chockfull

sky, Sorry for your friend. It's not fair good people get their lives ruined. And best wishes for you in your life and in coping with grief.

They don't. Both get shot down somewhere over North Korea ;)

We just wish that those who destroy nuclear families would die before the families they separate. We can only dream.

While I agree with this and know it is sound advice, the whole scenario just makes my blood boil. Who the F do these people think they are to hold families hostage to their corrupt organization, beliefs, and practices? And they call that Christian? It's just further proof of how despicably wrong and deluded these people are.

Actually one of the only things that contains their evil is the threat of legal action.

While I very much respect all of penworks post and analysis, these 2 paragraphs of it are what hits home most to me. I do believe that the geniune element we experienced in TWI was due to a Christian mindset by those involved, a desire to delve into scriptures more in depth, a desire to "commit" oneself to God more fully, and a sense of community established by at least the outward appearance of those elements. Yes at the top it was based upon deception, but I believe God is bigger than the character flaws of man and rewarded us for our genuine hearts and involvement. I also believe that the "Law of Believing" elements taught and promoted by TWI contain elements of delusional avoidance that promote a positive attidude but do nothing towards genuinely solving real life problems. Positive confession is generally a good practice to maintain the proper perspective of thinking to succeed in life and overcome problems. Yet too often that mindset gravitates towards a Christian Scientist viewpoint of thinking your broken arm is healed because you see it and confess it. Keep a practical evaluation on all of your spiritual beliefs. It will add to you overall quality of life.

What a j@ck@$$. It used to be that you could ask people to give you "Chapter and Verse". Now with all the power hungry little mongrels they don't listen to scripture and the only importance is kissing the foot of the next one up the ladder in the food chain to preserve their little power base. Now the doctrine doesn't even have to be remotely Christian based or scripturally backed as long as the right authority supports it. That said I can understand and appreciate your situation. Standing up to false authority and extracting yourself from under it with your family and sanity intact is a tall order...

"Good 'ole days" - people looking for a "feeling" they had they experienced in their youth. This feeling is not an accurate representation of reality.

One interesting thing about chronic and sociopathic liars is that the lies they tell take on a life of itself and they really convince themselves in their own mind that their stories are true. Like Joseph Smith, a known crackpot and tall story teller who was visited by an angel and ordered to found the Mormon religion, sociopaths of this level believe in the power of their own stories, as throughout their lives they prove to be their means to success, power, money, fame. They spin control every story to convince themselves. I would bet Wierwille made the gas pumps story up in his mind, and convinced himself it was true. Don't follow the Pied Piper.

For me over time and perspective I came to realize that my relationship with God didn't start in TWI, and didn't end when I left. The problem was with the people and the organization, not me. What they taught me was how to be a Pharisee, not how to be a Christian.

The choreography and gayness of the music is yet not healed....

What's really funny is I read Donnie's doctoral thesis once - in Anderson library. It was all to do with rennovating and upgrading the Emporia College to the Way College of Emporia. Oh the irony.

Actually, having the decade long titles is the lazy man's way out from having to come up with anything original. This way they can keep recycling the same snoozefest teachings for another 10 years. So.... Living the Word's Way in Outreach can be recycled from Decade of Prevailing in Outreach You see, now instead of having to take an honest look at the strategy and seeing actually what was accomplished in the "Decade of Prevaialing" in outreach, they can just change the title, bring out the old notes, update a few terms from "Prevailing" to "Living the Word's Way" and voila, 10 more years of boring people to sleep. I could suggest an improvement. They could call this 10 years "How to Do More With Less". Then it would be actually accurate. Less people, less money, less jobs, less health, less excitement. See - "How to Do More With Less in Outreach". Awesome. Accurate. No, actually it should be "Prevailing upon the Sufficiency of Any Living or Dead Relative". That would be the only way they'll buy a house and the only way many members keep cars fixed and stay out of debt. Unless of course you're on the Prez Cabinet, then your 80k+ salary siphoned off the hamsters on the wheel can prevail to sufficiently purchase you a nice fixer-upper in the thriving metropolis of New KneeKnocksville.

People do not have that power. Position is attained through political maneuvering as with any company, government, etc. Those in office have Machiavellian traits. They ought to go to churches to learn not to judge their brothers and sisters, act elitist, and be Pharisees. The idea of the small autonomous group is one of the few genuine things TWI has had to offer in its history. They are better if not under the authority of a group. Some orgs have run with that, like Promise Keepers and others. Her leadership style builds lemmings. What do lemmings do? They run off cliffs. It's inevitable.

She maintains her position by eliminating any dissenting opinion. You know, kind of like Stalin and Lenin did? It's not an elected office that people can vote her out of. She brought in Pl@t1g because he kissed booty well, then demoted him later. She has a bobblehead crew in office now. She cans, demotes, marks and avoids, defames and slanders those she doesn't like and keeps in lock-step those that comply. "Toning things down" - interesting there. She retained 100% of the structure of the foundational class from when LCM refilmed it. Yet she eliminated "crazy" doctrine. Now all the earthquake and methane gas stuff was a little less substantiated. But the interesting part she removed was all references to homosexuality in the class. Now Craig's rants on it were out of line, and closing with Romans 1 was not congruent. But she removed all that stuff, including any reference to it in the Eve teaching. That certainly turned the spotlight off her and Donna, and others like that around. She won't post her picture on TWI's website for fear of someone from her background "discovering" her. Music and productions she's taken from being relatively decent Christian music to elevator music drivel that is openly mocked on The Soup. Publications the same. Teachings the same. Advances the same. Anything she touches and "organizes" basically has the life sucked out of it and is left a structured shell. She has visions of bringing all the Corps in who trained under previous leaders to see "the heart of HQ". No leaders ever go out from HQ to help develop work anywhere. Only on secretive missions. In many ways she is much worse than either of her predecessors. With them you could see the problems right out front.

More likely people with doctorate degrees are too educated and accomplished to put up with the so-called "research" standards and too independant to be bullied around.

I swear people will lie, cheat, steal and probably murder someone all the while justifying it with those words. It's despicable.

Marriage is work and involves both parties working to keep themselves attractive and sexually involved with one another. It's not solely the woman or the man's responsibility or only worth in life. When that fails there are a myriad of excuses and blame games played, and it can be that the failure is upon one party and not the other but many times it is a joint failure. There's no excuse for not living the Song. Especially when there are children involved whose future relationships depend on your example.

I think in certain areas they are pushing to keep the numbers the same or show slight increases. So they try and talk a couple families back into attending so they can record them on their books and justify their measly existence and salary they draw. They'll leave these people alone and if they attend once every month or two they can still be on the books. By no means is this an across the board net numbers increasing. That hasn't happened in decades. But since they count and recount numbers every month, it's a way to try and show numbers on paper.

Sure. I'm glad to know certain truths such as these. I'm also glad to know that TWI isn't where I learned 90% of them. I'm also glad to know facts and truths about TWI leaders so that I can evaluate the fruit of their lives as opposed to simple truths they taught, because Jesus taught that you know people by their fruit. I'm glad to know about wolves in sheep's clothing. Anybody else?

Living the Word's Way : Making God our Sufficiency To understand this bit of crusty old boring drivel involves both the theme and RFR. You see, there is no new light strategically at TWI. RFR is an old English teacher at retirement age, and doesn't have the energy to steer an organization or come up with any genuine strategic plan. However, she still is among the most controlling people ever to live and every single decision will absolutely run through her until she kicks off or some other BOD person manages to implant lips upon behind enough to convince her that they will carry out her will to the T. They go back to the PFAL collaterals. The scandal tainted anything LCM ever did, and they are far too controlling to ever approve any new research. So what is left? Worshipping the structure, teachings, and writings that brought them there. It's a canning process - inject the preservatives, hang on to the money, and try and preserve the "legacy our Father in the Word" left them. The Word's Way ties in anything they do to the collaterals, which basically are a 10th grade level group of distilled sermons and magazine arcticles by VPW. All their teachings, writings, even the "Adv. Class Special" is all collaterals. They will not approve anything else, and every teaching and writing goes through many levels of editing and approvals before being allowed to be presented. Now it's all basically making an idol out of VPW - you have the statues, you have the dumbed down teaching, and they can sweep under the carpet all the old sex scandals and say that was just LCM. Sure - make a dumb idol out of the old lecherous plagiarist and worship his sermons and writings. Why? Oh of course because RFR presided over the Publications through a lot of that. You see, the adversary is a parasite. There is never any genuine growth - he always has to leech of something that is already there. It can look organized down to a "T". It can look polished. It can look positive, controlled, advancing. But THERE IS NOTHING GENUINELY THERE. Even a strategic look - it's OLD. I used to hear sayings like "It's a big ship and it takes time to turn it", and "It's a world-wide ministry" - all statements overhyping the importance of these little Napolean's positions. And then I'd look to the business world and see companies 1000s of times larger than TWI redefining themselves in a matter of a year or two. All to go where the times are changing. TWI's leadership is physically, mentally, and morally incapable of defining a new strategic direction. They are so encapsulated with protecting their little universes that they will never climb out enough to mount any kind of initiative. And RFR is a lesbian Stalin (how's that for imagery) - trapped by who she is, controlling down to the littlest detail and identifying and killing off anyone with enough gumption to present an idea contrary to hers. It's a huge hamster wheel that people burn their whole lives running on without ever going anywhere or ever waking up to see they're not going anywhere. "Making God Our Sufficiency?" - sure - God takes care of hamsters on wheels too, even if it's their blood that's sustaining the parasite.

That's a lie that there's no more Mark and Avoid. They call it "spiritual probation" and put people on it for whatever reasons the BOD decides. I know of people that have had that happen in the past few years. They aren't allowed to attend any fellowship or ministry events, but are encouraged to continue to send in their tithes and abundant sharing to TWI, as well as purchase and listen to their teaching tapes. All followers treat the probation exactly identically to Mark and Avoid - no contact, phone calls, won't talk to if seen in public, etc. The "kinder gentler" organization is a two-faced public front they will put on to try and pretend that things are different. They are not. Can a leopard change its spots? Neither can the BOD change who they are on their knees before. And it isn't God.

And those "prophets" are false prophets. They are false apostles. There is no new light in TWI - there hasn't been for a long time. Even the light which was purported to be new was stolen from others. Those leaders act all pompous and authoratative. They are nothing. They only lead you because you allow them. They are worse than the average Christian you can meet in a local church, in your community, anywhere. Don't let their false posturing and posing intimidate you. Take back your freedom. this

That's OK. I'll b1tch sl@p a leprechaun just as quickly. ;)

TWI is a pristine example of how censorship is marshalled. I remember how in the Adv. Class they brought up Communist China, and how the Communist government would alternate between purges and encouraging free speech. There would be a period of time where they would encourage free speech that they used mostly to identify those with different ideas than the government. They would pretend to be interested in hearing other opinions to make the government better. However, in reality they used those periods to catalog those people. Then they would go through a purge where they eliminated all those with the boldness to speak out. TWI has always functioned in this manner. They value blind unquestioning obedience above all else. They mark those that speak out, and whether the free speech is Biblically based or not, they target them. Then they go to work on attacking them, and the whole mark and avoid tactic is used. They blackball people and lie about them. They also do this with people's positions. They use the club of positions or status to keep people in lock-step with them. This manner of functioning is EVIL. And it is completely against the whole freedom based tenets of Christianity. And it is also completely against the tenets of the United States of America and free speech that is the cornerstone of America. At least here still in Congress you can have a representative yell out "You Lie" to the President of the US and still retain their job and not be executed. What do you think would happen to a person attached to TWI if they did that in a meeting where the BOD spoke? Or any leader? That's why my message to those still involved in TWI is TAKE BACK YOUR FREEDOM. Don't let it be stolen away a little at a time.