly" in not following Martindale. Or whether it was "godly" to follow Geer.

When I left, I didn't follow any of them. And I'm glad I didn't. I don't see where either of them were on a path that would lead folks into a more personal relationship with Jesus Christ (not that I'm any great shakes, but...).

I really don't think it would have made a difference if folks pledged their "loyalty" to Martindale. He wasn't fit to administer that organization, period. He wasn't taking advice or reproof. And since only the other BOT(D) could remove him, why would he care?

[oldiesman]

quote:

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At ROA 1989, Donna Martindale specifically referred to her husband as, and I quote, "the spiritual head of this ministry."

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But can you stop and think that maybe he had observed enough to know already that this is what the BOT was thinking at the time? You can't think Donna's statement came out of the blue while she was on stage one August night. Logically, this had to be something that was stated and repeated in Craig's ...

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What you said before, and what you're saying now is an assumption, a giant leap, something you are surmising. I'm sure Donna didn't mean that Craig was taking the place of Christ. That's your assumption.

This sounds similar to something I heard during Athletes of the Spirit. Something to the effect that "the minister takes the place of Christ". This is what some thought, those who wanted to think evil of Craig and TWI. They never said that the minister takes the place of Christ, but that's what some folks wanted to think.

Edited March 23, 2004 by Guest

[Raf]

My original reply here was emotional and inappropriate. Sorry.

Edited March 23, 2004 by Guest

[oldiesman]

I would be more inclined to think that Donna misspoke, rather than what you're surmising...

Edited March 23, 2004 by Guest

[Raf]

When someone calls someone else "the spiritual head of this ministry," you're danged right I'm surmising he's trying to usurp Christ's authority. And in case you missed the 90s, I was right about it.

Edited March 23, 2004 by Guest

[Raf]

What evidence do you have that Donna misspoke? I have tons of evidence that shows rather conclusively that LCM thought of himself more highly than he ought to have thunk.

[J0nny Ling0]

I think that from a purely "five senses" point of view, or shall I say from a non sprirtual point of view, Oldiesman has a point. Any corporation that had "two heads", one in Scotland, and one at HQ, would be better served if all of the board members/employees etc, acted in unity of purpose, and stood with the "Company" in solidarity.

And I re-read that letter, and still conclude that I was asked to follow a man, and not the lord. CW's post sums it up well:

quote:

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LCM sent a loyalty letter. That letter demanded people make a choice between LCM and anybody else.

Basically it boiled down to: Are you of Paul (VPW), or Apollos (LCM) or Cephas (Geer)?

And this is somehow OK in the "movement of the word"?

Even "the word" that LCM supposedly wanted to move speaks of this mentality "carnal" if nothing else.

Why would a MOG--even a pretend MOG--ever be justified in putting people in such a position? Why would anyone want to justify the MOG putting people in such an "off the word" position?

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But ya know, I will say that a huge problem I had with Craigs letter was that I was at that time believing that Chris Geer had done the right thing, and that Craig was walking away from the reproof brought in the form of PoP. And when Craig wrote his letter, it was obvious to me that he was now saying; "f-that, I'm doing my own thing now and if you don't like it, then leave"...

I didn't think of myself as "standing with Chris Geer", but I did believe he was the one with the correct insight after having heard VPW's "last request"...

And also, now that I have re-read that letter, I remember that I didn't make my decision then. But I knew from reading it that things were going to go decidedly bad from that point on. As you may have noticed, the letter was not addressed to we Corps and clergy on the field, but that it was sent to us "for our learning" I guess. It was later on that I received a letter addressed specifically to me asking me to pick which man I was going to "stand with", and my non response to that was what earned me my walking papers so to speak.

[excathedra]

kevlar, i'm excathedra but i'll be carnal with you ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha sorry couldn't resist. that was funny what you said :)-->

[Raf]

quote:

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I didn't think of myself as "standing with Chris Geer", but I did believe he was the one with the correct insight after having heard VPW's "last request"...

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Sorry to say I bought it too. I honestly did not see myself as standing with Geer because I went to ROA and opened up my earballs, as VPW would say, and I listened to those who did their best to convince me (and my friend) to stick with TWI. Their arguments were entirely carnal and easy to disprove with an open Bible.

But with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I now believe POP was a bunch of self-serving hooey.

Let's face it: choosing between LCM and CCG was like choosing between Bush and Gore: was there really a way to win? (that was a joke: please spare me the political bashing).

[igotout]

If he had not sent the letter in the first place and had continued to run things with the help of others and simply carried on, a lot of the problems would have eventually dissapated, I believe.

Some who willingly left during those days of confusion, returned later cuz they thought maybe things were getting straightened out. But the ones whoe were fired or kicked out were ....ed so much they would NEVER consider working with him again.

The big mistake he made was sending that letter and then firing taleneted people of great ability right and left simply because they were not loyal to him at that time.

If he had been more loving, most of them would have eventually come around. He was too impatient and thought he had to "clean house" of all the evil before the cancer spread further. Ha!

Sound familiar TWI2'ers?

Edited March 23, 2004 by Guest

[socks]

I don't get what the problem is over this letter of Craig's.

Whether this was a perfectly justifiable corporate call for solidarity or a loyalty call for spiritual fidelity the result's the same. If you didn't want to stay, you left.

I don't think the Way International would have righted itself simply by more people staying longer. (but then I don't think it was in great shape anyway) Some people stayed longer and it didn't right itself. We can't change history. A better chance, OM? From this armchair, slightly better but let's face it, it was time for some of us to go if we were going to be honest. Things change. If the goal is to make sure the Way continues successfully, sure, everybody stay, the more the merrier. But Craig made sure that anyone who DID stay got cleaned out if he didn't think they were up to snuff. So one way or the other most of the people in the Way were going to leave. Craig's illicit and insane "standards" were in a growth stage all through the 80's. 100, 000 people weren't going to change his direction.

Edited March 23, 2004 by Guest