WordWolf

*wanders in and glances at the pics* Hey! I think I've got it! Stars Key Hand Dutch! With or without Huggy Bear! If I'm right, anybody can take it.

WOW! If I was a rat, I'd be TERRIFIED of Vixen! Vixen sounds like she was ready, but the weather WASN'T! She found the "spares", she found the stuff in the FOREST, anything the heavy wind wasn't hiding, she found! Congrats on the Junior title for both of you!

Let's see. What did vpw AUTHORIZE to be revealed about himself..... victor paul wierwille was born to a large family of German descent. Each child had their own chores. Little Victor chose to neglect his chores, and would vanish for hours into the woods nearby. When he was young, he once told a minister that he wanted to be a man of God like him. Other than this statement, Little Victor showed no actual involvement in the church, no actual effort or work in the things of the church. So, this seems to suggest an interest-not in being a man of God- but in being the man the whole community turned out to see, to have their respect. As a teenager, young Vic continued to lack any qualities of a man of God. In fact, he went out of his way to earn a reputation going in the opposite direction. He was a bully, a showoff and a braggart. He did all sorts of things for attention. He was quick to start a fight or mouth off at others. He had a quick wit. One of his common ways of showing off was to tear up and down the streets of New Knoxville on his motorcycle, trying to get attention. His demonstrated talents seemed to be limited to his quick wit and his ability to play a guitar, which he showed competency in. Old Man Wierwille was preparing to pass on the family farm to young Vic, as was the family tradition. Young Vic balked at this. He'd had plans to go to college. At first, he considered a few fields-business and so on- but by this time, he had decided upon the seminary. (This was before the time he referred to as "believing the Bible as the Word of God".) Old Man Wierwille was skeptical of this, and said that young Vic, having shown lack of hard work on simple manual labour on the farm, would never make a good preacher. Young Vic convinced him he would do better with books than with sweating out in the field. Young Vic went to school for the ministry. His community thought it was some kind of joke- everyone knew he lacked the proper character. (He never overcame that impression with them.) Victor had the option to study "Bible Languages" or other subjects requiring hard study. He instead chose to study Homiletics, the "softest" option he could have learned. (He never overcame his deficiency in study in Bible languages, church history, etc.-not even to the level of an informed layman as of 2004.) Victor entered his first pastorate and wasted little time becoming a bully and a control freak AGAIN. He himself claims he started his job by immediately doing whatever the elders told him not to do- even though it hampered his ability to do his job properly. According to him, they confronted him on this, he mouthed off at them, and they just let him go about his business, and the local church prospered as a direct result of him. He was known for building a fairly interesting sermon, and getting people involved, including the youths. (This was STILL before the time when he claimed he believed the Bible was the Word of God.) This was Payne, Ohio in 1942. He said the following year, he slowly became discouraged and was searching. He was still the man he had been, which is to say he was prideful, arrogant, boastful, liked attention, and viewed the clergy as a PROFESSION and not a holy calling. (He could have been just as "called" as an accountant or actuary, say.) During 1942, he claimed he was ready to give up being a minister. About a year later (Payne, 1943), he meets Rosal1nd R1nker. This woman fixed a great deal of attention on him, and had a forceful personality. She spent some time with him alone. It was of this time that he later claimed he asked forgiveness of God. He also credits her with DOGGING HIM "on the Bible being the Word of God", and she "got me STARTED on the right track". which, until this time, he hadn't believed, not even in all his years of school. During 1943, he claimed he was ready to give up being a minister. It was a few months later that an event happened that he later showed a habit of re-writing. He claimed that God spoke to him and said He (God) would teach him (Victor) His Word (God's Word) like it had not been known since the 1st century, if he (Victor) would teach it to others. (This is the famous 1942 promise, which happened in 1943.) Victor of course lacked the education in church history to contextualize this claim-since it was inaccurate as stated. This implies that this was a made-up story, or it came from a god lacking knowledge in history. Victor later added a second part to his story- a snowstorm. He said that he required PROOF of God, and asked God to let him see it snow. A moment later, he opened his eyes, and he saw a veritable blizzard out his window. The later addition to this story suggest that he felt it needed more support after using the initial story. Victor showed no marked improvement, neither in character, nor in behaviour, thru the rest of the 1940s (nearly the entire decade after this supposed promise), which strongly supports the rather direct assertion that he lied thru his teeth. At one point, Rufus Moseley attempts to minister Holy Spirit to vpw, but vpw demonstrates an inability to receive it. In 1951, vpw makes another claim he's ready to give up on the ministry (even after, supposedly a direct promise of God about really important stuff which promptly failed to materialize.) In 1951, vpw attends a big Evangelical conference in Tulsa Oklahoma. He made several claims of this conference. People at the conference OTHER than vpw supposedly had no difficulty beginning speaking in tongues. He claims he faked speaking in tongues in a clever way, and others were unable to tell. He is further disillusioned about working for God. He then claims a miraculous snowstorm blocked him into the city entirely, and ALL evidence there was that there WAS no blizzard (and there was a WEALTH of evidence-at the airports, Amtrak and bus depot, the hotel staff, the attendees, etc) was concealed by angels. vpw also, apparently, never approached a window, or they made an illusion at the window. Supposedly, a woman comes up to him and tells him that she knows a man who can help him- JE Stiles. He claims God told Stiles to attend the conference with the sole purpose of ministering the Spirit to vpw. vpw meets with Stiles, and makes a few chauvanistic observations to himself, before going off with Stiles. Stiles works with him for hours and hours, hammering across to vpw what the Bible says on speaking in tongues, and working over his doubts one by one for hour upon hour. Finally, vpw was able to speak in tongues. It was during the 1950s that vpw's behaviour was noted to finally improve, although he still did not stop including inappropriate words or concepts in his sermons. In 1953, vpw finds out about BG Leonard, and pushes his way into BG Leonard's CTC Gifts of the Spirit class, which Leonard permits. vpw takes this class twice, bringing several people with him the second time. vpw then went off for a few months by himself, then told Leonard that he'd like to run Leonard's CTC Gifts of the Spirit class locally for his congregation on a one-time basis. Seeing the benefit to other Christians, Leonard agrees. vpw then runs the first of "his" PFAL classes, and takes a photograph of that class. He tells the students that this is "his" class called PFAL, with NO mention of Leonard's class from which 100% of the content has been directly lifted. The students have no reason to think he's lying. vpw sends the photograph to Leonard and said tells Leonard that this is a photo of the class that took Leonard's class on a one-time basis that was run locally. Leonard takes vpw at his word, and has no idea that vpw continues to run Leonard's class with vpw's name on it, defrauding both Leonard AND the students. To this day, many students STILL think this was was vpw's class, even when evidence is introduced to the contrary. Later, vpw added the contents of JE Stiles' work on "Gifts of the Spirit" and Bullinger's work on the Holy Spirit as well as "How to Enjoy the Bible", and expanded the class into a class that was the sum of the 3 men's work-Stiles, Bullinger and Leonard-rather than just Leonard. vpw later makes a few offhand comments here and there that the material in the class is not original, but its compilation was. (However, as it was constructed, vpw could have been sued by copyright holders for Bullinger, Stiles, and Leonard. Leonard found out but chose not to prosecute.) Later, vpw has had some success with PFAL, but not dramatic success, when he reads about the Christians at the House of Acts. vpw goes there, impresses them, and convinces them he has extensive, EXCLUSIVE knowledge they lack. He then turns those he can from unorganized Christians into a recruitment arm for his class and organization. They agree to handle things on the East and West coasts, and many young Christians are impressed with THEM and join. Once there was sizeable membership in both coasts, vpw pushed out the Christians from the House of Acts and insisted authority would come FROM hq and tithes would go TO hq. No exceptions. vpw organized a few programs as well- the WOW program and the Way Corps program. ======== Ok, that's a first draft, but I'll need to recheck some of the timing for that. But, what do you think? Does that sum up the entire book, approximately?

Seems even easier to turn one's eyes away from the evidence and blame the watchman for waking up the neighborhood, then rolling over and going back to sleep. YOU have a copy of "TW:LiL". YOU can read this in black-and-white on your own. Feel free to do so, and announce where the quotes were in error. I, for one, would LOVE to hear it. I included the PAGE NUMBERS for easy reference. As for opinions, it's not that hard to find people who would get outraged over a lazy bum sitting on his keister and complaining at length about HOW the hard-labour (FREE) workers are working, and a chain-smoker and alcoholic complaining at length how nobody else has any "discipline", and that hypocrisy is JUST off the OBVIOUS stuff. If you want to call his father or Uncle Harry a liar, or deny vpw chain-smoked or drank a lot DAILY, or that he wasn't always up the guteus maximus of every person PAYING him to do HARD LABOUR about how they weren't doing it BETTER, that's your business. A lot of it is in black-and-white and RELEASED by twi, and we have a LOT of eyewitnesses. Notice I didn't even address his WORST crimes. The SMALLER stuff by ITSELF was enough to call him UNFIT to lead God's people.

See, you're thinking it had to MAKE SENSE. It was not ABOUT "making sense". It was about CRAIG. lcm wanted a big announcement on "his watch", which vpw never had. Being lcm, this was what he could think of. It gave him the excuse to cancel the ROA, which was on his agenda to cancel anyway. Now he could cancel it and claim a flimsy pretext, as opposed to just cancelling it. As we all know, lcm claiming a flimsy pretext resulted in SOME people believing in him. I mean, even with 20/20 hindsight showing he steered twi straight for the sun, some people STILL think it was a godly request for him to DEMAND blind obedience. So, if BLIND OBEDIENCE on a flimsy pretext works, then certainly cancelling the ROA on one would work BETTER.

I heard the one mstar1 heard. (That everyone would have the chance to hear, and to accept or reject.) That vpw taught this is obvious from reading "Lifelines", where he said that once you've spoken God's Word to someone and they've rejected it, you have no reponsibility to try again with that person until you've spoken it once to everyone ELSE in the world. The verse you were thinking of, Oldies, is II Peter 3:9. "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

Oooo-I've got a twist for that! Kenny Baker (R2-D2) Willow Billy Barty (the old wizard) Just a short link.

Ok, one last "talking-point", if the good group will indulge me this far. Based on THIS BOOK/THIS THREAD, PRIMARILY this book/thread, and the contents and insights thereof (with the freedom to supplement this thread as needed), how would you summarize vpw the man, as exposed by the pages of TW:LIL? How would you summarize his life history, his perspective, his actions?

Ok, I'm in the right frame of mind to respond now. (And I have time.) Greetings, Ricky! There's a LOT of information you have NO idea about. All over the GSC website and messageboards are all sorts of secrets hidden from you, which were exposed by posters. Take the time, look around, and prepare to be shocked. Please note that many of us were VERY shocked as news came in of things we were never told, or were told outright LIES about. I'll address a few of your comments in that vein. Many of us are still Christian. Many of us who are still Christian believe that at least SOME of what twi taught, was correct. There are two things you need to know concerning this. 1) Virtually EVERYTHING of value twi taught, came from someone else's work-JE Stiles, BG Leonard, EW Bullinger, etc, and was already "available" before VPW ever taught it. 2) Christians all over the US have made great strides since the 1950s-but TWI did NOT. Many Christians can OUTPERFORM the majority of TWI people in MANY Christian concerns. This is especially true when discussing subjects where TWI had NO information or grossly-outdated information, such as the historical record of Bible documents. TWI is STILL grossly underinformed on this subject, and always was. We have many of these memories as well.We now know a lot more and understand them better, however. Again. God's Truth is NOT the sole province of TWI, and never was, no matter WHAT you were told. Other Christians have answers, some have the SAME answers, and some OUTPERFORM TWI. You know how, if you plagiarize and are caught, you can be kicked out of a college and will be flunked from a class and face all sorts of penalties? VPW plagiarized ALL THE TIME. So, "his" truths were someone else's truths that VPW walked up to and photocopied. What no one told you, was that VPW was the SOURCE of a lot of that BEHIND THE SCENES. He was brilliant at covering his tracks. So, that wasn't "introduced later" into what "special things" VPW did. It was in place from the beginning, placed there BY VPW. Martindale did NOT have the skill of hiding his vices and malicious acts that VPW did. He learned the ACTS from him, but not how to HIDE them. They have NO idea what VPW did. Some of the eyewitnesses know, however. They post here. Raw IQ points and the ability to score high on tests do not equal an ability to interact in a healthy fashion with people, nor does it mean they see behind ALL the lies, or even MOST of the lies. By your standards, they may see a lot- but how "objective" are your standards when much of what you see is what they WANTED you to see? That's great!Let them interface with other young Christians! Then ALL of them can learn things from EACH OTHER! She'll have to learn the HARD WAY how to evaluate things for herself, including what she THOUGHT she knew... Here's responses to all of that.A) Many of the things you can find in a church are things TWI LACKS. There's no heart in TWI, if there ever was. There's heart in churches. Ever see TWI organize an act of mercy? Feed the hungry? House the homeless? Do good to someone from whom they can expect NO FAVOURS IN RETURN? Churches do that all the time. I've done that in connection with a church I wasn't a member of-how's THAT for breaking down walls? I was a Christian, I wanted to help, that was more than good enough for them. TWI says "the poor you have with you always" and just keeps making sure that money comes to hq and STAYS THERE. If TWI can't make a profit off something moneywise, don't EVER expect to see them do it. So, churches can offer what she already needs, but has no idea "what is available". B) No Trinity? That's Apostolics, Christadelphians, some others, including ex-way splinter groups. C) Dead are dead? I'm not sure how many groups as a whole teach that. The position is called "Annihilation", though, which tells you there's enough of them that it needed a word to describe them. How often does this come up in your daily walk with God? If you're not bringing it up as soon as you meet another Christian so you can look down on their "inferior doctrine", it doesn't come up much. BTW, he plagiarized that off a few of Bullinger's books. "Are the Dead Alive Now" is composed from books you can read ON THE INTERNET from Bullinger. D) The holy spirit? Ha! All charismatics, and all pentecostals, to greater and lesser degrees. Whoever learned under Stiles knows everything in the White Book (which was mostly Stiles' book with a new cover). Whoever learned under BG Leonard knows BETTER than whoever learned under TWI. VPW's "PFAL" class' holy spirit segments were lifted wholepiece from Leonard's classes on the same. VPW taught "rote", meaning he passed on what he'd gleaned from Leonard, but he didn't have MASTERY of the topic, so whenever he wasn't repeating Leonard, he made mistakes. Leonard REALLY understood the field. Leonard's classes are still taught today. E) "all nine manifestations in detail" You can learn that BETTER from Leonard's class. You can learn it AS WELL from the ex-way groups, as well as whomever God has enlightened but I've never heard of. F) "practical application of believing equals receiving". Guess what? BELIEVING DOES NOT EQUAL RECEIVING. Chapter and verse, please. The Bible teaches having confidence in God, it teaches trusting promises of God, and praying with confidence in God. It NEVER teaches that "believing equals receiving." That's why TWI never became famous for having loads of people who won big lottery jackpots. All their "believing" couldn't force events into happening, nor could they strongarm God into acting as a Divine GENIE. If you DID want to hobble your understanding and embrace this error ANYWAY, there's LOTS of other people that teach it. They're the "Word-Faith" groups, and follow Kenyon's pattern. Kenneth Hagin is just one of many others who plagiarized Kenyon on this (like VPW did.) G) "All of the groundbreaking research". This is SO incorrect I wouldn't know where to start. If you took out from "VPW's" books and classes everything he took entirely from Bullinger, Stiles, Leonard, and Kenyon, you'd have almost NOTHING, and all of that would not include any substance. We've discussed that here over the years. There's a LOT of documentation on that. The research department was only allowed to produce research agreeing with VPW. When Schoenheit produced a research paper on Adultery (saying Adultery is WRONG) he was OSTRACIZED, and FIRED, and people were told they'd get possessed if they read his paper. His paper is linked on the main GSC site. Its main point is that adultery is wrong, and everything else is written to support it. Ask anyone who was IN the research department what they felt was the most "groundbreaking research" they ever did. ALL of that is COMMON KNOWLEDGE here. If you did not know ALL of that, you need to catch up and learn some things- starting with "I don't know it all". I agree. He was MUCH better at hiding his sources, and studied his subject before teaching it so his notes were aids, not a script to recite from. It was STILL ripped off from someone else, but at least the showmanship was real work...

It's not my speed, but if it's yours, more power to you.

"Caustic, critical, always looking for errors"pretty much describes lcm's despotic reign in the 1990s. Corps Week was when the Corps got together, and was when the Corps did the set-up and assembly of all the physical details needed for the ROA. (Setting up Registration, the tents, Family Tables, food stands...) So, these Corps did setup and met together, then went home. They worked for free for the week preceding ROA. Setting up all that stuff doesn't count as "helping to put it on"?That was a week's free labour! "Reproved" them? He should have THANKED them for the free labour! After all, there WAS an admission, we DID PAY for setup, so things COULD have been done with local workers, providing work for labourers locally. Of course, that would mean vpw would have to accept seeing money exit. They served a week of hard labour. What about that? Further, when did "a lifetime of Christian service" become synonymous with "involuntary servitude for life at the whims of twi"? I don't remember MANDATORY ROA attendance being required in the corps signups-did anyone sign such a document? It occasionally came as a surprise to those people who never actually WORKED for a living (vpw went straight from school into pastoring, lcm went straight from school into the way corps), but REAL jobs have REQUIREMENTS and RESPONSIBILITIES. All these people made arrangements for a VACATION WEEK from work (for some of them, this was their ONLY vacation, or was unpaid leave), paid to travel to hq on their own from all over the country, and WORKED for a week, unpaid. Now you have the nerve to say "Not good enough-work MORE for free!" NO! These people have families to support, jobs to perform, and lives to maintain. If they leave, it's because they HAVE to, not because they WANT to, simp! At the very least, you owed them profound thanks. To insult them after they worked for free is lacking in character, lacking in integrity, and lacking in Christian values. So, to you who said this, I say "F* you, AND the motorcycle you rode in on!!!!" Or, as Andy Kaufman once said, " You, sir, are a f*ing @$$h*, a F*ing @$$h*, a F*ING @$$H*!!!! " He probably had plans for an entire Ewok village in the trees, and a 4-star resort on grounds, as well. This is one of the reasons 'Uncle Harry' was important. He would tell vpw outright when something was unfeasable and stupid. Hm. "Private homes." Someone mentioned (on this thread or another?) that vpw had invited people to build their own private homes on the grounds, with their own money, and live in them, but with the proviso that the homes were twi property and reverted to twi ownership with their death. Seems most people were too savvy to agree to build $200,000 homes from the ground up, only to deed them over to someone else eventually. If slick vic could have talked them into this, he would have. I forget who lost their house in EXACTLY this way. (Actually, they lost "their" house when they left and got no money for it, so it's APPROXIMATELY this way.) I think that's the one thing lcm can rely on. His life's been a fraction of what vpw's life was to people. (the end) ============ Ok, thoughts, people? We're into the "casual ruminations and musings" portion of tonight's show....

I'm not up on news, but, last I heard, no actual divorce ever went thru. However, I REALLY thought your other comment bore repeating. :) I imagine it chafed him. Reynolds was prominently a BOT/BOD member who didn't insist on all the perks of office that Rozilla and Donna get (private house and staff, etc.) Hearing a non-BOD member was being catered to probably didn't sit so well.

"Change is good. You go FIRST!" Rescuing all the REAL Christians from twi, and putting them in HEALTHY relationships with other Christians IS "thinking in positive terms"! Imagining that this time it will be different, this time twi really can be changed and stop hurting people, is not "positive", it's FICTIONAL. It's the same type of thing an abused spouse says when they decide to take the abuser back "for one more chance"! The language of the abuser is NOT positive, it's DELUDED. But, hey, sitting around and THINKING about it, or telling someone ELSE to do it while you stay where you are, that's sure a lot EASIER, isn't it? vpw famously did that ALL thru twi's history....

So much for the "it wasn't slave labour" statements....

Well,her perception of SOMETHING, I believe, has been demonstrated. Bank-robber Willie Sutton was asked once why he robbed banks. His answer (supposedly) was "because that's where the MONEY is." As we saw in this thread, Donna and Craig barely knew each other before lcm decided to get married, then vpw found her for him, and told her that lcm's star was going to rise high in twi. After this conversation, she was willing to marry a man she barely knew. What wa$ the rea$on for thi$? It doe$n't make much $en$e from a $piritual, Biblical per$pective... After that, the entire run of the marriage seems to have looked artificial and contrived. Some people have criticized political figures for having marriages that have appeared that way at times-but they're supposed to be in politics, and that makes sense in a realpolitik way. For supposed leaders in Christian circles, they are supposed to be blameless, beyond reproach and set the example, not play political... oh, heck, is this news to anyone? It was a political decision on her part, and a superficial one on his part. (Moggie says marry her, ok, I marry her...) Her political acumen has served her well. With 95% of the ministry having left or been kicked out, she's managed to live in comfort and luxury. All it took was the choice to serve mammon over God, and the following of the political winds, and playing the game. Anyone wondering why she's not in the spotlight? You can do more manipulation and politicking from the shadows.... Took him long enough to make this claim. We were better than any Christians LIVING, and now we were better than any Christians who EVER lived. vpw thought of himself as greater than the Apostle Paul. You KNOW his criteria for greatness was "knowledge", after all. WHY?The only reason that makes sense is the famous "If you can teach until they have no questions, you did a good job", but that's not the answer. They may have a question that went in another direction than you taught. Me, whenever I was done teaching the Bible, I was FINE with questions. Still AM. Usually that's a GOOD time-especially when everything's fresh to mind for everyone. The only other reason I can see would be "I have made my speech, peasant. Trouble me not with your senseless prattle."

Got proof of this, or just pulled it out of the air? Don't blink. You just missed vpw admit he taught the holy spirit field without documenting it from the Word FIRST. That's because he just parroted from Leonard, Stiles, and so on. That's the only reason to be surprised someone ELSE did it. Furthermore, we've seen lcm in action. He didn't 'document' diddly about 'the spirit realm'. Well, there goes that bald statement made in pfal-which was NEVER followed up on-that the Book of Revelation wasn't difficult. Apparently, it was made just to make us think vpw was smart enough to understand it HIMSELF, but, as we see, he didnt understand it either, so he was lying thru his teeth. (Does this qualify as 'news'?) AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Rug. So much for "I have no friends when it comes to God's Word"...

As usual, one "standard" for most people,and another "standard" for the top. Which, of course, raises the question- 'Why was a day named after a person to begin with?'

Another good idea that would have been nice in practice. I'll buy that it was the first time he had to teach on his OWN and not just cut-and-paste someone else's book. So, he had worked harder than he ever had. The "5-6 hours" thing is no more true for that than it is for any other subject by any writer.