Steve Lortz

How much of the Word of God DID Wierwille know? How much of the Word of God did Wierwille actually stand on? How much of the Word of God was Wierwille inclined to act upon? Romans 12:9 says the love of God is without hypocrisy. Was Wierwille's attitude without hypocrisy? When Martindale announced that all of the troubles of The Way International were the result of the slipshod way believers on the field were running Foundational PFAL, I knew that couldn't be right, so I started searching the Scriptures. What DOES the Word of God say? Isaiah 9:16 "16 For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed." Jeremiah 23:14-16 "14 I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, and none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah. "15 Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets; Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall: for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness [hypocrisy] gone forth into all the land. "16 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision out of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD." Some people, Wierwille, Martindale, Geer, etc., placed very little weight on the adultery, but God, whose Word it is, places very MUCH weight on the adultery and the hypocrisy that is bred of it! The leaders, specifically Wierwille and Martindale, caused the people to err. They are the ones who were responsible for the devastation and disappointment and misery that swept through the followers of the Way International, because of Wierwille's adultery and hypocrisy. The law of believing, that Wierwille made so much of, was a vision out of his own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD. The Way International could never live up to the ideal image so many of us wanted to bring to pass, because it was shot through to its heart with Wierwille's hypocrisy. Love, Steve

Thanks, excie! No one would be specific because they were trying to keep the top leadership's sexual depredation under wraps. Truth about the adultery didn't start coming out until about a year after Geer read PoP on Corps night, and even then, that truth was not being communicated openly through the Way Tree channels. Leaders were being bribed or chucked right and left if they were even suspected of having an inkling of Schoenheit's paper. I think Geer exercised such a seemingly weird power over the Trustees because they were afraid he would expose the adultery. I think there was an element of blackmail involved. Love, Steve

According to Proverbs 28:1, the wicked flee when no one is pursuing them. The leaders of TWI are suspicious of EVERYBODY because they know in their hearts they are as guilty as hell. They will never change as a group. Anybody who comes to their senses as an individual will leave or be expelled. Love, Steve

You're a good person ravaged by wolves, exie! You felt guilty because ALL of the people we had been taught to trust were projecting THIER guilt on us... Love, Steve

I like this thread! I find myself conversing with a squirrel, a wolf and a frog. Perhaps I should revert to the identity I bore in a previous lifetime (pre-internet), the Dink Duck! What a fable Aesop could make of this thread! Love, The Dink Duck

You go off on some good tangents, Rottiegrrrl! A bit of what we were taught about demons in TWI was true... most was not! First, I have no idea why Wierwille called them "devil spirits". The phrase NEVER occurs in "the Word, the Word, and nothing but the Word!" "Evil spirit" - yes; "devil spirit" - no. Nobody is "possessed" by demons in the Greek. The word in many places is daimonizomai, or "demonized", which means "to be influenced by a demon". The idea that a person "possesses" a demon is as reasonable as a person being possessing by a demon. I think a person has to give a demon permission to enter his or her mind. I believe a person can get rid of a demon by calling on God for help. At least that was how it happened with me... Love, Steve

I believe the Bible is true, but I don't believe it is "inerrant". The truth is poetic, expressed primarily by simile and metaphor, and only secondarily by proposition. That's where the fundamentalists get it wrong. They take EVERYTHING as propositionally true. The truth is, I dunno either! Love, Steve

I don't think the difference between human and great ape chromosomes says ANYTHING about whether that difference is the result of random chance or intelligent design... God is free to create, and He takes responsibility for what He has created. I think humanity being created in God's image means that human beings have a degree of freedom and a degree of responsibility that the other animals DON'T have. That degree is not absolute. No people have the freedom to dictate the circumstances in which they find themselves, but everybody has a degree of freedom to decide how they will respond in those circumstances. That's why freedom and responsibility are the same thing. If God created human beings by taking some great apes and splicing some of their genes to produce critters who have a degree of freedom and a degree of responsibility, that makes sense to me! Love, Steve

You bring up a lot of good points, socks! Points the Bible addresses in Ecclesiates, such as: we CAN'T know everything, no matter how much we want to (Eccles. 8:17, everything is subject to time and chance (Eccles.9:11), and the whole duty of a human being is to humble himself before God and keep HIS commandments (not our own) (Eccles. 12:13). There's a Greek word translated "time" in the New Testament - kairos. It's not like chronos, which is the Greek equivalent for our concept of "time" Kairos means "a time of opportunity" or "the moment of decision". I think the Greeks meant by kairos what we mean by the word "synchronisity", the seeming significance that can be read into events that happen at the same time, often without apparent connection by cause and effect. That's how I think God and the Lord work in history. This thread has stirred me to think outside my usual ruts, and for that I thank you all! Love, Steve

Well said, WordWolf! Love, Steve

I don't think Adam wanted to be God's peer. I think Adam wanted to KNOW as much as God knows so that Adam could use that knowledge to manipulate God into using God divine POWER to do whatever Adam wanted God to do. That's how religion's evil twin always works. The Way International didn't use the image of a supernatural snake guarding a tree of divine knowledge, the way the ancients did. The image that Wierwille explicitly used in PFAL was that of a camaera. You have to focus your believing, becoming clear and concerned, in order to receive anything from God. But a more appropriate illustration for the process TWI taught would have been a vending-machine-God. You put your faith into the slot, you push the button indicating you selection, and God has to give you whatever you want. "How many of God's promises do YOU know?" Love, Steve

That's the difference between you and Adam, Ham! He thought the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would make him smart enough to define God! Love, Steve

I think Sponge makes a few good points, but I don't think he realizes who Jesus was or what he did. It is the reality of Jesus' life, death, resurrection and ascension to Lordship that makes "Christianity" different from other religions. In failing to recognize those realities the "Church" has made "Christianity" very much like all the other religions. In the early-to-mid-1800s liberal theologians (at the University of Berlin to begin with) stripped everything "supernatural" out of their interpretations of the Bible, to make things line up with the science they believed at the time, which left no room for human choice, or divine agency, or even creation. Miracles were considered to be totally impossible, including the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is the theology that Sponge was raised in and believes. Fundamentalists knew the liberals were wrong to strip the supernatural out, but they couldn't explain why. The low point for Fundamentalism was in 1925 with the Scopes trial in Tennessee. Fundamentalists won the verdict, but progressives won a HUGE public relations victory, and Fundamentalism, as such, went into a great decline. However, that same year, 1925, at the University of Berlin, Niels Bohr was developing a new physics, quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics has gone on to provide us with all the wonderful electronics we enjoy, like gps, global cell phone contact, etc. etc. Unlike the outmoded physics of the 1800s, quantum mechanics is not deterministic. It has uncertainty built into it, and it is probabilistic. It has room for human choice, and room, not just for God to have created the universe, but for God's continual sustenance of the universe. I think God is more of a living presence than Sponge appreciates. Love, Steve

I've never had a physical addiction to anything, but I have been diagnosed with the milder form of bipolar mood disorder, and I facilitate a consumer support group for National Alliance on Mental Illness that meets twice a month. I have a nephew who attends Celebrate Recovery from time-to-time and he was surprised one time when I went with him, and told the group that my hang-up was pride and that I struggle with the temptation to manipulate people. I said I had been clean since 1986 (the year I last deliberately manipulated anybody, while I was on Lightbearers). Fellowshipping with other people who have been diagnosed with mental illnesses has led me to an awareness of what's called "dual diagnosis", where a person has an underlying mental illness, but has become addicted to one thing or another in an attempt at self-medication. I know I don't have the expertise to deal with physical addiction, but I also know that a person who has a dual diagnosis has to deal with both problems at the same time. If a person tries to deal with them one at a time, the problems will just lead back into each other. A person who was involved with TWI may not have gone into it with a mental illness, but could very well have come out of the group with post traumatic stress disorder. I know my wife did. I hope this helps! Love, Steve

So... what's more accurate, 21st century textbook or Bible? Myth or Math? http://www.readability.com/read?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aeonmagazine.com%2Fworld-views%2Fmargaret-wertheim-the-limits-of-physics%2F Love, Steve

You know, sometimes when people get frustrated they say, "Well... God d--n!" I think. when I feel tempted to say that, I might start saying "Well... God-breathe!" Love, Steve

When I first took college level classes on the Old and the New Testaments in the late 1960s, I thought the Bible was insane. Source critics said there was a "J" version and a "P" version and an "E" version and a "D" version ("J" = Jehovist, "P" = Priestly, "E" = Elohist, "D" = Deuteronomist) that had been slapped together. It seemed to me that those versions must have been slapped together by an editor who was an idiot, because it just didn't make sense. Then, in 1980, I took Power for Abundant Living, and even though that class didn't answer all my questions, it promised that all my questions COULD be answered. That worked for about six years. At that time I dropped out of in-residence training with the 16th Corps for several reasons: 1. I had not done a good enough job of putting together a spiritual partner twig and had trouble meeting my tuition deadlines. 2. My dad had suffered a stroke and I wanted to go home and help take care of my mom and dad while he recovered. 3. Geer had just read The Passing of a Patriarch on Corps Night, and nobody knew for sure what was going on. So I caught a ride from Gunnison to Emporia at the end of the block, and hitch-hiked home from there to Indiana. At first I intended to put together a proper spiritual partner twig and apply for re-admittance into the 18th Corps. Meanwhile I attended twig coordinator meetings with the local branch, and I worked on a research project that interested me, an account of David's mighty men from the time they operated like Robin Hood's merry men while David fled from Saul, to the time they functioned like the knights of the Round Table when David himself was king. While I worked on that project, I realized that there are two accounts of how David came to Saul's attention, that those two accounts contradict each other, and that those two accounts CANNOT be reconciled by ANY of the keys or principles taught in PFAL. That was about 1987. Things went downhill from there, and they reached their lowest point when I took Momentus in the fall of 1994. In the spring of 1996 I regained some of my senses and stood up to John Lynn, literally face-to-face, in front of about 60 people and spoke the truth. After that, I started studying the Bible on my own again, and I came across the writings of James D.G. Dunn, whom I have come to respect as the best English language, New Testament scholar of the late-20th, early-21st centuries In 2008, after all the means of earning a living I had used in my life had gone obsolete or out of business, I went back to school to complete a bachelors degree in Organizational Leadership. I found myself with a semester to spare after completing the degree requirements, so I took 6 hours of history classes and 6 of religion, 3 hours of Old Testament and 3 hours of New Testament. The Old Testament prof was excellent, using cutting edge pedagogic techniques, and our text was Encountering Ancient Voices by Corrine L. Carvalho. In her text Carvalho pointed out an aspect of the Old Testamemnt that I found electrifying, the editor whom we know only as "the Deuteronomist" organized the material to tell a story of doom. God makes a series of wonderful promises, yet the stories of peoples' responses to these promises is the bleakest of failure, doom and death... a doomed humanity, a doomed nation, and ultimately, a doomed Messiah. There is no real hope in the Bible at all until God raises Jesus from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is what Tolkien would have called the eucatastrophe of the story told in the Bible, and indeed, in the story that IS real life! Until the time that Jesus returns, we are still living in a doomed history. If Jesus would not come back soon enough, then everything would come to nothing, but the Bible tells us he will come back at the right time. When I look at the Bible in light of the Doomed History of the Deuteronomist, then the way the J, P, E and D sources are used MAKES SENSE! As for the serpent in the garden: picture yourself as a Levite living in a village in the time of the Judges. Nothing much is written down, and what IS written is probably kept at the Tabernacle in Shiloh. You tell the people of the village the old stories that have been handed down from the time of Abraham, but you have to adjust the stories to make up for the changed conditions. When the Israelites learned how to farm the land from the local inhabitants, the locals told them how to watch out for the local deities as well as the local weather. You're all the time warning your people against Baal and Asherah. If you find out the secret knowledge about a particular god, then you can influence that god. There's a Canaanite in a village a few miles away who worships a snake that guards a tree of knowledge. If somebody goes over there and gives that guy an offering, he will talk the snake into giving you some knowledge you can use to manipulate the god. Now there are a lot of different stories about how God created everything, so you slip a snake and a tree of knowledge that will make you as wise as a god yourself into one of those stories, and you show how doing such a foolish thing brings terrible consequences on everybody! Your version of the story becomes popular and spreads to other villages too, because you tell it to other Levites at various festivals. Time goes by until Solomon comes into power. He spends some of his wealth to create a scriptorum with trained scribes to write things down. There are lots of stories, and they write them all down. More generations pass. The nation splits and declines. Editors begin piecing the stories together. Sometimes, they find stories that contradict each other. They can't tell which story is right, so they include them both. And that's basically how we got most of the Old Testament. Does that mean the Bible's not God-breathed because it's history doesn't line up with Wierwille's definitions? I don't think so. I think there are a lot of Christians genuinely speaking by the Spirit of God, and genuinely acting by the Spirit of God who have no notion they're doing anything Paul wrote about. They just think they are loving their neighbor. I think there's a lot of God-breathing going on today all over the place! Love, Steve

I will say it was Momentus' fault, outandabout, and I will say it loud! I hope someday John Lynn comes to his senses and makes what restitution he can for his foolishness! Love, Steve

God bless you, Roy! I have not had to go into a mental hospital myself, even though I have been diagnosed with bipolar mood disorder, but I have had to take my wife there several times. She is doing okay now on meds, and I am glad you are getting the help you need. You don't have anything to be ashamed of. I also have diabetes, and there is no reason to be ashamed of that. My mental illness is a chemical imbalance, just like the diabetes. You have been amazingly strong to have stayed as healthy as you have. No matter how things turn out in the short run, everything is going to be okay in the long run. The best times for all of us are still ahead! with love of God and holy kiss of Christ from Steve

"We" did NOT destroy "the ministry." Wierwille did, by building it on sand instead of the actual Word of God. Love, Steve

I think WordWolf is right. CES never really attracted new people. It all seemed to be ex-wafers. In the early days John, John and Mark did make contact with other people, like the Momentus people and the prophecy people, but those folks were more interested in taking advantage of CES followers than in providing converts to CES doctrine. They were multi-level marketing sharks gulping down the CES multi-level marketing minnow. The only decent fellow they contacted was Anthony Buzzard, but he saw through their flaws pretty quickly. PFAL was a product of the thirties and forties dressed up for the sixties. The Way International is like the Lawrence Welk show, stuck in the past, but Lawrence Welk is vastly more entertaining and instructive. Love, Steve

One of the things I'm dealing with, as I work on my masters, is the fact that systematic theology has fallen out of fashion. At least it has at the School Of Theology where I am studying. Systematic theology is an attempt to develop a system that makes sense of the whole Bible. Efforts to do so began in the 700s in the Eastern Orthodox Church. The greatest western system before the Reformation was Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica. The greatest system to come out of the Reformation was Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. There have been many other, lesser systems since then, one of which was Darby's dispensationalism, the system Wierwille taught with some minor idiosyncrasies. Apart from the dictum that the few difficult verses should be interpreted in light of the many clear verses, the most systematic "principle" that Wierwille taught was probably the idea that a word's meaning is established in the word's first use. The problem with systematic theology is that the way a word is used in the system often becomes more normative than the way the word is used in the Bible. For instance, in dispensationalism the Greek word oikonomia is taken by the system to mean "a period of time," whereas, in the Bible, oikonomia never means "a period of time," but always "stewardship" or responsibility." The truth is that no two writers of works that came into the Bible ever used words in an identical sense. Doing a re-interpretation of Acts chapter 2, I will have to consider the differences as well as the similarities between the ways Luke used the word glossa in Acts 2 and the way Paul used it in I Corinthians 14. Or, what is the relation between the way Luke uses the phrase "the gift of the Holy Spirit" and the way Paul uses the phrase "the earnest of the Spirit"? The problem with interpreting the few difficult verses in light of the many simple verses is that, the differences between difficult and simple may NOT be inherent in the verses themselves, but rather in the system. Love, Steve

I have to defer to WordWolf's findings regarding the theological significance of the serpent in the garden. I certainly haven't thought them through to the extent he has, but I came across some interesting supplementary considerations in a book called The Seven Pillars of Creation by William P. Brown. In the book, Brown examines seven different accounts of creation given in the Old Testament, two accounts in Genesis 1-3, and the accounts in Job 38-41, Psalm 104, Proverbs 8:22-31 and sections from Ecclesiates and Isaiah 40-50. All of them have major differences from each other. At one level of interpretation, the differences in the accounts could be looked at as contradictions, but at another, they can be regarded as alternate viewpoints that give us a multi-dimensional understanding. One thing you realize when you look at all seven accounts together is that God created creation because HE LOVES WHAT HE CREATED! He created Leviathan TO PLAY WITH! One thing I had to come to grips with while reading The Seven Pillars of Creation was the truth that NO part of the Bible was EVER written in a vacuum. How did these particular stories come into the collection? I think they go back to the days of Abraham, when this particular group of people was wandering around with a lot of time to kill. They told the stories they had learned in Mesopotamia before they set out. It was ALL oral for centuries. The Israelites picked up stories from the people around them, in Egypt and later in Canaan. As the Israelites told these stories, they tweaked them to put their own spins on them. When we view the Bible as being God-breathed, we have to realize that His breathing was as much... or even MORE... in these tweakings than in the later writing. In the religions that the Israelites came out of, there were serpents who guarded trees of knowledge. The knowledge was highly treasured and the serpents were revered guardians. People worshiped the serpents in order to get the knowledge. The Israelite religion turned becoming as smart as a god (in order to manipulate the god) from being the wonderful thing it was in the religions around them into the original sin! Love, Steve

You're right, Ham! Our Advanced Greek prof told us that when scholars are confronted by texts with variant readings, they assume that the more difficult reading is more likely to be original than the simpler readings, on the grounds that copyists would make the texts easier to read, rather than more difficult. The more difficult verses often bring important factors into play that are taken for granted in the simpler verses. Simply dismissing the more difficult verses often leads to a very flat, low-fidelity translation. Love, Steve

My pyrotechnics were much less spectacular, mainly making miniature rockets out of paper matches and the tinfoil that comes off of candy bars, using bent paper clips as launching pads. I once studied for a minor in applied mathematics. I learned enough calculus to pervert the statistics and probability formulas for gaming purposes! I admire your career path, Ham! Right now I am working on a masters in theology writing a thesis presenting a re-interpretion of Acts 2, and I got here by a similar-round about journey through English and History. Love, Steve