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What If God Spit in Your Direction?


satori001
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Craig Martindale, former minister (did he get de-focked, I mean frocked?), Corps coordinator, and President of The Way International - Biblical Research, Teaching and Fellowship Ministry, used to say that if you didn't give more than 10% of your gross income to TWI, "God wouldn't even spit in your direction."

There you have it. Research at its best.

TWI followers seemed to think that Craig and TWI's other leaders were so tight and buddy-buddy with God, they could say things like that, and it was okay. So we learned to say them to, sometimes. Imagine the dismay of Christians not as enlightened as we, to hear something like that.

I think the success or failure of a cult depends not on how closely its leadership follows the various brain-washing techniques of the KGB, but on something far more effective - INTUITION - and the intuitive strategies that evolve out of any little tribe like TWI, strategies then imposed by indoctrination, intimidation, and peer pressure.

Trial and error is part of it, but if you get a charismatic group of folks together, usually behind one in particular, in league with a common ideal, cause or faith, who are natural manipulators, they will be a lot more effective than anyone trying to do it "by the book," if such a book exists.

One of TWI's great successes was to alienate and isolate us from "the world" around us. This included the public, the smaller communities of other Christians (a.k.a. "Christendumb"), fellow employees ("body and soul" wastes of our oxygen), and even our own families.

The wedge between us and the world was our willingness to offend. To offend.

Martindale was (and probably is) truly the champion offender of TWI. Wierwille could be a lot nastier, but Martindale's bluster was on nearly constantly. To Craig, offense was the sword of the spirit and shield of righteousness (or whatever) in action. It was God's love, but God's "tough love." "Meat," rather than milk. And so it was for us who followed.

Maybe "the truth needs no defense," but we (as a group) became pretty defensive when somebody dared contradict the rightly divided yada yada yada... in our presence. You're talking about family, man!! My Daddy! They needed a good face-melting, didn't they? But with the love of God, of course. Insanity.

Most of us would not take it so far as Martindale, but it was always at the ready, in case of... emergency. And there were the Martinclones, leadership & Corps mostly, who became possessed with the spirit of Martinface at the touch of some hair-trigger offense - the license (as if they needed one) to offend.

So this thread is about the wonderful ways TWI offends the world, to this day, not to reform it but to HIDE from it, to become isolated from it, and thus to keep itself and its followers safely ensconced from the hazards of reasoning together with others. Guarding truth means (figuratively speaking) shooting all tresspassers.

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Well.. if God spit in your direction, you wouldn't get up, that's one thing. If the true god sloshed them out in the aisles, there is nothing you or I could do to get them up. Besides, he'd have to violate all the free will of the universe to make it spit in such manner. God does not possess spit, unlike the weekly advertised slain in da spit meetings.

Has to be counterfiet spit. The "bad guys" just saving up gallons of spit for "the right moment".

Besides, if you happened to walk by one of these slain in the spit folk and kick them, they'd all get up.

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Isn't there a line in Rush's song 'Tom Sawyer' that goes 'catch the spirit, catch the spit'?

According to Time magazine, the expression 'spittin' image' originated in the south: if a man died, then his son was said to be the "spirit and image" of his dad. We all know southern people can't talk right (no offence Sudo) so 'spirit and image' got transliterated into 'spittin' image'.

So we actually want God to spit in our direction because that means we are the spirit and image of our Dad, right?

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Offensive? How about whining every Christmas that angels don't have wings? Geez, so what? They're spirit, they don't have FEET either, or any other body parts. They probably are portrayed that way to distinguish them from humans.

In the late 90's "witnessing" became "confronting the error of the world with the Word". Don't try to help people, "confront" their so-called error.

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...quote: "Martindale was (and probably is) truly the champion offender of TWI. Wierwille could be a lot nastier, but Martindale's bluster was on nearly constantly."

How true, how true. The man was just plain mean spirited. He seemed to thrive on "smashing the weaklings"...I never liked that loud mouthed pr*ck.

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It was all a form of denial and not having to deal with the realities of the world around us .

I remember Martindale a number of times saying that some guy didn't have the right to breathe the air because he dared to contradict Wierwille...(gakk)..such an example of humility, service and christian love we had before us... icon_rolleyes.gif:rolleyes:-->....

Hiding under the veil of 'we are right with no questions asked'and staying away from the world at large kept Wierwille, Martindale and many of us from confronting deeper internal issues that were more difficult, messy and uncertain to deal with...

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When Wierwille made the claim that "God taught me the word as it had not been known since the first century"...he effectively laid the foundation of seperating twi from the rest of Christianity. This seperation was marked with arrogance, elitism, and destructive behavior.

Although the bible clearly says that there should be "no divisions" amoung Christians, Martindale's entire "ministry" was to drive wedges between Christians with his vulgar and hateful rhetoric.

When I first got into twi, I made an attempt to bring pfal into a few local churches...the preachers of the local churches told me that Wierwille was a dangerous whacko...and Wierwille told me that he had forgotten more than that boy will ever know...Martindale carried it to another level with his "Hitler like" rantings, screaming obscenities about the local churches being "seed boys" and spitting all over his audience...

...And both of these guys claimed to love God's people! Twi caused thousands of people to turn their backs on Christian churches of every denomination...and why?...because Wierwille couldn't make the grade in his own denomination (being fired for sexual indiscretions...hmmm, now that sounds familiar)...Veepee was jealous of people like Billy Graham, he felt he had been "passed over"...so he set out to get revenge! He was the MOG!...How dare all those churches not acknowledge that fact!!! He was furious and he was frustrated...

...But then one day, it came to him. He took Stile's class and while the other students in the class were all saying to themselves, "Isn't God great"...Wierwille was saying to himself, "Aha, I'll run my own class just like this one, and then I will be the great power of God". To complete his "Simon the sorcerer" routine, he introduced his corporate structure, fueled by the "donations" he received for stealing someone else's work. He piled up millions of dollars.

Martindale, on the other hand, depended solely on his aggressive personality and his vulger mouth. He was just plain mean and enjoyed bad mouthing anything that he chose to badmouth.

Wierwille and Martindale both "spit" all over me for 13 years...that was quite enough for me.

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If you don't go above the tithe, God won't spit in your direction.

So if you *do* go above the tithe, God *will* spit in your direction.

That reminds me of a t-shirt I once saw:

"If you ain't a Texan, you ain't ....".

I asked the guy, "So then what if you *are* a Texan?" and he got all mad at me.

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I really enjoyed the movie Schindler's list.

It illustrated an excellent point.

By the end of the movie, it was clear that if it took every ounce of extra money to help people, and if that money would go to that cause, then that's a high cause.

Shifting that concept to the church and money or tithes: if believers had the same attitude within any Christian group or denomination, the overseers would never need to ask the people for tithes or teach them encouraging purpose for tithes. They may never need bring it up except maybe AS in the old testament where too much giving was produced.

A believer with a "Schindler" like focus and care probably would be so concerned with giving, and teaching, that talk about it would be overwhelmed and dwarfed by the lifestyle and action.

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MDVaden, how much is TOO much? Is 40 Million Dollars enough?

What about accountability by the church for the money? Should the church be informed as to where the money is going and how, specifically, it is being used to help people? What IS considered helping people?

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