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It's been suggested that vpw was in some way impressive intellectually, that he was above average in some intellectual fashion. Let's take a look at the evidence at hand, shall we? vpw was never known to be any sort of honor student. All claims about him and hard work seem to be people saying he DIDN'T do hard work. That's a negative- but when vpw was proud to trumpet his smallest achievements, a telling one when he has none to wave at others. vpw finished college, and did a Masters at Princeton Theological Seminary. In a place where there's lots of RIGOROUS fields of study, he chose HOMILETICS- how to preach- which is undoubtedly the softest option possible. (One can learn to preach without going to school for it, just by working with preachers. Fields like Church History would take some real study time.) It was a real school, but he took the softest degree there. His last stop was a degree mill to get a Doctorate from an unaccredited institution. What does that mean? It means he got a Doctorate from a source lacking accreditation, a vetting process that guarantees the degree is worth the paper it's printed on. What's the difference? I have THREE unaccredited degrees. That makes me TRIPLE the fake "Doctor" that vpw was. None of our "degrees" guarantees any level of intellectual skill or even accomplishment. So, that's it for his academic career. So, he has an actual Masters from a real school, in a really soft option. Academically, that's his highest point. After school, he preached, and complained about having been :"MADE" to go to he Bible and study each week to prepare a sermon each week. What a remarkable way to refer to it! He wasn't HAPPY to spend hour after hour there, excited when new insights arrived. (I've been there, and I wasn't a preacher.) He did it because he had no other choice in doing his job as a preacher. He also served as a proofreader and editor at a Christian written publication. He really liked to skip over that one. Why? He was exposed to the complete research of LOTS of young Christian teachers and researchers. Quite a useful thing to have access to. If he wanted to skip reading the Bible for himself- which he accidentally let slip he did- he could just plagiarize all those writers from the pulpit, and they'd never find out. What- do you think someone just wakes up one morning and his career switches to plagiarist? No- he was plagiarizing for some time before he discovered Stiles and Leonard. That's why he didn't have a crisis of conscience before plagiarizing them. What was vpw's entire goal in BECOMING a minister? He once told a minister he wanted to be one like him. Someone preached and he said that. He obviously didn't mean the part about LEARNING because he never pursued that. He wanted to preach and be in charge. In one of his accounts of his supposed 1942 promise (which was all an exposable lie), his first reaction was not that his congregation would be blessed- his first thought was that EVERYONE WOULD LISTEN TO HIM. Whether this incident happened or not, his own claim is that this would be his first thought. Small wonder vpw relied on sermons, invented stories, and outright plagiarism to make a name for himself. He was in it solely for the adulation and the steady work. The plagiarism was unapologetic because without it, he'd have to actually work and think. He preferred to lie and cheat instead.

ya know...I'm an old city boy and don't know my trees very well...but I must say - that is one fine piece of ash.

Great posts WordWolf and Thomas ! You got me thinking how wierwille was into shortcuts and didn’t want to devote a whole lot of time and effort to develop himself as a teacher or pastor…he wanted to go straight for the power and glory of being in charge… In my opinion, his shallow thinking and shortcut cheating were part of a mindset he fostered in The Way International. New PFAL grads often had this bible-know-it-all attitude and believed they could run rings around any preacher outside of TWI…I also saw this quite a bit in the faculty and students of the corps leadership training program…by then the mindset is usually entrenched. Sometimes we still see vestiges of that way-mindset when certain folks come on Grease Spot and act all indignant because many folks here no longer use wierwille’s mangled yardstick to measure the validity of anything - but simply put - many Grease Spotters have done the due diligence in references outside of TWI, personal Bible study, etc. and exercised critical thinking to see through errors in PFAL, wierwille's "logic", TWI-doctrine and practices.

Bingo. You stumbled upon the truth. I was a music major, I had to practice percussion and later on organ, participate in band(both marching and concert), orchestra, and choral. Plus I and other music majors had to give a jury, semester mini recital before the entire music faculty to get a BA, later supplemented to the equivalent of a BSM with a certificate. I worked harder than Wierwille ever did.

So.........personally.........inspiring.........given my screenname. LOL. Like me - in a state of depression, I switched from a gourmet nut shop called the Way to a sandwich and coffee shop called a local church. Because of this, I have invented fast food Christianity for wayfers.

Actually, thanks for the story. It really helps me understand where you are coming from. It seems like you went through a disillusionment with everything from learning the same non-whitewashed history we all have learned here. At least until about 2000. I actually can see where in a vacuum in the absence of anything better to take its place where fundamentals from PFAL would be what you would cling to. My story is different. I didn't learn the non-whitewashed story anywhere near the timeframe you did. Much later. Also, I had previous mainstream Christian experience prior to the Way, where most did not. It was easier for me to see the VPW experiment as detracting from the overall body of Christ rather than adding to it when you consider it from a broader perspective and timeframe. The entire "household" vs. "body" teaching propounded first by VPW and enacted by the Way is hugely divisive, and I believe to be anti Christ. (Not seed crap like they taught - just stupid and self-serving). Scripture is great for a source of inspiration and wisdom. But fundamentalism is misguided. Do I need to be a scribe? No. Do I want to be a Pharisee? No. All I need to answer those questions is to read the gospels. And look at the Way, and all its splinters. That is what Paul describes as faith being shipwrecked.

Yes – I would probably alert the media that a leopard can change its spots. How big are those files? Are we talking 20…30…50 pages of threads with a whole lot of your posts just dodging and ignoring the questions? Actually no need to make like it takes some herculean effort to find those files - I'm familiar with that ruse...A simple, straight forward answer would suffice....You should be able to do that if you know your stuff like you say you do.

This will go on for pages. Then he will eventually vanish. Later, he will claim he answered everybody and provided proof and nobody could dispute him. I don't think he even does it on purpose. He's not seeing the same reality most people are. So, where you see him stall for pages, he "remembers" he actually answered lots of questions. If you want to know what that's like, watch "Lord of the Rings-Fellowship of the RIng", and follow the ring in the scene where Bilbo is supposed to leave it behind as a gift for Frodo. I've shown that scene to people, prefacing it with "follow the ring in this scene", and periodically pausing and asking "Where is the ring now?" to make sure they realize Bilbo's not quite experiencing the reality he thinks he is, at that point. Don't expect Mike to have learned anything, either. He once made a claim about the Bible. I refuted it verse by verse, and ended with a comment that he would probably make the same disproven claim again 6 months later. Sure enough, 6 months later, he did.

Your tempted to work on that question? In other words, you have no argument proving your claim that PLAF is God breathe. What would Euclid say? You just claimed you knew the circumference of a circle without consulting the formula.

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.

Consider you may be missing their goals. Look at the people who did this. DECADES of PERSONAL involvement in the inner circle of twi, burying the bodies, hiding the truth, silencing truthful dissent, and so on, through decades of decay and stagnation at twi. They only jumped ship now they reached retirement age and had no recourse from twi. This isn't about a lasting group. This is about saying it's a lasting group and saying all the right things while covering a retirement and "running the clock." So long as there's sufficient freewill donations to cover them into the grave, it's all good just as it was all good to cover for the evil of twi for decades while everyone else who saw behind the circle jumped ship, whether from disgust or others with practical concerns. They just need a few hundred to cover expenses and feather their nests a bit while they retire. Oh, and they can talk pious about how NOW they're suddenly remorseful after DECADES and how they don't REALLY want to push for money. Let the money dry up and the message will change overnight.