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The list is long.........of those trying to revive the twit-corpse. Let me define "twit-corpse".........imo, it is the semblance of wierwille's pseudo-Christianity with home-based fellowships, class-structure and pyramid hierarchy wherein all tithes and offerings are funneled to one location. The mystique of wierwille is revered in an honorary position right up there with the Apostle Paul, ie. "the 20th Century Man of God." It matters NOT that splinter groups have disconnected from the central-cult........they are STILL trying to "revive and restore" the nostalgia remnant of their spiritual relevance in life. Many of these leaders in splinter cults are deceivers, frauds, hucksters and opportunists. They are hirelings who have self-serving motives and interests. To them, they've simply hooked their wagon to the wierwille name and clichés, because they know it swathes the greatest number of loyal followers. It matters not that wierwille was a drunkard, sexual predator and bully.......... didn't wierwille teach in pfal that critics would focus on the man, and even the ties he wore? /sarc Chris Geer was given the most vaunted platform to revive the twit-corpse. The then-trustees, Craig, Don and Howard, allowed Geer to stand on the main stage at Corps Week 1986 and read his poop paper........declaring that 90% of USA corps were "off the word." The Way International needed revival and restoration.........see?? Right. There. In. Plain. Sight. Leaders and corps, even the trustees.......NEED TO STRIVE to "get back to the word." Of course, Geer hopped on the next plane and headed back across the Atlantic........never clarifying the ambiguity of his bloated pontifications and pronouncements. Sure, it was 90%........not 91%. Bullschit. Soon, John Lynn and others had their version of how to revive and restore. What needed reviving? What needed restoring? Hearts? Attitudes? Behavior? Doctrine? Practice? Why did walter c. dismiss the paper on adultery as "new research?" New Research??? So, add walter and johnnie to the geer camp to revive and restore.... Keep it generic. Keep it ambiguous. Keep control of the masses. Region men had the greatest access to loyal followers.......and take full advantage of it. Doug Seed. Vince Finnegan. Steve Sann. Others. Keep soft-pedaling the wierwille clichés and classes........baby steps........as they keep distancing themselves from the mother-cult. Slick. Deceptive. Calculating. Years later, John Shroyer deems it necessary to revive and restore "the good, old days of The Way International".......you know, those feel-good-about-your-spiritual-self-days. Soft spoken and compassion helps to win over scores of others........and CFF, at Troy, Ohio, just down the road from the twit-cult starts a-cooking the brew. Heck, even a couple wierwille kids see their calling in this new revival movement. Fast forward................May 2017. After eight months of deliberation, the Revival and Restoration Group have their Q&A Meeting. With Bob and Dottie Moynihan, Michael Fort, the Horneys and Sheltons to spearhead this dissent........are they trying to resuscitate The Way International Cult? Are they trying to affix Victor Paul Wierwille as the arbiter of truth? Were they trying to underscore that Rivenbark was a micro-manager.............and give wierwille a pass on all this? Gawd, these guys are SO LAME and DISILLUSIONED. Just heard..................that Tom Kn-upp went down to meet/teach at an R&R group and is now, on twi's shun-list [note: twit-cult is making EVERY EFFORT to avoid using mark/avoid tactic and label in the public domain. Probably, has legal backlash.....]. Wowsers.........30 years of trying to revive the twit-corpse and that's the thanks he gets. Back-stabbers...... 30 freakin' years.....................

You can't think of other factors that affect quality of life? (and of a society? how is that measured?) You can't think of other sources of thought? You think reactions to words are completely predictable? This is "you can't go beyond what you are taught" Repackaged.

I am a sociologist/professor/researcher and your argument is definitely "null and void." I know what the peer reviewed research and paradigms say about every major social problem. We can discuss them once you figure out how to construct a valid opinion/argument.

The more attrition, the fewer people left to divide the $64 million spoils they stole from all the rest who long ago abandoned the death and destruction of dictor paul's cult. Fewer medical bills, fewer salaries to squeeze out, no more of those damn "retirees" sucking down all Rosie and Donna's moolah. Soon, they won't have to go anywhere except Gunnison and the OH Gulag. No more big meetings or manufactured "spiritual needs" to pay the bills with. Just a really comfortable, rich easy stroll into senility and the grave. TWIt will die when they die. Follow the money!

Hi, Tom My point wasn't really a reference to intent. Before the internet, a large part of proving someone had stolen your music was being able to show they had been exposed to it at some point. Such is the case with Led Zeppelin using Taurus as a partial framework for Stairway to Heaven. They toured together and shared the same stage. Zep may have even heard Spirit experiment with various paramutations. So, there's the exposure element for you. Same with Eric Carmen. He undoubtably had extensive exposure to Rachmaninoff material. Wierewille clearly had access and exposure to the works he pilfered. They weren't "previously unknown truths" as he led people to believe. This is where intent to deceive enters the picture. Yes, the problem with authenticity of what was once regaled as sacred is certainly a valid area of interest and quite worthy of exploration. I think what we're talking about here, though, is something of a more basic, fundamental nature...Wierwille actively made a deliberate effort to misrepresent his work and conceal that fact in order to facilitate his own, self-centered interests.

Perhaps, I should state this more clearly......... The disaster was wierwille...............his "works of the flesh" in strife, striker, drunkard, predator, etc. were hiding in the shadows.

After the disaster with Craig, everyone is trying to remodel Wierwille as they remember in the early 70's as a cool Bible teacher. Where is the vomit emo?

T-Bone - - I really like the way you think.

I think in TWI's case we should call it Diarrhea-tics

Great post, Grace !!! Your post resonated with me on several levels ! And it brought to mind Ross & Kessler's 5 stages of grief and loss: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I tend to think in some cases - many folks may never "totally recover", "totally heal" , "fully resolve" or whatever you want to call it - from a destructive experience - such as being in a cult for a number of years....that's NOT to say one cannot bounce back, move on, rehabilitate, be on the mend...whatever once they leave a cult...I broke my left hand in a really bad rollover in a work truck; I am right handed - but when Tonto wants a stubborn jar lid opened she calls on old Fiddler Crab T-Bone and his left claw of death to open it; so maybe there's some strengthening in the recovery process - like having stronger critical thinking skills. I consider my recovery as a work in progress until the day I die...maybe still have a few bouts with denial, anger, etc. but I really work toward acceptance as an overall step in the right direction. I think that's a healthy approach - and if I'm not mistaken by your online presence - you seem to have a healthy attitude in your take on things.

Kinda makes ya wonder why so many people have become staunch defenders of TWI doctrine on the various social media sites.

Hi Greasespotters! i wrote to Boob MoneyHands back in May, asking some of the same 16 questions I submitted for them to answer at their new cult kickoff rally in early May. They never even answered one at their rally. I also included some poignant questions about the suicides, rapes, domestic violence, and child abuse they knew about and willfully and purposely covered up to protect dictor Paul, and Da Forehead, and THEMSELVES! surprisingly, I received a terse response, finally, to both of my letters, from Boob himself. Here it is in it's entirety: "Hi Ralph." That's it. LOL. He always has been a little whiny chickenshit since the day he pulled into NY to help dictor paul throw out Heefner and steal the entire SEPARATE CORPORATION of The Way East from the Christians who built it, and sucked it into wierwille's black hole cult. Asslickers since ECU. Boob officiated at my first wedding in July, 1973, 2 weeks before I left for OH and the 4th corpse. I heard from Boob once more after his overly loving and lengthy response to my previous e-mails. It was in July. He wished me a happy 44th wedding anniversary, knowing I've been divorced since 2001. Those whited sepulchers and their "minus-trays" are sure reviving and restoring the same old spiteful, vengeful, perverted , Nazi gospel their faddah-in-Da-woid gave his life for. They sure are "salted", and will soon be roasted. LOL! Anyone who buys one ounce of the bullshit this collection of white trailer trash Nazi clones of dictor paul wierwille are pushing, should really obtain professional psychiatric help immediately. For your own safety and financial future. Those are a lot of "gift ministers" you are gonna have to fully support and loyally follow in order to "restore and revive" their bank accounts and "gifts" income. After all, retirement time is near and, like hundreds of others through the years, TWIt always liked to dump retirees to keep moving Da woid without all that dead weight of keeping their promises to "always take care of" their faithful corpse and staff. Just another lie to justify their love of money and total disregard for the teachings and example of The Lord Jesus Christ, who remains chronically absent from anything and everything these liars and charlatans think or do. They remain the plague on humanity they have always been, and continue to spread the anti(against)-Christ horseshit they delude themselves into thinking is "da rightly divided woid in da love of gawd in the renewed mind in manifestation". What a crock of ages! Mark and avoid these asswipes! They're waybrained, self-serving, lying, thieving hypocrites, adulterers and adulteresses, cover-up artists, false teachers, fake "counsellors", sexual abusers and predators, and have the blood of saints on their consciences. They are most miserable among "men". Their "bema" will be a long line of "I never knew yous"! Truly a sad joke and wasted time, air, and space. I pity the fools...........selah, and............peace.

Deceived and deceiving others........ Wierwille NEVER had that connection. As a plagiarist and false teacher, he feigned words of spiritual grandeur to make merchandise of others. In his lust and covetousness, wierwille will receive judgment and rebuke from the Lord..............others who copy this degradation, will receive likewise.

My main memory of him is during a meeting at Corps week, he was showing slides of our days in residence. When a picture of some one who had left TWI came up he would say, "And where are they now? Nowhere." Now he's Nowhere I guess.

The church I'm involved with is big time into helping people get ahead...they've bought people cars, helped them with business start ups etc....bless and be blessed is one of their beliefs...I guess THAT's what ' practise believing to bring abundance to you and the church should really mean ?!'

I'm not even going to bother listening/watching to the R&R presentations you all are talking about. I remember when we got the boot writing a four-page letter explaining our situation to the Reverend Mr. Fort. We felt we had been unfairly treated by D*&e M1ln$r, the branch coordinator, and wished to clarify what we saw as his sarcastic, legalistic, unreasonable attitude. The Most Exceedingly Great and Mighty Man of God the Reverend Mr. Fort wrote a snide, snarky sarcastic little note on the last page of our letter and sent it back. Something like "Amazing that you take four pages to explain what D.M. could explain clearly in four sentences in a phone call. Don't bother trying to come back." I did figure out where D.M. learned his nasty, sarcastic ways, though. The Moneyhands as you call them were limb leaders in a state we lived in. They were, to my humble observation, very very very very superior to us mere peasants. The Mrs. did offer to administer some kind of a personality test to me, which I declined. "Don't you want to know how you think?" she asked me. "I believe I'm supposed to think the Word of God." I replied. I don't have a terribly good impression of her brand of psychology. Didn't trust her then or now. I don't remember meeting any of the other people on the list. Sad, though, to think they are setting themselves up to delude, degrade, and destroy even more hapless souls than they already have. Not a single one of them is worth a penny of my money or a second of my time.

Still sound great, very talented. I didnt even get posessed listening. Vpw was an idiot for whatever beef he had with these guys.

Way prod went bad the minute dictor paul fired Heefner and Doop. That would make it Spring, 1972. They dragged PDSTRO out of NY and Selah from CA, and NY that same year, brought them all to NK, and put them under the new Way Prod Coordinator, Ted Ferrell. But, Ted was an old time "road hooker".....a 50's style, Elvis rock'n'roller, and he loved music. He loved god too.....we all thought we did. The next year, 1973, the 4th corpse included what was to become the first way prod cast, and also, Joyful Noise. Imho, those were the golden years of way prod, 1972-1979. Once Rosie the Riveter got in there with Bob Winegarner, and that god awful and totally scripted "High Country Caravan", Country Gospel, smarmy, gooey, crap.....way prod died. The Victims, Braindead, one insult after another all pushed to the front by Rosie in her faithful service to the moggie. The day the music died, and innocent and intense love and praise for Jesus Christ, through song, and dance, and the arts, died at TWI. It only went downhill from there. It became the court jester and ego-on-display for the Kings and Princes of the new Babylon. The witless whims of a deeply disturbed 3-string jock with the brain of a lava rock and the personality of a sea slug. Long winded, overproduced melodramas by finnegan and of course spirit in the athletes. Empty Towers of pride and false machismo. Wasn't the planes that got em. It was Wierwille who killed the music!

Hi All! Well....I actually finished forcing myself to listen to those lying, sanctimonious, self-deluded fools. I could only take it in 8-10 minute segments, once a day. I felt as if I was watching the defendants at the Nurenberg trials lying their sleazy butts off. Where were they 30 fucking years ago?? These self-serving phonies were the Goehrings, the Eichmanns, the Goebbels, the Speers, the Himmlers of dictor paul's Aryan Nazi cult. I remember some letter writings back in 1986 and1987. I remember these same little Nazi asskissers congratulating themselves over and over for coming to the aid of da forehead throughout the 1990's buying every absurdity he made them believe and thereby carrying out the grand atrocities he devised in his pathologically disturbed mind and corrupt soul. NO ONE HELD A GUN TO ANY OF YOUR HEADS YOU CHICKENSHIT SELF-SERVING PIMPS AND WHORES. I remember old Boob himself so strung out on self-pity and anti-depressants that all the little crybaby could do was sit in meetings with his head on the table crying the crocodile tears of a zombie-wayfer. Horney sounds like a tape of da dancing president. There must not remain a single coherent, non way-brained braincell left in that clanging cranium. And Funnyboy Fort. Get em laughing on the way to the Gulags or push em into the gas chambers, l'il standup wannabe, Mikey the trustee's kid. I won't even get started on their perky, cutesy, smarmy, little slut wives. What a ship of fools. The combined courage of the cowardly lion and a combined IQ of 70. They ALL KNEW the truth about dictor paul, Rosie, da forehead and Donna, coward, ding dong, townsends, cummins, geer, finnegan, lynn, wrenn, et al, as well as their own filth over these many decades now. I was there you jerks. I KNOW! YOU KNOW THAT I KNOW. BUT, MOST IMPORTANTLY, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST KNOWS. And he will surely say to all of you hypocrites and spiritual cadavers, "I never knew you!". And, certainly, and obviously, you have never known Him! Selah!

When I was involved with TWI, I didn't bother listening to what people from other persuasions had to say because I knew that they were "mistaken" in some categories, and that mistaken-ness corrupted everything else they had to offer. After I had left TWI and realized the error of some of the things I had been teaching, I thought, "Well, because I taught error in that one category, it didn't change the truth of what I was teaching in other categories..." And then I realized the same thing was true about EVERYBODY else! There isn't anybody who is 100% correct, but likewise, there isn't anybody that I can't learn something from, even if what I learn is simply how NOT to read the Bible... That's when I started investigating how other people interpreted various passages, and that's when I really started to learn things about the Bible, FROM the Bible, other than what I heard in PFAL. In some of our classes at the School of Theology, we write exegesis papers each semester. They are the big projects of the semester, and we present them in class to defend them under questioning. The passage of scripture may only be about a handful of verses long, but the exegesis papers are expected to be 10 to 12 pages long. We get to tell what we think the verses mean, and why we think that, but only after reviewing what the scholarly community has said about the passage since 1985. Most of the paper is describing how various scholars have argued over the meaning of the passage in the recent past, and then we get to make our contribution to the argument. That's how genuine scholarship is really done. In 1988 or '89, John Lynn moved back to Indianapolis. He had banded together with John Schoenheit and Mark Graeser (though neither Schoenheit nor Graeser lived in Indianapolis) to form Christian Educational Services. The purpose of the organization was to throw out the bath water of PFAL without throwing out the baby. I lived within easy driving distance, so I became relatively heavily involved with CES. That involvement was certainly not as intense as my involvement with TWI had been. John, John and Mark picked away at things they perceived to be errors in PFAL, but they were never willing to consider that Wierwille's teachings on "administrations" was also an error. They misidentified it as THE baby! Everything they've done since then, in the offshoot that was CES and in CES's own offshoots, has been to defend their definition of the mystery, or GOD'S SACRED SECRET, as they've come to call it. In Ephesians 3:6 Paul stated the content of the mystery that had been revealed to him, "that the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel." Nothing about an age, nothing about grace, nothing directly about the Church, nothing directly about Jews, something only about Gentiles. Darby's fundamental assumption, expressed by Scofield in his Reference Bible, was that the Church is a wholly new thing, completely separate and discontinuous from Israel. The truth is that the Church is composed of the believing remnant of Israel under the New Covenant promised in Jeremiah 31, with believing Gentiles grafted in on the same basis as believing Jews, by grace through faith in the resurrection and Lordship of Jesus Christ. Wierwille was wrong in his definition of what the Christian Church IS. Lynn and Schoenheit have BOTH magnified Wierwille's original error, thinking that they are the only ones who are "saving the baby." When I was involved with TWI, I was an ignorant fool. In many ways I am still an ignorant fool, but not in the same way. When I was involved with TWI, I was unconscious of my ignorance and my foolishness, but at some point, I was humble enough to admit it, and shed the arrogance I had learned from Wierwille. Neither Lynn nor Schoenheit have been humble enough to recognize the truth about their selves or their efforts. They are both still promoting ignorant foolishness, and it just makes me sad, because I like them both as people. I have sampled parts of Schoenheit's REV. He probably picked the ASV to use as a frame because it has been in the public domain for a long time. He has used a very light hand in changing the text. It's hard for me to tell what's original and what Schoenheit changed without an unaltered copy of the ASV to compare. Where Schoenheit really loads it up with his own interpretation is in his "commentary." His commentary is very dense with references to the Greek, but it's Greek that has no bearing on his real problem, that the word oikonomia is NEVER used in the Bible to mean "a period of time." The Greek word aion DOES mean "a period of time," but if you track its use through Paul, it totally contradicts the scheme Wierwille taught about "administrations." CES published a piece called "22 Principles of How the Bible Interprets Itself" Both TLTF and STFI still use the piece. I think TLTF changed the title, but I have no idea how they split the intellectual property. "22 Principles" constitutes a "systematic theology." A systematic theology starts out deriving a system for interpreting the Bible, and then forcing the texts to conform to the system. Systematic theology stands in distinction from "constructive theology" that allows the text to speak for itself. Systematic theology says "the single difficult verse must be read in light of the many clear verses." Constructive theology says "the single difficult verse tells you that your conception of the 'many clear verses' may not be as clear as you think it is." Love, Steve

Thanks, Sunesis. Several other points converge as well......by 1986, when Geer read that poop paper, the allegations raised plenty of suspicion and confusion. Plus, for wannabe splinter leaders, the "exit door" opened wide for a mass exodus.....and thousands were conditioned to seek another mog to guide them. By then (1987)......most of these guys were 35 to 45 years old with wife and children in tow. They NEEDED jobs, but not something at the entry level. Having spent the past 15 years in the twi-cult world, those clergy titles didn't translate into professional skills at a corporate level. Sliding into the 'big chair' was the obvious transition. Region guys had the greatest access to names, addresses, phone numbers, etc.....sitting there like a duck.

BTW, as often happens here, we discussed this before. Here's the threads I know about.... Here's what I said on both: " Seriously? A) Towards the end, he wandered around campus, addled, and confused as to how the women in his life had set him up as the sole perpetrator of all the sins of the inner circle. B) He was successfully labelled as the Single Villain. Therefore, he can't build a base with ex-twi or CURRENT twi. Supposedly, one man claimed if he had even 7 totally loyal men, he could start a religion. lcm is short 7 men for even that much. C) lcm lacks the skills to build himself up as a religious leader to more than a boy scout troop. lcm was coccooned into twi at an early age, and only retains the skills he learned thru college (mostly athletics) and the skills he learned since then (mostly, how to bark orders and micromanage.) Like a career politician, he's out of touch with how real people live, how real Christians think, and what they care about. He'd be a missionary to a foreign country, whose customs are nearly incomprehensible. (Unless he's learned humility since then-if he has, he may understand, but understands he will only harm himself or others if he takes the big chair.) D) lcm doesn't have anything to offer people. His understanding of Scripture is sub-standard among average Christians, and his manner is abrasive. He can't get converts from people who just want him to shut up." Sunesis said

I took the foundational class in July '80, and the last TWI function I attended was ROA '87 (to haul as many people as I could off into the woods to tell them about the adultery). I think I was involved with about 30 classes. As a twig coordinator in 1985, I ran a foundational class at the twig level. We bent over backwards, and broke every rule so that people could finish the class. In '86, after Geer read POP, Martindale started saying the ministry was in trouble because the people on the field weren't being strict enough running classes, and the quality of all the new grads was too low. That's when I realized that Martindale, the president of the whole organization, had NO IDEA of what it took to run a class in the field. That's when I lost all respect for him. About six months later, I found out about the adultery, and that very day, I disassociated myself from The Way International. I spent the next year or so talking to people I had gotten into the Way, telling them why I had gotten out, and why I thought they should, too. Most of that was face to face. There was no internet back then! Love, Steve

Shouldn't he be believing for a work schedule that will allow him time for doing ministry work?

maybe.. hum.. maybe he's hiding out in a titanic bunker somewhere on the east coast with geero, waiting for the allied forces to pass on by..