shortfuse

I tried to articulate something to this effect a few months ago. I will try again in a different manner. It occurs to me that many of the same tactics TWI ascribed to the adversary, they utilized themselves to deceive us. Consider these quotes from LCM's foundational class. (segment 11, regarding Gen 3:4) "He will lie as big as he can, as quickly as he can. The bigger the lie, the more quickly people buy it and accept it; then the quicker he gets to operating and controling a situation." Funny. In hindsight, that sounds like a perfect description of his teaching of Genesis 3. "What's that you say, Eve had a lesbian experience with the serpent?" Right, you would lie would you? The Bible is of no private interpretation, so you must not be doing that now. Must be true. (segment 11, regarding Gen 3:4,5) "The lies stack up so quick, Eve can't control it. That's why you immediately confront the evil thought, confront the adversary no matter what from he comes at you. You've got to get the truth so burning in your soul and take charge of your mind, life, and logic." The lies stack up so quick. Tell me about it. TWI f*cking buries you. Even if you try to reason your way through it, you will never dig out. Too many lies. The rest would have been good advice if it was directed back at the teacher. In DTA Craig taught the the key to the adversary's success was the secrecy of his moves. He was supposedly destroying his works by exposing him. Looking back I see irony. Yes, TWI was/is incredibly secretive about other things, but knowingly or unknowningly at times they did it all right in front of you.

This is true. The Genesis 3: teaching is no longer publicly taught, but privately they still stand by it. I thought this was in a STS teaching, but it may have been Corps Night. I think the whole sentence was, "We have always taught adultery is wrong." I don't recall any previous teaching to this effect, but it to me it always seemed so self evident it could go unstated. It is clearly stated now in the class Living God's Word as a Family. Good point. I can't think of any doctrines that have since been repudiated. The class has been cleaned up, toned down a bit, and organized better. But nothing has really changed doctrinally.

I remember that too. At the time I was thinking, "Heal the ministry? Why do we need to heal the ministry?" Clearly Craig knew the kind of hurt that was coming to everyone who had put so much trust in him. Looking back I think it was planned. They went so far as to publish the prophecy in The Way Magazine to underscore the importance of it.

Regarding Interpretation of Tongues and Prophecy, I have to admit that while there were definitely lots of repetitive uninspiring messages, there where other times where the relevance of the words was uncanny. It was those times where it was so timely and relevant the lent credibility to the premise that these were messages inspired of God. Regarding the other manifestations, one thing I have observed is a superstitious attitude among wayfers. So eager for signs, miracles, and wonders and receiving revelation from God, they look for these things in the random coincidences of daily life. "I know it was God working in me to do such and such, because look how well it turned out." "It was really 'of God' that I got to the store when I did - just in time to get that last jar of mayo." Maybe these are dumb examples, but you probably know what I mean. Seeking after signs, you will find them everywhere.

I haven't thought about this in a while, we used to joke about naming future kids after VP's SITing in PFAL. "LaShanda, Malakasita, get y'all narrow butts over here!"

counting people at HQ and Gunnison I would put the number at ~3000 in the U.S. There are still 5000+ in Africa. Factor in any other internationals and I would put the number at ~8500. There are no published figures as has been noted, but that's a best estimate.

It is not in the new video class. It has not been repudiated, it has just been removed from the class. You are unlikely to get an apology or invitation back, but you wouldn't really be interested in that anyway would you?

Sensual and Alluring Sprightly and Devious Stately and Powerful Animalistic and Vicious After that I'm not sure... Sadistic and Masochistic __________ and gloomy Note: If you want to dress up as a "Five Star General" (you know, Daimon), the main requirement is more fringe on your sleeves. Personally, I've always thought fringe was devilish, but this production confirmed it.

Happy Birthday, man. Card's in the mail.

These are fun: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raccoon_Dog

Greg is there, but I think you mean to say V1nce McFadd*n.

A bit of googling prove that you are infact, right and I was wrong. I have not seen one of these volumes from Geer, but I see now there is a precident for this. You can understand why editted posthumously by VPW would be very odd, I don't know where I got that from. Must not have been very careful in my reading. Again, I stand corrected.

Thanks for the LOVE, Dove. Go have a cup of coffee. -------------------- LOVE FROM THE DOVE.... Without Coffee I Would Have No Personality At All.

Well I can tell you that the Corps were specifically told not to use their authority in this way. That may have come down after your experience in 2000.

Sometimes I miss LCM and all his crazy tirades. He went too far lots of times, but he was never boring. Can't say that about The Way of today.

Largely because of the IRS troubles you mention, TWI of today stays away from making any political endorsements. People who desire to be envolved in the political process, even seeking public office, are encouraged to do so. However the ministry is not to be used as any kind of vehicle for promoting a particular candidate or political agenda. That said, the majority of the wayfers do swing toward the Evangelical conservative side of politics. Standing against homosexuality is more important to many than a whole host of more relevant issues, imo. So in answer to the question, nothing said before, during, or after the elections.

Um, that was a poorly worded topic. Forget I said that.

My feeling is this was Rosalie's direction. That is certainly how she has taken things, well actually there is no chief teacher. The president seldom if ever speaks to the public. This has diminished the potential for a Craig Martindale sized ego from cropping up again, but it also remove the key ingredient to their growth - a charismatic front man. Without that they have little draw. One way to view TWI is as a personality cult, both with VPW and LCM. Take that away and they don't know how to sell their group. Good point from skyrider about the Corps Director's role. It is definitely an out-moded concept as is the Way Corps itself.

It would be appropriate to say they were published posthumously, but it would be unnecessary to include this on the cover of the book. It is self-evident once the date of the author’s death is known. The thing that is queer about the "edited posthumously by Victor Paul Wierwille" is that it literally means VPW was involved in the editing after he was dead. Now whether or not that is actually possible depends on your views about life after death, but there is no mistaking what TWI and VPW believed about this subject. "When you die, you're dead." You won't be editing or doing anything else posthumously, that is after your death. So it is a curious turn of phrase that is to my knowledge without literary precedent. Why couldn't Geer have just said, "the transcribed teachings of VPW, edited by Chris Geer”? This is an accepted approach to posthumous publication of someone's speeches or writings. From where I sit it definitely seemed like Geer was trying to leverage Wierwille's name to improve his own credibility and marketability.

Last night I heard a teaching about the Food Pyramid, and while the subject of the Food Pyramid was being discussed, a most amazing thing happened. Way believers were actually encouraged to look something up on the internet! In this unprecidented move by the Board of Directors, listeners were instructed to view MyPyramid.gov and to even use a search engine (gasp) to find other Food Pyramids like the Harvard University version of the food pyramid. I was just thinking how ironical it would be for wayfers looking for info on the Food Pyramid to get routed to GSC and find my post on the Food Pyramid. (and of course more importantly the rest of this site.)

Belle, I think they gave up defending the name "The Way International" some time ago. There are numerous variations on the name "the way" that are out on the web. They may have been serious about this years ago, but I think the legal defense funds are tapped if you know what I mean.

Anybody still in touch with him? I was wondering if he might have went to a TWI offshoot, or maybe just moved on.

Sorry, I don't get what you're saying.

Anybody 'member how VPW would say something like this... "The word is so true, if you read it on the heals of the devil and believed it..." it would still help you, heal you, something like that. Was just thinking today, maybe that's a fine description of our good TWI experiences. Iit made us stick around, too. "There might be bad things about the Way, but it saved my life, family, etc." (as it did in some cases.) It made us lay aside other evidence in front of us because we saw some good. Maybe that good was from what we believed on the heals of the devil.

Good question, Oakspear. Harve was made the Corps Director after Craig resigned. After Harve stepped down from the VP role, no one was named as a replacement and the title has quitely disappeared. Rico Magnelli is the "Way Corps Department Coordinator". That's a cabinet level position which would report to one of the directors. I would guess that to be Rosalie, since she 1) would want to control that and 2) is the "Minister of Education" for the Way. Like many of those high level positions it's hard to say exactly what the "Way Corps Director" did anyway. Just another empty title fallen by the way I suspect. David Chavoustie