Steve Lortz

Something similar happened among the people who left in the mid-to-late-'80s, only instead of thinking a new leader would raise up, people would become disappointed by one splinter group, and flee to another. I remember very clearly when it dawned on me that NO ONE was going to restore what the Way should have been, because the Way was NEVER what it should have been. Walking away from the Way and its splinters became a lot easier after that. Love, Steve

The first time I saw the movie "Patten" was late in 1970 at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. I was in a for real boot camp, for REAL! I enjoyed the movie, but I knew that it was just a movie. I had an uncle who was in the infantry, but rode on top of one of Patton's tanks when they went to relieve Bastogne. My uncle spent several days in a foxhole with a dead German. All he had to eat was corned beef hash. He could never stomach corned beef hash after that. He was deafened by the artillery fire. He took a piece of shrapnel that was in him till the day he died. He spent the rest of the war folding parachutes (and he had to jump, occasionally, using a random chute that he himself had packed). Leading people through that sort of thing is a little different from sitting at the head table and admonishing the Way Corps that "a general's suggestion is paramount [sic] to a command." Wierwille had NO IDEA of what real combat is like. He had NO IDEA of the quality of character it takes to be an officer like Patton or Eisenhower or Bradley. Wierwille had NO IDEA of the discipline or self-sacrifice it took for my Pop to command an M10 tank destroyer in combat, and he was just a shave-tail lieutenant. Wierwille was all swagger, with NO SUBSTANCE! Love, Steve

I prefer "donuts" to "donate"! Love, Steve

Plagiarism is indeed a serious thing in the real world... no quicker way to get kicked out of a real school. Love, Steve

But the fellowship is SOOOOOO GOOD! How could it be wrong!?! I have also had good fellowship playing D&D. The difference between TWI and D&D is that in D&D, the monsters, deception and rapine are imaginary. Love, Steve

PFAL is not... and never was... the Word of God. Wierwille had to disguise his lies, so he had to PREACH a lot of truth, but there was a difference between what he preached and what he taught. He preached the integrity of God's Word, but the things he taught actually sliced and diced the Bible, so he could insert his doctrine that it ain't sin if you don't condemn yourself for it. People think it's a doctrine of grace. It's an error of license to sin. I did my fair share and more of promoting PFAL. I did my fair share of promoting the works of CES, including Introduction to God's Heart which was a variation on Power for Abundant Living that CES charged money for. The Old Testament class we took in residence in the Corps was the closest we ever got to a worthwhile class, but even that was a bunch of baloney I wouldn't give two cents for now. I have taught high school professionally. I am currently working on a bona fide masters degree in theology. PFAL and all its clones are less than worthless. They make it even more difficult to understand what the Bible actually says. Love, Steve

Wierwille was killed by cancer early in 1985. About a year later, in early 1986, G33r read The Passing of a Patriarch on a Corps night. Everything was in confusion. Everyone was thinking "What can we do to set things straight?" In the summer of '86, Schoenheit started working on his paper on adultery. In January or February of 1987, the Trustees fired EVERYBODY who had received a copy of Schoenheit's paper, including the Limb Coordinator of Indiana, where I was located at the time. That's also when Lynn, at Washington D.C., was fired. The ex-LC of Indiana made copies of Schoenheit's paper available to anybody who wanted a copy. Later on, when I saw John S. face-to-face (I had known him for several years), I asked him if the copy I had was a true copy, and he said that it was. It was the same as the copy posted here at GSC. Wierwille had been dead for over a year, nearly two, before Schoenheit's paper was "published". The existence of Schoenheit's paper, and what it was about, were kept strictly hush-hush within TWI. You were judged to be possessed by devil spirits simply for asking about it. How sad it is that Schoenheit is still committed to Wierwille's BS about "the Administration of the Sacred Secret" and continues to ignore what's actually written in the Bible about the Lord Jesus Christ and the New Covenant (those things aren't addressed to the Church in this wonderful Age of Grace, you know). Love, Steve

I first read Schoenheit's paper in the spring of 1987. I didn't find the research on "adultery" surprising, just a well-worked study on the topic. What blew me away were the fourteen appendices, where Schoenheit used the Scriptures to rip apart fourteen of the sorriest excuses ever made to rationalize sin, excuses that originated with Wierwille himself. Love, Steve

The original topic of the thread, I believe, is the shameful fact that each of TWI's splinters seems to have the need for a class or classes, and that they charge money for them. There isn't anything wrong with charging money for a class. I'm currently paying through the nose for classes at the seminary where I am working on a bona fide masters degree in theology. There is something VERY wrong with judging the quality of a person's faith by the classes they have completed, and something especially nasty about charging money for THAT! Paul WORKED a job! and preached on the side! He didn't make a living by selling the good news. Unfortunately, too many of Wierwille's followers see "ministry" as a way of making a living. What's worse is that Power For Abundant Living and all the classes it spawned are worth LESS than having no class at all. If you haven't had a class, you know you are ignorant. If you've taken PFAL, et al., then you think you already know everything you need to know, when in truth, we were sold a line of BS that makes the Bible even MORE difficult to understand. Just my two cents' worth, which is a very reasonable fee for the amount of wisdom in this post Love, Steve

I don't think I'd call 'em "indiscetions"... more like out-and-out predations... Love, Steve

I also took PFAL in 1980 and stayed with TWI until a friend of mine told me she had been propositioned by Martindale. I believed her. I still do. I disassociated from TWI in 1987. Since then, I have searched the Scriptures, not always on a daily basis, but often enough. I have seen that the stuff VP preached is NOT so, and you can see it too, if you just read what's written. Wierwille taught that Romans 11:20, "...Be not highminded, but fear", was addressed to gentiles, not to Christians. That's just not so. It was addressed to Christians who had come to Christ from gentile backgrounds. Paul, writing by the Spirit of God, said that we ARE to apply that verse in our lives. The Greek word "oikonomia", which Wierwille translated "administration" appears only seven times in the whole New Testament, and it is NEVER used to indicate a period of time. There is NO "age of the grace of God", NO "church age" and NO "age of the mystery". II Timothy 3:16 can be accurately construed as saying: "ALL Scripture is profitable for doctrine. ALL Scripture is profitable for reproof. ALL Scripture is profitable for correction. ALL Scripture is profitable for instruction in righteousness. And the Scripture Paul was referring to was the OLD TESTAMENT! Yet Wierwille recklessly sliced and diced God's Word with his erroneous "rightly dividing the word of truth". Worst of all, Wierwille taught that HIS understanding of the Bible... HIS private interpretation... took the place of the "absent" Christ. To Wierwille's way of thinking, Jesus Christ isn't even still around. We are each one of us our own little "Lord", with "Christ in you, Christ in you, Christ in YOU! The hope of GLAWRY!!!!" Read the Bible for yourself! It just doesn't say what Wierwille made us think it says! Love, Steve

Not just ejecting Lynn, but the suit with Graeser, etc., etc. etc., as well as untold incidents of abusing the help and being hijacked by non-principals. Love, Steve

I've just finished reading Toward an Old Testament Theology by Walter C. Kaiser, Jr. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978). Kaiser sets out to find a unifying theme that informed the writings of all the varied and various contributors to what we call the Old Testament. He did so in the concept of "promise": first, the promise to Eve of a Seed who would crush the head of the serpent, second, the promise to Abraham of an heir, a land and an heritage of blessing to all the nations, third, the promise to David the he would have a son, of whose kingdom there would be no end, and fourth, to Jeremiah that He would institute a new (renewed) covenant. In his last chapter, Kaiser shows how the New Testament writers appealed to exactly these same things to explain their experience of Jesus Christ. In the process, Kaiser lays to rest some of misunderstandings that seem since the Reformation to make the two (?) testaments contradictory. Salvation has always been by faith in the promised Seed, never by works. The "weightier" matters of the law (the ten commandments) have always been in effect because they reflect the nature of God, though the ceremonial and civil laws were always considered to be temporary. In reality, the Bible is an awesome WHOLE, which is what I think reputable scholars mean by the "integrity" of God's Word. It is, indeed, good news to EVERYBODY except those who willfully turn away from God, and Jesus Christ is the only person qualified to decide who those people are. The dispensationalism that Wierwille bought into, and sold to us, was one of the worst hack-jobs available. It grieves me to see people like John Lynn and John Schoenheit promote such misunderstanding. Love, Steve

I think STFI may have disintegrated beyond the point of getting much of anything done. Love, Steve

You are right, excie, you are right! Love, Steve

Were you ever involved in any "grad" activities? After I left TWI I was thoroughly disgusted with all the name-tags and the artificial divisions they promoted in the body of Christ. Grads WERE considered better than the non-grads, even of the foundational class. That was a fundamental assumption for anybody running a class, and I know whereof I write, because I ran my share. I thought we had gotten away from that way of thinking in CES, but one of first horrifying things I saw after Momentus was a return by the leaders of CES to a "grads are better than non-grads" mentality. The WHOLE motivator behind promoting a class... any class... is that grads will be better than non-grads. That's okay for a course in drumming or auto mechanics, but Christianity is spiritual, and classes are fleshly. The knowledge in PFAL/Intro to God's Heart/Exercising Spiritual Authority/Momentus/etc. DOES NOT edify. It PUFFS UP. While you were involved with PFAL and TWI, you may well have developed a "better" walk with God, but I submit it was because you were humble to God, and not because of the class. Wierwille stole credit for himself and his class that properly belonged to the Lord Jesus Christ and to God the Father. Love, Steve

"What you and I do to promote God's Truth and Love is the only thing that will count for us at the Judgment Seat of Christ when Jesus asks each of us something like: 'What did you do with what you knew?'" The only thing I am certain of about the time when I am at the Judgment Seat of Christ is that He is going to ask me some questions that I will be very uncomfortable answering honestly. Surprising questions... Lynn is so cock-sure of himself. I don't think I would want to be him when that time comes. Love, Steve

I just finished listening to 24 hours' worth of a class on the Old Testament recorded by Dr. Walter C. Kaiser, Jr. in 1988. It struck me how similar his style was to Wierwille's (even though Kaiser's CONTENT was valid). Then I realized, Wierwille's delivery wasn't anything special. It was just the way homiletics was taught back during the era when Wierwille was learning it. This may not really mean much. It just struck me as an interesting historical note. Love, Steve

There's always something to be anxious about. There's always something to be thankful for. Right here. Right now. The qualities of our lives depends largely on which of those things we decide to pay the most attention to. Yup. We lost a lot of time to TWI, but we didn't lose it all. I didn't learn these things in the context of TWI. I learned them in the context of failed marriages. Love, Steve

That will be when Schoenheit founds the Spirit and Truth Fellowship University to teach his version of the Bible. Love, Steve

Good question, faith no more, but skewed. WHO did God have to pay off to "buy us back" with GEEsus's blood? NOBODY! Jesus, as a son of Adam, was paying TO God the blood debt Adam incurred by stealing a life, Adam's own, FROM God through disobedience. The blood was paid by Jesus Christ TO God, on behalf of all of Adam's race. ALL of us. Not just those belonging to an approved denomination. Not just those who have been "reached" by official missionaries. ALL of us! Love, Steve And yes, it is a flaw in the way the Church has interpreted things since it was co-opted by the Roman empire, but the flaw is not in the Bible. It's in the interpretation. By the way, faith no more, you aren't the only one for whom the traditional interpretation raises difficulties. My profs at the School of Theology (who have actually earned real, bona fide doctorates) still have a hard time wrapping their minds around the explanation I have presented because they have a hard time conceiving of Jesus as a son of Adam rather than as God incarnate.

I'm old too, excie. Francis and Mr. Ed could certainly be sarcastic at times. I liked them. They weren't smarmy like Wierwille. Love, Steve

I understand what you are saying, skyrider, having been one of those thousands of people you describe who wanted, and still wants, to see God's love and power prevail in peoples' lives. We accepted the definition that is what would happen when the "Word moved over the world". I was active in Word and Culture, having designed the retemory game It Is Written. I spent several Rocks of Ages in the Hearts and Crafts tent. I coordinated a TWIG for two years and saw God work signs, miracles and wonders in it. In PFAL, Wierwille talked about the church board that makes their plans, then prays "And thank you God for blessing what we've already decided." He was describing the difference between walking by the flesh and walking by the spirit. It wasn't until I was in residence training as member of the 16th Corps that I found out that "the Word moving over the world" was being planned and organized exactly the same way that church board operated in PFAL, walking by the flesh. You wrote, "Yes, year after year.....wierwille's twi was shown to have been led astray." Wierwille's TWI was never led astray. It withered as it began, the personal empire of a con-man. Wierwille had to mix some truth in with his poisonous brew. You have to cover the flavor of antifreeze to get a person to drink it. There was enough truth mixed into what Wierwille taught that God could work spectacular things when people believed the true parts. But TWI culture, especially Corps culture, was designed to lead people to transfer their allegiance from the Lord Jesus Christ to VPW, and after his death, to the organization. Looking back,I know that the wonderful visions of Word Over the World I imagined myself, and built for my twig-mates, could not have survived Wierwille's grasping micro-management. I got hold of a copy of Dilemma of Foreign Missions in India shortly after I disassociated from TWI in 1986/'87, and was horrified to see how closely the Corps training duplicated the practices Wierwille decried in Dilemma. God is honest and God is good. Weiwille and TWI were never, at heart, either, even though many of his followers were. Corps training weeded those followers out, or perverted them. That was what happened to me. Love, Steve

Given who Wierwille was, and what TWI was, what could have been.........NEVER COULD HAVE BEEN! Love, Steve

We could have a GaS of Ages! By the way, O mathematical squirrel, how many screens would a theatre need to have in order to be considered a googolplex? Love, Steve