potato

with religion, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. unfortunately, power-hungry narcissists in religion will always seek out victims and do what it takes to recruit them. I'm equally thankful for freedom of religion in america. everyone should be able to make their own choice to worship, or not.

OM, now you're making sense. when you were using twi's definition of "the ministry" you weren't. there are still good people who choose for whatever reason to stay with twi. the ones I personally know don't have any respect for the BOT, however, because they recognize the organization is corrupt. they're far less likely to fall for this new volunteer program than the people who believe that twi is "the ministry" and that the BOT actually care about the people drinking the koolaid.

your analogy has continued to break down, OM. you're now comparing obligatory service to twi via their new "volunteer" program (which was part of the original topic of this thread) with compensated employment with a corporation/agency. I can bring the right attitude to my job wherever that may be, as they are my masters in the flesh which is absolutely a different kettle of fish according to the bible. that still does not make obligatory servitude to twi synonymous with serving "the ministry", nor does it make twi's history irrelevant.

ok, now your meaning is clear. back in your original post you seemed to be using "the ministry" and "twi" as synonymous terms. in fact, reading your post without the assumption of synonymous use leads to illogical conclustions, as "serving the ministry" IS the same thing as "serving the lord" if you recognize that "the ministry" is a calling to serve the lord and therefore independent of any organized "ministry" or church. your usage of "the ministry" confused the issue, since clearly the meaning of "the ministry" given to all christians cannot be a single corporation as your usage in your original post implied. and anyway, none of that reasoning gets around the issue of compulsory service to twi, the corporate monster (regardless of whether any of the program's stupid requirements allows anyone time to do any actual ministering).

everyone in twi must make twi their master, and you hit it right on the head when you say "according to the flesh", only it's without pay or other compensation. it's not optional. twi is not "the ministry". serving twi doesn't mean you serve the ministry. it just means you serve a corporation with its own agenda, which you would now have to prove is exactly, without exception, an agenda of serving the lord rather than the flesh. there's just way too much evidence of the flesh being the standard of rule and practice in twi to assume that twi is committed to serve the lord. I'm not saying there aren't ministers in twi. I maintain, however, that twi tends to choke the life out of their followers' ability to minister.

this doesn't really work, OM. the definition of "the ministry" is different depending on whether you're inside TWI or outside. inside, every suggestion of leadership is a commandment of god. you don't serve "the ministry" by blindly obeying mog whims. christians are called to minister, which makes how they spend their time ministering their own business. ministry is separate and independent of TWI, and one thing I know is that doctrines of TWI and the people TWI called "ministers" crushed the souls of the faithful and choked the true ministries of a lot of good people. people who truly minister don't tend to stay inside TWI because TWI eventually flushes them out, or keeps them on the fringes and labels them troublemakers (they're the ones who are still my friends). frankly, I don't know how they can stomach it, but I know they have their reasons.

great, this sounds like another one of those "redeeming the times" type programs that I got to live under, ruled by a fascist minimog who controlled every second of my life with schedules and reports and I hadn't even signed up for anything. now you can sign up for the micromanagement of your life by some nosey, power-hungry jerk so they can point out all the ways you're falling short because you scheduled a nap but cleaned your house instead. bleah, I'm so glad to be away from that stuff.

I was in for 20 years and never heard that one.

I have to admit that once I had one foot out the door of twi, I've gotten roaring drunk more than once with my sister and had good times, and slept on her couch, which is the best place to stay after drinking wine all night. I guess I had to figure out what my limits are... sometimes one, sometimes three, sometimes who cares?

good for you, raf. I thought about holding on to a copy of each, for reference, especially the syllabi, but frankly thinking about twi doctrine is such a drain I think I'll follow in your footsteps and throw mine out. that would be a truly fresh start.

thank you for that. I don't play well with bullies

yes, it was a while back. I remember feeling so angry over it because of the way Ed dogged his employees all the time to hurry up, I figured Jon was trying to get the job done too quick and died trying. lots of people had accidents from Ed pushing them too hard. I feel like it was inevitable that sooner or later someone would lose their life working for him.

for the love of pete! I've hardly been around for months and the first thing I see is the same old derailment routine from White Dove about all the crimes "allegedly" committed by twi leadership that no one bothered to take to court because they weren't "interested" at the time. wtf. same old close-minded victim bashing. it takes a lot more than interest to fight sick and twisted abusers. I bet that little girl who was abused was afraid for a long time... it wasn't lack of interest that made her keep it a secret for so long. I think it was the same for the women raped by vpw and lcm, and for the wives who were battered and emotionally controlled by their koolaid drinking husbands. it's hard enough to walk out, much less take it to a court of law, when you'd been mentally attacked and controlled for years. religious rapists are like family rapists, they're close to their victims, making it easier to control them and make them ashamed and afraid to report the crime.

mxrk wxllxce broke the law in Colorado when he didn't report domestic abuse involving children.

I hung in for 5 years waiting for them to own up to the evil inside, but instead I watched the whitewashing erase history from people's minds and experienced hypocrisies to a stunning degree. I left because twi grossly misrepresents itself and its leaders are liars, and I risked death at the hands of the "adversary" to get me and my kids out. grudge? nah, why would I regret or be angry about wasting 20 years of my life in a donations mill?

omg rascal, thanks for the laughs today! I had some unhappy news today and reading your posts made me LOL, now I feel a lot better

why is it when people discuss the history of the cult twi and it's leader's personalities, attitudes, and works, they are labeled as bitter and unforgiving? just because I talk about something negative, and even if I'm still angry about it, doesn't mean I'm bitter. and btw, some of us aren't followers of Jesus, so telling us we want to forgive everyone because he did is a ridiculous commandment. he did ask God to forgive many wrongdoers, but were those individual cases, or is "forgive everyone for doing evil to you" a blanket commandment? I can get to a point where I accept the things that happened and that either 1. the person did evil out of misplaced loyalty and is capable of better actions, or 2. the person neither was nor is capable of doing spiritually genuine good (those people who do what rascal points out are works of the flesh while they are rotten inside.) I can accept and move on without "forgiving" them. forgiveness I reserve for those who realize their error and work to change their wrongs, not for people who use others and throw them away. as far as I'm concerned, they're spiritual trash, but really only God knows who is wheat and who is chaff and he's big enough to forgive someone who deserves it even if I can't, so I'm not going to worry about not forgiving the leadership who spiritually (and sometimes literally) raped their followers in twi or those people who directly had a hand in destroying my life and never made amends for it because they think they did the right thing.

apparently he didn't forbid vpw and lcm.

I was never M&A'd but I lived through a time when people were dropping like flies and it was usually for buying something that came with debt (ike a guy I knew who bought a new truck without the RC's permission), or for verbally challenging leadership (happened to a couple I knew when the husband didn't show m. f@rt due deference) and another friend's parents were M&A'd for putting their relationship and family above some stupid leadership directive to break up their family.

some things I wonder about, but am not interested in finding out by first hand experience... it's been established to my satisfaction that vpw and lcm did very little research and that others supplied the "word" that they twisted and put their name on, so... Wayne was heading up the twi research dept. if I remember correctly, for a while. does he teach his own research from that period of time? if the body of work that vpw taught as his was pieced together from a myriad of other researchers, does he really have a ministry that can be carried on, or are these men carrying on the "work" of his "ministry" also simply plagiarists of all those who were plagiarized by vpw? did lcm come up with any research on his own? did he really write the rise and expansion book, and if he did, did he do the research for it? (note: that was pretty much hands down the most badly written text book I've ever read. I couldn't finish it.)

thanks for your post, Bingo. glad you made it out and back to humanity!

I'm against ANYONE who molests anyone.... and it's not forgetting as much as having to make it go away to bear what they do to you and being helpless to stop it. some of them spoke up and were called liars. if something that bad happens to a kid and they are told they're the ones doing evil, it warps their mind. I was raised athiest and A.T.W.I. (after the way international) I married a catholic boy.

wow. that is amazing! eerie.

oh no, not Will Smith!! damn I had such a crush on him.

my understanding is that group took over one of the major cult awareness information sources so people looking for legitimate cult info get to talk to scientologists instead. my info is a couple of years old now, so I don't know what's going on currently.