chockfull

The Way is judged by its own fruit. Nothing necessary from me. Other than pointing out to people Jesus teaching on that topic.

"Legitimate' has to be measurable. It was not accredited. He did receive a doctorate from a correspondance school seminary. This seminary did not have classes of any kind, not math, physics, chemistry OR Theology. It was a correspondance college. Correspondance college at that time meant that the only curriculum consisted of a series of papers graded by the seminary professors. The house in Manitou Springs has 6 or 7 bedrooms, which at the time were all rented out to tenants. At that time those tenants were the teaching board of the correspondance school called Pike's Peak Seminary. So in reality the only time the teaching professors of Pike's Peak Seminary ever met VP Wierwille was during the 2 week or so period documented in Mrs. VPW's book where he traveled out there and delivered a sermon to fulfill partial requirements for his doctorate and to receive the degree. I've done the actual research here. I'm presenting you with facts. And what you are coming back with is a vague recollection of a 12 year old post where someone said it was going through "radical changes"? and their impression was that his degree was "legitimate" as opposed to "stellar"? Yeah. What one of the professors couldn't come up with rent? Again Mike, please do some research yourself before posting misinformation on this thread.

Hi Mike, I would suggest you also use the search button here. I have personally posted threads on Pike's Peak. It was a correspondence college whose address is a house in Manitou Springs CO. I also stopped by there many years ago. Several single residents of that house as roommates and theology students started the "college" after obtaining their ThD's and being unable to obtain pastorates. Curriculum consisted of mostly mailing in papers. There was an in-person requirement to deliver a sermon so they could check homiletic skills. The time VP took the family out there is documented well in Mrs. VPW's book. Calling Pike's Peak seminary a "degree mill" is kind. That would mean they actually had a lot of students. It was more like mailing in a cereal boxtop along with a few papers and some money for a doctorate degree. Oh, except you did have to give one sermon that you wrote a paper on. VP's was on homiletics. It's fine to have a separate opinion but please stop posting misinformation. The whitewash sites are at the Way.

The Way is a worldwide, nondenominational Biblical research, teaching, and fellowship ministry without a research department and not much fellowship because it's divided off by people's debt status. But they have plenty of ways to "teach" i.e. talk at you from a platform, video, house chair, etc. The Way is inauthentic. What is on the cover of the book is not what is in the book.

From my perspective, those who have truly done "re-search" on VPW's works have found high levels of plagiarism and low levels of scholarship. And the scholarship which was done was not done by VPW, but stolen by him and the names removed from the work like JCPS. And now they aren't doing ANY research beyond consistency comparisons in teachings? I guess they are saying they are the Dead Sea. With a new class. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Some of that R&R leadership group were willing participants in many of the types of misdeeds we have cataloged here including the sexual swinger's club at the top level. While I appreciate their words of contrition, their actions right now exactly mirror the Way's. Whitewash their past, while securing their future by starting a new ministry utilizing their teaching credentials and connections from the past. Starting a new splinter group is not a new thing. There's even threads on "How to Start a Cult" around here, giving pointers to better ways. Some of the old wineskin groups are less harmful than others of the old wineskin groups. For example, I remember talking to Shr0yer and Cl@pp when they left and started CFFM. That's the last group to leave the Way and teach all the good stuff but remove all the bad stuff. I guess they weren't good buddies enough with this group leaving and Shr0yer left it as an inheritance to Tonya his daughter so they can't have the same power over there. So instead joining that group, they need to found a new splinter. So they can have power and influence again. It is another variation of serving their own belly as the Bible states. Their primary interests are their "position" - in society, in this new group they are founding. They are the leaders, the founders, the head cheeses in charge. I mean why couldn't they realize so much about their training is messed up and have the humility to allow others with better training to lead? Like joining a church locally. Or mixing it up with other Christians in the body of Christ. But no, they gravitate towards those that treat them with the same status they had in the Way. It's a ministry founded on alligator tears and fake contrition. It is as Jesus taught, an old wineskin.

She should speak for herself, and not for the many tens of thousands of people who came to that ministry exactly for that purpose - to learn the keys to researching the Bible. Now they're not doing that anymore. Because they have already "arrived". They can't even see themselves in the book of I John.

Rocky you are too kind. I appreciate a good discussion. I'm sure Socrates did too. Before the hemlock.

I was wondering what he was talking about with polls. I actually think he means that on this site in the forums years ago he may have posted some poll on the forum about people getting something out of PLAF, and some people actually answered but most of us ignored it.

"There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die." Sorry what's a thread like this without a quote from "Fear and Loathing" ???? Right?

Mike I must say those 3 things you say "increased your capacity to understand this" is somewhat alarming. For instance - the closing verse of Romans 7 So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature[d] a slave to the law of sin. When you combine this with records of David - specifically David and Bathsheba, as well as Solomon's hundreds of wives, you get into a territory of thought that cannot be described other than "enablement". In David's story, there was a prophet to confront him. I can relate to a number of your points in this previous posts, until you came to that which I quoted. I can't relate to that at all. I don't think that verse in Romans is talking about a duality of ethics being acceptable to God. That is so strange. I think where you and the Way need to be living is in the book of I John. The closest thing I could even relate that to is I recently watched a Dave Chappelle comedy clip on Netflix, and he was doing this routine about pitching a sit-com idea to a Texan about a super-hero who rapes but he saves. Then he tied it in to his own strange emotions about Bill Cosby - being one of the first black pioneers in comedy that he grew up to as a role model, and dealing with the truth about him coming out recently.

ah yes, in that essence this individual has absorbed not only the material but the subtext of that which was communicated. STAR WARS WAY STYLE - Attack of the Ironic Clones - TM They are "writing the book"

I think Mike mistakes us folks here with those who want to impress PLAF grads or WAP grads or whatever. Nope Mikey, that would be those other folks who started up Dictor Clone ministries. They've popped up like Star Wars Clone Armies - all fueled by former Way leaders who have shockingly been mistreated by the Way. Whod've thunk it? In such a pure leadership nurturing environment? They range widely from Animatronics look-alikes to class offering varieties. Actually they all have some of the same things in common. They all seem to offer some variation of format where you can sit static and listen to them talk at you in some format - class, teaching, etc. etc. And they are all in need of donations to continue God's work. So all they are in need of is some poor fool to sit in front of their static presentation and send them money. They are the Non-Denominational Internet Ex-Way Beggars. Look at me. Donate to me. Take my class. We're exactly the same except better with no politics. We welcome all Christians to do the same, sit static in our living room and listen to us talk at you.

I was at both. 89 was a lot smaller. I do not recall seeing anti-Bible protesters myself at either event. As to "looking critically" my question would be "at what?" I didn't have access to read the Poop paper or DWBH's community letter sent to 7000. I had no personal knowledge or contact with sexual indiscretions. What I knew the Corpse people told me. Then I moved a time or two. The opposing point of view seemed nebulous at the time without any of that context. Perhaps in your area people were reading those materials and making decisions to leave. Not my area. So to summarize, in 3 short years even that close to a cataclysmic event, the Way was able to whitewash what was going on the scenes to the point the younger folks believed everything they said and continued on. They have had that bucket of whitewash going for many decades now.

With the Way, the original perpetrator died before facing charges, and the inheriting perpetrator faced no criminal charges but several civil lawsuits which led to his political ouster. He never faced a court date - the Way avoided it and paid millions to avoid the bad publicity. So no days in court. Unless you count depositions. Sometimes the day in court is just a nice idea.

Hi Mike, The focus of where you want your attention on the vicster's life seems to be the teenage years. For some reason. What is that reason? You yourself are not a teenager. Have you emotionally progressed beyond that stage? Or have you regressed to that stage through a mid-life crisis? Your logic seems to follow teen-age type reasoning. BG was as big a jerk therefore plagiarizing his class was OK. BG made errors in his class thus plagiarizing his class was OK. VP admitted he wasn't into originality thus his actions are OK. No Mike. VP's actions were not OK. He sexually took advantage of underage girls who were not his wife. As a 60 plus year old man. He was a creeper. These are not the actions of an individual whose Bible classes are worth listening to. It is not OK. It is not OK to canonize this individual as a saint because you have an attachment to a class he taught.

I was at that same event. Going for similar kinds of input. Whatever I saw was not what you saw. I remained for many years after that. I was pretty blind until people's individual treatment of me added up. I came to a point where the average person in the world at my job, in my community, on the street, treated me better than those who were supposed to be "in the household" with me. The fruit of people's lives across the board in that organization were my triggering event.

OS thanks for the recognizance. This class is a duplicate of other productions. The same syllabus that the Corpse taught live they are re-working and releasing under cover and subterfuge. Let me guess. "The first front of the adversary is yourself". Wow I must be possessed because I can guess that but never took the class. No, it's just that stupid people's patterns are predictable. You know - that first front may be true. Unfortunately, with their lust for their own bellies and whitewashing over the truth, the current BOD will never be able to detect the first front in their own life. Thus their followers are living "an initiated delusion".

Wow - amazing insight here T-Bone. This Boob M - the same dude who is kind of the leader of the Revival and Restoration Group - that has concluded in concurring with us here on the `Spot that God did not divide Christians into denominations, that is man's shortcomings. This guy was the one who saw through the Snake Oil Salesman as early as `77 - and honestly, like anyone with a college education and who has had a background in mathematics, "things equal to the same thing are equal to each other" sounds exactly like a Rube Goldberg description of the mathematics principle of the transitive property of equality. In fact, it sounds like "the Teacher" was someone with a Doctoral degree who couldn't pass a general studies mathematics college class required for graduation. Perhaps his undergrad, masters, and cereal boxtop doctorate can't stand up to the test of "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" Thanks for the insight. For my life, it expands upon the "hindsight is 20/20 concept". And makes me thankful for telling the truth here.

I mean most of the reporting women have moved on in their careers as well as their personal lives, they have gone forward, done the best they could with their situation - situations like Matt Lauer, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Bill Clinton, and many many others are sufacing and starting a conversation. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/10/the-movement-of-metoo/542979/ This is a cool little piece on it . I think there is an interesting conversation to be had on parallels between this movement and us in the Way. People are being called to account. People are facing reaping what they sow. People are facing their own karma so to speak. What do you thinK?

People criticize us here at the 'Spot. We're deluded, we've lost our salt, we're dwelling on the past, we just need to get over it, we should move on and do something positive with our lives, we are devil possessed. In other words, we are kind of like the victim side of the #MeToo movement. What do you think?

T-Bone I wanted to say thank you for expanding upon this post. Your quote from that book has really set very deeply with me and helped to clarify things in my life currently. That book is now on my Kindle too! I think maybe the reason why many people stay in a cult is the lies they tell themselves. And how they take others on intent value rather than actual treatment. This allows for abusive relationships and for so-called ministers to use God's name to further their own various lusts.

i mean like they are just so far off with the "let the class do the work" mentality it's not funny. That is every bit as lazy from a management perspective as the plagarist who first stole the class outline.

Yes we definitely became brainwashed to accept the one-way communication as the norm. That is a collective consciousness. Frame every conversation with where it sits with respect to the "higher powers". Which that section in scripture is the one teaching leaders to be less Machiavellian a-holes, not for them to use to mandate flock behavior. From my perspective the only way TWI hierarchy ever has an ear to the ground is because it is attached to their head which they have buried in the sand of their own egos.

Look, in support of my positive viewpoint, OldSkool has produced an artist's depiction of the Board of Directors at the return of Christ.