Steve Lortz

geisha - If Mike starts pitching his "advanced Christ formed within" spirit to you, remember what you yourself wrote above about "another spirit". Love, Steve

YES! YES! "Godel, Escher and Bach" was very influential in forming my world-view! Love, Steve

You need to go back and reread the first post on page one of this thread, modbaker. This thread IS about how Mike addresses the actual, blatant errors in PFAL. I've posted things I've learned from Mike himself about how he addresses these errors, things that Mike now seems reluctant to discuss openly (but he WILL tell you if you PM him). Mike does NOT deny the things I have written, he only ignores them, or resorts to time-wasting name calling. Thank you for your concern, modbaker. It's easy to see how Mike's style of "debate" can raise those sorts of concerns. But I assure you, my posts are spot on topic, and I have been perfectly gentlemanly with Mike, as you will see if you simply review my posts. Love, Steve

Thank you, modbaker. The topic of this thread is how Mike addresses the actual, blatant errors of PFAL. Yet he dodges, and reduces the level of discussion to personal attacks! I second your motion. Love, Steve

This is the second post where you've wasted your time by not moving the discussion forward in any substantive way. If you're so worried about wasting your time, why don't you simply ignore me and answer some of the other poster's valid questions? That is... if you can. Steve Lortz OLG Extraordinaire of the United States by Popular Acclamation

Mike meant to say, "the "ONLY rule of faith and practice" thread. Notice he neither confirms nor denies what I've stated in my posts. He can only call me names, something he accuses others of doing to him here (often with good reason), but something I've NOT done to him. Love! Steve PS for Mike - I prefer that you call me "OLG Extraordinaire of the United States by Popular Acclamation"

Remember: "Whenever a poster shows any sympathy for Mike, he invites them to communicate with him privately, so he can reveal all this stuff [his new religion and the "advanced Christ formed within" spirit] gradually, without anybody else asking any awkward questions..." The tactic Mike has now taken with my posts is to totally ignore them and hope everybody simply forgets them. Love, Steve

Well, there's your problem, waysider, Mike's not here to discuss the defects of PFAL. He's here to attract recruits to his new religion which holds that PFAL has replaced the Bible as God's revealed Word. According to Mike's religion, there are NO actual errors in PFAL, only "apparent contradictions". Mike's "advanced Christ formed within" spirit will resolve all those apparent contradictions, if only Mike will remain "meek" to that spirit. Wierwille's tale of snow on the gas pumps is especially important to Mike's religion, since his "advanced Christ formed within" spirit informs Mike that God's (supposed) promise to reveal His Word "as it has not been known since the first century" means that what God "revealed" to Wierwille, PFAL, is God-breathed, and has replaced the Bible as God's revealed Word and Will for this our day and time. Whenever a poster shows any sympathy for Mike, he invites them to communicate with him privately, so he can reveal all this stuff gradually, without anybody else asking any awkward questions, and hopefully induce them to receive an "advanced Christ formed within" spirit of their own. Love, Steve

By the way, geisha779, several posters including Raf, I think, tried to correspond with Mike through personal messages, much to their regret! Love, Steve

Mike - In your post on this thread of 9:45 AM today, addressing geisha779, you wrote, "It's also the case that many want to take pot shots at me (like Steve Loretz [sic] just did)..." This is what you were referring to as a "pot shot": Mark wanted to know the methodology you use for studying PFAL. All I did was to present your methodology in your very own language, the same language you used with me. How is this a "pot shot"? If I have misrepresented you, how? Steve Lortz OLG Extraordinaire of the United States by Popular Acclamation

Mark and others - Five or six years ago Mike and I had several very interesting rounds of discussions. This is the technique he recommends for "studying" PFAL: First, you have to turn off your will to think critically and accept PFAL as "God-breathed". Then an "advanced Christ formed within" spirit will be born in you. This spirit is different from, and not to be confused with, the gift of holy spirit that was first poured out on the day of Pentecost, through which we were all baptized into one body. After that, you meditate on the words of PFAL, again forsaking any will to think critcally, and your "advanced Christ formed within" spirit will whisper to you the hidden meanings of PFAL. If you want, I suppose I could find the original threads in the archives, but I don't have time right now. Mike used to keep saying, "Try it. You'll like it!" Love, Steve

How do you account for Luke 18, "18 ... what shall I do to inherit eternal life ["zoen aionion" = "life of the age"]..." "29 And he [Jesus] said to them [his followers], Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the Kingdom of God's sake, "30 Who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world ["aion" = "age"] to come, life everlasting ["zoen aionion" = "life of the age"]." "Aionios" ("aionion" is a form of "aionios") is the only word translated "eternal" in the New Testament except for Ephesians 3:11 and I Timothy 1:17, where the word is "aion" = "age" plural, and Romans 1:20 where the word is "aidios" or "perpetual". "Aionios" is also the only word in the New Testament translated "everlasting", except for Jude 6, which is also "aidios" or "perpetual", as in Romans 1:20. Are we to infer different meanings for the word 'aionios" when it refers to God and when it refers to human beings? If so, that would not be "exegesis" (reading the meanings OUT from what is written), which Wierwille preached, but rather it would be "eisegesis" (reading foreign meanings INTO what is written), which is what Wierwille practiced. To say that the Kingdom of God is "eternal" while the Kingdom of Heaven is "everlasting" is to base our theology on an artificial distinction, written into the KJV by its translators, and propagated by Wierwille. Love, Steve

DrWearWord - Do you mean to say that "Kingdom of God" and "Kingdom of Heaven" can mean the same thing, or different things, depending on whatever meaning we attach to them? Aren't you concerned with the meaning that the authors of Matthew and the other gospels attached to them? Love, Steve

If we're going to consider the Kingdom of God/Kingdom of Heaven, we have to go back and look at where the idea came from: "12 And when thy [David's] days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. "13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom forever. "14 I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men: "15 But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee. "16 And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee: thy throne shall be established forever." II Samuel 7:12-12 Everyone recognized that these words found partial fulfillment in the reign of Solomon, but they were also certain that fulfillment was ONLY partial, and they looked forward to a descendent of David whose throne WOULD be established forever. "Kingdom of God" doesn't mean "the kingdom that belongs to God" in the sense of "God's rule in our hearts". It means "the kingdom that comes from God", "the kingdom God promised". I hope this helps clear up our thinking. Love, Steve

What a hoot! This is like revisiting an old playground. Still, some things are timeless, like the actually errors in PFAL. They don't go away by ignoring them! Love, Steve

Thanks, Mark! What The Hay's use of the word "eternal" sparked my response because I'm reading St. Augustine's Cofessions for the first time (though I was originally assigned to read it nearly 42 years ago!), and just today I was reading his explanation of the "Heaven of Heavens" as opposed to the "heaven" which is observable from the earth. Augustine's "Heaven of Heavens" is Plato's "kosmos noetos" (the order accessible only to the mind) as opposed to the "kosmos aisthetikos" (the order accessible to the senses). Plato's realm of the ideals and Augustine's Heaven of Heavens became Wierwille's (and Mike's) spirit realm, while the "kosmos aisthetikos" became their "senses realm". I just had to jump in and point out that the neo-platonic understanding of the word "eternal", which is still current, is not the Biblical meaning of the word. I've been away from the cafe for the most part for about two years. It's good to see old friends like yourself, Mark, still here. I assume Mike is still here at the bidding of his "advanced Christ formed within" spirit. Love, Steve

Depends on what your definition of "eternal" is, What The Hey. The neo-platonic definition, which came into vogue around 200 AD and was promoted by St. Augustine, is someting that is infinite in time, with no beginning and no end. The Biblical "eternal" is usually translated from "aionios" meaning "of the age". Wierwille's dispensationalist scheme of "administrations" rests on reading the meaning of "a period of time" into the Greek word "oikonomia". "Oikonomia" NEVER means "a period of time" in the Bible. It always means "stewardship - the relation whereby one person manages another person's property". There is a good Greek word in the Bible that actually means "a period of time". It is the word "aion". Unfortunately the KJV usually translates it as "world" rather than "age". The Bible indicates that there are multiple ages, but it describes only two of them with sufficient detail to distinguish them, "this age" and "the age to come" (Matthew 12:32; Ephesians 1:21). In Matthew 24:3, the disciples were asking about the end of "this age". Read Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 if you want to know why (the word "world" in verse 38 is "kosmos" or "order", the word "world" in verses 39 and 40 is "aion" or "age", be sure you read it with this understanding). In Luke 18:18-30 we find the words and phrases "to inherit eternal life", "to enter into the kingdom of God" and "to be saved" used interchangably. Verses 29 and 30 read, "And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, Whio shall not receive manifold more in this present time ["en toi kairoi toutoi" = "in this time"], and in the world ["aion" = "age"] to come life everlasting ["zoen aionion" = "life of the age"]." To inherit "eternal" life means to receive the spirit of resurrection life in the age to come. The kingdom which is known both as the Kingdom of God and as the Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew, is going to come to pass in the age to come. Therefore it is "eternal" inthe sense that it belongs to the coming age. However, if you still want to hold to the neo-platonic definition of "eternal", how can WE have eternal life? Don't we have beginnings? Love, Steve

Less than a year ago, I was involved with the split (not in a good sense) of an interdenominational school. The school started out as inclusive, serving Roman Catholics and Christians of the Orthodox persuasion as well as protestants. It was very good. Then some members of the Board decided to fire all the teachers who weren't evangelical protestants. The school survived as interdenominational. Instead of faculty leaving, the board members who wanted to take the school exclusivist left and started their own school, unsullied by the presence of Christians who were "doctrinally" unclean. The rift was opened over interpretation of the school's "Statement of Faith". Both the original school and the new school contain statements to the effect that the Bible is their only rule of faith and practice. The statement "the Bible is our only rule for faith and practice" is simply protestant boilerplate, an attempt that goes back centuries to distinguish protestant doctrine from Roman Catholic, which is said to elevate the traditions of the Fathers of the Church to the same level as Scripture. What the protestants fail to recognize is that they are as heavily dependent on tradition as the Catholics, it's just that the protestants are unconscious of which elements of their doctrine are the result of genuine exegesis, and which are the result of traditional eisegesis. That was also always the case with Wierwille. This discussion reminds me of something that was happening around 1987, after I and others had found out about the adultery, but while the trustees were still trying to do damage control. I bought a 30 day Greyhound ticket and spent a month travelling around the county visiting old ministry friends, because horizontal communication had been blocked. Time and again during that trip, I heard Corps in different parts of the country say "Multiple centers of reference cause confusion", meaning "don't listen to anybody but your leaders". It must have been something that had come down from HQ. It occurred to me only later that Deuteronomy 19:15, Matthew 18:16 and II Corinthians 13:1 all say that in the mouth of two or three witness shall a matter be established. It is NOT Biblical to say that multiple centers of reference cause confusion! According to the Word of God itself, where multiple centers of reference agree, they SETTLE confusion! Love, Steve

"You can't go beyond what you're taught." V.P. Wierwille "I have more understanding than all my teachers, for thy testamonies are my meditation." Psalm 119:99 Love, Steve

Hi, Jeff! I was involved with TWI from '80 to '87, went WOW to Tucson, AZ, in '82-'83, coordinated a twig in Newport, MN, from '83-'85, enrolled in the 16th Corps and spent two blocks in residence at Emporia and Gunnison before the Passing of A Patriarch hit the fan in late winter of '85-'86. I went back home to Indiana and watched the disintegration of The Way from across the state line. I was involved with CES from the late-'80s to the mid-'90s. I worked on their "Dialogue" newsletter until genuine dialogue withered and died there. I was a grad of Momentus, and when I started to wake up a year later to the reality of the abuses that had been committed in the name of Momentus, it was the final straw for me. I also took Dale Sides' Exercising Spiritual Authority class and attended one of his "ministerial conferences". I was a frequent poster at Greasespot from about the turn of the millenium to a couple of years ago. As far as the doctrinal threads go, there was a period where a number of us, capably led by Rafael, debated and catalogued the doctrinal errors of PFAL. Those were some stirring threads! You can find them in the archives. I'm afraid I no longer have the stamina to participate the way I used to. About a year-and-a-half ago, I drove into the clinic I frequent to get a regular check up, so I could have my prescriptions rewritten. I wasn't feeling very well, but I had just had some root canal work done, and I thought that was the cause of my discomfort. In the examing room they said, "You've lost thirty pounds." I thought, "That's cool. I wasn't even trying." Then they said, "Your blood pressure is low." My blood pressure usually tends to the high side. Then they said "CALL AN AMBULANCE!!!!" My blood sugar was 1010 on a scale of 1-1000. Over 300 presents danger of siezures, coma and death. I went into intensive care. I am dead... or at least I ought to be. For you fellow gamers out there, I needed to roll 101 on a d100 to save. I thank God that He didn't let this happen to me before I got "the law of believing" flushed out of my thinking! I'd be going bonkers trying to figure out how it happened, and guilting myself because I can't "believe" like that in the financial catagory :-) I may not have the stamina I used to have, but any day above ground is a good one! If you want to see some of my old posts, Jeff, go to the "Members" section of Greasespot, search my name, and click on the button (I think it's called) "Find Posts". I'll be back from time to time. Love, Steve

Hi, all! I've been doing other things for the last few years. I was disappointed to see how the doctrinal threads have disintegrated, but I was glad to see old familiar and dear persons here. Back when Rafael was catagorizing the errors in PFAL, I was of the opinion that Wierwille was a deliberate con-man, knowing that what he was doing was wrong. How could Wierwille NOT have seen that he was teaching a lie about who Romans 9-11 is addressed to, while preaching the importance of paying attention "to whom it is addressed"? But I've changed my opinion since then. Jeremiah 17:9a says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:who can know it?" The heart is deceitful above all things because: "The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise." (Proverbs 12:15), "All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the Lord weigheth the spirits." (Proverbs 16:2), and "Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the Lord pondereth the heart." (Proverbs 21:2) I think a person's "eyes" refers to what a person pays habitual attention to. "In his own eyes" means the person pays habitual attention to himself, without regard to anybody else's opinion, even the Lord's. Every thing that comes out of my own heart can seem perfectly right and innocent to me, because I'm the one who originally programmed the thoughts and intents of my heart. Where my treasure is there will my heart be also. The things I habitually attach a certain value to in my thinking, will automatically assume the same value in my heart, whether my habitual thinking is right or wrong. The heart accepts the mind's rationalizations, and cannot criticize them. Wierwille believed his own lies. His heart told him the things he was doing were right and innocent, even when he was drugging and raping his followers. This doesn't excuse him. He will still have to give account for his decisions and actions, and there will be consequences. Grace is not a license to sin. The reason Wierwille fell prey to his heart's own deceptive wickedness was because he did not fear the Lord, and he taught us that we (including John Lynn) should not fear the Lord, either. Fear is NOT believing in reverse. Fear is NOT sand in the machinery of life. Fear is an emotion, a feeling that MOVES us to do something. Fear moves us to get into right relation with the thing we are afraid of. The right relation with a rattle-snake is far away. The right relation with the IRS is to have filings accurate and on time, and taxes paid up. The right relation with the Lord is to recognize that HE is the Lord, and I am NOT. If we can't trust our own hearts to tell us what's right and what's wrong, what can we trust? "The word of God is quick [living] and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner [critic] of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Hebrews 4:12) The word is living where the spirit of God working in our minds (the subjective witness) and the written word (the objective witness) agree. The living word can tell us where our heart is right and where it is wrong. But we have to be willing to submit the thoughts and intents of our hearts to somebody else's criticism. That's where the fear of the Lord comes in. If we are not moved to get into right relation with the Lord, then we don't care whether we are right or wrong in HIS eyes. Wierwille taught us that fearing the Lord doesn't mean "fear" but "respect", then he demonstrated that we didn't need to have any more respect for the Lord than we have for a vending machine. Psalm 36:1-4 (NIV) "1 An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked: there is no fear of God before his eyes. "2 For in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin. "3 The words of his mouth are wicked and deceitful: he hath ceased to be wise and to do good. "4 Even on his bed he plots evil; he commits himself to a sinful course and does not reject what is wrong." "He has ceased to be wise and to do good." It wasn't always that way. A person can start off being wise and doing good, but if he makes it a habit NOT to pay attention to the feelings that move him to get into right relation with God, then he makes it a habit to pay attention to his OWN correctness, his OWN smartness, his OWN sufficiency. He flatters himself, so much so, that he CANNOT recognize when he is wrong, and doesn't care. I think that's what happened to Wierwille. I think it's what happened to all of us to the extent that we were influenced by Wierwille's teaching. I think it is the poison DNA of all the offshoots. CES took Wierwille's "idiom of permission" several steps farther when they published "Don't Blame God". Once they commit something doctrinal to writing (and it's usually foolish - "the words of his mouth are wicked and deceitful"), they WILL NOT be brought to reconsider, even in the light of scripture. For them, God has become a cosmic wimp, groping blindly in the dark. John CANNOT recognize his own arrogance. Wierwille perverted Romans 12:3, "For I say... to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly...". He told us the last part of Romans 11:20, "Be not highminded, but fear:", was not written to us. Wierwille did not think soberly. He thought of himself more highly than he ought. He did not fear, and he became highminded. He taught us to do the same. Through the mercy and the grace of God, I have been delivered from this error, and I work daily to eradicate its influence from my thinking. I pray that the same can happen for John, along with all tjhe rest of us. Love, Steve

Regarding JAL's use of the word "woundedness" in his quote from the second question of this thread, if I'm remembering rightly, "woundedness" is a term of art in the Momentus "kill the victim before the victim kills you" world view. Love, Steve

Back to the topic at hand, CES is in a mess. It didn't start last April. It goes all the way back to Wierwille, and evolved in three stages. Wierwille's Invisible Kool-Ade Back when Raf was doing his "Actual Errors in PFAL" thread, I was studying closely the part of PFAL where Wierwille taught that Romans 9, 10 and 11 are addressed to Jews or Gentiles, but not to Christians. As I read what is actually written in those chapters, I was dumbfounded. In a section of PFAL supposedly teaching the importance of recognizing "to whom it is written", Wierwille used a passage of scripture as an example, and totally twisted "to whom it is written". Those chapters are NOT adressed to Jews or Gentiles. They are obviously addressed to Christians in the congregation at Rome who had come to Christianity from Gentile rather than Jewish backgrounds. Paul did NOT write that he was no longer a Jew since becoming a Christian. He used himself as a specific example to show that God had not rejected the Jews. I was as outraged as I ever get. I couldn't see any way Wierwille could get it SOOO wrong without being a deliberate, cynical con-man. Then one day, I was studying the relation between the senses, the mind and the heart (as a result of an argument with Mike, believe it or not) and a number of things fell into place. I believe the mind is the conscious, pro-active part of our mental activity, and the heart is the unconscious, re-active part. I also believe we program our attitudes of heart through the channels of thought in which we allow our minds to habitually run. "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also"; Matthew 6:21. Those things to which we habitually attach value in our minds assume the same values in our hearts. That's why Jeremiah 17:9 says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?". That's why "Every way of man is right in his own eyes..." (Proverbs 21:2) and "All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes..." (Proverbs 16:2). Every thought and intent that comes out of a person's own heart seems right and innocent to that person, whether it actually is or not, because that person put those thoughts and intents into his own heart in the first place. When Wierwille preached the truth about "to whom it is written", he did so because his heart told him it was the right and innocent thing to do. When Wierwille lied about "to whom it is written", he did so because his heart told him it was the right and innocent thing to do. When Wierwille drugged and raped harmless women in the motorcoach, he did so because his heart told him it was the right and innocent thing to do. Wierwille wasn't a deliberate, cynical con-man. He was delusional. We cannot, CANNOT, CANNOT rely on our own hearts as any kind of standard for truth. That's why we read in Hebrews 4:12, " The word of God is... ...a discerner [critic] of the thoughts and intents of the heart." We have to take the thoughts and intents of our hearts to God's Word, and submit them to its criticism. And by "God's Word" I don't mean some cold, misappropriate reading of words on a page. We have to compare and contrast what we find God working by way of His Spirit in our minds, with what we find written in the Word. Where they agree, we find the truth established. Where they don't agree, we need to give it some more thought before jumping to a conclusion. More later. Love, Steve

Do you wanna see the root of all this evil? It's right there in John's letter. It's something Wierwille taught him. All of us who were involved with TWI fell for it too, to one extent or another. "...the reason I remain committed to Spirit and Truth Fellowship International is because I can find no one else with the 'package' we have to offer, and I know the true heart with which we present it..." John writes that he knows his true heart, and the true hearts of the other leaders of CES. Yet the Word of God declares, "The heart is deceitful above all things. and desperately wicked, who can know it? I the Lord search the heart. I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings." Jeremiah 17:9&10 That's why Hebrews 4:12 says, "The word of God is... ...the discerner [critic] of the thought and intents of the heart." Anyone who makes the thoughts and intents of his own heart the critic of God's Word is deluding himself. I've got plenty more to write, but not before I get a good night's sleep. Love, Steve

Nevermind... Love, Steve