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Can we get the condensed version?

"As for my qualifications, I suppose you're right. I have no theological qualifications ... outside of the holy spirit the Lord gave me and the Bible in my hand. It certainly is very humbling. The wonderful news, however, is that I'm among very good company, since these were precisely the qualifications of most of those biblical characters we know and love. I'm sure glad that the Paul didn't hold Peter to the same standards of authenticity that you seem to want to hold me to, brother. The funny thing is, I was under the impression that a person's true credentials come from Jesus, since the Bible teaches that "... it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends." Oh, here we go again, comparing ourselves to Biblical figures. Guess what. you're not David, you're not Paul or Peter or Jesus. You're just an everyday guy, living a delusional life in the 21st century, imagining yourself to be a key player in some noble "spiritual" movement. In reality, you're a simple pawn in the God-Game, just like the rest of us were long ago. You're the guy on the 11 o'clock news who got hoodwinked out of his life savings by some seemingly sincere shyster. You might be a perfectly nice guy in real life. I wouldn't know. I've never met you. Continuing to live the TWI/PFAL/VPW/JAL charade for your own sake is one thing. Promoting it to others as a panacea for their problems is entirely something else. And, when I say "something else" I don't mean something good. When I was a kid I loved to read. I did a lot of book reports. You find out quickly that you can't simply regurgitate paragraphs or rephrase statements to make them appear original. Right or wrong, you had to give your own take on what you felt the book was saying. So, with that in mind, what is Channing saying? Do you draw any correlations? How is it relevant to this discussion? What Channing may or not be saying is nowhere nearly as important as the idea of speaking your own thoughts, your own mind, rather than continually defaulting to a parroted encore of previous performances. In a nutshell: Think for yourself. You'd be surprised how far you can go beyond what you were taught, despite Wierwille's assertions to the contrary. edit: spelling

Well, then, how about a summation? You know, kinda like, "The point being stressed here is (fill in the blank)." In other words, if you had to briefly give the essence in your own words, what would you say?

That seems to be a dubious assumption.

Prove all things, hold fast that which is good... ? Come on, who is really suggesting we again, 40 years after some of us first delegated our right to critically analyze all things religion to a con man, that we continue on the path of deception based on the entertainment value of jalvis and his partners in crime? Perhaps there is wisdom we (or anyone so inclined) can glean from the writings of William Channing, but I'm not so sure it's a fitting admonition for addressing the tone of this thread. "In opposition to traditional American Calvinist orthodoxy, Channing preferred a gentle, loving relationship with God." The subject of this thread isn't, and please excuse me if I'm wrong, about a relationship with God.

In true hyperdispensationalism, the various sects arising from TWI take the "church of god" thing to a new level. To some degree, only those in "possession of the truth" are truly the "church" - everyone else is deceived and therefore lesser children of god...if that.