Broken Arrow

I am only defing Wayspeak here. I'm not saying I agree. The logic is that if the spirit (small "s") is yours, it can now talk to you because it belongs to you. In fact, it is you, you are a spirit being. God, who is almighty, all powerful, omniscient, and omnipresent is too inept to speak to your flesh because He can only speak to what He is. But He can speak to your spirit. Since your spirit is now yours, it can speak to you, that is your mind. You see? It's all so simple!

"Spill the Wine?"

I know what you mean about being here for a time, Balanced. I said the same thing about a year ago and I'm still posting. I was afraid of living my life in reaction to TWI instead of, well, just living my life. Invariably, somebody says something I find interesting and helpful and it gives me something to work on. Sometimes someone says something I disagree with and it gives me opportunity to solidify my own beliefs. Whether I live my life "in reaction to" is a choice and it has little to do with my posting on GSC. Welcome.

Thanks Waysider for this information. I've had a chance to read it. In an earlier post your claim was "Speaking in tongues has been proven to decrease your level of resistance to suggestibility. (Reduces your ability to think on a critical level). I asked you to give me the information from which you based this statement. First of all, the control group cited in this study consisted of 5 people...only 5. 5 is a very very low number for drawing significant scientific conclusions. Furthermore, if you check the NY Times article you included, one of the women in the control group was a co-writer of the research paper. The NY Times Article you cited says, "A recent study of nearly 1,000 evangelical Christians in England found that those who engaged in the practice were more emotionally stable than those who did not.". That's 1,000 people who were said to be more emotionally stable. I don't know if I believe that either. My point is, there seems to be no evidence to suggest that mental acuity and stability are adversely affected by speaking in tongues. You may want there to be a difference, but there is no evidence for such an opinion. Even the study you cited and quoted reads, "...it's not so clear what this finding says" about speaking in tongues'. I know people who speak in tongues. Two of them have their Master's degrees in education, another is an attorney who was on the faculty of a nationally known law school, another is a medical doctor who graduated third in his class from an Ivy League medical school. I'm not saying that speaking in tongues helped them do these things, but they are obviously intelligent people. I respect your opinion as to the authenticity of the practice of speaking in tongues. But there is no credible evidence to suggest that those who do so are unable to think critically, or that their resistance to suggestability is lower. Even the studies you cited don't suggest that.

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Thank you. I will give this a look see.

I heard someone who sounded really stupid. I know because I understand stupid and in fact am pretty fluent in speaking stupid myself. Does that count?

Wow! Thanks to whomever posted that Crawley stuff, not that I enjoyed reading it but it was a real eye opener for me. It seems rather sickening to me that Crawley takes sexuality, which was designed to be shared in a loving relationship and turns it into something that serves a man in creativity. The partner is immaterial to one's supposed insight. How selfish. How insulting to humanity. This explains a lot.

Take it Easy, by the Eagles?

Where did you get that information? Where did you get that information?

Now that's just funny! He shouted about Muhammad Ali being a "seed boy" with such conviction. Especially the part about the winning punch being powered by a devil spirit. Now, for some reason, "oops!"

I apologize for any confusion. My reference to LeBron was intended as a joke to Waysider since LeBron plays (at least for now) for the Cleveland Cavaliers and Waysider lives in Northern Ohio. No one in TWI made any reference to LeBron James as far as I know.

Really? I thought it was brand new. Custom-made for VP. VP and Mrs. were going to visit twigs together on it throughout the country, supposidely. That's what they said when they were raising the money. That's right, they raised the money by requesting donation from the populace. Isn't that something? They couldn't pay for it themselves, they had a special collection for VP's retirement gift. We had a thread a while back asking if anyone remembered VP visiting them or their twig on the "Twig Hopper". No one had.

Salt Walther. I'm sorry you had to hear it this way, Waysider. Yes, LCM read Russell's autobiography. Russell explains that he heard a voice saying that he was "o.k." That unquestionably was a devil spirit. Wow! what discernment! Anyway, LCM read it to us at Region meeting one year. Guess he wanted the body of Christ to be warned about the dangers or a retired basketball player known as Bill Russell that most people to that point had never heard of. Don't worry though, Waysider. As far as we know, LeBron is o.k.

Here's a truth. Whenever anyone gets power, they abuse. The question isn't if someone is abusing their power...they are. The question is how bad is it? This is true in business, government, religion, education and all man-made institutions. By the way, all institutions are man-made. They're either man-made or they don't exist at all. So when someone comes along and says, "This (whatever) was built by God!" No, it wasn't! At best it was built by HUMANS for the GLORY of GOD. I'm not slamming man-made institutions. I'm slamming the idea that you can have ANY insitution on this earth that is not stained by a person's greediness and selfishness. So what is the answer? I think I know though I may be arrogant. That is, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and your neighbor as yourself. Develop healthy boundaries and don't be co-dependent. Learn to say two words; "no" and "oops".

The poster has 3 questions. One is are churches a mandatory step in recovering from groups like TWI. I would say no, and I go to church by the way. I that churchis not mandatory, but being involved in some sort of community of people is. Isolation, at least for an extended period of time, is very bad for one's soul, I think. It's impossible to lead a healthy life outside of relationship. Humans are building for relationship. You know, the old poem that says, "No man is an island". I would assume no woman is either. The poster also asks if churches are the only way to live a Christian life. I'm going to assume the poster means a successful Christian life. While I shy away from saying things like, "the only way", I would have to answer yes. Again, no one can live this life successfully while being cut off from others. If one wants to live a Christian life, they need to be around other Christians. They need to hear others' ideas, opinion. We all need others' input here and there. Otherwise we're in danger of living a fallacy if not a dream world. Someone asked to be shown in the Bible where it says to go to church. I could throw out a number of verses, but I'm not going to because I'm tired of the war of Bible verses. My experience is that there is never a resolution when verses start being thrown back and forth in an argument. It rarely changes anyone's mind and I have found that minds are already made up prior to the Bible verse bullets. You don't want to go to church (I know. Church is a group of people and not a building blah blah blah) then don't go. If you're a Christian I think you're missing out, but who cares what I think? It's up to you. So, no, no Bible verses. The question, "what is the church's role...." is very loaded. So I'll just say the church's role is to simply show the love of Christ to the hurting. Most churches know very little about cults and what someone goes through when they try to come out. You bring it up, and you get a lot of blank stares. If you need to talk about TWI, come here to Greasespot. ,

I think that one actually happened. It's not as outlandish as it may sound. It was a case where the sub temporarily lost it's "steering" and quick repairs were made after praying. Prayer was made and the sailor believes the prayer prevented a collision with another vessel. Do I know for a fact it was true? No, but the story, the way he told it, was believable. I'm sure it got more outlandish as the story was re-told.

AIDS? Really? Wherever I was, it was a big "hush hush" if someone had AIDS. Why? (Here's another one) Homosexuality is the next worse thing to being born of the seed of the serpent. So, in my circle, if someone claimed to heal someone else from aids the next question would have been if they cast out the spirit on homosexuality. I'm not arguing, I'm just pointing another unsubstantiated lie.

Big Far Unsubstantiated Claims? Where does one begin? Let's see, Barbara Streisand was seed. Michael Jackson was possessed. Every head of every denomination was seed, Dr. Wierwille had the original idea for fast food but the businessmen he shared the idea with didn't listen to him. Therefore, since the idea was now in the senses world, the Devil gave the idea to Ray Kroc and McDonald's was started. Stupid businessmen. Muhammad Ali was seed (LCM). It was a devil spirit that ko'd Sonny Liston in the title fight. We know this because no one saw the punch that knocked him out. Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics was possessed. If you lead someone to the new birth prior to them taking PFAL, they could die. That's because once they're saved their guardian angel leaves and if the person doesn't know how to renew their mind they're "sitting ducks" for the adverssary. The Rolling Stones were seed, I think the Beatles were seed also, but I'm not sure. Finally, John Lennon was killed because the Devil was through with him (LCM). That's just off the top of my head.

Dean E. wrote a couple of nice songs after America Awakes, "He Lifted Me" and "I'm Proud of my Country's Heritage". TWI formed a group called "Takit" that played rock. I was never terribly impressed with them even if they did have Garibaldi on drums and Hoeffer on lead. Pressed down cut a nice album in spite of everything. I can't remember the name of it. Joe F. still seemed to be able to put his heart in his music. Maybe you were talking just about Joyful Noise. I think TWI started leaning toward country music with "Branded". Dave Lutz added a lot to Way Productions. There really were some good musicians in TWI.

Delete.

Yeah, I remember it. Sometimes people would make the "w" sign with both hands. Then, with a hand on each side of their face, form their mouths in the shape of an "o". You know, W-O-W. It looked really stupid, I was glad it never caught on. Yeah, you guys that came in later really missed out on that one!

Upon reading the Facebook accounts of wonderful WOW years, William Shatner's performance on Saturday Night years ago comes to mind. In a sketch he is playing himself appearing at a Star Trek Convention. People are asking him questions about Vulcans, warp drive, whatever until Shatner bursts out with, "People, get a life!" "Move out of your parents' basement!" "It was just a T.V. show!" In context of this Facebook I would like to say, "People, get a life! PFAL was just a country preacher's teaching, a mediocre one at that!"

That was bad, horrible, disgusting! I'm going to tell it to the next person I see!

Thanks Gen! Great thread Olk Skool!