Broken Arrow

Well said Free. That lady you know sounds like she throws a wet blanket on things. In her mind she's probably trying to protect people from possible disappointment. I agree with what you say about the variables. I don't understand them, but I understand God says to pray, love, support one another as well as others who we may not even know.

Great question! Oh yes! I've definitely struggled with this as have many Christians throughout the years. My resolution is that I've decided not to try to resolve it any more. Everytime I think I've come up with "the answer", I soon realize I've put God in a box...again. I don't know where the sovereignty of God ends and the free will of man picks up. I don't understand everything there is to understand about spiritual warfare. I don't know why at certain times I've prayed for people and things some might consider miraculous happened..sometimes even when I had a bad attitude. Other times I pray and pray and I feel like I'm talking to the ceiling and either nothing happens, or things get worse...like when you pray for people and they die anyway. I've resolved, in my saner moments, to just keep doing what I know to do. I pray for stuff, people, and situations. I don't play the little mind games TWI taught us. TWI's approach negates the sovereignty of God. When someone is hurting be it one person or a nation, the Bible teaches us to pray...so I pray. The Bible says to pray for the sick, so I do so. When I'm in need, I bring it to God. I live in the tension between two extremes. One, the Calvinists say everything is predestined and predetermined and nothing you do is going to change that. Then I ask, why bother? Why even pray at all? In fact, why even be a Christian? You're only a Christian because decided you should be one if the Calvinists are correct. The other extreme are the other guys whose name I can't remember. With them, it's all free will. There is no plan, God has no vision, everything just is what it is. Once again, why bother? I'm not wise enough to run my own life, much less the world. If God does not intervene in the affairs of man, then, in effect, God does not exist as far as man is concerned, and Christianity is just another philosophy. So, I pray and ask for God's intervention. I don't seem to get it in every situation, but sometimes I seem to. God isn't obligated to answer my requests just because I asked. A line from a song by Blood, Sweat, and Tears comes to mind. It doesn't completely relate to the subject matter, but it's an example of someone liveing in the tension. "I swear there ain't no Heaven and I pray there ain't no Hell."

Gen-2 is back...YAY!!!!

Let me expound here...no. Really...no.

These things are true. TWI, that is, The Way Corps, did not teach leadership skills AT ALL. They taught us to have a slave mentality. That's what they wanted of us so we would run classes and the like. This mindset actually helps in in some secular jobs, especially ones where physical labor is involved. Some companies love having mindless workers to do their bidding. When it comes to middle and upper level management, being a mindless robot doesn't work. Companies want their managers to be able to work with people and their different personalities and skills. They also want their managers to have (gasp!) ideas. If one embraced the mindset TWI promoted then that person would be out of step with the real world and therefore incapable of leading actual people. What exacerbated the problem was that so many of us were fooled into thinking that the TWI mindset was Godly and therefore superior. So we would hang on to our learned mindset wondering why the rest of the world wasn't beating a path to our doors wanting to partake in our great wisdom. Ever notice the "skill" at which Martindale and Wierwille handled conflict? Basically it was if you didn't agree then just get the hell out of here. Go start your own ministry blah blah blah. Well...businesses don't embrace that management style, they can't. If someone in TWI came up with a different idea of how to do something, for the most part it was looked upon as rebellion. That doesn't work in the real world either although I've seen a number of insecure managers afraid of different perspectives. There are a lot of other skills that are required in business that were never passed down to us. I doubt that Wierwille or Martindale had a clue themselves as to what they were.

I might have this wrong, but I believe even the pamphlets were simply transcriptions of live teachings he did. His daughter, Karen, converted the teachings into written form and from there they were put into book form. She apparently has some actual background in editing. Then again, I have no idea where I heard this. I think if you read the acknowledgements at the beginning of the book he thanks Karen for her editing. I no longer have any materials. I may be totally wrong about this, but that's my recollection. As far as the later writings, I'm not sure he wrote a single word. If I'm not mistaken, I think a young man (at the time) named Ch1p St@n$bury wrote the lion's share of Jesus Christ Our Passover. St@n$bury later resigned due to disagreements with Wierwille claiming the research team was nothing more than a group of "yes men" that rubber stamped Wierwille's biblical viewpoints. Wierwille said it, "broke his heart", and that he had been considering giving CS a byline on the book. In regards to Jesus Christ Our Promised Seed, I think another individual named J0hn Cr0uch was the main contributor on that one. Once again, these are my recollections. I'm sure Penworks can probably add more light to this. I seem to recall W. Cummins mentioning that this practice wasn't any different from a college professor having his graduate students compile information for him to include in a book. Cummins also said it wasn't common practice for them to include their students as co-authors.

WOW! What a great idea! He could've even had Howard promote it and get the believers to buy it for him from a special collection. That way TWI wouldn't have had to contribute a dime from their own coffers! Oh well, opportunities pass.

So...who's next? Donna? By the way, not all people in their 70's "drool on their frock". I mean, look at Ronald Reagan...uh, nevermind.

Of course, you're not talking about the state of Delaware, but Delaware, Ohio, which is only a two-hour Harley ride from New Knoxville.

Maybe some of those who are virtual slaves in sweat shops, tea plantations, building sites, mines...are also fellow Christians... or maybe not. Do you have a Fairtrade equivalent in the US? Fairtrade Expressing opinions and concerns about the world is part of the purpose of this website. So you just stay on that "soapbox" as long as you want. Yes, the U.S. has fairtrade equivalents. We buy cheap imported merchandise without giving much thought to the ramifications of how we spend our money. We don't consider that a shirt is inexpensive because it was made by slave labor in a third world country, probably by a child. We also give little thought to the American worker who loses their job because their company's prices are being undercut by cheap foreign competition. (BTW, that was also a major reason for our Civil War.) We have a free trade law in the U.S. called the "North America Free Trade Agreement", or NAFTA. With NAFTA there is free trade among the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Mexican labor is cheaper than American labor, so companies often move their operations to Mexico and hire inexpensive Mexican workers. Some think, "Oh! That's good for the Mexicans", but here's the rub, Even though American companies provide steady work with better pay, these workers are paid very little by comparison and therefore their standard of living is not really improving. Meanwhile American workers are losing their jobs. This is the same logic that was used to justify slavery in the American South prior to the Civil War! That is, they reasoned that life was better as a slave in the U.S. than to live a primative life in Africa, so slavery was good, according to them. Now, before someone decides this post belongs in the political forum, let me just say that my point is that Twinky is correct in saying our everyday decisions, though seemingly small, can have major global implications.

You probably already know but it's worth under scoring that slavery, in the conventional sense of the word, is alive and well in industrialized nations such as Great Britain and the United States. Tens of thousands of people, many of them children, are transported into the United States each year and sold as sex slaves or laborers. For more information you can Google "Human Trafficking". Sadly, there's a lot of information there.

Now THAT was cool!

Good for you two!!

Actually there were some who didn't like the cat but really, I was only half serious. It just so happened I had posted on a few threads fairly recently and they ended and I saw a bit of humor in it, that's all. I realize it wasn't exactly gut-busting, knee-slapping humor. It was merely an attempt at pleasantry. Thank you for your concern, however.

Word games! THEY were always playing word games with one thing or another. Always something completely irrelevant. Anything to make TWI look elite. Well, it made us look stupid. Anyway I'm off topic and we've discussed this before. BTW Cara, I liked the song.

I seem to have developed this unenviable talent of killing threads. Three in the last week. Hmmm. Kind of like that cat that was in the news a few months ago. The cat was owned by a nursing home. Whenever it would make its way into a patient's room, the patient would die soon thereafter. "meow!"

I knew you were going to post that song. :) I'm sorry to hear about your marriages. I'm glad you're out of TWI, though.

What About It...I won't quote the post again since many have already done so...but I had the same thing happen. I was at Rome City during an Advanced Class and there had been strong wind the night before. A tree had been blown over (oh no!) and it was our fault. We were the watchmen for the Advanced Class and it was our job to keep the Devil out. Obviously we weren't doing our job. I had the same reaction as you, I just thought "whaaat?" I think soon after I decided to pet the sheep because they looked so cute. When I jumped the fence the sheep all started running around in circles. I thought, "Oh no! These sheep are going to stampede!" Then I had visions of explaining myself at the next meal time announcements. "Well, you see sir...it's just they were soooo cute! How was I to know they would all stampede, knock down buildings and trees and then drown? Yes, I realize there's an Advanced Class going on, why do you ask?" Needless to say, I got out of there. Apparently the sheep stopped running around, but I was pretty nervous at the next meal.

Oh man! That brings back some (good) memories! Carlin was the best! "Heyyyy...que pasa!"

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Now, let me get this straight. Everybody had to give a schedule of what they planned to do each day to their leadership? Not that it wouldn't be bad enough if Corps and leadership had to do this, but everybody? How was that "sold" to new recruits, or did it only apply after, say, one took the Advanced Class? Man! That's just awful! I'm sorry you guys had to endure that melarky. That definitely was not going on in the 70's or 80's.

While I have read no scientific study as you obviously have, I have observed that many who lived through a violent upbringing will also themselves turn violent in their adult years. Why do you think they do that, are they seeking revenge? There are others who go completely the opposite direction and become extremely passive, too passive. Have you ever covered these phenomenon in your studies?

This song is always coming to mind for some reason. No, I don't work in a coal mine, never did. I was in residence, though. (Nah, not the same thing, I guess.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsoa1wHJT2E&feature=related

As far as Theophilus, L@rry and Marianne Shicks divorced long ago. She is twice remarried and living in Northern Ohio. Larry is also remarried and still lives in Columbus, OH. Last I heard J0hn M3sserschm1dt lives in California with his wife but that's all I know. He was in Breakthrough years ago if you'll remember. M@rriane is not doing anything ministry wise, but I believe she still sings from time to time. L@rry still considers himself a Christian and will att3nd a teaching here and there, but he isn't tied into any group. He is still very active in playing musically around town and tends toward the old style of country music and blue grass. He started playing the fiddle too. I'm in pretty close touch with L@rry and I see him pretty frequently. Sometimes he lets me play the guitar with him and politely suffers through my pluckings. The link is a group he sits in with now and then when they need a sub. This is the kind of stuff he's playing now. They're pretty good and I thought you might enjoy this little "diddy". He's the one who sings lead and is playing acoustic guitar.