chockfull

Mike has too much “sunk cost” or “invested interest” spent in TWI to ever get honest about it. 25 plus years of grooving that same mental rut. It’s kind of like if JR or Vern came on here to discuss. They have the entire life of sunk cost involved with their positions and structure. There is no way they could be even close to objective. That is why the knee jerk response to suggested change is excommunication. That is why that is exactly what they did in response to RnR. There are many things they could do. But the fruit of their lives as leaders is what they choose TO do. No it wasn’t TWI 3 or whatever that is the problem. It is the entire enchilada. Many others have proposed equitable changes. But the pattern seen is to excommunicate all suggesting them. And to ignore them first. For example can you do their programs and classes unrestricted with a mortgage? Why not? There has been more than ample scriptural research presented why saying a rental lease is not debt but a mortgage is debt is twisted logic. And they have backed off to I think allowing AC class participation with a mortgage. But not programs like Corps or Ambassador. They change minimally just barely ahead of legal trends. Just like the Mormons. And that is why Jesus taught the Pharisees children are 3 fold the children of hell that they were. Sunk cost produces egotistical entitled monsters.

Yes when “hunches” bypass clear facts and logic like I posted. Your “hunch” comes from the same place as your labeling of all our activity here “hate”. Simple censorship. No your cult more resembles the KKK than it does Jesus followers. I along with several other clear posters label Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. The cult you follow is involved with making brass images of VPW and placing them in prominent places in life. And then denying the idolatry by inventing “anti idol”. Oh the lengths that your brain jumps to when justifying yourself is hilarious. Irrational. And comical. Unintentionally.

I have a different perspective. No I do not believe Jesus employed an isolationist us versus them approach to leadership. I think you could take a particular instance where he is confronting one of his guys on commitment knowing his individual situation and stupidly expand it and make it an isolationist thing. But that is just one more misinterpretation of a scripture story. No there is not a “godly balanced” brainwashing or removal of personal boundaries or ignoring 90% of the body of Christ. But if you are a conspiracy theorist and believe that 90% is ruled by seed of the serpent men, then an isolationist existence is at least logically consistent. It’s deluded wrong and evil, but logically consistent. Oh and regarding your ad hominem attack describing the Corps turning into a malevolent cult in the 80s when you know I was part of it. f off.

The generic term cult just applies to an assembly of people towards a cause. So the definition is simply terminology and is benign good or evil. Can people be assembled for a good cause? Of course they can. But what we are talking about here is more the common cultural definition of the average person. Like the cult class taught by the young minister he just got down to “it feels culty”. He was meaning in an evil manipulative sense. Meaning that the average person sees questionable behavior in the areas of boundaries and control, in brainwashing, in isolation from families, society, and others with similar causes. Teaching a mandatory tithe as opposed to allowing people to give from their heart like the widow with the mite, that is culty. Doing so with returning no investment into the communities it originates from is culty. Witnessing “the class” and not “Christ” is culty. Making golden images of leaders is culty. Having sales professionals in positions setting quotas for volunteers is culty. Top down control is culty. The Way Corps - is culty Way Ambassadors - is culty PFAL - a brainwash session - is culty. Read all the reasons we easily come up with to avoid it. What is not culty? Grassroots Christianity. Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Studying scripture to better yourself. Witnessing to help people and share Christs love not fulfill a quota for a class by accosting people in malls, at events and through door to door witnessing during targeted planned “witnessing outings”. Allowing people to grow in their worship of God without the controlled Intermediate class bullshonta. Not introducing conspiracy theory as the basis for being “advanced”. Not having positional pyramid structures for Pharisees to climb within “the household”. Interacting with, working with, or accepting input from any other Christians or Christian organizations except their own. Not Patting yourself on the back for “how many decades of spiritual wisdom” you have together in a group of idiots. That is culty. Not Publishing a resume of yourself as a top leader in TWI where you inflate everything you have done as you taking the action when in reality it was saying “yes ma’am” 600,000 times. That is culty. Excommunications. Have been culty since Martin Luther’s time. Haven’t changed. Wow and that’s just some traits off the top of my head. I guess now comes the return question. What about TWI do you feel makes it a “benevolent cult”?

It’s all part of a new theory I have called “absence theory”. You see the absence of rent money caused a couple theologian roommates to start a mail order Bible College. Then the absence of a curriculum and the absence of grades caused the absence of accreditation. This caused the absence of scholarship which left a void. Homiletics as “The Doctor” majored in when he wrote essays plus a void causes plagiarism and the absence of morals. All of this eventually winds up with an absent Christ and a statue and some self published works in place of him.

So which portion of the devil controlled kingdom was it that awarded The Doctor a degree based upon seeing him once and reading a number of essays? Was it the non-curriculum kingdom? Which one of the dancer group was that in the athletes men in tights production?

If you get rid of PLAFT logic then “inspired by God” can really apply to so many things throughout Christianity. Did God breathe Michaelangelos commissioned work on the ceiling or was it a request from a pope? Is famous poetry God inspired? How about music? How about other areas that benefit humankind? I think all the literal breath talk about a figure of speech in scripture is being another brick in the wall.

Bill Gothard and IBLP https://apple.news/AbKZxlZq_SaCUfL5P96aEPA A girl escaping a cult where a man controls them based on Bible interpretation.

Yes this is where you take the VPW idol out of the “Lord” status in your life and instead substitute the real model the true Lord Jesus Christ in for the fake model. Then you start sounding like a Christian and not like a broken record of plagiarized illogic. Then you will be truly free from “welcome home” postcards. Then you won’t have problems understanding how the 10 commandments kind of dovetail into a modern Christian lifestyle without the need for whitewash and a shoehorn.

This is an example of the symptom…

Yes they do. I do. Finding connection post TWI is something I went to therapy for. What I found was that there are plenty of good alternatives out there. Like install the Meetup app on your phone and look locally. And many many other alternatives that I personally had closed the door on due to my cultic mindset and condescending attitude towards those “not in the household”. Once I corrected the doctrinal error in my brain cells put there by PFAL, there were plenty of good alternatives. Others mileage may vary.

This is a possibility. I guess if we read the court case documents and knew what TWI was being sued for in the case we would have a better picture. But make no mistake they are being sued by someone related to the suicide. So it’s not nothing. There are local suicides I read about in the news. There are some I have connections to. But I can’t think of a single one of those situations where the family or anyone connected is suing someone else over it. What is TWI a symptom of? That a sucker is born every minute?

Thx. Of course it's a paywall to see the docs. It seems someone completed suicide and some other person is suing the Way related to it somehow. I guess I'm not quite curious enough to pay uni courts subscription fee.

I know I must have confirmation bias because I keep telling myself I'm a genius.

Oh the irony. They don't have time to fellowship because they are too busy AND important. The link to their website talks about where you can go to church at a persons home. The mixture of the word “fellowship” to be synonymous with “church meeting” really waters down true Christian fellowship at the same time walks all over peoples private boundaries. A “fellowship” is a sanctioned TWi entity with a debt-free coordinator that participates in sts hookups and financially shares with twi. That basically usurps the Biblical Christian definition of the word and fits it into TWIs warped control format. The word “household” is there to further promote the doctrinal error of isolationist logic. Isolationist logic is cult logic. They isolate to control.

Sorry you went through that. Sure there is a privacy issue. No I don't think the family would like an interrogation. I'm an amateur investigative journalist not a paparazzi one. Trying to bring it up w/o being a morbid a hole. Too late probably.

Nor do I. I see tremendous cognitive dissonance pressure on the children of high leaders in TWI and have heard many tales surrounding BGSU. I am asking investigative questions. Doesn’t sound like you know anything or have anything to contribute. That’s fine I’ll keep talking with you if you want. I mean I’m not hearing tales of my kids friends in college in various religious groups completing suicide so I was interested in the story. There was no note left so never classified suicide. But one doesn’t stumble in front of a train so my curiosity is engaged. I could blame it on my wife watching Dateline all the time.

https://www.religioustraumainstitute.com/

I don’t know all the details. What do you know of Bowling Green and TWI? Probably more than one line. I am sure you could say the same about the Tom guy who offed himself because Craig was doing it with the wife. And they did question the attribution to the Way to the point where everyone is convinced they have no culpability maybe the guy would have killed himself anyway. Suicide is attributed to the individual. However look at the Mormon guy I posted about showing increased suicides after the General Assembly of Mormons every year. I am questioning what type of environment is there at BG with all the staff kids such that a 26 yr old HFC would jump in front of a train? In modern reformed times?

I’m grooving to it now. Awesome song and lyrics thanks for the link

https://www.tributearchive.com/obituaries/20519475/Anna-Kelling

We are pretty far behind the times on current news sometimes. This Reddit details out the suicide of Anna Kelling who was a fellowship coordinator and BGSU employee. They did such a good job of covering up this one we never got news of it. I certainly don’t want to cause the family trauma. But if someone has such cognitive dissonance in the Way in current times they are jumping in front of a train then it needs to be highlighted. I will add to thread with other info on the topic.

There is a current fictional crime TV series that explores the Mormons called Under the Banner of Heaven. I watched it and they do an uncanny job of portraying inside and outside thinking and the LDS church. I thought I would post it up as entertainment recommendations for former cult members. If you like the murder mystery stuff then it will connect.

It is uncanny to me the parallels between Mormons and TWI. It’s like the Mormons are the “big brother cult” to TWI. What I mean by that is not that there is any contact or shared doctrine. But the interplay of human nature all working with the leadership organization setup all show the same patterns TWI is going through and coming up with on a larger scale with 17m followers not 5000 ish. Whitewash the cultishness - check. Now they hate the term Mormon and prefer the full LDS title. Looks more Christian. Family values and celestial kingdoms and rules. Looks wholesome to the outside. Hides the politics on the inside. President Nelson is all about winning new people and is hyper focused on building temples all over the world. This magnifies him but he says it magnifies Christ. Meanwhile you have a cult extracting a tithe regardless of anything else for a temple recommendation. It is the epitome of hypocrisy for the bishops to sit with each member and document the tithe while at the same time the riches of the whole Mormon kingdom are not even known but they can spend $100M on the mall closest to their Salt Lake City temple, putting in a retracting ceiling for the comfort of shoppers buying Mormon product. They enrich themselves and their centers and neglect their own poor. I am so glad I took this cult class as it has my mind focusing on patterns of behavior as opposed to the sales pitches involved. Or recognizing the sales pitches. And yes the class teacher fully admits in the intro that there is no specific definition for a cult that holds true across examples. Just patterns of behavior. And the overall feel of overstepping boundaries that should be in place for normal people.

Look seeing people censor information is nothing new. On the exmormon Reddit there are multiple accounts on a weekly basis of families whose kids bring up the facts in cesletters and the families shut them down refusing to even look at the facts. The Q15 has adequately convinced people that due to the superstition they injected that the facts on that website are somehow tainted because the source hasn’t been approved by leadership. So superstition keeping people blind is actually an age old tactic. Call some element “evil” or “hate based” and then it is a rationalization to not consider the facts involved. Oh and then VP covered that too teaching that facts are man made but spiritual truth is God made. Look VP was part good part evil like any man. Due to his narcissistic nature though he built things up around himself. He grew entitled, enjoyed “the good life” based on a wild spending of other people’s money including motor coaches and airplanes. The big airplane was never really needed. Then it fell apart but left a nest egg that other lowlifes have latched onto and created a system and organization to keep them living “the good life”. But the problem is that to keep that going on they had to whitewash the image of VP. It is very clear in human nature that crimes of cover up often easily exceed the original crimes in magnitude. So cover up the adultery the lying and stealing and the unstable prima donna behavior. So TWI 4 is basically 3 generations of covering up the “1942 promise” and has led to greater and greater evil impact just due to the nature of the original. And they are 100% blind keeping the same tactics as ever with sales professionals at the top setting sales goals for volunteers and then all the little hamsters on all the little wheels running their little hearts out to “run another class and double the numbers by each one reach one”. So no all the people who gave up their youth pursuing a previous version of that coverup story aren’t keen to sacrifice another round of suffering for nostalgia sake. This one is more keen to keep distance and keep telling the truth regardless of the exercising hamsters.