Leaderboard

Interesting comparison Chockfull – between wierwille and Kaizer Soze…and another thing came to mind…near the end of the movie The Usual Suspects, the detective – played by Chazz Palminteri – realizes a lot of the details he got from his interrogation of the character Verbal (played by Kevin Spacey – who was actually Kaizer Soze) were things that Verbal (Kaizer) noticed on a cluttered bulletin board in the office. I see a funny parallel with wierwille’s incompetency “shining forth” from his plagiarism. Bullinger focuses on context, previous usage, etc. in How to Enjoy the Bible by saying in essence – these are the things you need to pay attention to when interpreting the scriptures. Which implies YOU as the reader of the Bible is the one who actually interprets the scriptures - you are the one analyzing the biblical data, noting details, context, syntax, using the powers of reason, etc. Besides the fact that people are fallible and there’s the possibility of misinterpretation – there’s also the possibility there could be more than one legitimate interpretation...wierwille twisted all that around by suggesting private interpretation is prohibited...I mentioned it before - that's another thing he screwed up! what Bullinger said about the passage "no prophecy of the scripture is of private interpretation" was that "of" is genitive of origin - meaning the actual scriptures did not come from someone's own interpretation. It is in reference to their source or origin and NOT how we are to analyze them now. You made an excellent point of wierwille’s twisting Bullinger’s ideas - to hide the hand of his own interpretation. Like Kaizer piecing together an entire story from a police bulletin board, wierwille cobbled together a mish mosh theology from the works he plagiarized. He was the consummate con artist!

If that were true, then no one would ever leave any cult, and there have actually been news stories of people escaping cults. So, you are incorrect.

BlueChord I hear where you're coming from. I understand your angst. However.... I am old enough to have skin as thick as leather and a penchant for sarcasm - - therefore -- If I were in your shoes, I'd be pleased to have stung the center of the "singularity of infinitesimal value" [thanks T-Bone] Me and my family have taken more than our fair share of painful barbs from the "singularity" (actually - no share is a fair share...I'm being sarcastic). So If I were in your shoes, I think I'd be dancing with joy to have been able to lob one back causing a wound that they found as annoying as this!

That reminds me of the kettle and the frog. As long as the frog is in the kettle while it heats, it doesn't notice the temperature increase. BUT drop the frog into a warm kettle of water and he'll notice that right away and jump out!

Interesting thought - the Bible interprets itself. So here Wierwille is introducing a "personification" of the literal scripture here. A figure of speech about the Bible itself. And what does this Bible do? Self-interprets. What purpose does this figure of speech serve? To hide the hand of Wierwille's interpretation? Put in place of it the Bible itself doing the interpreting and coming up with the exact thing Wierwille is saying? This totally reminds me of the movie "The Usual Suspects" where Kevin Spacey plays a fictional crimelord Kaizer Soze. The famous quote from the movie is: "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.' That is the true "greatest secret the world never knew" and the truth behind Victor Paul Wierwille's interpretation of the Bible.

Perhaps one of the most insidious aspects of TWI’s indoctrination was to instill (by a gradual but firm process) in followers a deep trust in wierwille. This is rather obvious even in PFAL, where wierwille worked so hard to convince students to suspend critical thinking. With his silly notion that the Bible prohibits private interpretation he asserts the Bible actually interprets itself, thus laying the groundwork for students to firmly believe that what wierwille taught was the ONLY CORRECT or AUTHORIZED interpretation of the Bible, the Scriptures, the Word, or whatever you want to call it. Given that even the simplest definition of “interpretation” is explanation, clarification, analysis, and evaluation – for one to claim that the Bible interprets itself is absurd! Folks may not still be in TWI but they may still be held captive in the bizarro-fundamentalist mindset wierwille instilled in them. It was merely a mental sleight-of-hand via wierwille’s charisma, logical fallacies, cobbled together plagiarism, and the unabashed incompetency of a narcissistic zealot that he got a lot of folks to think he was giving them a true understanding of the scriptures. I think that the more one’s misplaced trust of wierwille grew – the more wierwille’s subterfuge agenda took root in the person – like being intertwined. Perhaps a cult leader’s power is in part derived from the followers – their misplaced trust helps to cement the bond – or whatever “hold” the cult leader has on them… The depth and degree of wierwille’s “hold” on followers varied – for numerous reasons besides length and depth of involvement with The Way, since we are all individual and unique. Like any exploitative cult leader, wierwille was parasitic and he based his “ministry” on deception and manipulation; in the long run however, “holding” onto dedicated followers is unsustainable, in my humble opinion. People get fed up, frustrated, tired of being used and lied to, or they see through the bull$hit of PFAL, or start looking into red flags they’ve known of for a while… or for any number of other reasons – so they leave. Whatever manipulative “hold” TWI had on them is now broken…yeah !!! that’s the best kind of severing ties – when you cut the ties with a false church/family like TWI !!!