Rocky

Intriguing.

That's the most inauthentic piece of "art!" I may have ever seen.

I thought I had posted a comment responding to yours, but it's not here. Maybe I just closed my browser tab without posting it. Anyway, I very much appreciate the perspective you conveyed in your comment.

Seriously? Sounds like too much make work and ZERO spirituality. Apparently somewhere along the line they lost the concept of The Way fellowshipping freely. That sounds like abject drudgery.

Glad you liked it. My thought is the "word of knowledge" isn't necessarily limited to believers.

IF this is true (and it's entirely plausible), what does it mean for The Church (as defined in the NT), and gifts or manifestations of the spirit?

That, of course, is a brazen dismissiveness of and to intellectual honesty. Gaslighting? Modern, relevant teachers? Really? Isn't that just packaging their rationalization with a different label?

Isn't that what cultural hegemony is all about?

There's quite a bit of commonality in how, as young people we were drawn to Victor's mess of a ministry. I'm glad YOU (too, like me and so many others) are a survivor, Annio!

You could, apparently, no longer take Victor's word for it what it all, or any of it, meant. That expression take his word for it jumped out and SCREAMED at me when I read your comment. Isn't that why Victor NEEDED young people to join his movement, rather than older, more seasoned researchers with whom he would have been challenged on his numerous claims of what God actually meant? I was 19 when I first learned of Victor's ministry and his take on "truth." I THOUGHT (at the time) what I responded to was an intellectually honest take on God, scripture and such. But really, reflecting back on my developmental place and emotional/social needs at that moment, I responded to something altogether different, a friendship at a US military base overseas where and when I had few people I felt I had much in common with. But I digress, for Victor to effectively communicate with and proselytize more intellectually and emotionally mature people would have required him to be willing to listen and relate to people differently than those who eventually came to follow his ministry. But didn't he try reaching people with that kind of maturity for years with minimal success? Wouldn't his success have required different communication skills? More open minded listening perhaps? More of an open mind to what other people, closer to being peers with him, had to say? People who would listen to him but pose difficult questions. Didn't he actually HAVE people like that come into his orbit... but for reasons unknown he didn't engender the kind of emotional connection he was able to get with the "young people?" Did Victor have a temperament conducive to actual dialogue that could produce an understanding in two or more individuals which could reasonably be expected to include portions of each person's position. Could that be [part of] the reason he built a cult, instead of a community without demands on its followers?

I'll be curious to know how it works out.

Intriguing insight from observing cult behaviors SIMILAR to OUR experience. We bit, hook, line, and sinker. Were we conditioned during childhood for a Christian-flavored cult? It seems that way to me.

Steven Hassan (cult expert and former Moonie himself] tweeted this link and I am very happy to see Hak Ja Han, Sun Myung Moon's wife, who took over the Moon cult after he died in 2012, featured in this article on Korean cults. She paid Trump $2 million for endorsing her cult- a few weeks after the Jan 6th attack on the Capitol.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/grace-road-churchs-dream-life-in-fiji-threatens-to-fall-apart SEOUL—Authorities in Fiji have smashed a South Korean cult that threatened to take over the South Pacific nation’s economy, arresting four of its leaders and sending two of them back to Korea. The crackdown on the Grace Road Church shocked its 400 Korean and foreign adherents, who had moved to Fiji after being warned of an apocalypse about to annihilate South Korea. They submitted to regular thrashings, some of them caught on camera, in what their founder, a middle-aged woman named Shin Ok-su, claimed were needed to knock the devil out of them. Shin was expelled back to Korea, arrested for child abuse, assault and false imprisonment, and sentenced to six years in prison in 2019, but the church survived until Fijian authorities this week rounded up church members in a drive to stamp out the influence of a cult that’s been madly buying up Fijian companies and property. The church, founded in South Korea in 2002, decided in 2014 that Fiji, an archipelago with a population of slightly less than 1 million people, was “the center of the world.” Fijian authorities turned a blind eye as the church took over construction companies, beauty salons, restaurants and much else, establishing a mini-conglomerate called GR Group, modeled after the chaebol or conglomerates that dominate Korea. [...] The leaders of the church allegedly controlled their adherents by confiscating passports, forcing some to live in virtual imprisonment, ordering them to work on church-owned projects and beating them periodically into submission. It was not until a new government took over early this year that authorities recognized the seriousness of the inroads the cult had made into Fijian life and decided to clean house. Fiji’s previous prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, six years ago gave Grace Road an award for business excellence, recognizing it had “invested heavily in Fiji.” Now the seven top leaders of the church are listed as “prohibited immigrants” while authorities search for two of them, including Daniel Kim, son of founder Shin Ok-su. In charge of the church’s sprawling business interests, he remains on the lam while the GR Group, “very enraged by all the lies,” claims to have been “working proudly as owners.” All the stories of “passport confiscation, forced labor, incarceration and violence,” said GR Group, were “unspeakable lies” created by “those who wish to slander us.” [a likely story... one we've heard way too many times before] [...] “The reason for so many new religions among Koreans is that a) there is real freedom of religion in Korea even compared to Christian countries,” said Breen, a long-time businessman in Seoul. “That’s one reason they thrive. People come up with all sorts of interpretations and shifts in theology and practice.” Like Moon’s Unification Church, smaller cult-like groupings feel the urge to expand overseas in the same spirit as Korean big business and K-pop. Blind adherence to the dictates of a single leader is characteristic of Korean life. The Rev. Tim Peters, a Protestant pastor in Seoul with a long background working with North Korean defectors, placed the rise of Grace Road in the context of “the 5,000-year history of Korea.” “A strong leader with a stirring message resonates deeply in the Korean psyche,” Peters told The Daily Beast. Charisma helps. “A congregation’s appetite for an emotionally stirring sermon often eclipses a congregant’s individual spiritual growth,” Peters said. “Joining a new religious movement that has radical doctrines sometimes fulfills a need for young adults to break free from their parents’ or grandparents’ suffocating spiritual traditions.” Chang Sung-eun explained the appeal of Grace Road Church more simply. “Koreans are passionate and energetic,” she said. “They have a strong yearning for salvation. They believe somehow, ‘God will save me.’ That’s the baseline. They tend to fall victim to pastors and ministers who have strong disciplinary policies.” [more]

Good one! God forbid he would allow anyone to change anything he writes. Yikes! Irony indeed! And brazen emotional projection.

In that letter, Loy invokes the name of Jesus Christ... but his attitude shows something very different. I didn't sense any willingness on his part to serve.

Seems like important justification to me. To all readers on GSC, TELL YOUR STORY.

Often referred to as emotional boundaries... which Victor and Loy rarely, as I understand, understood, respected, or honored.

There are numerous questions I could articulate about Victor Wierwille based entirely on my experience and observations of him directly, and especially with his protégé, Loy C Martindale... while reflecting on THIS ancient wisdom. Btw, there are relevant, related scriptures in Proverbs that suggest this nugget from outside the Bible is at least as wise as those two goons (the first two presidents of the corporation). Further, I would challenge former followers of Victor and/or Loy to honestly decide whether Marcus Aurelius had more godly wisdom (and courage) the either of them.

I seem to recall you not being so concerned with what God requires of people. Am I wrong? If so, what changed?

I very much appreciate emotionally probing and salient questions/declarations like those you include in this comment.

I'm so glad you (WE) have gotten through and healed from that emotional and spiritual abuse.

Resilience