waysider

Here and now

...or so he claimed. (hence: Thus saith Paul.)

Nah. If these guys had really believed all that shtuff about devil spirits and the *law of believing* they wouldn't have felt the need for armed protection. Gun culture was really big in The Way back in the 1970's. Why is that? Could it have had something to do with VPW's ties to radical white supremacy groups? "Believing for thee, handguns for me" should have been their motto.

That's probably why he enlisted the aid of armed bodyguards or why, on at least one documented occasion, a loaded gun was kept under the podium in the BRC..

I meant to add that I first heard this story in 1972 from an Advanced Class grad.. It was told as if it had happened several years prior to the telling, in some non-TWI group. Then, I heard it again, being taught in the Advanced Class, by VPW, in 1973.

Here is where this thread started: Posted January 31, 2010 (edited) The "nostalgia for research" article/thread prompted me to contemplate the significance of "inerrancy". The Way Ministry focused primarily on study of The Pauline Epistles. This was a precedent that was established early in the PFAL class via the introduction of Biblical administrations (Dispensationalism), the concept of observing "To Whom It Is Written" and the idea behind all people belonging to three specific categories. ("Jew, Gentile or Church of God") In addition, it was established early in the PFAL class that what "Holy Men of God" spoke or wrote was tantamount to words directly from God, himself. Thus, we were to consider the contents of The Church Epistles to be equivalent to words from God (Holy Men Of God Spoke.), directly to us (To The Church of God), At one point during the course of the Fellow Laborer program, we were to read Ephesians a minimum of once a day. Then, we were to rehash it at our night twigs every night. Given the rigidness of the schedule we observed, this didn't last long nor were people very consistent in their diligence. That, however, is probably fodder for another topic. Here is were it gets sticky. Using the aforementioned criteria, it became an accepted "given" that whatever Paul said in Ephesians, Corinthians, etc was the same thing as God saying it directly to us. Suppose for a moment, though, that Paul was, perhaps, the VPW of his day. (So often, people would put forth the inverse idea that VPW was the Apostle Paul of our day and time.) Even now, years after his death, with the advent of the internet and the plethora of information it puts at our fingertips, some people still aren't able to see that VPW was really a con-man. People in the first century did not have access to resources that could prove or disprove Paul's legitimacy. We have heard people say that it's God's will we all speak in tongues (one example) because God said so in "His Word". Did He? Or, was it Paul who made that statement? Question five, of "listening with a purpose", in session eleven, poses the question, "Is it God's will that we all speak in tongues?" According to the answer key, the correct answer is "Yes". But think about it. Who really said "I would that ye all speak in tongues."? Wasn't it, in fact, Paul? Did he really say that "to us" or to a specific group of people two thousand years ago? There are many, many more examples of places where you could insert "Thus Saith Paul." What if Paul was really a forerunner of what we now call "con men"? What if Paul was the VPWFHDAT? (VPW for his day and time) It certainly shines a very different light on the importance and "inerrancy" of The Epistles.

Fortunately, though, history did preserve the memory of King Tut.

I think it was in the Advanced Class that VPW claimed some guy tried to cast out a spirit without having been given revelation to do so. The spirit supposedly smacked the guy silly and laid him out on the floor.The lesson we were supposed to get from this was that you are not supposed to act without guidance to do so.But, of course, you still have the whole deal with VP dying from cancer. You probably recall that he also taught in the Advanced Class that cancer is a devil spirit. So, the guy who we followed because we thought he was the spiritual guru of the entire world was either possessed or (more likely) full of beans on this whole subject of devil spirits and a whole lot of other stuff. And, now we have people like this R&R group who want us to believe them when they perpetuate this regurgitated sort of rubbish.

Then again, maybe it's you who missed my point. If you had taken a few minutes to look at what I suggested you would have seen that Campbell's work is not explicitly about Jesus or any other specific narrative.It's about Man's need to give meaning to the seemingly unexplainable.

It's like herpes. It never really goes away.

Social isolation puts you at a much higher risk for developing dementia, as well. Something to think about.

All these spin-off groups kinda remind me of those radio stations that still play Freebird 10 times a day. edit: I'm not talking about one of those oldies stations. I'm talking about the ones who have been playing it for the last 40+ years.

It's the desire or need for it to be true that's hardwired in us. That's not really what this thread is looking at. This thread is considering the reality of it being an actual, historic event.

Thanks, Mr. B.

Campbell goes into great detail, explaining what it is that people are seeking, as well as the whys and hows. Trying to summarize it with a few posts on this thread would do great injustice to him and his work. Are you not at least interested enough to look at Campbell's work yourself and offer a personal observation? edit: Youtube has dozens, maybe hundreds of clips with Campbell. Some are as short as 3-4 minutes. The ones with Bill Moyer are especially good.

Well, I think that is the crux of what Campbell was saying, though he went on to expound on the reasoning.

You always say it better than me. You should probably think about a career in journalism when you grow up .

That the concepts didn't originate with Campbell. He assembled aggregated them.

Yes, I agree. I may have stated it poorly when I said they were Campbell's concepts. The concepts exist, with or without Campbell. What he did was identify them and assemble them into a form that could be understood. Not a small task, by any means.

Lucas drew heavily and openly from Campbell's concepts. This is a whole other subject to explore.

If you are asking this question in earnest, you might want to consider exploring the works of Joseph Campbell.... The Power of Myth/The Hero's Journey/ etc. etc. etc. The Hero With A Thousand Faces

Yeah, that's my point. If there really is such a thing as speaking in tongues, what we learned in PFAL is not it. We placed an awful lot of expectation on something that wasn't real. But, I'm getting off topic here. Any discussion of speaking in tongues, specifically, would probably be better suited for one of the threads that already exists.

Relating to the concept of understanding spiritual matters on a higher level: We were taught in the PFAL series of classes that the more we speak in tongues, the more we will be able to understand spiritual matters. However, now that we have exhaustively examined the Way version of speaking in tongues and determined it to be fraudulent, where does that leave us with this concept of enhanced spiritual understanding?

I'm going out on a limb here and assume that, by a *higher level of reasoning*, you're referring to revelation.This is a contradiction of terms.Revelation, according to the definitions we were supplied, does not rely on reasoning. By its very nature, it defies reasoning.

Maybe i misunderstood your meaning. You said something to the effect of never hearing that inerrancy is the lynchpin. What I demonstrated is that if you ever sat through PFAL you must have been bombarded with the general concept. So, yes, I think my comment is relevant to the discussion.