Linda Z

I thought of this when I saw "H**** P*****'s Connections": At least he's no longer connected by Velcro to RFR. That's gotta be an improvement!

Actually, I've heard from rabidly anti-twi exwayfers that twi's Aramaic Interlinear and the other Aramaic book they published (I forget what it's called) are highly regarded and sought after. Other of twi's books might have been plagiarized, but those weren't. Some genuine scholars (who were university-trained in Aramaic or had spent decades studying it) spent years working on them. I don't think VPW had much to do with their content, and I'm sure LCM had nothing to do with it. I wouldn't know firsthand if it's true that they're good because I never owned them or read them, and even if I had, my exposure to Biblical Aramaic amounted to maybe 4 whole weeks of classes in the Corps. So I'm hardly an authority, but I have heard from a few people who are into studying Biblical languages and such that they're well done. *shrug*

I find it surprising that the Wikipedia article doesn’t mention the book They Speak with Other Tongues by John L. Sherrill, who also coauthored The Hiding Place, God’s Smuggler, and The Cross and the Switchblade. I read it in about 1971, not long before I got into twi. Sherrill was a reporter for Guideposts magazine. He had heard about SIT (it's a handy acronym; too bad, twi, I'm taking it back), and he was skeptical about it but ended up having a life-changing experience as a result of his investigation. I haven't read it again lately, but back then I found it fascinating. Waysider said (my comments in blue): In all honesty, the way VPW led people into tongues in session 12 of PFAL was almost identical to how it was introduced to me, only when I first did it I'd never heard anyone do it and hadn't even heard that it existed. The difference was that I wasn't in a room full of people who expected it of me. It was just me, my ex, and the hippie Christian neighbor who knocked on my door a few minutes after I prayed to God for help, saying, "God told me you needed help." (I'm sure I've said it in a post before: That got my attention!) I think where VPW/twi went wrong on the subject was in expecting everyone to do it on command, right then and there in session 12, whether they wanted to or not. Come to think of it, this ties in with the thread I started on forced witnessing in twi. I believed the whole time I was in twi that witnessing should be a naturally occurring, spiritually inspired act, not something people were pushed to do. Likewise, I don't think people should have been coerced or "peer-pressured" by class instructors and "grads" to SIT. I believe that's why some faked it; they felt compelled to "perform." Same with interpretation and prophecy in the intermediate class--hence all the repetitive messages. And the old intermediate class was a piece of cake to compared to the later E**l B****n version. I knew people who quit going to fellowship over that one--they were scared to death they were going to "do it wrong" after he introduced all the rules and regs, like "the length of the interpretation must be close to the length of the SIT" and all that hogwash. It was another example of twi trying to legislate and regulate spirituality.

Thanks for the clarification, Now I See. I did misunderstand where you were going with your comments.

Now I See, as I said in my first post, it has nothing to do with VPW and nothing to do with whether one chooses for forgive him. My objection is not about him. To call someone you consider evil by a negative term that's used for a whole nation of people is a slur against those people. The insult is to Germans. I don't see any "attitude police" here. I see people disagreeing. It happens. And Garth, lots of Americans called Japanese people "Japs" during and after WWII, too, in a derogatory way, but by now we surely know that there are many fine Japanese people and they are not the enemy. Neither are Germans still our enemies. This is the last thing I have to say on the subject, because you, Garth, have clearly "dug in" on this topic and think you're right. It's your privilege, but your arguments don't fly with me.

Socksness: I care. You're one of the people I consider well balanced on the topics at hand. You call a spade a spade but you don't use it to bury everyone. I appreciate that. A lot.

Garth, RR is absolutely right. National/ethnic slurs are intended to do one thing and one thing only: degrade a whole group of people by implying they all fit a negative stereotype. I thought you were smarter.

RR, I didn't get it. Your Nazi analogy sounded like you were applying it to her logic. Mea culpa. And hey, trolls at work are nothing new. I probably wouldn't even notice another one.

Rumrunner said: Wouldn't that analogy only apply if someone here were saying, "We couldn't help abusing other people because we were victims of an abusive system"? I don't see how any exway person who didn't know about the abuse and didn't commit any abuses is guilty of anything. I'm not talking about people who saw it and turned a blind eye. I'm talking about people who just plain didn't know. I haven't seen anywhere that Geisha excused abuse with the "I was abused" excuse. As for feeling guilty for supporting twi unwittingly, to me that's a wasted emotion. Who knows what evil empires we might support unknowingly in this world whenever we make a purchase? We can try to buy from companies that treat their employees right, and hope that their products and all the components of those products were made in countries where children aren't forced to work in sweat shops. We can hope that the money we spend in any given store doesn't ultimately get funneled to terrorists or some power that's committing genocide somewhere in the world. Should I feel guilty in 2009 because in 1967 I bought some pot from a dealer whose supplier was a gangster who used profits from his sales to finance hits on his enemies? Am I accountable because I once supported a political candidate who turned out to be embezzling city money? Where does the guilt trip end? We do the best we can in this crazy world. I don't think it's healthy to be inordinantly hard on ourselves or each other.

Who pronounced it bogus? Because some people on GSC have said they faked it, you've now decided that it's always fake? I'd never heard of SIT before I did it, which was long before I ever heard of twi. It was an amazing, uplifting experience for me, with God's signature and love all over it. I'm sorry that it apparently wasn't like that for you. I won't argue about this because I don't argue doctrine. It's about as futile as arguing politics. I have to say, though, that I disagree with the premise of your question.

Great points, Chockfull. brainfixed said: I totally get that the healing isn't dependent on the person ministering but on God. Knowing that God is bigger than any system, program, approach, or action cooked up by man is what helped my departure from twi be a lot less painful than it might have been. I know what you're talking about, brainfixed. I saw people during my years in twi who thought they were healed when they weren't. They needed medical or mental health treatment. I also saw my share of genuine healings, of everything from heroin addiction to mental illness to physical problems. In my case, the healing was quite obvious and unnaturally rapid. I had a deep cut down the middle of my entire face from going through the windshield of a car. Except for a few scabs, it went entirely away over the course of a 3-day weekend. And I couldn't walk, then I could. If God's hands were tied by the sins and shortcomings of people, we'd be in a world of hurt. Edited to add: I have a very tiny scar below my lower lip from that cut. It serves to remind me of two things: God's goodness and to pay careful attention while driving. :)

TrustandObey said: I didn't mind inviting people to fellowship; I often invited friends and acquaintances to fellowship. I never viewed my fellowship as a twi "product" or certainly not a "big gig." What I minded was being put into an artificial situation to do so. On the rare occasions when I did succumb to the peer pressure to "go" witnessing, I did care about the people I met, and I tried to see ways to help or encourage them if I could. I think I only pushed the WOWs in my family to go door to door once or maybe twice all year, due to pressure from "above," and I felt bad doing it. newlife, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm sure you were looking out for the best interests of the people you talked to, and not to those of twi, or it couldn't have been so enjoyable. :) Tzaia, that's one way to get out of it! Too bad about your rollerskates, though. Oldies, you said: By forced I don't mean someone stood over me with a club. I mean forced as contrived, as in a "forced smile." Yes, we had a choice, and usually I chose not to do it. But at times the pressure to go was quite intense and I gave in. Going WOW was a choice for me only in that I volunteered to be in the Corps and going WOW was my interim year assignment. I never had any desire to go WOW. I thought people should be a witness where they lived, unless they had a ministry of an evangelist and felt the need to move somewhere else to fulfill it. I knew I didn't, and therefore I was always uncomfortable about it. Ditto for Lightbearers, only worse. At least I lived in the community where I was a WOW and had the chance to form relationships with people, rather than just shove a green card in their hands and leave town! I certainly didn't view it as trying to get something, either, but I believe that was the push behind all the "going witnessing." I was neither quiet nor lazy, so I didn't need to take part in a fake scenario in order to meet people and talk to them about God. I have thought about it. A lot. No, it's not easy to walk up to someone and talk about God, but there's a reason for that. It's unnatural. Speaking to someone at God's gentle urging is a far cry from circling a mall looking for anyone, just anyone, who will listen. I heartily agree that if it isn't done by free will, as opposed to coercion, that it's worthless. I think if anyone ever came to know God in a shopping mall, that was the exception, and it was God's doing in spite of the flawed approach of the people "witnessing." Oldies, it didn't matter if you cared a fig about the people you met on Lightbearers or not. The fact was you were in a town for 2 weeks, under threat of not being allowed to stay in the Corps if your Lightbearers group didn't "get a class together." Then you were back on your campus, trying to keep up with the busy in-rez schedule and rarely, if ever, got to see the people again. That was BS, plain and simple. Phony, fake, forced, and fear-motivated. I think I had a mindset of being there to help people, but that didn't change the fact that those people would probably never lay eyes on us again. Twinky, a hearty amen to everything you said there. That's exactly what I was trying to get at.

All through my time in twi, I objected to the organization's concept of "going witnessing." I always figured that if God knew someone was ready to hear about Him and His Son, and if I was in the vicinity, God could get us together. To me, going "mall witnessing" and "door-to-door witnessing" was so contrived. I wasn't ashamed of the message or afraid to speak it; I was ashamed to force it on anyone. I could still remember aggressive street-hippie Christians in 1960s Los Angeles accosting me with, "Are ya saved, sister? They always seemed phony to me, and I didn't want to be like them. I know it says in the Bible that they went house to house in the first century. But who ever said they went house to house the way we did in twi? Maybe they just went house to house doing kind things for their neighbors, and then when and if people wanted to know, they told them about Jesus Christ. It was a giving thing, not a "trying to get something" (i.e., a signed green card, another notch on the belt) thing. Going Lightbearers in the Corps was the worst form of contrived "witnessing," IMO. It was nothing more than selling PFAL. I happened to like PFAL, but I sure didn't like blowing into a town, selling "the class," and then blowing out of town. "Yeah, I'll be your friend. For 2 weeks. Then b'bye." Yuck.

exsie said: That's one reason I love ya, my friend. You show so much empathy for others, even others who look at things very differently from how you look at them. Being able to put yourself in other people's shoes and care how they feel is a mighty fine quality.

Good question, brainfixed. I have to leave for work in a couple minutes. I'll give my short answer now, but I won't be able to look in here again until tonight. That was only one positive experience I had with vpw. There were others. There were also plenty of negative experiences I had that could be traced right back to decisions VPW made. I'm not in the camp that thinks everything went south just because vpw died, although lcm did seem to make an art form out of screwing things up more than they already were. So the short answer is that if I hadn't been healed that day, it probably wouldn't have changed my view of my years in twi today. I'd still view it as a mix of good times and bad times. As for where this thread has gone, it's typical, brainfixed. These sorts of threads, on topics that get heated, seem to have a mind of their own, regardless of the good intentions of whoever started them. They just go where they go. And although it saddens me to see people I like getting angry with each other, in a way I think it's healthy for people to say what they really mean instead of tap-dancing around.

TommyZ, that's really great news. I'm glad you found someone to play your music with, without all the interference!

Is that a rhetorical question?

Twinky, I'm glad you found answers here that helped you get past what happened to you. Your getting tossed out was clearly twi's loss and your gain! I have great sympathy for those who were kicked out of twi before they were ready to leave. I can't imagine how much harder that would have been than walking away voluntarily.

Laugh all you like, Ham. It doesn't bother me. I like to deal in facts. One fact is, I was badly injured in a car accident in 1972, and when VPW ministered healing, I had a remarkably rapid, positive, permanent result. I don't really care much how it happened. I'm just thankful that it happened. Here's another fact. I know full well that some of VPW's behaviors/actions were far from fitting for a Christian minister. I am not ignoring or excusing those, nor am I delusional about them. Geisha: I give you an A+ :)

I'm sorry to see you go, especially if your departure was prompted by the actions of another poster here. But if it's a good thing for you, then I'm glad you can take a break for a while. Breaks are good. :) Have a wonderful summer, WG. May your garden grow without weeds!

My pantyhose aren't in a twist, thank you, Rummie. I was really just trying to get you to come out and say what you were saying without being so vague. Guessing is so much more fun anyway!

If it's me, RumR, you may feel free to have at it. I give you my permission. :) Frankly, I think after a few years on here we can predict what a lot of people are going to say before they say it. Exsie, my friend (and I know you know I"m your friend and vice versa), I do see the evil. It's just not all I see. I'm glad you love me anyway, because I sure love you! 'Scuze me. I must go to prepare my next sermon.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at, RumRunner. Without naming names, what are you talking about? You can give examples of behavior/types of posts without naming names. I'm really trying to understand your point here, but your implication or accusation or criticism, or whatever it is, is so vague and veiled that I'm not certain what you mean. I could guess at what you're trying to say, but that leads to nowhere but miscommunication. I'd rather hear you explain it straight out and specifically.

Tzaia said: That is it in a nutshell for me!

Bolshevik said: There's a big problem with your analogy. The people you're comparing to a car full of kids smoking pot are those of us here who have left twi who had some good times. We didn't have good times doing something bad or illegal, or at the expense of others. I can confidently say that most of your average Wayfers were seeking God, trying to help people, and loving each other with pure motives. I don't think I'm unique in saying that my good times in twi weren't at the expense of anyone else. I didn't use and abuse people and then turn around today and say, "Too bad if I hurt someone. So what? I had a good time while doing it." That's what your analogy implies. Speaking just for me, the bad times I had don't negate the good times I had, any more than the good times I had erase the bad times. Nor does the fact that most of my years in twi were good ones disprove or discount anyone else's stories about the bad things they experienced. They don't cancel each other out. Stuff happened. Some was good, some was bad. It's no different than any other period of my life in that respect. Sorry, but I'm not going to be made to feel guilty because I had good times in twi. That guilt rests on the shoulders of those who caused the bad times, not on mine.