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Here's a hilarious story. Years after I got (very nastily) kicked out of TWI I started attending a twig-type thing, a splinter, in the town where I now live. (I was very damaged; I needed the "comfort" of a twig - yeah, yeah, I know, don't go on at me about it.) The splinter couple had been helpful to me in my recovery. The wife was lovely and compassionate; the so-called Rev husband wanted things done his way, and liked to be "looked up to." He liked me because I was (ex) WC. I was suspicious of him and his egotism. However it was a nice group of people, a dozen inc kids on a good day, albeit most were the (wife's) relatives. He decided to "ordain" his sister in law (nice person, had very little idea about anything non-PFAL and hadn't even read most of the Bible. Mr Egotistical called a huge meeting to ordain Ms SiL and even got a person coming from the US. I went to the meeting but wouldn't go along further with this charade, and refused to sign the card that wished Ms SiL well as a "Rev." At the break half way through, he asked me to leave (or maybe I chose to go) - anyway I left. When I called at his home next day to collect my dishes from the communal meal, he was livid, changing colour as he spat abuse at me, and told me never to darken his door again. I left, laughing my head off. Mr Egotistical got his revenge by sending a foul email abusing me to everyone in his email address book. I mean, every single address. Along with the Sales office for some business he'd once had contact with - the shop down the road, the gas board, the water board, the city council, the irrelevant this, the irrelevant that - his mailing list included a lot of the leaders at CFFM, all his twig and an adjacent one in another city, and so on. And me. And then he blocked me so that I couldn't respond. No specifics in his email, of course, just abuse and allegations about my insubordination. Got his come-uppance when many of those leaders jumped on him, berated him for his attitude, and his own twig turned on him. (I know, because I was copied in on some replies to him.) As for unrelated people or businesses that he'd emailed, they must have thought they were dealing with a right nutter and quite likely refused to deal with him any more, or were very cautious in their dealings. As for his twig members, they just carried on being social with me whenever we bumped into each other. I found the whole thing hilarious and it really sealed for me how ridiculous TWI and its splinters really was. I had also, by this time, been regularly attending a normal church for many months, where the people were kind, loving, and genuinely supportive. And I attended Mr Egotistical's funeral a couple of years later.

There are no strangers in The Way. Unless you don't do what we say.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/09/05/book-by-hillary-clintons-pastor-will-be-pulled-from-shelves-due-to-extensive-plagiarism/?utm_term=.f86d5e0e7201 I know twi will never followsuit...but for those who say plagiarism doesnt matter....appareantly it does.

WordWolf........regarding splinter groups serving a valuable purpose as "airlocks"...... I used to think that as well.........but not anymore. My brother-in-law is on splinter group payroll [over 20 years]........and STILL holds to wierwille adulation and doctrine. How many of these guys are sucking the oxygen of the wierwille cult to keep the schlubs tossing their money into a cult-lite hole? 20 YEARS???!!! And then...............how many "followers" stay stuck in a splinter group in a deceived snare? Maybe, it's just me.......but when I exited twi, I did NOT need "airlocks" or "counsel" to depressurize........I just needed to ESCAPE AND BREATHE FRESH AIR.

an excellent point WordWolf and I will testify to that from my own experience...having left in '86 in the aftermath of PoP - it was a GRADUAL distancing of myself from TWI. At first resigning from my corps assignment post of area coordinator - but still visiting all the Twigs in my area...and as the old intellectual gears continued to engage full throttle - I would feel somewhat awkward if I dared to share any of the new found stuff from my studies - instead I would start slacking off going to these Twigs... I'm not really of the leader or management type...didn't want to start my own thing...didn't want to lead a rebellion against the "evil empire" or anything - and at that point I didn't even see TWI as the evil empire - i was just trying to sort out what the hell happened...how did we get to that point...how not to make the same mistakes again ...but for the moment - it was a matter of survival - I was just trying to figure out where I was since I came to the surface from a sunken ship. It was all new to me - adapting to a new intellectual environment - and one of my own choosing.

Hi Bapsy, just to be clear I never implied that John 1 supports the Trinity. But I do believe it speaks of the divinity of Christ – as does your reference/link to Philippians 2:6. And regarding your link/reference to Ephesians 4:6 – I don’t have a problem with that either. I’ve come across this being addressed in several systematic theologies – that point to God the Father being the originator…the source…and Jesus Christ as the only authorized agent to act on behalf of the Father. Steve Lortz has a great doctrinal thread on the economy of the Trinity – which makes a lot of sense to me…if you think about it – economy is the careful management of wealth and resources in terms of production and the consumption of goods and services – that dictionary definition is sort of business like…a little cold and clinical for my taste but in fact maybe that’s just a technical description of how the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit conduct the business of redemption…I dunno…but do check out his thread Doctrine of the Trinity …you may find it enlightening… I’ve often stated on Grease Spot I am a Trinitarian – but I use the term loosely – since there’s quite a variety of strains – and as I’ve said before on other doctrinal threads – there are many biblical subjects that defy our penchant to categorize and interpret the biblical data into neat, simple, and clear formulas for doctrine. But that’s just my standard disclaimer when it comes to matters of faith, doctrine, etc. - I could be wrong. I’m not a theologian – just an innocent bystander. Your link/reference to Romans 10: 9 & 10 reminds me of a great book by F.F. Bruce Jesus: Lord & Savior ...the book in simple terms shows how the early Christians began to perceive Jesus Christ...It was one of the first books I read after leaving the way international, that got me to think outside the box of the way's doctrine....anyway, just a thought. love & peace T-Bone

I've often said that the splinter groups have served a valuable purpose as "airlocks." Just as a person returning from deep underwater needs to spend some time in differing pressure environments before reaching the surface (their body needs to adjust to different pressure environments), people leaving twi need time to spend in differing pressure environments before fully escaping (their mind needs to adjust to different pressure environments.) So, part of it is being enough like the imagined "good old days" of twi, while a person looks around and sees that the rest of the world and the rest of Christianity really is no worse than twi and is usually better. Once that's sunk in, then the splinter needs to turn up the heat and do something stupid so the person gets sick and tired of being sick and tired, and jumps ship completely from twi and ex-twi. Then they can go do something else- alone, with other Christians, with non-Christians. etc. So, as we see, the pinhead who tried to bully Twinky while having a meltdown served a vital function- he drove off "his congregation" and they went out into the world just as Twinky did, and for much the same reasons. He didn't MEAN it that way, but it worked out that way. (He meant it to her for evil...)

Wierwille could not have fooled Penn and Teller with his BS. Penn is an agnostic Jew with Libertarian political views and he would have seen the smoke and mirrors of TWI

Something similar was said last night on A&E's Leah Remni and Aftermath of Scientology

Wanna hear something funny? I graduated from the 4th corpse in August,1976. My first "assignment" as a corpse grad was "State WOW Coordinator, MI". There were 20 WOW families sent to 10 different cities in MI, plus a slew of College WOWS at all the big college campuses in the state. Each team of WOWs was led by an Interim sickth corpse person or couple. That year of 1976-77, there was a two-family WOW team with a 6th corpse Coordinator, and there was an entire Way Home of College WOWs in Ann Arbor, coordinated by a 6th corpse couple. Between them they ran 9 classes, with 5 of them being large video classes. Many of those new grads went WOW, but they left 5 solid twigs behind in Ann Arbor, and 2 in Ypsilanti when they left. I highly doubt that what TWIt is sending out now will produce more than 5 grads, if that many. The world has changed. TWIt is so out of touch with reality, and so abjectly tone deaf to the human condition, because they have not changed at all, other than for the worse. Back in 1976, the toxic tentacles of Way-Nash had not reached the twigs and branches with its poison yet. That didn't really happen until 1979-80. So, the genuine experience of authentic Christian revival was seen in many places. Right now, in 2017, TWIt is so spiritually, culturally, and intellectually DEAD, and so completely dysfunctional socially and politically and economically, that all it has to offer is complete and total impotence in every beneficial form of human endeavor. A fitting tribute and legacy to that dead, drunk, sociopathic, paranoid narcissistic, serial rapist and sexual batterer, Nazi, racist, misogynistic, fraud of a subhuman being in his waterlogged crypt beneath the fountain. WD? Yup! Way Death..............peace.

And remember to think of your pets in any emergency planning! It may help to ask "What would Lassie do?"

Mr. Linder is TWI's version of Mike Rinder, before he left Scientology. Will Linder likewise leave the hallowed grounds of TWI and do a similar TV expose?

oddly enough, they worked out a lot better since I left TWI...for example: separate truth from error - - Grease Spot has helped a lot ! more harmony in the home - - family gets along great - - don't have to argue over what to do on Twig night...since we don't have Twig anymore increases prosperity - - oh yeah, since all my money doesn't go to support a cult anymore overcomes worry and fear - - still working on that one...I worry I will run out of sarcastic ways to poke fun at a cult I use to fearfully serve !

Grace, you're ok in my book...just keep being who you are.....Even though Grease Spot is a cyber-world and at times we all can get on each other's nerves - I still prefer this wonderful divergency any day over that homogenized sugarcoated phoniness of TWI.

Yes. BTW, anyone who wants a quick summary of the main points of that entire transcript, it's simple. I said it before: "Serving people is important for Christians. Therefore, master all three levels of PFAL and serve them that. There are no answers outside the Way Ministry." (The end,) My initial response to it was that this was the closing remarks of a man with an overinflated sense of his organization, and an underinflated sense of all Christians outside that organization.

Roll away, roll away, roll away..........every butt is now a-hurtin' let us pray.

When the roll is called up yonder I'll be there...for my two square allotment

I am currently taking a graduate level course on the doctrine of the Trinity. One of the first things we learned is that there are two different aspects to the doctrine of the Trinity. One aspect is called "the economic doctrine of the Trinity." The word "economic" comes from the Greek word oikonomia. The economic doctrine talks about "God-as-He-toward-us." It is essentially what has been written in the Bible. The gist of the economic Trinity is that everything we receive from God the Father, we receive through Jesus Christ by means of the Holy Spirit, and everything we direct to God the Father we direct through Jesus Christ by means of the Holy Spirit. The other aspect is called the ontological or immanent doctrine of the Trinity, and deals with "God-as-He-is-in-Himself." The first thing any theologian says about "God-as-He-is-in-Himself"is that it is "ineffable," which literally means that it can't be spoken about. The next thing most theologians have done is to begin speculating about that which cannot be spoken of. Since there is no objective standard to judge the correctness of that which cannot be spoken, many different speculations arise and they often contradict each other. The need for unity of belief led to councils and creeds that dictate how to think and talk about that which cannot be spoken. The words that became fossilized in the 4th and 5th centuries, such as homoousias and hypostasis had very reasonable meanings in the culture of the time, but those meanings have been lost down through the following centuries. Consequently, the ontological doctrine of the Trinity no longer makes sense to people who have not familiarized themselves with the thought worlds of late antiquity and the middle ages. There are long and convoluted rules about what we can think and say about that which cannot be spoken. When Wierwille rejected the ontological doctrine of the Trinity, unfortunately, he also rejected the economic understanding of the relations between God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ and the gift of Holy Spirit, which is accurate according to the Bible. I'm not really that interested anymore in what Wierwille taught. He is long gone and dead. What does exercise me is how John Lynn markets his material as correction for Trinitarian "insanity." People hear him say stuff like that and think he's talking about the economic Trinity!!!!! He has no awareness of how ignorant he sounds... Love, Steve

I'm still trying to figure out how you can be kicked out of an organization that has no membership.

If we're not supposed to use our "five senses", why did God give them to us?