chockfull

Excellent article with well developed thoughts and references. The things I refer to in slang about are referenced in footnotes here. Yes I concur with your conclusions 1. TWI was never a research ministry 2. Fundamentalism is damaging The body of Christ is much larger and less limited than the farm cult in Ohio worshipping a VP statue.

I guess you must have either been asleep, missed, or ignored all of the discussion between the RNR group, the mark and avoid by TWI 4 leadership. Or you have an agenda to cover up those facts and proselytize.

The last time anyone would have coffee with the group that shunned them is never. Put that in your golden calf VPW statue and produce some incense. Even if it smells bad at least it’s doing something rather than sitting there.

What I try to imagine as a mental exercise is to form an opinion that comes from outside of PFAL and it’s influences. I mean even by your fodder in da verd THE apostle for our day and time he recognized that there are Christians outside the Way. They use GASP materials that aren’t sold in TWI bookstore. They read “commentaries” oh how devilish. They watch other denominational teachings. Oh how horrible returning to other ideas after drinking the snowstorm KoolAid. They need to be labeled real quick. Oh I know I can invent “anti idol” as a term not known since the first century. And talk about hate. See just like da fodder in da verd. I know it’s hard to think outside that box. I know you can only concentrate for 10 sec at a time on anything not directly from the collaterals. But hey great indirect apology for David, who God told directly he would not inherit the kingdom due to his acts. It makes the same great excuse for TWI 1,2,3 which are replete with that nonsense.

“Gift ministries” is another twisting of the scriptures. It matches up well with young egos and fiefdoms. Christs body doesn’t have a hierarchical tier. There is no Q12 of “apostles” like the Mormons teach, nor are there these elite creatures who walk above water with golden calf VPW statues on their desk or Way Corps seals with the salt of the tears of their covenant imbedded that are “apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers” Break those down: Pastors and teachers - most of what leaders in Christian denominations call themselves. Care for people, teach, be what most consider a minister. Apostles - always viewed as “top dog” usually an ethereal idea - “new light” to a day and time? This is a fictional ministry that only cult leaders achieve. Prophets - jerks in the OT with many opinions and few friends. A different viewpoint provides strength. But wtf is a NT prophet? Evangelists - a few fabled people are tagged with this. We used to have tent meetings all over the world for these types - typified in the Steve Martin movie “Leap of Faith”. Nobody ever tagged with this in modern times I was aware of in TWI. So I believe the gift ministry teaching of TWI to be every bit as flawed and inaccurate as their manufactured “Lo shanta” instructions. Ministering to people is an act. Being loving and helping people is a gift. Idiots who behave like puffer fish are puffer fish.

You know the more I look into it the less I even think TWI leadership believes the KoolAid snowstorm promise. Mrs W left it out of her book. Elena Whiteside’s hippy crush account is really the only written record of it, and TWI removed that from the bookstore. So if there was no Kool Aid snowstorm promise, then all of VPs efforts really amount to plagiarizing the most stuff in the least amount of time that will get people hooked. If they don’t believe he was a prophet to lead us thru 1st century KoolAid snowstorms, then what do they believe? He was a motivated guy to start a cult? He assembled well? His copy skills were second to none?

Wikipedia - you know that has evolved into the new encyclopedia that they used to sell door to door. I like it. You used to not be able to use it in school as a paper source but that changed in the last decade. I always do a Wikipedia check on things. I think TWI goes round and round about their Wikipedia page - always trying to fight to edit it. I think David and Solomon have been lauded to the sky to excuse immoral behavior by VPW. The men themselves may have been very inspirational men in a different time and culture. I’d like to look at them non biased in the future more. Nice wiki link.

Nice to look at actual Biblical examples. Marriage and blended families have existed for many centuries. Loving and equitable laws and practices can be helpful there. And it also can be another area for Pharisee intrusion and control. Practically from what I saw in TWI dating it was 100% Pharisee action 0% loving and equitable laws and practices. I never saw an area where the practices evident in a ministry so contradict the Bullshonta about it coming out their mouths. And of course they can find a token normal couple to teach a class.

Yes TWI Pharisees really love the tithe. So do Mormon bishops. Their cult has the bishop interview every member to see if they had tithed or not. TWI does this behind closed doors, by speculation, and in violation of personal privacy. Being an “overseer” means diligence in overseeing the tithe and finances. They quote the faithful in least faithful in much verse. They also bypass the parable of the widow and the farthing as it is Jesus teaching in a different administration. Maybe they will have to do remedial reading at the bema. Who knows. But there will be some sense of right and justice because God is not mocked and is no respecter of persons.

The OT is a patriarchal society. There are some cultures on earth that center around a matriarchal society. One central woman is the main identity and force of a family. Neither culture is a guarantee for either truth or equity in treatment.

I have a dual answer. Yes and no. Yes doing farm chores as a young man had benefit. Yes other things benefitted me as well. Yes God looked after me during that time, and prepared for me a Psalm 23 table. But either program did NOTHING for maturing me AS A CHRISTIAN. In both cases I was disciplining to BS. The warped interpretation of the Bible I built into my habits made it WORSE when things played out as they usually do in cults with compliance obedience free will and shunning those who leave. I WAS a CORPS NAZI. We all were as much as I want to reshape history about how loving I was and really and exception. I was not an exception. As a WOW I was a bigger @$$hole. Confronting brothers and sisters in Christ about perceived accuracy of the Word, hounding people into taking classes, taking part in “pushes” for classes signing up the near homeless. So overall it would have been better if I had heeded my pastors warning and not taken PFAL. It led me down a multiple decade rabbit hole that it has not been easy to extract myself from. With that said, God is still God and produces amazing things from the most dire circumstances if you let Him and trust Him.

All cults have tremendously thorough hamster wheels to run on.

Yes he views in absolutes it seems. Severely delusional where justice is his rightful position. The Way is good at the whole Israel scapegoat concept. Place the sins of Israel on the back of one goat and release it onto the wilderness as a sacrifice. The unprotected goat dies quickly to pay for the nations sins. LCM was not innocent in this. Neither was he responsible for the sins of the Way. Just one more traumatized and damaged life. What if he stayed in the Baptist religion and was an ambassador for FCA or something instead of where he is now?

Would this be an African or a European swallow?

I don’t see anything on it in Mrs W book from the 1942 chimes radio show incorporating to the 1951 Tulsa conference where he met both Stiles and BG Leonard main sources for PFAL. I don’t think she mentions it in her book at all. The promise or snowstorm.

Yes batdad. WOG = WOG put it on a chart that’s fiyah

I stayed too long out of a sense of religious duty. I wasted many years of my life trying to support change from within. I think all the RNR brethren feel the same. They finally got a collective letter together and appeared on a video so they could be shunned by TWI. Suckas don’t want no help suckas don’t get no help. Go cry come home somewhere else TWI losers.

The issue is that the marketing corporation drives everything. Look at this years poster. Christ is absent, the tree of life masquerading as the Way Tree is front and center with Living Victoriously as theme. The love based spiritual family is called Christianity. It exists spread throughout the world inside and outside of corporations and entities constructed by mankind. It requires no Tower of Babel structure with multiple approval levels to do basic things involved with living a Christian life. It does not lead the believer to isolation from the rest of the body ( I.e. eye can’t say to hand no need) and works with the rest of the body. It shows forth love and not hate towards despised groups in religion like LGBTQ+ It is not bound pouring new wine into old wineskins by corporate tradition and lawyers instructions. It doesn’t ruin other Christians lives by shunning them. It is inclusive, empathetic, reasonable, and loving. You should try it sometime it beats the prisons of a cult any day of the week.

My cult studies class highlights a free proselytizing workforce and an obligatory teaching regarding finances as common factors to all cults. They all hustle the same way regardless of the product they are hustling - tablets from an angel, reaching “clear” state in Scientology, or snowstorms and tales of hidden secrets from a couple millennia ago in the Bible.

Present truth teachings stem from 2Peter 1:12 They vary in message and scope but VPW I believe erroneously interpreted that verse from a dispensationalism perspective. Berean Bible translates it “truth you now have” ASV “truth that is with you” Dispensationalist dispositions lead themselves to an “administration” focused truth. Bullinger slices them up in Companion Bible. PFAL is very dispensationalist. But the illogic comes in waffling back and forth. Like on the tithe, and on debt and so forth. Illogic creeps in because God is no respecter of persons. TWI leadership functions 100 percent on the “administration “ perspective. This makes it easier to hide from making tough decisions to deal with the previous administration. Likewise hyper focus on dispensationalist interpretations leaves the Christian belittling Christs teachings in many cases valuing them less than Paul’s letters.

Yes. Finally we have conclusive proof that Green Bay Packers fans are born of the seed of the serpent. Led by their father the prince of darkness Aaron Rodgers. The princes QB ratings are down though.

OMG. Pick one up along with your “throwback bumper sticker” https://store.theway.org/store/the-way-throwback-bumper-sticker/ Throwback to the time when the Way was a Biblical research ministry. Was that 1942 during a Kool Aid snowstorm?

The “old wineskin” doctrine from what I heard in the Way was always used in conjunction with “the present truth”. So they would waffle back and forth between the KoolAid snowstorm promise and whatever current class is being filmed with their $2M broadcast cameras. The leaders would say that TWI 2,3,4 is now the present truth. Thus supposedly distancing themselves from “the past truth?” In my experience “truth” only changes that much when someone is fibbing a lot.

I think you’re losing it Mike. Now you’re going off on the person you were gassing up a little while ago. Talking about how she shows the lack of hate of everyone else. I guess as the mind shuts down and the illogic of your position closes in striking out with labels is the best you can muster.