Leaderboard

How does committing original sin (whatever it was) transfer ownership of the Earth to Satan? This was covered in a collateral called "Jesus Christ The Last Adam" by Patricia T. Talley. It has to do with Adam having dominion over the earth, the threefold nature of man and Adam relinquishing his connection to God. The collateral was, at one time, part of the set of little pamphlets that came with the class and was also sold in the bookstore. If I can find my copy, I'll try to post some of it. Tied into that is: then is eating from the tree of life a physical act too? This one was covered in the Christian Family and Sex class. The long and short of the answer to this, according to Wierwille, was "yes". I think the class I took must have been one of the very early versions because I have yet to encounter anyone else who remembers the rather graphic explanation that Wierwille gave. He said the "tree" reference was figurative (phallic) and the "eating" reference was literal. Perhaps that part was quickly edited out for future classes. When he presented this, Wierwille said, "I can't show it to you from the scriptures. You'll just have to trust me on this one." That should have thrown up a giant size red flag for me but I was too wayfer brained to see it. For a guy who claimed to abhor private interpretation, VPW sure seemed to spout an abundance of it himself.

Dear TWI, I address you as TWI because I recognize that I am no longer actually writing to people, to human beings who care about what I think and whose thoughts and feelings actually concern me. I am writing to an entity, an embodiment of the concept of groupthink masquerading as independent thought and "real life, not some imitation." I wonder, honestly, when was the last time you did something real? It probably doesn't matter. You're not reading this anyway. Oh, you see the words. But you're not reading it. You're examining it. Searching for indications of devilry, no doubt. You're looking for that quote you can pull out as proof that leaving the prevailing winds of the household of the word's way, or whatever it is you call yourself these days, has some kind of damaging effect on the soul. There was a time I would care. There was a time I would do the same to you: explore your platitudes and endless quibblings with platitudes and endless quibblings of my own. You had me going for a WHILE, I must admit. But in the years since I last set foot on your farm, I've grown to realize something. I don't care what you think. No, seriously, hear me out: I don't care what you think. I don't care what you say. I don't care what you teach or preach. I don't care what's right with it. I don't care what's wrong with it. I don't care if you sell it to anyone and I don't care if you sell it to no one. I don't care if you have five followers left or if you have 5,000 or 500,000. I don't care what you're calling your class these days, and I don't care who gets the credit for teaching it. I don't care if you gave proper credit to your original sources or if you give credit to those who once contributed to your cause but now reject you. And I don't care what you think of my apathy. I am free of you. As free as I am of the gods of Olympus and the influences of the Zodiac, I am free of you. Aha, you may say, but what about the Word? What about God? Yes, those are good questions. And I do have answers. But you are not entitled to them. I do not care to share them with you. Did you miss the part where I said I am free? You did? I don't care. Goodbye.

dear twi as in rosalie rivenbark and donna lombardi martindale -- i don't care that you are a gay couple i just wish you could have been caring normal people

OMG!! Last night I was in Dayton attending a high school dance recital, and wouldn't ya know Craig Martindale was there?!! YES!! He stars in a brand new dance production, which he choreographed himself. He dedicated last night's performance to "my Rosie pooh, in my favorite farmville *wink wink* You know who you are, Rosie girl!" Well, it was spectacular entertainment. Lucky for you, I captured it all on my cell phone camera! Ready?

a little off topic, but maybe not... ive looked into this. further complicated is how there are about a dozen different ways "spiritual" is used in English. Some say it means "supernatural," some say it means "emotional," some say it means "existential", some say it means "causal," some say it means "whatever is your ultimate concern", so on and so forth. So I say it depends on how the word is being used in that moment. As long as we are at least interested in inquiring, the word can be useful. Otherwise, its as confusing as any other of those old words, like "God" "love" "heaven" "hell" etc... We may assume someone is using it the same way we do...but odds are against it. "enlightenment" too, a diverse set of definitions in play. In addition to being the result of exploration, experimentation and such as waysider pointed out, i would have to add "enlightenment" also comes with disillusionment and loss of previous views. And is oftentimes accidental, unexpected, and comes with a certain element of confusion. Some speak of "enlightenment" as being some sort of ultimate once-in-a-lifetime event. Others consider the onset of rational thought (in people or the world) as enlightenment. Others say life is an ongoing series of big and little enlightenments, involving different depths and degrees of enlightenments. I can also appreciate the old saying that "death is enlightenment at gunpoint." Some sages of old, when referring to "the ground of awareness" that enlightenment seekers seek, ask "who is not already enlightened?" So, perhaps not only does TWi contradict itself, scripture contradicts itself, God contradicts God, we contradict ourselves...even language contradicts itself....perfectly imperfect.

I agree. Some of those killed people (by suicide), ruined lives, and so on. Some people still can't get out of the "vpw's doctrine is correct no matter what" mindset, and remain "casualties" to this day. Raping or molesting God's precious gems because twi doctrine made it all right, IMO, is MUCH worse than "is inerrancy an accurate doctrine"? As I see it, priorities go like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs- first we need food, water, shelter, relative safety, and THEN we can address philosophical point or worldview points. If I had one wish and could retroactively erase exactly ONE doctrine from twi so that it was never thought or acted on, "Is the Bible contradictory" wouldn't even make the Top 10 list. I'd put the stuff that allowed rapes, molestations, abortions, and so on all before it.

I, for one, am grateful that we can have these discussions - complete with disagreement - which is totally the point of why I said what I said. We can disagree. Instead of saying that God is bigger than our understanding could ever possibly be in this life, we are were told that God can't contradict himself - and that any apparent contradictions have explanations - which led allowed them to misrepresent stuff that was certainly not contradictory (like adultery and fornication), make stuff up like God not spitting your way unless you were a 15% of gross giver, and many, many other things. Ultimately it led to a real unhealthy culture of shut the f' up and let someone else think for you.

@Geisha - Tzaia wrote "ONE of the biggest", not just "THE biggest." And it was! If we hadn't bought the lie that TWI could give us the answers, why should we have fallen for any of their other perpetrations? It well may be your opinion that they did many other things that were more terrible. Does that mean we all have to hold that opinion? Are we too supposed to speak the same things, like in TWI? If somebody says something that's different from your opinion, then you might do well to consider WHY their opinion may be different, instead of just off-handedly rejecting it. Love, Steve

Ecclesiastes is not about simple, pat answers. Among other things, Ecclesiastes is about the search for the answers to the great questions of life, and the difficult things to understand-so long as we are limited to our limited human perspective (which, pretty much, is us for life.) Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 13 The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. 14 For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil. Nice one.

I believe that the writing and the editing and the canonization of the Bible were inspired by God, but for His purposes, not for ours. I don't believe the Bible can be fruitfully understood without the leading of the Holy Spirit, that is to say, I don't think there's anything to be gained by trying to use human logic to make it mean things that WE want it to say, if God means something different. Among other things, the Bible is about life in this present evil age, and there are many things about life in this present evil age that are contradictory. Otherwise, what are we to make of the book of Ecclesiates? Einstein said "God does not play dice with the universe!" Yet Ecclesiates 9:11 says, ...the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all." If God had made the Bible fool proof, He would have defeated His own purposes, because He addressed it to a bunch of fools! Love, Steve

I retook an Old Testament class last semester, that I originally took about 42 years ago. There were a lot of freshmen and sophomores in the class who were straight out of Sunday school. Some of them came from literal inerrancy backgrounds. They had a lot of trouble wrapping their minds around the fact that the book of Job is a piece of fiction. One of them asked in class, "Is there anything we can actually read in the book of Job that tells us it's fiction?" So I googled "literary forms in the book of Job." One of the things I found is that the book of Job is very heavy on irony, a feature that doesn't show up in English as well as it does in Hebrew. Now one of the definitions of irony is to use words in such a way as to convey a meaning that is the opposite of their literal meaning. To say that there are no contradictions in the Bible denies God the use of irony in communcating His intended meaning. The point of the book of Job is not to tell us how to go from being victim to victor (though a certain party used it to teach how to become a victim OF Victor), but to show us that there is NO easy answer to the problem of human suffering. The idea that God made a bet with the adversary is PURELY a literary device to explain how the suffering came on Job without giving away the punchline of the book, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him." We live in a state of tension between receiving the earnest of our inheritance and receiving the inheritance itself. For us, the Bible is FULL of contradictions, and to deny that is to succumb to the lust for certainty. Love, Steve

I think you are right. It is really good that he is coming to these things that have so hurt us....but, maybe, he should just stop trying to teach each realization he is coming to in his own life. Maybe he is not in a position to teach others. If you look at his theology since leaving TWI...it has been all over the map. Why is he trying to teach people each thought that roams into his head as if it is the gospel truth? Personal Prophecy, a God with limited foreknowledge, Momentus, and now this. Most of us came to this on our own and people like John Juedes have been trying to expose it for years. Lot's of bible teachers never bought into the law of believing and cried foul right away. JAL is not a bible teacher. He was in the same messed up cult we were. He needs a good teacher to take him in hand. Why would people continue to look to JAL as an authority? It is obvious he has a great deal to work out in his own mind and life.....why sit behind a desk and spout? I think he is dangerous and a hindrance to those who may be seeking deliverance from TWI teachings. Who knows where his mind meanderings are going to take him next? Wherever it is, I don't understand why he feels the need to drag others along with him. I wish him well, but I wish he would just direct people to some sound bible teachers and let it go. That would be the loving and selfless thing to do. I don't think he can...he believes he is an authority. Also, what is with the mesmerizing hand gestures and that odd cadence in his voice? I couldn't look away...it was all I could concentrate on.

JL is a counterfeit $13 bill. He used to be a $3 bill, but that got incremented after 2 crash and burn ministry attempts.

I would rather simply sign Raf's letter and pass it around for others here to sign....and let it be known that I think the same way.

I'm not sure quite why, but, when I think of the time I spent in The Way it reminds me of song.