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VPW studied homiletics and applied them to remove Christians from their local churches. He was employed by a local denomination until his criticism of foreign missions combined with an affair with a secretary that could scarcely be covered up caused his need to resign. He of course told a different story involving audible revelation from God and snow on gas pumps. So he resigned and started the Way. He tried to coerce church goers to take his class for years unsuccessfully. So to differentiate himself, he publishes "Jesus Christ is Not God" and calls all the heads of denominations "seed of the serpent". In support of this, he further develops logic, teachings, collateral materials and full books on the day Jesus died making a big deal out of inaccuracies of tradition. He also did this with Jesus birth, as well as how many people were executed with Jesus on the same day, how many times Peter denied him, etc. Flim-flam manipulation of scripture all with the goal of building a name and an empire as the only one who really knows about Jesus. All that background just so he could say "if you can't trust them on the simple details regarding Jesus life and ministry, how can you trust them with eternal life?" And win young hearts and undisciplined minds to do his bidding. Run them through a machine all geared to make VPW the next best thing to Jesus Christ returning in his resurrected body, a real living "apostle" that God told audibly he would teach the truths of the Bible "like it hadn't been known from the first century". And no, undoubtedly he did twist things beyond what anyone was able to accomplish with scripture since the first century. Way followers, you want truth you will never arrive at being in the Way until the next century? John 3:16 Find a local church you like.

This point Mike is making probably has some validity to it. Less involved readers tend to dismiss GSC out of hand. They see "the other side of the story" and it is too disgusting to process. So they rationalize and judge us here. In fact your typical Way follower if asked about GSC if they even have heard of it will label it something like a "vomit-fest". Many come here and confront us telling us to "get over it". Get over what? The continued lying regarding and coverup of the Way's history? I can't "get over" something they are actively continuing to do, including firing people, marking and avoiding people, slandering their name, and giving them the "bum's rush" off of Staff at HQ in New Knoxville. They build their top leadership from old friendship groups in swinger's clubs. They continue that to this very day, and use VPW's plagiarized works from a lack of scholastic effort combined with the "spiritual 40 club" connections putting him in contact with new material to plagiarize. I am just continuing to tell the truth about it. I personally have very little stake left in whatever people think about the Way. However here at GSC, other case studies seem to point in a different direction. For example, a recently involved poster here, Grace Valerie Claire, seems to have been on a deep dive reading through a good portion of all the old threads over the last 6 months. For more deeply involved readers, GSC allows them to see "the other side of the story", the one that the Way International covers up because it causes them to lose what they love most - money, influence, power, followers. To her, GSC probably represents a freedom from the past of sorts, although I won't speak for her. So Mike, as the minority here posting your opinion in support of VPW's life and ministry, yes you will be outnumbered. You are welcome to your viewpoint. Mine simply differs. God bless.

I find it interesting that your flummoxed by the "pure evil" Saint Vic paradigm. Refresh my memory: How many victims did he threaten to claim they were devil possessed if they came forward with their story? Did you forget about the guy that said a tracking program was better than what The Way offered? What happened to him? Saint Vic screamed he was devil possessed in front of the whole auditorium. Seems Saint Vic had no problems branding others as "pure evil", but heaven forbid someone do that to him.

You're making an assumption that VPW knew anything of church history. If there were any such classes in the seminary he went to, he must have snoozed through them. Very good point, although many early Christians weren't of Jewish background but converted from other religions/idols. A point that still stands today; there are many countries where Christians are persecuted (especially in Arab countries). Yet still people CHOOSE to convert, knowing that the penalties for doing so are huge. Such people know that there is something better, bigger, more powerful. They don't learn that from the TWI example of meanness and shouting. They learn from something they SEE (experience and power) in other Christians, as well as something they HEAR from them.

For example, "... verbal attacks contain bait. Just like the fisherman, the attacker presents you with bait in the hope that you will swallow it and be hooked. Bait is often unsaid, or pre-supposed. What this means is that the attacker need not attack you directly, but need only imply certain things, without really saying anything."

In the mid-1990s, I went through two years of high-conflict divorce litigation. During that time, I met a former politician who was working on developing a conflict resolution model/class based on the martial art known as Aikido. The one thing from his class that has stuck with me is to beware of getting hooked on bait that someone may dangle in front of you to foster (or escalate) rather than resolve conflict. At GSC, especially lately, Mike has played the role of offering bait. While he says he's friendly opposition, does he give any genuine consideration to sound, valid arguments that have been made about Wierwille and PFLAP or does he just dismiss them out of hand by falsely claiming that people who disagree with him about Dictor refuse to consider his (Mike's) reality because we hold a "pure evil model" mindset about Dictor, PFLAP and twi? After (many people, including me) calling Mike out repeatedly (constraining him), it has become painfully obvious his discourse here is disingenuous. If Mike does not begin to engage constructively (acknowledge and consider arguments he has heretofore dismissed), I recommend people stop taking his bait.

I wonder if fundamentalists will ever be able to view "God inspired" as something other than that which would send them on a scavenger hunt for like-fitting puzzle pieces so they can sit in their safe little room and amuse themselves by trying to solve puzzles with their minds.

B) The alleged promise was a lie. Supposedly, God Almighty promised He would teach like it hadn't been known since the 1st century AD. If this were true, there would be a complete disconnect with what was being taught and known elsewhere in 1942 EVERYWHERE and what vpw later taught (because we know he taught others.) However, even those who idolize vpw agree that the material he taught was already taught by others. A paper trail can be traced for virtually all the twi material vpw taught. vpw took Leonard's class, and a few months later, taught 100% of the same material. vpw bought Stiles' book, then typed up a book with the contents- later adding the contents of books by Bullinger to flesh it out more. And so on. So, either God Almighty lied when giving this promise, someone else claiming to be God lied and vpw couldn't tell the difference between a lying spirit and God Almighty, or vpw lied and nobody promised him at all. C) The alleged promise was based on ignorance. twi's system shares a trait with the Mikean system- they're both Gnostic systems based on secret knowledge. The twi system-which was vpw's system, set up by him and used by him all the time- was that study of the verses was the key to God (plus the "Law of Believing"),. So, the more you study the verses, the more "godly" you can become, especially if you study it the twi way. We've all seen far too many horror stories of twi "masters" who partly memorized vpw/twi materials and were bigger schmucks if anything. Geer spent hours going over vpw's teachings in between drugging women for vpw to rape and preparing to throw himself over vpw as a human shield if anyone tried to shoot him. But, let's expose the IGNORANCE in the alleged "promise." How DID the 1st century Christian church know God's Word? They knew the Torah/Old Testament. They knew the SPOKEN word, They knew The Word BY EXPERIENCE AND POWER. Think about it. They were getting converts left and right while being a disciple was ILLEGAL and punished by imprisonment, murder, or both. They got LOTS of converts with that going on. No amount of charismatic demagoguery can make up for the risk of being killed or imprisoned. You might get a few disaffected outsiders. They got Saul of Tarsus, former persecutor and murderer of Christians (he didn't put his hand on the knife, but he ordered it done.) Did the Greeks hear good speeches then run out and conclude that their gods walked among them and prepared to offer blood sacrifices? They SAW something. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. However, provide the extraordinary proof, and the claims stop looking extraordinary-at least in comparison to the proof. The 1st century Christians preached-but were known because they had power and could deliver where they spoke. Lots of people preached and didn't get significant converts. Theirs was a pragmatic, direct, power-based ministry. twi was never that. They were study-based, and TALKED ABOUT power lots of times, then considered "Kojacking" a significant witness of "power." 1st century Christians were never centrally-controlled nor organized. twi bore no resemblance to 1st century Christianity except where twi CLAIMED they did. But all the claims don't mean reality matches a claim. The 1st century Christians probably didn't have access to the entire New Testament ANYWHERE. All documents had to be hand-copied. With no printing press and no scanners and PDFs, that was a laborious process and few copies circulated for the 1st century AD (certainly relative to now.) So, twi has NEVER had "The Word as it was known in the 1st Century." because vpw NEVER had "The Word as it was known in the 1st Century." vpw might have known that when he phrased the promise he was supposedly given, but he skipped over "Church history". So, he was likely to make such a mistake where God Almighty would not. vpw made up the alleged 1942 promise. and it's easy to show all the errors. There was no such promise. There's no real, sensible reason to laud vpw or "his" books. They don't comrpise "revelation."

I took a poll once. Even when given a chance to do so anonymously, nobody claimed vpw was pure evil. Mike sees it that way, but he has to "creatively reinterpret" what people say until he says they really said the opposite of what they said. He's an old hand at that, since he pulls the same thing with pfal materials. The Orange Book itself contrasts itself with Scripture- but according to Mike, it's Scripture.

Based on the information we have seen so far, it wasn't only VPW that lied. VPW said that God promised him He would teach him "the word" like it hadn't been known for 2,000 years. We now know, thanks to Mike, VPW's staunchest advocate , that the information had, in fact, been known for quite some time. What Wierwille did, according to Mike, was take existing material and "assemble" it in a way it hadn't been assembled before. Plagiarism issues aside for the moment, what this means is that God must have lied when He made the promise to VPW. He promised Wierwille exclusive information but, instead, pulled a fast one on VPW by giving him previously known material to assemble. Of course, I don't actually believe this. Still, it suggests God was lying when He made the promise. edit: "God is not a man, that He should lie..." (Numbers 23:19)

What's that smell?