chockfull

I agree that the Way International teaches Holocaust denial and in that is anti-Semitic. To be completely accurate this is not literally taught in their classes and services, but rather ad hoc additional material they teach their Corps leadership and Adv. Class students, and the general view held by their leadership. I think VPW's bug up his rear was more to do with the amount of budget spent annually on protecting Israel as a nation from surrounding nations in our day and time. He would quote Arthur Koestler's "Thirteenth Tribe" on that and express distaste as he said they were not the same as the Israel of the Bible. As I said he was a known conspiracy theorist, at least by those who apply critical thinking. I personally reject those teachings. The Holocaust was real. And the rest of the conspiracy theory was just VPW being a little Napolean with a paranoia complex. Now that has transferred down very well to his successors.

Now there's something TWI is good at. So Levitical law in the Torah is eternal. What about all of the laws regarding sacrifice? Do we still offer up a lamb of the first year, and bring it to the Levites? Do we still sprinkle blood on our door openings as part of the Passover? One challenge with upholding the letter of the law is that it was originally revealed in a much different day and time and society. What laws govern the use of the Internet, for example? Automobiles? Pollution? Cloning? This is an issue with law. Certainly the heart and intent of God with respect to His children remains unchanged. In that I see the Torah as eternal truth. However when you have actual physical details to carry out to uphold it, then it starts becoming subject to man's intervention. Like you mentioned about death being replaced by disfellowship. A man made that determination. Another one will make similar determinations about the appropriate replacement for blood on door jambs, and on and on, including automobiles, pollution, cloning, the Internet, dancing. The inherent problem is not eternal truth. It is man. You see that's how the generational evolution of the Way International has gone. One dynamic charlatan with a degree mill doctorate specializing in homiletics, a bunch of hippies, the post Vietnam free love era, then people growing up and it turning gradually more and more into legalism. Many naieve and excited at the start, and a few left trying to protect their little plot of land and positions at the latter end. Jesus / Yeshua came to fulfill the law, to complete the law. He encapsulated all of the 10 commandments into two - love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. He is the law now, not the blood we sprinkle on a door jamb.

thx Ham - it ties right in to the anti semitic questions.

Yeah, the Greek comes into play there - the word for "scribe" is Grammatikos, I believe. You get too wound up in the minutae and you don't see the forest for the trees, and strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. Good point.

UUNET - 1987 - 1996. USENET alt.* discussion groups were prevalent until the WWW started ramping up, which still was very small through 1992-even 1996. AOL had their spam CD's - one in every trash can. Your summary and point are accurate. It's with the widespread bandwidth we have now that people's actions are hidden a whole lot less than they used to be. And that is a real problem for the cults.

One other question regarding the eternal nature of the Torah. What of all of the laws that pertain more to civil government that are handled currently by secular government as opposed to spiritual leadership? What of dietary laws?

Discussion carried over from the other HRV thread. I don't believe I was arguing that before Messiah's death Gentiles were just fuel for gehenna. What I was discussing was that they did not have access into the Holy of Holies. That is different. That is High Priest access. Reserved for once a year access for the chief priest of the Levites. Your examples show God's heart for others not of the nation of Israel through OT times. They are accurate. Others I can think of are God protecting the Philistines and their army prospering when David was hiding out from Saul. Moses married an Ethiopian woman. The illustration and teaching of the torn veil are that God does not desire a barrier between Himself and His children. It only has been in place there due to the hardness of their hearts. He desires His children to know Him face to face as Moses did. And He provided a plan, an atonement sacrifice, a scapegoat who was pure without blemish to be killed to atone for the sins of all who would accept the Messiah. Whether Jew or Gentile. I suppose in one sense you could consider all Gentiles among "the most distant tribes". They are spoken of as a branch grafted in on a tree.

Sure, James. The Myth of the Six Million was a book on the Way Corps recommended reading list. Also commonly taught was that the diary of Anne Frank was a forgery. Also, the book The Thrteenth Tribe was on that recommended reading list. If you're not familiar with that book, its conclusions were that the modern Jewish community were more accurately descendants of the Khazar empire that occupied the Middle East around 1000AD and throughout the time of the Crusades, and as an empire adopted the Jewish religion. So the accusation of that book was that the bloodline was not literally pure from Abraham, but an adopted one. Of course public knowledge of these things would draw great opposition from the Semitic community and a direct label of Anti-Semitism. And I'm sure in a certain sense that label is warranted. My personal take on it was that it was more that Dr. VPW was kind of a "conspiracy theory" nut in many ways than it was an actual hate for Jewish descendants. He also was a fan of teachings on the "Illuminati". I don't think that current or ex followers of the Way largely have an attitude of hate or distaste against Jews. More of an elitist mentality overall.

What it represents in all gospel accounts is that now the Gentiles, through Jesus Christ's sacrifice, have access into the Holy of Holies which they could not possibly previously have access to without being Jews. It represents now that all common people who accept Jesus Christ have the same access to God that only the High Priest had under the Law. Did you pick that up? That makes sense to me. All of the "harmony of the gospels" work to me has seemed in many places to be tedious, problematic, and to require stretches of logic. That's why I said I don't know to the exact sequence of events, but thought the more important point was what that represented and continues to represent.

From my recollection, that word "sponsee" started out in Forehead and Donna's house describing their home life and how they handled children's chores when they taught their version of the "Christian Family" class. Which, seeing as how all that turned out is probably one great reason to never use it again in my lifetime in the context of that meaning.

Godspeed, Jeff. Your voice here has helped others, even if you have been putting yourself back together in the process.

Honestly, I don't know. And I don't know if one or the other is figurative. I would lean towards the Matthew record being figurative because of the nature of the gospel and the other things going on in that verse. But I do know the significance of the act is recorded in both. And it represents the same thing in both.

Sure - there's a good academic case for the Pauline epistles being written in Aramaiac first, then translated to Greek later with the help of Timothy who was half Greek natively. To me from a Pauline perspective that doesn't really address all the direct need for the Torah and ensuing minutae, although that's not criticizing the Law. I mean do we really need to build archways to our neighbor's houses to ensure the Sabbath is preserved such as some of the kosher Jews do? Paul himself had to deal with all of those that were "zealous for the Law" towards the end of Acts, and would not succomb to some of their demands. Paul himself, a Jew of Jews, was called to his main ministry to the Gentiles. That to me speaks louder than anything as to the veil being ripped in half to the holy of holies.

Actually the word bitter is an intriguing study. It occurs throughout the Bible including Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Revelation. Can there be that which is bitter in the belly yet tastes sweet in the mouth? I'll leave that to the Biblical scholars. But with the way collective blindness works in TWI, the word bitter's only worth is to discount the truth of someone telling them what they don't want to hear. You know, kind of like someone telling you when reproving them that what you said was true, but because you didn't say it "in love" it wasn't true. But let the blind be blind and those that want to see see.

What do you witness? The Lord Jesus Christ? Or the Way? Or is there no difference in your mind? You know, maybe if you just ignore all the evil in the Way, your life can make a difference. You can spend the next 20 or 30 years making it better. After all, it's your calling, right? You have this fantastic, beautiful new wine skin that will make all the difference in the world. The taste that is there left from RR, JR, etc. can't be brushed out.

So is selling crack.

James seems to be of the Messianic Jewish persuasion. I am more of a Gentile background. Jesus gave his life for both of us.

There are other ways to know: 1) The fruit of their lives and what is produced 2) Personal experience 3) The testimony of witnesses You assume we're evil and we hate the Way Corps. You assume they are the best. Maybe some of these other people are good people. And yet the longer they have been around the greater the likelihood they have had to compromise themselves to maintain their positions. The ideals behind the Way Corps are good. The tenets involved are good. What is evil is how the leadership of TWI uses those ideals in the hearts of good people to accomplish their own political aspirations and motives. How they trade in the flesh of people is evil. How they lie, cheat and steal to accomplish their aims is evil. And when the spotlight gets put on their personal lives which they make gargantuan efforts to ensure that it is not, the evil comes out somewhere. Why do you think Rosalie is such an obsessively private person? Why is lesbianism widespread and accepted at HQ? Why is there a huge problems with alcoholism among teens at HQ? It's not that way elsewhere. I love the basic tenets of the Way Corps. I just have to live them elsewhere because the Way doesn't deserve my life. I voted with my feet. The ideal of cp3 is throughout the program including diet and exercise. It's basically healthy. And many people like your acquaintance in CA do both those things and have for years, just genetics aren't conducive. She wouldn't make it back through the program though as it is now. There are many honest and naive people being used to perpetuate something that is evil. You can't put new wine into an old wineskin.

Well, of course you're not going to know the exact reasons. Directors will speak of it in private in their little meetings, and deny an application being sure to give a reason that is legally defensible and non-discriminatory. They won't tell you about it. And you will never know the evil that is in their hearts unless you are exposed to it. And you will never believe that it is there until you are exposed to it. And yet it is still there. The voices that bear witness to that are true and God hears them even if you don't. They will reap what they sow.

The biggest double talk present throughout the whole organization is people who like to say "love you", and then by their actions and fruit of their life treat you worse than your average general acquaintance, co-worker, or neighbor. And who are so blind they will never see this until the Lord Jesus Christ points it out to them when he comes back.

No offense, but I choose to avoid "beautiful Ohio, where dreams come true".

So because someone stated accurately that the Lead duo was done behind Founders and didn't specify that it was only that way for one year in a transition period this is why there is so (many times repeated) much misinformation here? Did they train you in how to perform large leaps of logic like this in your in-residence training? There's an underlying truth here that is worth examining. Rosie along with her large rear are ensuring low amounts of risk in insurance and liability to cover her large rear. So first the fact that she has a large rear AND she is not allowing other people with large rears in the training program is what the Bible calls "hypocrisy". A little humor there And besides the humor, that is how Jesus taught us to recognize Pharisees. They are hypocrites. They place large burdens upon other people they themselves won't lift a finger to help with. But secondarily and this actually is serious, BillyG. This pattern is that the Way absolutely does not care about your life and continues to do what's in its own organizational interests only. They will lie, cheat, steal and excuse their actions with reasoning it is "so the ministry be not blamed". Yes, top leaders will lie directly to your face. The politics at the way are worse than any corporation because people there actually believe they are acting for God. It is the worst of human nature, and worse than the world will ever treat you. As you can read on the placements thread by OS, your life is at the whim of a group of people who themselves have questionable morals. So as long as you're young, fit the corporate image, and do what you're told you're fine. But if you start having ideas and communicating them about how to make the Way better, if you have personal or family needs, if people don't like you and complain, you will be used and cast off like the vast majority of the people who entered the Corps training. What is the attrition rate there? 95%?? Greater?? I used to look on that with pride and ego to think I was part of the few, the proud, the "high quality". But all it really means is a pattern of top TWI leadership not taking care of their best people. I remember RR teaching some BS about her sailing lessons, and trying to sound profound about how you look at the trail behind your boat to see how well you're steering. Well lady, the trail behind your boat is littered with bodies. And it's the same with your cronies. So go bury your head back in the sand. The information that's here you don't want to hear, even though it is the truth.

Dr. Trimm, After reading through your documents, I wanted to say congratulations on firmly trouncing Rosalie's lawyers in court. The ease of which you were able to do this is undoubtedly due to your decades of authentic diligent effort in translation work done on the HRV. I actually look forward to obtaining a copy after further reading about your work. The Way is just playing a self protection game. Out of all of their followers, classes, fellowships, there are probably less than 5% of their people that have actually read their Aramaiac translation or even used them in any context. And it's very clear in their depositions they use double-talk, inconsistency, and outright lies to protect themselves. They are not a group of leaders that cares about truth, they are a group of leaders that cares about self-preservation and self-protection, including assets. Their attachment to the work done by many people they have kicked out simply goes to protecting the legitimization of their organization as having roots in Biblical research. You yourself are a far more diligent scholar than any the Way has currently employed, and more than any except a handful they've ever employed. Best of wishes to you. Shalom!

Actually, when you think about it, that was probably his way to try and discourage any of the husbands of the women he committed adultery with from coming after him and stretching out his sorry hide.

The red thread, first taught by Oral Roberts in a sermon entitled "The 4th Man" about the angel appearing in the fire with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. There used to be a footnote reference to the source in the Adv. Class - at least they used to actually play the tape of that sermon. Then it migrated to the Foundational Class, with all footnotes or the source deleted. Plagiarize, then assimilate. Then eventually everyone will think they came up with it.