WordWolf

I think that small amounts of legalism were installed from the beginning-specifically BY vpw, as you can see. (The groovy Christians who arrived early on, who went from denim to suits and briefcases like DF...) I think the evidence is in that vpw wanted everything under his thumb from the beginning, and never liked it otherwise but tolerated that it couldn't START that way. However, he could make adjustments to keep making it MORE legalistic over time. That it was GRADUAL made it harder to see and object to. So, vpw set up that the corps were to learn CONFORMITY and ENFORCE CONFORMITY. (Some remembered God's Love despite this.) Then he set everything up so that it was seen as THE Big Thing to enter the corps. Meanwhile, he centralized everything so all the money pointed towards him, and authority proceeded from him. As time passed, more corps grads were "on the field", in leadership positions, able enforce the conformity they learned. (That was the plan, and it worked, just gradually.) The "temperature" was also ramped up slowly, as they thought up new rules, eventually ending up with grass that can't be walked on, and mandatory hat-wearing. Grounds eventually piled on so much legalism it resembled a work-release prison program more than a Bible program. This trickled down as graduates entered the field, very slowly. Early on, vpw had kicked out 2 different classes of corps, and allowed one of them back, so long as the members were willing to write out an oath of allegiance. lcm learned most of his twi "leadership" from vpw, so he ended up a more "refined" bad leader, two-fold the child of hell vpw was. In 1985, lcm's leadership was challenged. His eventual response was to demand an oath of allegiance from all the corps, and their blind loyalty. (One poster here spoke to him personally, and lcm expected blind loyalty to him, period, no qualifier.) He learned it from vpw, but lacked the wit to see what would happen if he took something that worked on a handful of the most faithful, and applied it to hundreds of people having doubts. This proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back, and 80% of twi walked in 1989/1990. Once they were gone, the next few years were a slow tightening of the screws, and MORE legalism went from staff and corps to every "follower". Now, EVERYONE was expected to conform to corps standards they never signed up for. 1994, it seems was when lcm really went into overdrive, stacking on the draconian rules, putting the corps on as full-time staff, etc. Now corps were required to spend large blocks of time delving into people's private lives. Soon after that came the "two by two everywhere" and "your entire day must be scheduled in 15-minute blocks" things. Yes, a few people were still leaving each year, either from being thrown out, or being sick and tired of being sick and tired. However, the changes were so slow, most of the new people had no idea that this was the same group that once had a bunch of hippies just pleased to get together, and talk about God and pray together. Could you imagine the two groups ever meeting?

It also has nothing to do with either recommendation concerning the Doctrinal forum.

That's two of us recommending the Doctrinal forum already...

You started with a legitimate question- do I need this to be a Christian site to post about God at all? The answer is "No." You may post on whatever you wish, within the limits of good taste and US law. Having posted it, however, anyone is free to respond as their conscience dictates. If you post something claiming the Bible is true, you'll get agreements on a Christian site. If you post something claiming the Bible is true, your welcome won't be so warm, say on an automobile fan- site. The GSC has people with different perspectives, opinions and positions. Just because I am a Christian, just because I read the Bible, has no bearing on what the rest of the posters do. If a poster posts something, and I reply with some response straight from the Bible, they're free to say they don't consider that correct, and consider it wrong. If this was a Christian site, that would be a lot less likely. If you come out with "and we know The Truth is that which God told us in His Word, that..." expect you've just turned off most of the audience for several reasons. 1) the Non-Christians have just seen that and concluded your answer will not apply to them. 2) The Christians will see you did that in a forum that is dedicated to open discussion, but declared the non-Christians are all wrong with that statement, and concluded you either can't behave well in that environment, or can't respect the freedom to DISagree which is part of messageboards like this. Those whom you didn't turn off, they have their own agendas, and I'd trust them least of all. It's really not that hard once you sit and think about it. If your ONLY method of communication is "And the Bible says...", then you're going to findit hard to communicate in a polite fashion anywhere except the Doctrinal forum, and should confine your posts to there, where such is acceptable in discussion-at least, for THAT discussion. Paul became all things to all men, so that by some means he could save some. If you can only be one thing, that's going to limit your usefulness to God in this board. As your brother in Christ, and as a poster here, I would strongly recommend that you LEARN. When you post, you're not responsible for how the individual poster takes it. A perfectly innocently-phrased post can trigger a VERY painful memory from someone, and it's possible they can lash out-wrongly- because of it. HOWEVER, you are responsible for the message your post conveys. If there is a statement there, you're responsible for the statement. ("God is in control, no matter what.") If there's an implication there, you're responsible for the implication. ("Christians who don't want me to answer everything with verses are ashamed to be Christians.") And so on. What you say, and how you say it, are your responsibility. Therefore, remember that if you want your posts read and taken seriously like our posts, you will need to take YOUR OWN posts seriously. Think before you type, think before you hit "reply." Sometimes the smartest thing to do is to delete the message before sending it, or wait 24 hours before replying- especially since you might not WANT to reply, or might want to completely change the message a day later. I can appreciate and respect your goals, but I recommend you consider some changes to how you're approaching them. If you're going to be effective-and I don't think that's a bad idea- then this would be prudent. Even the people who disagree with you would prefer you approach tactfully and tastefully. You will get more accord and agreement. You might even change some minds, make some "converts."

"Newspapermen learn to call a murderer 'an alleged murderer' and the king of England 'the alleged king of England' to avoid lawsuits."- Stephen Leacock.

I was one of the people-there was at least one other- who started up a thread SPECIFICALLY LABELLED as being a thread for pro-vpw, pro-pfal, pro-"positives" stuff, and asked people who wanted to post otherwise to avoid posting "off-topic" threads. As you can see, it wasn't very popular, and wasn't used.

Unless someone defines "negative" as "what I don't want to hear", in which case, they've redefined it so they'll be disappointed, or everyone else must be silenced. But I DO think that if someone wants to make up a NEW discussion board and/or website with their goal as "positive talk about twi" or something, they can go ahead and do it. Then they can determine how things go there. Happens all the time, all over the internet. Someone perceives a need, and makes a website or messageboard. Hey-someone did that for the corps, and that board, from what I hear, is doing fine and some people like it. So, there's recent precedent.

Ok, I can easily see that. (Without getting into it, that wasn't exactly what was meant. )

A number of people, seeing unflattering things said about vpw, for example, will not ask "Can this be true?" but will instead say "I have decided this will not be true, and I will leave rather than permit myself to even consider it MIGHT be true." They're entitled to never post, or to leave, if that's their decision. Harassment. Hah. Tell you what. This is the internet. If you want a messageboard where your point of view is the pre-eminent one and you can set the tone, you can do what everyone else does and make your OWN messageboard. You can't tell Paw what to do with HIS messageboard. (I could swear I've mentioned this a number of times before.

That's EXACTLY what I was thinking. Were you the parent that was given the recommendation to take the kid out into the woods, thrash him just short of needing a hospital, then tell him if he stepped out of line again, you'd exterminate him? I know SOMEBODY said their leadership told them this. (I'm using my words but their concepts.)

My story is a lot milder than some. I got in because I wanted answers. I wanted to be right. twi convinced me they were right, and had the answers. When twi convinced me they weren't right, and didn't have the answers, I left. Pretty fast. It helped a LOT that this was in 1989, when 80% of the active members got up and left. Locally, everybody I'd hung out with had left at the same time. (I would have left without them, but this made it easier.) I still thought what I'd learned was the best out there. Of course, I was young and foolish. And the internet has REALLY made learning otherwise a LOT easier. I'm still a Christian, and I think Christians worldwide should consider the internet to have IMMENSE benefits, both for communication, and information. Of course, that's just my opinion-everyone else has theirs.

This was also during the same timeframe that every single person was REQUIRED to submit an agenda of their plans for the entire week. Filled out in 15-minute increments. And if the actual day ran differently, you were expected to file an update with the corrections. And this didn't chase ALL the people out. (Some, but not all.) It's like the story that says that if you put a frog in a pot of water, and increase the temperature very, very slowly, he won't notice the difference and jump out when it gets hot.

Sounds familiar, but I'm npt getting the song yet...

Usual rule, is naming a COVER of a song is perfectly acceptable, so long as the artist DID perform the song. Thus, when I posted "Little Red Riding Hood", a poster correctly named it, along with the artist Sam the Sham. If he's named the artist as "Bowling for Soup", I would have accepted it also, since they did a cover of the song. So, if Guns N Roses did a cover, then Sharon was the first to answer with correct title and artist.

Sounds familiar. (Especially the first two.) M*A*S*H*?

Mine appears to be working fine. Try all the "obvious" solutions. Clear your browser's cookies, clear your browser's history, close the browser window, then re-open it. If that doesn't do it, make sure you're using the latest version (which probably has nothing to do with it), and make sure you've cleaned out any adware, spyware and viruses, then restart the computer. (All of those can only help the computer, anyway.) One of those is likely to fix the problem.

Maybe they learned. Alarmingly large numbers of people who left twi DIDN'T. (Most, I think, DID learn, either immediately or eventually.) "When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out." - Hans Neimoller (translated.)

Welcome, happyheart. Sounds like they said they cared, and that they were supposed to care, but what they did was heartless and UNcaring. Not everyone has such a horror story (I don't, WD didn't), but that doesn't change what they did to you.

Welcome, happyheart. It's up to you to decide your own opinion (Gee, already with the non-twi stuff! :) ) but it often seems that-when someone posts about something someone bad in twi did something, someone else IMMEDIATELY comes along to derail the thread completely, or to try to bury the information in a flurry of posts, generally claiming the person's post didn't reflect reality. They rarely come right out and honestly say "I think you're lying", but the intent is the same, just phrased with prettier words. Then they can honestly say they never called the person a liar, although the words they used said they thought the person wasn't telling the truth. (In effect, they called them a liar, but didn't use the WORD "liar" to do so.) Some people (the ones who are believed to do that) will be quick to say that they're trying to support "the truth" (whatever that means to them), and that they are trying to uphold some noble standard, and are immediately set upon whenever they speak, or when they recount some pleasant memory. Which is true? Are they both wrong? Well, you should read things and decide for yourself. (I say the first paragraph is correct, but others would not.)

Now, was this meant to literally say that God pays your bills, provides you housing, gives you physical, nutritious food, and so on? Otherwise, this sounds like a pat statement, a memorized slogan, used to close discussion or dismiss genuine concerns over something. Lots of us had those when we were in. Another slogan that dismissed actual concerns was "where's your believing?" The people who went in with ill-planned things expected God to take care of them just fine, but the manner they expected it in didn't quite work out... "Never mistake a slogan for a solution."-John Capozzi. Whenever I see genuine concerns, and genuine issues raised, and they're answered with slogans rather than solutions, I remember what I learned before, and make sure I'm not dependent upon the sloganeer, and begin looking for the back door. It's NOT a sign of where I want my thinking to be, and certainly not where I want my planning to be.

I disagree. I think vpw very carefully selected that example BECAUSE it would scare the lcm out of anyone who was accepting what he said. Don't take this class seriously? Well, then people you love could DIE! How's that for a motivation to complete a class? In 20/20 hindsight, most or all of us say that it "obviously" was meant as some sort of story. One thing we're NOW confident of, was that vpw put forth this actually happened, and we were to believe a) this mother existed and feared, and this caused her child to be killed b) her child existed-and was killed by his mother's fear c) this was an example of an operation of a principle that was effectively a Law of Physics (because for it to not work, "God would have to change the laws of the universe") We're also confident now that this didn't happen, and the entire thing is made-up. (Anyone ever wonder what town the woman lived in-the woman with the red drapes?) Lots of parents have lost children. Sad, but true. Some of the parents took pfal. More than one felt VERY bad-and blamed THEMSELVES for the deaths of their children.

This is a DISCUSSION forum. It seems silly to have to break it down, but some people need this from time to time. This is NOT a court of law. The rules for DISCUSSIONS- the customs, really- are what are used here. When people discuss, when people have conversations, they don't go around saying "I allege this happened yesterday..". They just tell their story. If someone calls them into question, THEN there's allegations. A professional made a claim once about something someone said at a specific place at a specific time. I commented later: "I was there at that moment and they didn't say that." A discussion followed, and, as it turned out, I was there exactly 24 hours LATER and missed the time and place that it was said. Since I was not there after all, I could not speak to what others saw and did. (So I didn't try.) Actually, it sounded like something they WOULD say, so my comment was only on the specifics. And this story had no connection to twi, the GSC, or anything related to it. When people just talk, they don't have to pretend they're in court, make a major presentation, or say "alleged" every 2nd sentence or something. When was the last time you heard "Sorry I'm late- I'm alleging there was a traffic jam on the highway?"

One of the things that bothers me about the BS stories- especially ones like this one- is that they were presented as FACTUAL- in this case, vpw said "I was there and this is what I did." Seeing this as just a made-up story- as, I think, we're all saying now- is seeing vpw as a man who had no difficulty MAKING UP LIES and telling them as the truth. It's one thing to hear a story and mistakenly pass it along as true. (They were harder to verify before the internet, for one thing.) However, to deliberately tell a false story (he knew he DIDN'T do this) is something entirely different. And, yes, it sprang from his specialty in Homiletics, or "making up little stories to use as life-lessons".

I just have one question. His mother, whose wife will she be in the resurrection?