Steve Lortz

When Wierwille was drugging and raping the least of his sisters,he was drugging and raping Jesus Christ. What are we supposed to think THAT looked like from a seat in the heavenlies? Think God was happy with it? Sheep or goat? Hmmmmmm....... Sheep or goat? Love, Steve

If you read what's actually written in Romans 9-11, you'll see that NONE of it is addressed TO Israel. Romans 9:1-11:12 is ABOUT Israel, but it isn't addressed TO Israel. You'll also see that the gentiles addressed in 11:13 are Roman Christians, aleady born again, who came to Christ from gentile backgrounds. Wierwille LIED in PFAL about who this passage was addressed to, in the section of PFAL regarding the importance of getting "to whom addressed" right. Talking about Wierwille moving boundaries! What is "high-mindedness"? It's thinking more highly of yourself than you ought. It's thinking you are better than other people because you can sit up there in the heavenlies looking down on all the other poor saps. They're dead in their trespasses and sins! They deserve whatever they get! And much as Wierwille would have liked us to believe that "fearing" God means respecting Him, the way we would respect an elderly uncle we no longer have to obey, that's not what is written, and that's not what it means. "Fear" means "fear". Love, Steve

"Be not high-minded, but fear:" Romans 11:20b Do you realize how Wierwille had to warp and twist and slash the Word of God to make it so this verse could not be applied to HIM? There may be more conditions on "seated in the heavenlies" than Wierwille and some of his followers want to face. Love, Steve

To minister means "to serve." Jesus demonstrated what "ministry" means when He washed his followers' feet. To minister means doing things you don't really want to do, for people who don't really understand or care, with absolutely no hope of return in money or glory. Wierwille did not minister. He made himself a lord of our believing (II Corinthians 1:24). Love, Steve

The best times of my life ARE now! I've been out of The Way International since 1987, and out of all involvement with off-shoots since 1996. Clean and sober for 15 years now. I'm working on a masters degree in theological studies at a bona fide school and having a blast with a lot of fellow Christians who are walking in the Spirit, even though their tradition doesn't call it that. I'm learning real Greek from a real doctor who is working on a real commentary on the gospel Mark. They don't look down on me for having been involved in a cult. They are curious, and tickled as people can be to hear how God would work with people, even in spite of their own foolishness INSIDE a cult. If there's one thing I DON'T have, it's nostalgia for The Way International. For some of the people I knew... yes. For the organization and the leadership (including myself)... no. There are more fish to fry out here than TWI can shake a stick at! Love, Steve

"...who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." (see verse 4 if you don't like it here in verse 1). There was a boundary Wierwille certainly rationalized away! Of course, he didn't need to walk after the flesh. He had a motorcoach for pursuing that! Love, Steve

If I were to call Wierwille a viper, it would be an insult to vipers. I regret that I EVER had ANY respect for that son of hell. Love, Steve

I've been reading The Seven Pillars of Creation by William P. Brown. All I can say is: "What a colossally ignorant man Wierwille was! What colossal ignorance he promoted!" Love, Steve

Aptly put, waysider, aptly put! Love, Steve

One of my objections to the conventional view of Hell is that Augustine based it on the Platonic notion that man is a two part being: a material, mortal body inhabited by an immaterial, immortal soul. I think this idea is alien to the Bible. Genesis 2:7 DOESN'T say God formed man's BODY of the dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and GAVE man a living soul. It says God formed MAN of the dust of the ground, started up man's respiration, and man BECAME a living soul. Man is a ONE-PART being, a whole dust/soul simplex animated by breath. Souls are not immortal. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. No man can keep his soul (whole self) alive. Souls are not immaterial. "All who touch a corpse [nephesh muth - "dead soul"], the body of a human being who has died [muth - "dead"], and do not purify themselves, defile the tabernacle of the LORD; such persons [nephesh - "souls"] shall be cut off from Israel." Numbers 19:13 (NRSV) So here we have living souls who get kicked out of Israel for TOUCHING dead souls without washing up afterwards! Sooo.... what does a dead soul know? On page 50 of Erasing Hell, Chan and Sprinkle wrote, "Jews in the first century used the Old Testament to build their theology. But the Old Testament doesn't say much about Hell." But the Old Testament DOES have plenty to say about what dead souls know: The dead know not anything... Ecclesiastes 9:5 There is no reward... Ecclesiastes 9:5 No memory... Ecclesiastes 9:5 No love... Ecclesiastes 9:6 No hatred... Ecclesiastes 9:6 No envy... Ecclesiastes 9:6 No portion... Ecclesiastes 9:6 No work... Ecclesiastes 9:10 No device... Ecclesiastes 9:10 No knowledge... Ecclesiastes 9:10 No wisdom... Ecclesiastes 9:10 No remembrance... Psalm 6:5 No thanks... Psalm 6:5 No profit... Psalm 30:9 No praise... Psalm 30:9 No declaration of truth... Psalm 30:9 Nor of lovingkindness... Psalm 88:11 Nor of faithfulness... Psalm 88:11 No knowing of wonders... Psalm 88:12 Nor of righteousness... Psalm 88:12 Only forgetfulness... Psalm 88:12... no memory Darkness... Psalm 88:12... no light And silence... Psalm 115:17... no sound. In the very day that a soul dies, its thoughts perish... Psalm 146:4. The conventional idea of Hell is a fiction composed by Plato, Augustine, Dante and Milton. I may or may not agree with Bell's universalist tendencies, but I cannot agree with Chan and Sprinkles assertion that their conventional notion of Hell is biblical. Love, Steve

Thanks for chiming in, WordWolf! I always value your input. I guess much would depend, in understanding your position, on what you mean by the word "untouched." In Matthew 3:11 and Luke 3:16, John the Baptist is quoted as saying that he himself baptized with water, but that he who came after him would baptize with Holy Spirit and with fire. I think the passage in I Corinthians 3 may well be referring to the baptism with fire. To what degree the person himself experiences the fire as fire is the question, it seems. I believe the word "fire" is metaphorical. If it's intended to be literal, how are a person's "works" burned? I think it is a figure comparing the baptism with fire to a trash fire, which consumes worthless things, instead of a punitive infliction of pain. It would appear to me that the amount of pain a person would feel in letting go of his less than worthy works would depend on how much of his identity he had invested in those things. Anecdotal evidence inclines me to believe that the baptism with fire will be painful to the degree that a person attaches inappropriate importance to his works. We've been studying Luther in our History of the Christian Church class, specifically, Luther: A Guide for the Perplexed by David M. Whitford. I don't think grace means that our sins are as free of consequence as some of Luther's followers (especially Wierwille) have imagined. But then again, I don't think the pain is eternal. I think it will only last as long as it takes for a person to change the value he attaches to worthless things. Thanks again, WordWolf! Love, Steve

Well... I've considered Love Wins and Erasing Hell together, and I have to say I'm a little disappointed with both. Back in the '70s and '80s, I read a lot of Erich von Daniken's books, like Chariots of the Gods. I didn't care for them because, instead of presenting valid archaeological evidence and arguments, von Daniken cherry-picked the remains of antiquity to find things that looked like what we think flying saucers SHOULD look like, then asked provocative questions, and went on to take it for granted that his questions had been answered affirmatively. In some ways, Bell's thinking seems like von Daniken's. Yes, the questions are provocative, and yes, he finds some passages that seem to support his thesis, but he doesn't really draw the lines that connect his passages together with each other, and with the wholeness of the Scriptures. On the other hand, Chan and Sprinkle seem to feed back traditional interpretations without giving much critical thought to the implications of those traditions. For instance, on pages 26 and 27 they wrote, "In Philippians 1:28, Paul says that those who oppose the gospel will face 'destruction,' while those who embrace it will be saved. There's a contrast here between believers and unbelievers; each have very different destinies. In Philippians 3:19, Paul refers to the enemies of Christ whose 'end is destruction,' while followers of Jesus look forward to resurrection and glory (3:20-21)." Chan and Sprinkle place a lot of emphasis on "destruction," but if we stop and think about it, the traditional concept of Hell is NOT a place of destruction. It is a place of INdestructable torment. In I Corinthians 3:11-15, Paul implies that everyone, even CHRISTIANS, are going to go through a fire. In verse 15 Paul writes, "If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire." How does this square with the traditional concept of Hell? This is all I can post right now. I'll post more later. Love, Steve

Long ago, my wife and I decided that we would not hold anything back if we felt it might be profitable (in a Godly sense) to share with others about our involvement with The Way International. I left in '87. She left in '89. We got married in '91. Until recently, it has always been a little uncomfortable for me. I started work on a masters in theological studies at a seminary this fall. I thought, "How much should I reveal to the people here?" I decided to be as open with my profs and fellow students as it seemed necessary, about my former involvement as a cult LEADER. The seminary is a training program for religious leaders after all, and my experiences with God while involved with TWI, even as a low-level leader, have value as examples, both bad AND good. The people I have opened up to have not been disparaging. They seem to be really interested in what life was like inside a cult. More and more I am realizing that the wickedness of TWI was a reflection of the evil in the hearts of Wierwille and his willing enablers, not a reflection on me and all the other good-intentioned people who were hood-winked and abused. Each and every one of you is so precious. Don't believe any of the berating we received from those serpents. Love, Steve

:blink:...rozilla's expecting a check from the devil!?! :o :wacko: :wacko: :wacko: :wacko: Love, Steve

I'm glad I know you... ALL of you... and get to read what you think! Love, Steve

And yet the earliest Christians considered both perspectives to be profitable for reading in the churches, generation after generation. Love, Steve

Hi, Jerry! It's good to read one of my favorite internet correspondents from time to time! I don't think the seeming contradictions between, say, Paul and James, were as important to the first-century Christians as those differences have been made out to be since then. I think the first-century definition was much broader than the definitions we hold today. It was Augustine of Hippo who made the case around AD 400 for what we now think of as original sin. He did it to justify infant baptism. If he hadn't, then the wealthy members of his congregation would have taken their babies down the street to the Donatist congregation, and Augustine didn't want them to take their babies (and money) somewhere else for no good reason. So we got original sin and pure grace and predestination about 350 years after Paul and James had been writing, and after the churches decided the two authors could be read together without producing any fatal flaws in understanding salvation. When Luther raised his kerfluffel nearly fifteen hundred years after Paul and James had written, he wasn't irked because the Roman Catholic Church taught that salvation was by works, because they didn't teach that. Luther was objecting that you can't use works to buy time off from Purgatory. People who aren't saved don't go to Purgatory. Everybody knows THEY go straight to Hell. People in Purgatory are simply perfecting their salvation by doing penance, as Jerome told them they had to do in his Vulgate translation. When Luther was translating Romans from Erasmus' Greek edition, he noticed that the Greek word metanoeo would have been better translated by "repent," meaning "change your mind" rather than Jerome's "do penance" or "make restitution." Luther brought the whole lucrative penance industry to a screeching halt in the north. Luther was so strongly in favor of "faith only" that he inserted the word "only" into his translations where the word did not legitimately belong. I don't think there are two competing narratives of salvation running through the New Testament. I think I have too little knowledge of how the first-century believers regarded salvation to see how the two narratives connected with each other in those first believers' minds. Perhaps this post is an example of the damage I can wreak when I have too little knowledge :wacko: Love, Steve

I have to agree with waysider's assessment. Love, Steve

My copy of Erasing Hell came in the mail today, but it's probably going to be two weeks before I can digest and comment on it. I have a 1,500 word paper for Constructive Theology and a 3,500 word paper for History of the Christian Church to write by this time next week. Love, Steve

"...the Scriptures are a united whole and BUILD truth upon truth..." This is what it means to say the Scriptures have "integrity." At one level or another, they all hang together. Wierwille preached that the interity of the Scripture is always at stake, but in his practice and teaching, he always violated that integrity. II Timothy 3:16 says ALL scritpure is profitable for doctrine, ALL for reproof, ALL for correction, ALL for instruction in righteousness. Wierwille sliced and diced the integrity of God's Word with his dispensationalist "rightly dividing the Word of truth." Love, Steve

Psalm 119:99 "I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation." Wierwille was also contradicting the Bible, of which he was supposed to be such a master! Love, Steve

I just ordered a copy of Erasing Hell from Amazon.com. I'll let you know what I think after I've read it. Thanks! Love, Steve P.S. - One of the things I learned while I was flushing dispensationalism from my mind was to read both sides VERY carefully!

Wierwille ignored what the Bible has to say about the kingdom of God. He said that stuff only applies when the king is on the earth, and since Jesus Christ is absent, the kingdom of God is presently in abeyance. In Luke 18:18-30, three phrases are used as synonyms, that is, all three phrases mean the same thing. Those three phrases are "to inherit/receive eternal life," "to enter into the kingdom of God" and "to be saved." Entering into the kingdom of God is the same thing as being saved. If you look at Jesus' teachings in the gospels, he doesn't say much of anything about preparing to go to heaven when we die. He teaches a heck of a lot, though, about making ourselves fit to be of service in the kingdom of God. It's even in the Lord's prayer (of which Wierwille taught that we DARE NOT pray)! Bell considers some of the things we've been taught about heaven and hell in light of the things Jesus taught about entering into the kingdom of God. Actually, the things you bring up, Twinky, are very much relevant to Bell's discussion. Love, Steve

I haven't been in your exact same shoes, BikerBabe, but close enough to know what you're saying. My wife's on disability for bipolar mood disorder, and we often use the services of our local food pantry. She also has a large family, some other members of which also get food. We are able to swap a lot of things in the family. I think the best churches are small groups where the members watch out for each other. That's like my wife's family, and it's what twigs SHOULD have been. Love, Steve

I would advise anyone NOT to judge what Bell has to say without first having read Love Wins for her or his self. I've read a lot of reviews that unfairly oversimplify and twist his thoughts for whatever reasons the reviewers think necessary, without ever addressing the genuine issues he brings up. Bell does NOT say that there is no hell. He examines the historic development of the conventional form of the idea, and considers whether there might be ways of defining hell that are more in line with what the gospel actually says. Bell does NOT say that everyone is all right with God, but he does suggest (with scriptural back up), that the consequences of sin may not be what we were taught they are, and may not happen when we were taught they would happen. It would be hard to gather and communicate Bell's whole view of Jesus Christ, because Bell doesn't go into christology to any great extent in Love Wins, but Bell does NOT believe His purpose was to rescue us from the vindictive whims of a vengeful God. Bell does NOT say that everyone goes to "heaven," but he asks the valid question, what does the Bible actually mean by "heaven?" It would be hard for me, Twinky, to explain in any more detail what I came away with from the book, without knowing how you have learned to understand the "kingdom of God" since leaving TWI. Love, Steve