I can appreciate your position, and for many years after VPW’s death (and even a few before that) I operated much the same way.
However, in recent years I’ve come to a realization of another perspective. Please let me explain.
You wrote: “And if using those keys makes me conclude something in opposition to TWI teaching, I go by what the keys teach.”
I bold fonted the words “using those keys” because that’s the area of the newly realized perspective I mentioned. I came to realize that the very act of “using those keys” requires an ACCURATE knowledge of those keys... ALL off them.
In 1998, when I accepted VPW’s final challenge to master the PFAL books, I quickly saw that my grasp of EXACTLY what those keys were and EXACTLY how to use them was sorely lacking. There were a few I had even forgotten and at least one huge one that had slipped by me altogether, in my first go-around with PFAL.
So we can apply those keys with mastery or we can apply them as amateurs. Unfortunately most of us have chosen the latter. I find that as I master the keys we were given, more and more of what I THOUGHT were errors in PFAL evaporate.
Among others, the biggest lie you wrote above is “and he turned people AWAY from a relationship with Christ, substituting himself for the absent savior.”
This line is complete ignorance and dishonesty on display.
The tapes and books and magazine articles that we received from the work God wrought along with VPW testify to your refusal to receive what was offered in the form of a relationship with Christ. This is doubly the case if you were Corps or any kind of leadership. You sucked up the Christless TVT (Twi Verbal Tradition) and spit out the MASSIVE amount of teaching we were given that would have cemented a GREAT relationship with Christ.
If you think my charge of lying is off the mark, then I’ll challenge you to a thread debate in the Doctrinal forum (or here if Paw permits). I will post my evidence of what slipped by you or that you forgot. I’ve got the tape transcripts and the book passages all ready.
We WERE taught to love God and His Son, and to seek out a strong relationship with Christ!
What is it UH? Will you admit that line of yours I quoted is a total lie, or will you confront and refute the evidence?
Accusing a man in the midst of a mob lynching is cheap and easy. Let’s see how well you can handle the evidence.
Uh...Mike, I was with TWI well over 15 years and don't remember being taught to have a relationship with God's son. Ever. I was hammered over the head with the statement that he wasn't God. Speaking one word to Jesus Christ was tantamount to being possessed in TWI-land.
I also checked with several friends who are ex-TWI and lived in various parts of the country who feel the same way. Scientific poll? Nope. We seem to have been in a different ministry than you. Or maybe you took off by the early 80s and therefore preceded me?
I have no daughters, but I did grow up with three younger sisters, so I do know what a protective instinct is.
I've observed that the protective instinct of parents can sometimes overwhelm their perspective on what is right and what is wrong. In other words, it's possible to be over protective.
I am sad for all the hurt that I saw happen in the ministry, but I see that hurt as small when compared to the massive pains religion has inflicted on us all, especially in the area of sex. The phony spirituality attached to “sex by the rules” is massive in our culture. It’s something the Protestant Reformation never got around to fixing. It’s a form of Mary worship. If I had to choose between my sisters (or future daughter) suffering from a few unwanted advances or getting caught up in phony sex-purity religion, I’d choose the former as less damaging. I’ve seen more damage from Puritanism than from licentiousness.
Do YOU have daughters? Do you fill them with damaging Mary worship?
You wrote: “…I was with TWI well over 15 years and don't remember being taught to have a relationship with God's son. Ever. I was hammered over the head with the statement that he wasn't God. Speaking one word to Jesus Christ was tantamount to being possessed in TWI-land.”
You are accurately describing the TVT. However, I have the tapes and the books where you WERE taught, and often, just the opposite as you describe. Were you around last year when I posted some passages to this effect? I think it was in the “Ubiquitous” thread.
***
You wrote: “I also checked with several friends who are ex-TWI and lived in various parts of the country who feel the same way. Scientific poll? Nope. We seem to have been in a different ministry than you. Or maybe you took off by the early 80s and therefore preceded me?”
I phased out slowly in the very late 80’s.
Your checking this out “with several friends” AGAIN falls into the TVT category. Why didn’t you check out the books or tapes? Why didn’t they? Because we all drifted so far from the originals we never knew there was a difference between what was talked up by non-mastering leaders and what was written. We all developed an attitude of why bother to check the books if all we have to do is ask around?
I was in the same TVT ministry you were in. I too saw the same kind of “trinitarian cops” spring up in the ministry as I saw in churches (and posted today on waterbuffalo’s “If Trinitarians are so bad...” thread) except with the opposite take on it. I saw the bludgeoning by leaders that forbade us talking to Jesus. I was in that same ministry as you describe. However, when I came back to the books I found, as you described it, “a different ministry.”
There were definitely two ministries, the original and the collection of TVTs that developed. I urge a return to the original.
You wrote at the top of this page: “…no one on this board ever got 1/2 the carte blanche to teach you as vpw. Level the playing field a little, standardize the rules a bit, and we might surprise the heck out of you.”
All of my twig leaders and branch leaders DID get “ 1/2 the carte blanche” to teach me. In fact, they had a strong advantage over VPW in age and in proximity. Plus, they didn’t have to undergo the massive unlearning Dr had to do, AND they had all the good stuff laid out for them. None of them came close to helping me as Dr did.
If you were a twig leader then you had that level playing field. How well did you teach them? I’ll bet what you offered them wasn’t even close to 1/2 of what they were offered in the books. Come back to PFAL and see with new eyes what is written and it might surprise the heck out of YOU!
quote:Why give this plagerizing bastard any credit for anything?
Because it's reasonable to acknowledge that Wierwille moved the Word, and helped folks, who desperately needed help at the time. He was part of the body of Christ that helped folks come to the body, and learn more about that body. So did Bullinger, Stiles, Leonard, and all the rest. Wierwille was part of all that as well.
VPW had hundreds and hundreds of people observing many parts of his “private” life at close range for many years. After that many of these people turned on him with a mob’s vengeance, and for years now have been lynching his life in public. The massive good he did is forgotten and every big and little sin is discussed ad infinitum.
I wonder how the accusers of VPW would fare had they opened up THEIR lives for observation by hundreds of future enemies. How many plagiarisms would be found in such a scrutiny? How many selfish sexual steps would be noted? How many power trips over others would be documented?
Don't you remember Jesus saying that the THOUGHT of adultery is just as bad as the act?
Being chaste in outward actions towards women happens to many men against their wills because it’s just not offered or available for them to take it. How many men could turn down hundreds of daily opportunities for action?
I bothered many people last year by saying that if we had the troops, all of us would have invaded Poland sooner or later. I still stand by that. If we had the power, many of what we now see as our “little” sins would inflict much more damage with that power behind them.
The Bible says that we ALL have hearts that are desperately evil above all things. It’s fortunate for us all that only a very few do get the kind of power that displays this desperate wickedness. The great evil that lurks in the hearts of all is usually well hidden.
PFAL was retired, sold at a discounted price and replaced with "The Present Truth" and syllabus study. Corps were instructed to teach what they were taught on Corps Nights. Just because PFAL books were printed, doesn't mean it was being taught. Also, PFAL covers John the Baptist "leaping for joy" at the hearing of Mary's voice, but that doesn't mean that a fetus reaction to a voice, or a fetus having "joy" was fit into a teaching on when life started. That section of PFAL was not included in the discussion on soul life, interestingly enough. So just because something is taught in PFAL doesn't mean it was fully studied or uses enough "data' to insure a fully populated field.
PFAL had many "sample" data sets in its research process. This is the error that was carried thorough-out future leadership teaching and research practises.
Truth is not easy to come by, if it were, we could have figured out four cruxified on our own, but how many of us did.
Something about Study to show thyself approved, and study being work comes to mind?
PFAL is flawed in that it gives many the false impression that they have the "whole truth" and the "keys" to Biblical Research simply by knowing a few rules.
Oakspear starts with attack the man, if the man is wrong, then his argument is wrong. Not always the case. Truth is truth. You can mix false doctrine in and cause great pain.
Remember, God is love, Love is blind, Ray Charles was blind, could Ray be God? Opps, fallacy.
quote:Being chaste in outward actions towards women happens to many men against their wills because it’s just not offered or available for them to take it. How many men could turn down hundreds of daily opportunities for action?
If you are inferring that Wierwille was just being a fallible human being because all those women gave him "hundreds of daily opportunities for action," and he finally gave in to a few of them, then the verbal caca is about to hit your fan. I haven't heard one woman here who has told her story of molestation say that she did anything to encourage it; on the contrary, HE went after THEM. Some of them were able to get away. Some were not. They were so busy giving him "opportunity," Mike, that he had to drug them to get them.
Do I think that a "man of God," a pastor of God's people, a married man, and a man with a daughter of the same age as the women he molested, should be able to say no to molesting any woman in his care, even if they had stripped naked in front of him, which they didn't???
YES. Yes, Mike, he could have, he should have said no.
THEY said no. But he went after them anyway.
That is despicable. If you think you wouldn't resist in his shoes, then you are just as despicable.
quote:I am sad for all the hurt that I saw happen in the ministry, but I see that hurt as small when compared to the massive pains religion has inflicted on us all, especially in the area of sex. The phony spirituality attached to “sex by the rules” is massive in our culture. It’s something the Protestant Reformation never got around to fixing. It’s a form of Mary worship. If I had to choose between my sisters (or future daughter) suffering from a few unwanted advances or getting caught up in phony sex-purity religion, I’d choose the former as less damaging. I’ve seen more damage from Puritanism than from licentiousness.
Do YOU have daughters? Do you fill them with damaging Mary worship?
dude what are you smoking ? not kool shorties
i'll take the bless-ed mother any day over the man of god of our day and time
Oakspear starts with attack the man, if the man is wrong, then his argument is wrong.
Nope...in this game of chutes and ladders, you slide down the chute to square #1...that's not what I said. If the man is wrong, question. Bzzzzt. Thanks for playing
Your position that PFAL is God's Word reissued hardly gives you credentials as a rational participant in this discussion. To you it's a question of master vs. don't master, assuming all along that it's right. You accept that Wierwille was sinful in many of his actions but rationalize them with "everybody is tempted" and deny the possibility that the actions could have affected his ability to teach the truth.
Accepting someone who denied the clear biblical teaching about adultery, promoting the same; who dissembled and misdirected, if not out-and-out lied, about the sources of his teachings, and his academic background; who connived and schemed to push out people like Heefner & Doop, who made the growth of his ministry a reality; as a source of truth is somewhat insane.
Questioning in this situation is the mark of a sound mind. Throwing it all out and starting over would be prudent.
What are you afraid of? Would it be too hard? Not worth the effort? You're not smart enough? Don't worry, I'll make you a Doctor. Ask Rascal, I presented her with her certificate last year :D-->
I guess it's real easy, real comfortable to sit back and accept what that con man peddled. No need to think, no need to make any choices; just throw out what you feel is inconvenient and keep the rest...it's "Truth", ain't it?
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Mike
GeorgeStGeorge,
I can appreciate your position, and for many years after VPW’s death (and even a few before that) I operated much the same way.
However, in recent years I’ve come to a realization of another perspective. Please let me explain.
You wrote: “And if using those keys makes me conclude something in opposition to TWI teaching, I go by what the keys teach.”
I bold fonted the words “using those keys” because that’s the area of the newly realized perspective I mentioned. I came to realize that the very act of “using those keys” requires an ACCURATE knowledge of those keys... ALL off them.
In 1998, when I accepted VPW’s final challenge to master the PFAL books, I quickly saw that my grasp of EXACTLY what those keys were and EXACTLY how to use them was sorely lacking. There were a few I had even forgotten and at least one huge one that had slipped by me altogether, in my first go-around with PFAL.
So we can apply those keys with mastery or we can apply them as amateurs. Unfortunately most of us have chosen the latter. I find that as I master the keys we were given, more and more of what I THOUGHT were errors in PFAL evaporate.
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Mike
Uncle Hairy,
Among others, the biggest lie you wrote above is “and he turned people AWAY from a relationship with Christ, substituting himself for the absent savior.”
This line is complete ignorance and dishonesty on display.
The tapes and books and magazine articles that we received from the work God wrought along with VPW testify to your refusal to receive what was offered in the form of a relationship with Christ. This is doubly the case if you were Corps or any kind of leadership. You sucked up the Christless TVT (Twi Verbal Tradition) and spit out the MASSIVE amount of teaching we were given that would have cemented a GREAT relationship with Christ.
If you think my charge of lying is off the mark, then I’ll challenge you to a thread debate in the Doctrinal forum (or here if Paw permits). I will post my evidence of what slipped by you or that you forgot. I’ve got the tape transcripts and the book passages all ready.
We WERE taught to love God and His Son, and to seek out a strong relationship with Christ!
What is it UH? Will you admit that line of yours I quoted is a total lie, or will you confront and refute the evidence?
Accusing a man in the midst of a mob lynching is cheap and easy. Let’s see how well you can handle the evidence.
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JustThinking
Uh...Mike, I was with TWI well over 15 years and don't remember being taught to have a relationship with God's son. Ever. I was hammered over the head with the statement that he wasn't God. Speaking one word to Jesus Christ was tantamount to being possessed in TWI-land.
I also checked with several friends who are ex-TWI and lived in various parts of the country who feel the same way. Scientific poll? Nope. We seem to have been in a different ministry than you. Or maybe you took off by the early 80s and therefore preceded me?
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Don'tFenceMeIn
Mike,
Do you have any daughters?
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Mike
Tying to fence me in?
I have no daughters, but I did grow up with three younger sisters, so I do know what a protective instinct is.
I've observed that the protective instinct of parents can sometimes overwhelm their perspective on what is right and what is wrong. In other words, it's possible to be over protective.
I am sad for all the hurt that I saw happen in the ministry, but I see that hurt as small when compared to the massive pains religion has inflicted on us all, especially in the area of sex. The phony spirituality attached to “sex by the rules” is massive in our culture. It’s something the Protestant Reformation never got around to fixing. It’s a form of Mary worship. If I had to choose between my sisters (or future daughter) suffering from a few unwanted advances or getting caught up in phony sex-purity religion, I’d choose the former as less damaging. I’ve seen more damage from Puritanism than from licentiousness.
Do YOU have daughters? Do you fill them with damaging Mary worship?
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Mike
JustThinking,
You wrote: “…I was with TWI well over 15 years and don't remember being taught to have a relationship with God's son. Ever. I was hammered over the head with the statement that he wasn't God. Speaking one word to Jesus Christ was tantamount to being possessed in TWI-land.”
You are accurately describing the TVT. However, I have the tapes and the books where you WERE taught, and often, just the opposite as you describe. Were you around last year when I posted some passages to this effect? I think it was in the “Ubiquitous” thread.
***
You wrote: “I also checked with several friends who are ex-TWI and lived in various parts of the country who feel the same way. Scientific poll? Nope. We seem to have been in a different ministry than you. Or maybe you took off by the early 80s and therefore preceded me?”
I phased out slowly in the very late 80’s.
Your checking this out “with several friends” AGAIN falls into the TVT category. Why didn’t you check out the books or tapes? Why didn’t they? Because we all drifted so far from the originals we never knew there was a difference between what was talked up by non-mastering leaders and what was written. We all developed an attitude of why bother to check the books if all we have to do is ask around?
I was in the same TVT ministry you were in. I too saw the same kind of “trinitarian cops” spring up in the ministry as I saw in churches (and posted today on waterbuffalo’s “If Trinitarians are so bad...” thread) except with the opposite take on it. I saw the bludgeoning by leaders that forbade us talking to Jesus. I was in that same ministry as you describe. However, when I came back to the books I found, as you described it, “a different ministry.”
There were definitely two ministries, the original and the collection of TVTs that developed. I urge a return to the original.
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Mike
WordWolf,
You wrote at the top of this page: “…no one on this board ever got 1/2 the carte blanche to teach you as vpw. Level the playing field a little, standardize the rules a bit, and we might surprise the heck out of you.”
All of my twig leaders and branch leaders DID get “ 1/2 the carte blanche” to teach me. In fact, they had a strong advantage over VPW in age and in proximity. Plus, they didn’t have to undergo the massive unlearning Dr had to do, AND they had all the good stuff laid out for them. None of them came close to helping me as Dr did.
If you were a twig leader then you had that level playing field. How well did you teach them? I’ll bet what you offered them wasn’t even close to 1/2 of what they were offered in the books. Come back to PFAL and see with new eyes what is written and it might surprise the heck out of YOU!
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oldiesman
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Mike
Amen Oldiesman!
VPW had hundreds and hundreds of people observing many parts of his “private” life at close range for many years. After that many of these people turned on him with a mob’s vengeance, and for years now have been lynching his life in public. The massive good he did is forgotten and every big and little sin is discussed ad infinitum.
I wonder how the accusers of VPW would fare had they opened up THEIR lives for observation by hundreds of future enemies. How many plagiarisms would be found in such a scrutiny? How many selfish sexual steps would be noted? How many power trips over others would be documented?
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Raf
Not worth it. Never mind. This space for rent.
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JustThinking
Raf,
The chair next me is empty. Feel free to bring your cup over here.
JT
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Mike
Raf,
Don't you remember Jesus saying that the THOUGHT of adultery is just as bad as the act?
Being chaste in outward actions towards women happens to many men against their wills because it’s just not offered or available for them to take it. How many men could turn down hundreds of daily opportunities for action?
I bothered many people last year by saying that if we had the troops, all of us would have invaded Poland sooner or later. I still stand by that. If we had the power, many of what we now see as our “little” sins would inflict much more damage with that power behind them.
The Bible says that we ALL have hearts that are desperately evil above all things. It’s fortunate for us all that only a very few do get the kind of power that displays this desperate wickedness. The great evil that lurks in the hearts of all is usually well hidden.
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Don'tFenceMeIn
Mike, you said, "I’ve seen more damage from Puritanism than from licentiousness."
Are you sure you aren't the reincarnation of vpw?
When have YOU seen puritanism in your lifetime?
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Raf
Mike, leave me out of this.
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Mike
Raf,
You may be excused.
:)-->
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Mike
DontFenceMeIn,
You wrote: “When have YOU seen puritanism in your lifetime?”
I grew up Roman Catholic in the 50's and 60's.
I was taught by nuns that were certainly puritanical and outward Mary worshipers.
The thought of going to hell was THE predominant thought of my life (even before puberty) from age 6 until I took the class.
I hungered and thirsted for righteousness, and was filled!
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Don'tFenceMeIn
Mike, I'm sorry to hear that.
So just about anything would have been better than that I suppose. They must have been some MEAN muthuzz.
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Tumbleweed Kid
Mike,
PFAL was retired, sold at a discounted price and replaced with "The Present Truth" and syllabus study. Corps were instructed to teach what they were taught on Corps Nights. Just because PFAL books were printed, doesn't mean it was being taught. Also, PFAL covers John the Baptist "leaping for joy" at the hearing of Mary's voice, but that doesn't mean that a fetus reaction to a voice, or a fetus having "joy" was fit into a teaching on when life started. That section of PFAL was not included in the discussion on soul life, interestingly enough. So just because something is taught in PFAL doesn't mean it was fully studied or uses enough "data' to insure a fully populated field.
PFAL had many "sample" data sets in its research process. This is the error that was carried thorough-out future leadership teaching and research practises.
Truth is not easy to come by, if it were, we could have figured out four cruxified on our own, but how many of us did.
Something about Study to show thyself approved, and study being work comes to mind?
PFAL is flawed in that it gives many the false impression that they have the "whole truth" and the "keys" to Biblical Research simply by knowing a few rules.
Oakspear starts with attack the man, if the man is wrong, then his argument is wrong. Not always the case. Truth is truth. You can mix false doctrine in and cause great pain.
Remember, God is love, Love is blind, Ray Charles was blind, could Ray be God? Opps, fallacy.
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shazdancer
Mike,
You said
If you are inferring that Wierwille was just being a fallible human being because all those women gave him "hundreds of daily opportunities for action," and he finally gave in to a few of them, then the verbal caca is about to hit your fan. I haven't heard one woman here who has told her story of molestation say that she did anything to encourage it; on the contrary, HE went after THEM. Some of them were able to get away. Some were not. They were so busy giving him "opportunity," Mike, that he had to drug them to get them.Do I think that a "man of God," a pastor of God's people, a married man, and a man with a daughter of the same age as the women he molested, should be able to say no to molesting any woman in his care, even if they had stripped naked in front of him, which they didn't???
YES. Yes, Mike, he could have, he should have said no.
THEY said no. But he went after them anyway.
That is despicable. If you think you wouldn't resist in his shoes, then you are just as despicable.
Shaz
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excathedra
2 daughters older than i. maybe even 3. how old is the youngest ?
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excathedra
i'll take the bless-ed mother any day over the man of god of our day and time
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Oakspear
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Oakspear
Mike:
Your position that PFAL is God's Word reissued hardly gives you credentials as a rational participant in this discussion. To you it's a question of master vs. don't master, assuming all along that it's right. You accept that Wierwille was sinful in many of his actions but rationalize them with "everybody is tempted" and deny the possibility that the actions could have affected his ability to teach the truth.
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Oakspear
Accepting someone who denied the clear biblical teaching about adultery, promoting the same; who dissembled and misdirected, if not out-and-out lied, about the sources of his teachings, and his academic background; who connived and schemed to push out people like Heefner & Doop, who made the growth of his ministry a reality; as a source of truth is somewhat insane.
Questioning in this situation is the mark of a sound mind. Throwing it all out and starting over would be prudent.
What are you afraid of? Would it be too hard? Not worth the effort? You're not smart enough? Don't worry, I'll make you a Doctor. Ask Rascal, I presented her with her certificate last year
:D-->
I guess it's real easy, real comfortable to sit back and accept what that con man peddled. No need to think, no need to make any choices; just throw out what you feel is inconvenient and keep the rest...it's "Truth", ain't it?
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