Leaderboard

Hey sky - you know I've been thinking for a while about the mixture of people in the Way throughout the years. I'm sure percentages probably fluctuated, but from my experience over time I've always seen a few categories: 1. Good pure-hearted Christians - the laity mostly. 2. Laity Leadership - a mixed bag. Some mushrooms and opportunists. Some genuine pure hearted Christians. 3. Corps - hate to say but mostly problematic. some good hearted just like other categories. Modeled after Marines (i.e. unspoken expected commitment levels and following of instructions) the Way Corps were mostly trained to kiss behind upwards and take frustrations out on those under authority downwards. That was what was modeled. Like the Freemasons (LOL) they had secret initiations, behavior, phrases. sorry that came into play on another thread LOL. the older ones initiate the younger ones in the Freemason rites - all the way up to the Grand Poobah of the Board of Directors. Councils of Pharisees. After reading up on Greasespot some of those Councils involved illegal and immoral activity. I personally only experienced the people playing politics stuff, not the darker tales when I was in. As I've read mostly in court documents because those who should have told me lied about it, there was an "initiated inner circle" that I never knew about. I'm sure that is only one of many. Where is or was God? The answer has to be in the individual hearts. I think the pure essence of God being love has to mean very specific individually, as well as if you are talking about collectively it has to be from the perspective of a whole body of Christ. The whole teaching of "household of God" is a doctrine of devils. I mean there's this group that my mom can't be in because she doesn't tithe to the Way. Thus she will be treated as slightly less than the homeless guy coming to fellowship. God or man? I mean dear lord baby Jesus on a pogo stick how does that make any d@mn sense at all? It makes about as much sense as Sharia law telling them to cut off little girls sex organs and then subject them to rape from relatives as part of God's idea of culture. So when you get man's mixture of law and organization in in my opinion you get such extreme anomalies like the Way we see here. So much exploitation. So little God.

A Tale of Two Citadels The citadel of good-hearted Christians was the one that strengthened and fortified the bonds of love, giving and support in the early days of twi. They believed in serving God and their fellow man with kindness and genuine concern. And, daily meditation in the Scriptures along with wholesome living were their guiding light. You found them serving at hq in the kitchen, on grounds and sometimes in the offices. Men and women like Milford and Betty Bowen, George and Bernita Jess or J. Fred Wilson. The citadel of the opportunists, yes-men and the cunning. Wierwille, commander-of-the-corps-sycophants, found solace and narcissistic pleasure in this citadel. The implementation of the corps program gave wierwille escalating power.....as this training was based on strict obedience to leadership, not scriptures. Obedience was the alpha and omega of the corps indoctrination program. It was a cunning move of deception within the ranks.......one that removed and displaced the "Christian element" from headquarters proper and filtered out on the field. The *way tree* was its marketing but the true reality was one of building a power base of control over others. Long gone was............A Mighty Fortress is Our God.

Four fingers of that point back at yourself. This "which Christ" line has been tossed around over the years (usually by staunch Trinitarians) so haphazardly and ... so outright maliciously at times, that it's truly disgusting. Which other was it that laid his life down on a cross at Calgary, that God subsequently raised from the dead and called his "only begotten Son"? None, I tell you. Absolutely none. Make no mistake about it.

Thomas........I'm sure that DWBH, socks, and penworks could give you a detailed accounting of these questions better than I can, but I'll take a swing at it. Why didn't wierwille have way builders build dormitories at hq? ................When the Executive Office Building (EOB) was built in 1969/1970.....upon early construction, it WAS slotted as a dormitory. That's why there are separate men's and women's shower rooms in the lower level of that building. The bedrooms were upstairs. BUT......midway thru construction, twi was growing at a significant pace and the "dormitory" was redirected as an office building for the growing staff: walter cummins' office, legal, finance, outreach and later, computer services that took over the west side of the building. Trailer park for staff residences? .............. Many of the early staff lived off-grounds and commuted from nearby towns. Again, I'm sure that DWBH, socks, and penworks could give lots of specifics on this.......but solid-down-to-earth staff like Hearnes, Bowens, Skapuras, Shroyers, Gluckins, Raths, Wilsons, and lots of others lived in the surrounding towns. There were staff residence homes/units near the BRC for the top-tier loyals........Howard Allen home, Ermal/Dorothy's unit, George/Bernita Jess' unit and the "original" corps unit which housed like six men on one side and six women on the other. BUT......when the 4th corps were inbound for in-residence, wierwille sent out a directive for them to secure housing via a trailer unit (??) placed out back that would be accommodated with electrical and plumbing services. Socks made reference to this at one time. Purchasing Emporia Campus and Rome City Campus? ........... Twi came to a major decision point when the 6th corps registration numbers came in: 325 people wanted to enter the corps indoctrination program. That was a figure that more than quadrupled the 5th corps number of 75. There was NO way that twi was prepared to have 325 in-residence corps at the way international: not enough classrooms or break-out rooms , cafeteria space, or workload where staff was already doing this work. This was 1974, heading into 1975. Thus, the purchase of the emporia campus ushered in a whole new scale of "work projects" as well as ample classrooms and dormitories. Twi put up the 147-acre property to leverage the purchase. The Rome City campus was for Family Corps.....as it was mainly "under one roof" and allowed for corps and children ample space.

Did he preach and elevate himself (or live lavishly)? Did he preach Christ crucified, and risen from the dead? Were doors opened unto him? What then? Well, to continue on (in the words of Paul)... notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.

Billy Graham Open Secret Alliances This may Ruffle some feathers, but let the chips fall where they may...

Great points, Skyrider ! Yeah wierwille may have been incompetent in a lot of things…but I think he was adept at harnessing…corralling…looking for the right word - - maybe hijacking the goals, skills, and talents of others via an indoctrination program…and there is something to be said for wierwille’s quote in Lifelines – nothing happens without leadership - - in light of that I found an interesting article on leadership - - Can Bad People be Good Leaders ? an excerpt from the article: “Most definitions of leadership include two elements. Leadership involves both getting people to work together and the pursuit of some common purpose or goal. Superficial responses to the question in the title of this column respond by evaluating only the purpose. Mother Teresa was a good leader; Hitler was a bad leader. This judgement has nothing to do with our knowledge or evaluation of their leadership styles. Rather, it is a moral judgement of the goals they pursued. But beyond evaluating the purpose, we need to understand the process of leadership. Even in the pursuit of objectives we agree are worthwhile, we know that there can be a difference significant enough between Leader A and Leader B to warrant moral distinctions. Success is part of the equation. Machiavelli equated good leadership with strong leadership, rationalizing any casualties in the process with a type of ends-justifying-the-means philosophy. Good leadership involves something more than the successful achievement of worthwhile ends. The how of leadership is a factor in the equation.”