Broken Arrow

Back in "the day", most churches were very set in their ways. Contemporary music was not allowed; if was frowned upon to have hair past lower than your ears or past your collar if you were a guy. You always had to wear a suit, and you put on a happy Christian face. Meetings were, for the most part, impersonal, challenges to the status quo was akin to ex-communiction in many cases. But I think what turned people off the most is all the talk about loving Jesus one day a week, and then acting hateful as the devil himself the other 6 days. There was never talk about what people struggled with, like divorce, or pornography, sexual abuse, and the like. Anything bad was swept under the rug. In short, the mainline church of the 60's and 70's did not relate to the young people of that time. Now, this is just the general rule, there were individual churches that were wonderful. Was it all that bad? Yes. It was like being shackled in a church pew. Then along came the Jesus movement in the 70's with long hair and rock music and tie-dye jeans. People were hugging each other and praying for each other. In other words there was a lot more love, care and concern exhibited, but there was very little depth, at least at first. At first the mainline church tryed to stamp it out. The movement was so different than what anyone had ever seen before. Suddenly you had a bunch of drug addicted smokers wearing jeans hanging out in the church parking lot after service whooping it up. It just didn't "look good". So there was tension. Over time, the mainline church eased up. That's very simplified. What people are saying when they post here is that TWI, namely Wierwille, grabbed that "Jesus Movement" wave and was able to siphon many of the Jesus freaks (as they were called in those days) into his ministry. It was not difficult to convince those young people that he was the man of God for our day and our time. The young people at that time really were dissatisfied with the status quo and were ready to embrace alernatives, but we weren't very good with discernment. Then the Jesus movement came along in the 70's

Oops, sorry I didn't notice that.

You are? One place we can go from here is for you to lose the title "peacemaker". Too much pressure for one squirrel.

Oh it's incredible! I watched this program the other night on CNBC. Three guys who bilked people out of millions by using a "Ponzi" scheme were arrested by the feds. One guy plead guilty in the face of insurmountable evidence against him. The only work he did for a year was call people on the phone and tell people about this new "secret" discovery of clean burning coal. It was going to save the world and "if you would invest at least $10,000 so we can begin excavating...." All he and this other guy really owned was a puny little coal mine that was shut down. Oh, and he was a pastor. CNBC interviewed some of his victims and you know what they said, "He got caught up, because he trusted the wrong people. His only mistake was a mistake in judgement. He was as much a victim as anyone else." One of the other guys in on it also owned a fake gold mine. He was getting people to invest so that he could transport 22 tons of gold to the poor people in Dubai. He actually went on the lam when he found out there was a warrant our for him but he was captured in Hong Kong. He stood trial in the U.S. and completely crumbled when testifying in his own defense, against the advice of his attorney. He's serving a 20-year jail sentence. You know what some are saying about him? "That evil federal government! Just when he was getting ready to close the deal they stepped in and messed everything up!" He was telling his "investors", i.e. followers, that he was just about ready to close the deal for at least a year. An agent with the Securities Exchange Commission said it was fairly common for several people to continue to defend the perpetrator even in the face of undeniable facts. I said all this to say that even in the face of undeniable facts, there will always be some who will defend a perpetrator. You've made jokes about Hitler. I seriously knew an Italian woman who still vehemently felt that Mussolini was given a bad rap and that he was actually good for Italy. She was drunk at the time, but still....We were trying to get her to take the class. Too bad she didnt take it, she would have fit right in.

Supposidely V.P. completed Moody's correspondence courses. Did you by any chance find out if Moody institute even offered correspondence courses?

Oh, I dunno Waysider, the subject is about prophets and some people in TWI we think had them. At least that's what it's morphed into. In that regard, Doop is as much the subject of this thread as anyone else. We often lose sight in these posts that TWI was not ever a Christian organization. That is not to say there weren't Christians in it. None of these guys operated a genuine gift ministry because they did not represent Christ. They represented an organization and more specifically, they represented a class. As far as Doop, I never heard he was a womanizer, maybe he was. If he was, then his life was outside of God's will and he was disqualified for leadership. If he turned to Christ for forgiveness and restoration then that paints a whole different scenario. I have no idea, I never knew this man. On the other hand, with V.P., I can honestly say that I see no evidence that he thinks he did anything wrong much less any fruit of repentance. Then again, you'll never see such things in TWI because TWI's method of dealing with sin was to confess it between you the Father, then forget it and move on. No accountability whatsoever.

Is that the latest "movement" of TWI?

You're giving V.P. and awful lot of credit here. Do you really think he was that smart and deliberate?

Especially true if you were headed in residence to Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, or Colorado.

Actually, Johniam, there was a bit more to my post that you quoted. My question was framed for those who continue to fruitlessly rebuff your claims even though you have already decided what to think. I was not celebrating our differences. Why do people (myself included) keep coming back to you with arguments when we already know beforehand that you refuse to hear? I'm suggesting there is something deeper inside of us that keeps us in this discourse. But it's just a thought on my part. The question did not seem to resonate with the other posters so I let it go.

It must have been the Will of God for that tractor to sink to the bottom of the pond.

It was a small tractor.

Nevermind.

At Emporia, right after he came in the room and yelled at all of us during breakfast, I saw him drive a tractor. I know it's hard to envision, but back in the day there was a driveway that went between the Campus Center and Anderson Library. There was also a place to park cars right in front of the Campus Center. They wanted (and eventually did) to remove all that asphalt and seed grass over it. Anyway, someone forgot to move their car. Wierwille, not wanting to miss an opportunity to throw a fit, stormed into the lunchroom yelling, "Once is enough in the Corps!" Meaning he should only have to give an order once. This would have been the Sixth Corps first year in residence. Right after that, he drove a tractor with a blade and Martindale rode on the back on top of the blade mechanism. Martindale was wearing his shorts and a bandana. Wierwille was wearing those overalls and his little train engineers cap (woot woot!) So yeah, I actually saw him work....once. If you ever need a straight man, I am for hire, cheap too!

"So...what's a hen-way?" (said the straight man)

Depends. Are you in Ohio, Kansas, Colorado, or Indiana?

People got fired just for reading it. Obviously they were on staff.

You realize, of course, that Wierwille never said he was a priest. I only mention that because he so vehemently taught against that.

He just did, a commercial for certs. It doesn't get much more reliable than that. Whoa! Now that's getting deep! This thread just moved several notches up in terms of unbiased intellectual discourse!

Right.

Do you realize that if Johniam had not started piping in with his opinions, we wouldn't have had so much to talk about during these last days of GSC? So I've begun asking myself, what is keeping me coming back to read these posts? Besides this thread, Johniam has very little bearing on my life. So why do I care what he thinks if I am so convinced I'm right? We all know he will argue any point that is contrary to his beliefs, sometimes with completely illogical reasoning. So, why do I keep on reading and responding. I even said I was going to stop at one time. Is it because I have a concern for Johniam's welfare? Perhaps a little, but I keep driving around the block again and again. Why? Am I trying to impress myself and others with my "great intellectual grasp of spiritual matters"? I certainly hope not because I have no great intellectual grasp on much of anything except when it's time to eat. Maybe I'm afraid he's right?.......Nah, that's not it!. Perhaps I'm really saying the things in my posts to someone else who left the premises a long time ago. Now that thought resonates with me. The person who stole from me took off with the goods and is not coming back to account for the crime. I have so much I wish I would have said and done. Johniam's posts have given me an opportunity to say them, but I'm talking to the wrong guy. Nevertheless, I entertain the thought that if I can't have my day of reckoning with the offender, maybe I can deconstruct his ideas. I don't have that power, I wish I did. Then again, it's probably good that I don't. I cannot get back what was stolen. The broken heart can be healed but trying to regain, trying to get paid back, is impossible.

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VP should have resigned his position, or should have been removed from office immediately the very first time he acted out sexually outside the bonds of his marriage. Those who were aware of his behavior and participated in his cover ups should have also resigned or been removed.

Yeah, and all that too!

He said it in the Intermediate Class. Some prophets are hard to live with but so are a lot of other people. You don't have to be a prophet to be a jerk, and just because your a jerk doesn't mean your a prophet. In TWI we witnessed people with some serious emotional problems that hid behind the label of "Prophet", "Teacher", or "Man of God". It's really no different outside of TWI. People act out roles all the time. I had a man not in TWI tell me fairly recently that the reason he struggled with pornography so much was because he had the ministry of a teacher. He was such a threat to the Devil, he said, that he would get bombarded with these temptations to slow him down. I said, "No, you struggle with pornography because you have a problem with lust and pride". I never saw him again, perhaps I should have been a little more diplomatic. I have a problem with anger. I used to be a lot worse. I had myself convinced that part of the reason was because I might be a prophet and I just couldn't stand it when I saw something "off the Word". Then I started thinking it through and read where the Bible said that wrath and anger should be "put away", prophets were not exceptions. That's when I realized I wasn't a prophet at all; just a legalistic, hacked-off sinner. It may sound strange, but I started getting better after that mainly because I started becoming more human. Anyway, I'm probably rambling. Yeah, VP made the statement you're referring to in the Intermediate Class.