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Hi. I'm one of the many people that were affected by, if not 'involved' in, the Way. I was born in 1980. It was my Dad and Mom that were in the Way. Mom Died, then Dad. They say you grow up with your parent's religion. I never "took the class" but I may as well have. Dad ended up with a set of "Class Tapes" when the ministry went to hell in the area we lived in (at that time) and no one ever asked him for them back. He was in the Navy at the time, out at sea, and came home to find that everything had basically disintigrated and people had already scattered to the four winds. I watched the tapes a few years later, so I guess maybe, "I took the class." But I took my own breaks when I wanted to, and provided my own refreshments. It was difficult to find a Beta Machine, I'm tellin' ya,.... Thank God for E-Bay. Anyways I'm not going to type out an autobiography here. Maybe I'll get to know some of you here and understand a bit about the group that influenced me,... us? My memories of anything to do with the Way aren't all that bad. Hell, I was a little kid then, but I have some that are funny, some that are sad, etc.... Oh and My Name's Katie

The Way International certainly messed this topic up for darn near everybody IMO. Some who warned of circumstantial victims opening the door to the adversary probably did so and effectively warned people away from some sort of mistake if perchance the one speaking had only good intentions. But others doubtlessly were sooo far into Way Ministry abusive practices that they only caused the very suffering they were seeking to cause to be avoided by the one ministered to (so-to-speak). From my perspective allowing the adversary in from a biblical perspective is doing something that allows self or others to be stolen from, killed, or destroyed. And whether or not one is a believer of the biblical definitions and personas set forth in biblical scripture it seems that all could possibly agree to handle the issue in a matter where ones belief in or disbelief of a "devil" is secondary as to the content and real effect of the conversation. Whether or not anyone believes in the "devil" all must agree that sometimes bad and destructive things happen to us and they are completely outside of our control. Frankly, when folks who believe in a "devil" persona ignorantly lay the blame at the feet of the victims of these tragedies they go directly to the place of being a destructive false prophet according to their own biblical definitions IMO. But a secularist may fall into the same folly if perchance they lay the blame of getting raped on the rape victim ignorantly. But at least the hateful secularist may have their views confronted without having their entire worldview challenged. For the mistaken view of the "believer" of a "devil" who is mistakenly cruel; they may also need to be proven wrong on their opinion of the spiritual realm, which realm by definition is beyong our sense knowledge analysis, and that is no easy thing to be corrected on IMO. Their mistaken belief as concerning the spiritual realm only serves to make their mistaken blame of the victim a much harder thing to correct. Whether or not anyone believes in a "devil" it is easy to lay the blame at the feet of Wierwille if he drugged and raped women, or if he abused women in his rv, or their homes, or if he abused successive generations of women in one family. Such things are the actions of a monster. If one believes in a devil, how is it possible to trust a man or his ministry when it tells folks of where to see the "devil" and which direction the devil is attacking them from. A secularist would rightly say Wierwille was a monster. A believer in spiritual and biblical beings must according to any sanity left in them (IMO) say Wierwille stole from and destroyed peoples' lives, hence brought the "devil's" devices into their lives. Martindale lost the presidency of The Way International because of moving the same devilish devices into people's lives. Rosie has lied about and covered up her own knowledge of these devilish devices according to many, many sound reports IMO. The one I'm currently thinking of concerns the report that Rosie went around and made sure to quite Martindale's other victims by a combination of carrot and stick methods. The carrot was something like, "If you remain quite you will be untouchable here at The Way International." The stick was something like, "If you speak out we will do everything in our power to destroy your life and reputation." IMO at The Way International such a warning of consequences can be given subtly by example, outrightly with verbal warnings, or summary judgment on people in order to make an example of them, and many GSCers seem to recall many warnings being given of all three of these types. Most of the former top Way Ministry has lied about and/or remained silent as to the extent of their own involvement in these "devilish" practices". How can they now purport to start splinter groups without a full and public airing of Way Ministry devilishness? A believer in a "devil" may rightly see them as totally unqualified to teach about the "devil's" methods and attacks. An unbeliever may rightly conclude they are no better than any other pervert or criminal who refuses to come to terms with their own perverse and/or damaging actions. Either believer or unbeliever may fairly conclude that to some extent each and every one of them is hypocritical and unaccountable for their own nasty/devilish actions, and they have not resisted or exposed the actions of the ones who did the nasty/devilish deeds. As a believer in these "spiritual personas" I claim them to be ineffective and even still guilty in not resisting the devil and allowing the "devil's" work to be unhindered and still hidden. But I completely agree with any secularist who rightly sees Way Ministry leadership is worthy of blame in strictly secular terms. (edited for the sake of clarity and typos too.) (added in editing) If you have a ministry that builds on John 10:10 you'd better be ready to own up to your own st!t. And as concerning the whole concept of building on the "good" in The Way International. Have you folks even read what God reportedly does to those who do evil in his name? Wouldn't getting the "F" away before the whole thing gets burnt to a crisp make more sense, sheesh, if you claim God's grace according to the scriptures at least try to claim it according to something ACTUALLY RECORDED in the scriptures about how God rewards devilishness that is wrongly committed in HIS name. And for those that don't believe in God's judgment, how easy is it to see that looking for good things from The Way International is at best ill-advised wishful thinking?

For me in my life, my personality, I have to figure it out; it's who I am. That way I can, I hope, understand why, where, when I found myself there to be available to their rape, abuse, control, emotional battering and hopefully, as I said in the first post "learn something". And God forbid if I'm ever the cause of it happening to anyone else. But yeah, first myself. I have to understand things, I just do. It's not always pretty, it's often reliving the shi+, but once I do, it's better and the chances of do overs are rare, if ever.

Yes, Brainfixed, I'd agree; they don't care. And in an organization like The Way International, they had/have every manner of pedophile, rapist, batterer, abuser, arsonist, burgler and whatever, allegedly. (gotta add the allegedly, ick). And indeed the victimizer will often take any victim s/he can get so long as they get their fix of whatever it is they fixate on or need. For anyone victimized by them, I hope it offeres some solace or comfort that they were NOT at fault, they didn't do anything to attract the attack or the abuse. Stinks of the rape victim that is raped again in court cuz they were wearing something "wrong" doesn't it? We do not have to own that which is not ours.

Spec and Wordwolf, Is the point in the diatribes that VP was disingenuous or is it that the actual doctrine was at fault (read: rhetorical question)? The doctrine was not at fault. The dead are dead. I suppose if people want to debate that we could all start a thread at the “doctrinal” portion of GSC, but I wouldn’t come. It’s like debating the Trinity. Bought the tee shirt, don’t want to get back in line for another one. There are certain things I’ll move on with. Same in any research endeavor... But I digress; the “nostalgia for TWI research” in this case seems so far away from the discussion; it’s more like there never was any reminiscence, but rather remonstrance. Can we move on from the fact that VP did not footnote or give reference? He was a very selfish man. But the critical issue is whether what he said here was right or not, eh? Or is it that we were so put upon? BTW, this matter over the comma was not something that Bullinger just thought up either. It had centuries of discussion behind it. Read the commentaries. I remember reading Are the Dead Alive Now? before I got involved in TWI way back in 1973. I had either taken it out of the library at my school or someone had passed it on to me. In the section about Luke 23:43 VP had a reference to a Syriac text that shed some light on the matter. That reading was not known in any of the journals and commentaries that I had read up to that point (not in Bullinger and probably brought to VP's attention by Lamsa??) and it really is in the Syriac text (Charlene, here’s where the Old Syriac and not the PSHTA text family wins out). Point is, VP’s work, whether plagiarized or not, was correct (in this place). For what its worth. RE