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I disagree. Here's why. I understand how some people may think The Way was good “in the old days” and somehow “got off track” in later years. But I take issue with this line of thinking. I call it deluded nostalgia: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition. What exactly is that condition people are craving? I was involved from 1971-1987 and I don’t crave any of it. But I figure I’d pitch in my two cents here. Frankly, I think it appears to be nostalgia for small fellowships with rock music or old hymns “corrected to be accurate” with Way doctrine, simple teachings (I guess), and camaraderie with others who thought like we did, and learning “what the Bible says.” On the surface, these things seem fairly harmless. But when I really think about the “old TWI days,” and these activities, I come up with some concerns: 1. The simplistic idealism that we could save the world with cut and dry Bible answers 2. The lack of mature dealings in the world. I was addressed as a child and kept from growing up while in the Corps and afterwards, 3. The gross neglect of my critical thinking faculty 4. The fact we were supposed to sell the PFAL class to people in order for VP to approve of our lives 5. The issue of whether we were “helping people” by using tools belonging to VP’s brand of fundamentalism 6. As far as I know, some still think they helped people with “the Word.” But what exactly is “The Word?” It’s very vague to me. My understanding is that when a phrase is used, there’s a definition for it somewhere. I don’t know of one for “The Word.” It is a phrase thrown around as if we all know what it means. This reminds me of the fairytale about the Emperor’s new clothes. The fact was: Emperor was not wearing any clothes. I don’t think anyone knows what The Word is. 7. Suffice it to say here, the usual explanation by TWI people and former TWI people for what “The Word” is goes something like this: you have to “use certain keys to research to discover what the original Word was.” Whose keys to research? How come we so readily accepted VP’s which he took from various other people who were fundamentalists? If it were so simple to know “The Word,” how come so many diverse interpretations persist? But back to the good old days. Let’s say the “good old Way days” were good after all, although this is hard for me to fathom. What exactly is being referred to by this claim? IMO, VP created some sense of community with some people for awhile, but what was that based upon? The way I see it, it was based on an agreement that VP’s teachings were God’s Word, on the commitment to the common cause of VP’s delusion of “moving The Word over the World,” and on a simple love for other people - as long as they obeyed what VP said was The Word. If they didn’t, at the very least they were not as spiritual as we were; at the very worst they were “born of the seed of the devil.” Let’s not forget, however, that this conditional camaraderie came at a price: It was held together by a patriarchal system fraught with deception and power struggles, not to mention rampant sexual, fiscal, and emotional abuse. In my view, wishing for “the good old days of The Way” denies the nature of the group itself – a fundamentalist, narrow-minded, anti-Christian movement. Why do I say it is anti-Christian? Because people were used as a means to an end. What was the end? Believe that what VP taught was the truth. Evangelize. Sell PFAL classes. Behave according to what The Way leadership dictated. Nostalgia for the old days also seems to deny the fact that from its inception, the cult was engineered by V.P. Wierwille, who claimed, like Paul in the New Testament, that he heard an audible voice from a monotheistic God adopted from another culture from thousands of years ago (or the voice of Jesus, as in Paul’s case) that no one else heard. This raises all sorts of issues too complex to get into here I think. While I met many good people whose kindness made me feel loved, during my TWI years, VP’s teachings, such as telling me I was “more than a conqueror” did not help me resolve problems I brought into The Way with me. For awhile, it engendered a positive attitude in me but it did not produce a healthy self image or tolerance, understanding and compassion for others who might not agree with what I believed. I think the doctrines in many instances only instilled a good deal of denial about myself, the good in the world, other cultures, and denial about what it means to be human. When I first took PFAL, at 18 years old, I certainly was gullible to The Way’s “answers” but the human brain is not even fully developed until 23 or 24 years old so that’s part of this scenario, too. But I also readily admit that I consciously turned a deaf ear to people who warned me not to get involved. Not only did I make grave errors in judgment when getting involved with TWI, but I was seduced by big fat claims about the nature of the system I was in. It claimed to be a biblical research ministry but it is extreme fundamentalism. I suggest more of us get informed not only about how cults function but what fundamentalism is and the history of its development. It’s not only a way of interpreting the bible but a way of existing in the world.

I don't know anything about it but it popped up in my Google alerts this am: http://tinyurl.com/lz9sy5 The Way International v. Trimm et al Plaintiff: The Way International Defendant: James Trimm and Society for the Advancement of Nazarene Judaism Case Number: 4:2009cv00338 Filed: June 12, 2009 Court: Texas Northern District Court Office: Fort Worth Office [ Court Info ] County: Tarrant Presiding Judge: Judge John McBryde Nature of Suit: Intellectual Property - Copyrights Cause: 17:101 Copyright Infringement Jurisdiction: Federal Question Jury Demanded By: Plaintiff

So a friend is running this class(I know another class lol) anyway she invited me to come and I said okay-- IT is called "life's healing choices" and it is set up by the person/people who wrote "the purpose driven life". I went to the first class last night . IT was interesting... pretty touchy feely all about exploring your emotions etc... I found it interesting .. it is light on scripture-- probably a good thing since being an ex wayfer I am... well you all know..too hyper critical of anyone's delving into scripture ... any way I was wondering if anyone here has had any experience with the purpose driven life.. I find it very much a buy my book.. at least for this first session which I find a bit off putting... but I wondered if I got past that would I find the book of value or is it just more of the same old thing... I have not read the book. But wondered if anyone here had . Also and this is just me .. I know I am not a fan of the delve into and examine every inch of what is wrong with you school of thought... I have a load of dang in my past, not even the ministry stuff but I had a very ugly childhood so I try to deal with that kind of stuff when it comes up and not stir it up .. like a muuddy lake bottom once stirred it can take a while to settle back down.. also I often wonder how much of the self examination thing is just making trouble where there was none before. Self examination can be a good thing but when your life is full of ick before a certain time it is easy to sink your ship by wading into it too deep. Anyway .. I would appreciate any thoughts of opinions you have. having escaped one cult set up by the skin of my teeth I would hate to wade into another just because everyone thinks it is the bees knees. And just because it uses the bible no longer guarantees it's safety for me.

Yeah I caught that the first night. IT is a case of what she thinks I need healing from and what I am trying to work on in my life right now. I have done nothing but think about it since I posted and you answered. I have the booklet and I am going to spend time this weekend going all the way through the exercises to the end to see what is intended. I am at this point just sticking my toe in.. IF it really looks like it is going to get too invasive I will pull out. Before I go any further in. I just do not want another TWI experience, even if it is not so invasive.. Even though my time in was not as horrific as others I came away from it with some real hurts .. IT took me along time to realize God loved me whether I was in TWI or some where else.. and a long to to get over the guilt of leaving our TWIG. That first lesson DVD for this class though is just creepy... I thought it so reminded me of TWI .. which is why I posted on here. WG I really can not thank you enough for all your input. Also Once I review it all I think I will post what I see on here just in case anyone else has questions about it. It is their newest class since the other two, "the purpose driven life" and "the purpose driven church". They encourage you to go threw it a t the same time as the class but I am not a lamb to be led to the slaughter anymore.

I'm writing this additional bit to clarify what I said above. First, I'd like to say my name is Charlene Edge. While in The Way, my maiden name was Charlene Lamy; my married name was Charlene Bishop. I graduated from the Second Way Corps in 1973. Credits: In the above post, I did not state the names of those who worked on the this Concordance because I did not feel comfortable doing so. My reason was NOT because they are trying to hide their identities or are not proud of their work. On the contrary! It is a work to be proud of! I simply did not have their consent on hand to name them. First, many of us know that Bernita Jess began the Aramaic/Syriac work for The Way in the early 1970s. Over the years, beginning in 1972 while in the Way Corps when VPW assigned me to work with Bernita, I began to help her in minor ways. As the Corps groups grew in numbers, so did Bernita's helpers. The Concordance published in August 1985. By this time, the primary person responsible for bringing this Concordance to completion was Joe Wise, an 8th Way Corps graduate. He told me I could release his name here. Joe earned his Masters Degree in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago, gaining this specific academic training in order to work on the Aramaic/Syriac projects at The Way International. An article came out in The Way Magazine, July/August 1985 that describes the project and states the names of contributors. Frankly, it was painful to find out that so many people, both in and out of The Way, do not know who is responsible for that research publication other than the fact that The Way International published it. To the best of my remembrance, The Way ministry put no names on their book publications other than VPW's or Walter Cummins's, at least while I was there. In the front matter of the Concordance, it simply states, "Edited by The Way International Research Team." Since members of the team changed over the years, no one would know which members did the work. A little more background: About a year before its publication, Bernita had some family issues that took her away from the project for awhile, namely the unfortunate death of her husband, George Jess. Then Joe Wise, because of his academic training and ability, assumed the leading role. I hope this helps the discussion. You can contact me through my profile on this web site if you have any further questions. Cheers! Charlene a.k.a. Penworks

Other churches were teaching plenty back in the 70s. VPW himself went to an Oral Roberts seminar to learn to SIT. He was brought out on stage, etc. Then met Stiles in a coffee shop. VPW kind of founded a ministry out of other people's work. If you look at Stiles book on receiving the holy spirit, 70% of it is plagiarized in RHST. But that was VPW's way - survey the plenty of teaching out there, take parts of it and claim them as his own, then loudly trumpet the uniqueness of his teaching to elevate his standing. His successors have either mimic'd that or reverted back to the traditions of the elders as any dead denomination does. Other churches can and will fall into virtually everything TWI is accused of. Leaders in churches have the same human nature and pride that any of the TWI leaders have. You regularly hear of power plays, sex scandals, political oustings, etc. You see the worst of religion in TWI. You see the worst of political struggling and power plays in the business world in TWI. At times you see the same in churches. Once people are saved by grace, their next step is to place themselves above their brother to judge. This type of logic is commonly used to keep people in TWI. "This is as good as it gets". "This organization isn't perfect, but it's the best available". "There are things you won't like about any group". TWI is worse than just about anything else you can find because of the controlling nature of it. To participate in classes, you need to disclose financial information that is nobody's business. People are involved in way too much to dictate what is done in personal lives. Plus on every level the bribery-based approval of the leader. It empowers some to place themselves above their brother to judge. And that leads to devestation. Look - you can join a church and attend for a while. Then you can leave and go to another church. Most of your friends will remain friends. You can buy and sell houses, do business ventures, go to school and get a loan. None of this changes things. Not so with TWI. Only there will you find people who you've known for 20 years who will no longer speak to you. "I have no friends when it comes to the Word". There is the attitude of an elitist. There is a pull that is unhealthy. This attitude separates families, friends, marriages. It is definitely worse than a very large number of choices that could be made. People are young and tired too. And in the case of TWI, the doctrine is old and tired. As is all the political posturing and bribery that is interwoven into their "household".

The more distance I get and critical thinking skills I develop again I start to see how so much of this is indoctrination or behavioral conditioning. It is marketed as helping people develop good "believer" habits, the 5 fundamentals, etc. There is a difference between free learning and conditioning. The Word is meant to work from the inside out, from the heart directing the steps, yet in actuality it's all driven by a schedule, a weekly and monthly calendar, and a curriculum that is all geared towards establishing dependency on this group.

And another thought...if this group encourages you to open up to them and share past hurts, really personal stuff, even stuff about TWI, I would probably not. Even friends need to give a little space. The only individual I ever shared a whole lot with about my TWI experience was a licensed psychologist who was treating me for depression. WG

Well, you know, I liked the church, just not the small group. The couple who coordinated the small group previously had decided to allow this second couple to take over. He was the nicest guy; she was to say the least legalistic. This was the same woman I had written about who had the snit fit about me sharing on a chapter of TPDL. I could never find it in my heart, however, to give her a nice blasting face-melt. I figured it would not have done much good. I think it is very wise to use great caution in getting involved in any class, group, retreat, what have you. If your gut is telling you this isn't right, I'd listen. That is what I did with the church plant we recently exited; I was mentally outta there a few months before Mr. Garden started asking me questions about their doctrine, affiliations, etc. I had already done the research and was armed and dangerous. I won't get fooled again! WG

Watered Garden.. Thanks so much... I found the threads-- Good info on the books and insight, and both pros and cons about the teachings... and if they were helpful and what was not helpful. Edited to add Really thank you because forewarned is forearmed. I have avoided joining any small group, This is one of those situations were I may or may not stick it out. I do have the excuse of an overload of school to fall back on as the couple running it are friends... and I can see they have bought into the whole program.. . I will never again fully buy any program. so yeah... and I am already un comfortable with it. I will say this it so far seems to be about finding healing for past hurts but I have this sneaking suspicion it is all about getting new people into their church. I have no interest in joining their fundamentalist church... so I am probably just "Dead wood"(twi slang not their term) anyway.

No no no. I went directly to Bullinger..

LOL Yes they did .. I was out of the house living on my own and paying my own way and had been for a while but I think if they had had the money they would have deprogrammed me. We had a big fight as I was leaving for the WOW field, so Yeah it was a mess. I suppose I should write the whole story here some time it is actually pretty interesting but has not a thing to do with the evilness of TWI and a lot more to do with my own stubbornness, and belief i was taking a year to serve God. Stupid little idiot i was...... I believed that I was serving God. :wacko: Edited to add ... I suspect if I had actually attended a few Twigs i would not have gone out WOW. And I am ratting out my beloved Hubby here and now.. when I married him and we ran our twig far from the Limb.. we only listened three times to SNS tapes. HE is my hero just for that alone. Those things were so horribly boring.

good to see you again.. what I'm trying to figure out.. your use of the genitive. "of douche". Is this the genitive of character, a noun in regimen.. "bags of douche".. a noun (douche) being used as an adjective (with emphasis)? Or is it the genitive of origon and efficient cause, the source of which these "bags" have their origin.. or is it the genitive of possession.. the bags in leadership *positions* which contain douche.. or is it.. genitive of apposition.. "bags" that is to say, or which are, "douche".. or is it the genitive of contents.

I don't think God being good and him prohibiting us from fully utilizing the mind that he gave us is compatible.

Well I suspect it might be more complicated than that. I don't think the human mind is as strong as we'd like to believe. There was some pretty intense indoctrination going on even with adults. Over the years I've thought about those adults (over 35 yrs. old :-) who got involved while I was in. That was 1970-1987. There were several entire families in together; some of the parents ended up in the Corps. Because of their presence, I've hesitated to say it would be easier to spot falacies in logic, etc. if we'd been older. Older doesn't seem to matter. There were highly skilled professionals active in the ministry: i.e. a surgeon, teachers, etc. and even in the second Corps someone over 30 had a PhD in Literature! In my view, whatever deep needs people had in their hearts, no matter what their age (and there were plenty of old timers around by the time I left) drew them to TWI and kept them there. Most of us have heard this before: the need for belonging, for simple answers from the Bible which was held to be the Word of God, etc. People's particular needs combined with the certainty of answers given spells committment to the one handing out the answers, it seems... If you think comments made here are missing, I guess you need to contact the administrators. It's okay with me if you want to send the post to someone to help them out.

Good morning everyone. Just checking in with my morning cup of coffee in hand and was shocked to read what's been going on while I snoozed away here in sunny Florida. A quick update from my chair: Everything I write or say I take responsibility for, as we all do. My intent is to speak my mind on things which may be useful to others and do it not with the intention to harm. Then let the chips fall where they may. After reading all these recent posts, I signed into the other site and read those as well. After much thought, I deleted this pesky post from the other site and sent a polite message to the owner. I did that out of respect for the owner's rules which before this incident were not so clear to me. Otherwise I wouldn't have posted this material there to begin with. Anyway, it's wonderful to read such thoughtful replies both here and from people there who left comments. In both places there are some insightful and informative things said about the topics in the post. Believe me, I've put a lot of thought into these matters for more than 20 years and feel compelled to share what I've learned. About our lives, no one can speak for us other than our own voices. I'll leave you with my favorite quote on this theme: "If we refuse to do the work of creating this personal version of the past, someone else will do it for us. That is the scary political fact. 'The struggle of man against power,' Milan Kundera's hero in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting says, 'is the struggle of memory against forgetting.' He refers to willful political forgetting, the habit of nations and those in power to deny the truth of memory in order to disarm moral and ethical power. It is an efficient way of controlling masses of people." From the book, I Could Tell You Stories by Patricia Hampl, pg.32. Cheers! Enjoy your day! Penworks

Oh, here you go... looks like this might be what it is about: http://www.seekgod.ca/trfactor2.htm "It recently has been alleged that the HRV is a plagiarism of the Way Interlinear Bible. Researcher Kathryn Kern contacted the people involved, and has done comparison of Trimm's HRV with passages of the Way International Interlinear."