Mark Clarke

The first thing that came up when I googled my name was this: Mark Clarke (born July 25, 1950, in Liverpool, England) is a former member of Colosseum and Uriah Heep. He was the bass guitarist for Colosseum from 1970 until 1972 (and from 1994 after Colosseum's reunion), when he briefly joined Uriah Heep, performing (and co-writing) on just one studio track, "The Wizard", on their 1972 album Demons & Wizards. He also played bass on Ken Hensley's solo albums. In 1975 he went on to join Natural Gas, Ritchie Blackmores Rainbow, and in 1980 started working with Billy Squier and recorded Don't Say No, The Stroke, In the Dark and many other albums with him. In 1985 he joined The Monkees and until recently still worked with Davy Jones. Clarke has also worked with Mountain (Leslie West) and Ian Hunter (Mott the Hoople), recording albums with both of them. Who knew?

I means the sixties weren't kind to you!

Who wanted to continue this discussion? It was dead for almost two months. Why drag it up again and go through the same circular arguments, when there is no convincing some people? I would go with the old advice, "DON'T FEED THE TROLL."

That's why I am trying to point out that Vince's church (as well as others in NY and RI, and there may be others I don't know about) is not built on the same root as TWI. What would you need to see to convince you that there is "repentance, apology, living love God and love your neighbor, fruit of the spirit"? What have you seen regarding Vince's church that shows you that there isn't love for God and neighbor?

I understand not giving out your address or phone number or other info like that. But what is the reason for not using your real name? I'm not arguing, I really don't know the reason. What harm would it do just to have your name on a post?

Actually, Rom. 10:9-10 does not use the term "incorruptible seed" - that's from I Peter 1:23, and it says that it's by the Word, which is the seed of the New Birth, according to Jesus. (Again, I don't want to get into a doctrinal debate here, but you can read about the new birth and once saved always saved on my website.) "Who determines if you lose the faith?" God does. It is not up to anyone to determine that someone is "irretrievably lost," and anyone who is searching for answers has not stoppped believing. I agree that too many "Christians" want to live under the Law, but I don't think you would find that in Vince's church. In any case, whether you agree or not, the fact that he is teaching it shows that he is not just pushing "the same old TWI stuff" which is what most have been complaining about here.

Why would he have to come here to do it? If he did, in fact, it would probably look like he was trolling for more followers, like John Lynn was accused of here (and may have been doing). He has sincerely apologized for his past on his own website, if anyone wanted to be "open" enough to check it out. The link to his letter was posted above. Here it is again: http://kingdomready.org/vincefinnegan.php. Here is an excerpt from his letter: Many of the harmful things that leaders in TWI did were because VP taught them to be that way. I know there are still some who carry on his ways, but I don't think every ex-Way leader does, and I know for a fact that Vince doesn't. The setup and structure, as indicated in the above excerpt, is dfferent from TWI. There is more emphasis on the local autonomous body, and no tree structure in which the "top leaders" decree what everyone must do and believe. There is also more cooperation with other groups with which Vince doesn't necessarily agree on every point, rather than the "don't even consider other opinions" attitude that TWI had. His son, who is now an associate pastor at Vince's church, got a degree from Atlanta Bible College, and Vince has humbly worked with a number of people from the Abrahamic Faith church, and the whole emphasis of the teaching is completely different from TWI. Aside from the Trinity stuff and the Unconscious Dead stuff, there is not a lot of doctrine that he still shares with TWI. Their biggest emphasis was on the individual - how to be a "spiritual heavy" and "believe big" and "operate" the holy spirit so as to have a more abundant life now. In contrast, the emphasis of Living Hope is the proclamation of the coming Kingdom of God, and putting Jesus in his rightful place as head of the Body and future King.

That's the most ridiculous thing I evah hoid!

I've been using my full name all along. I never really understood what the big deal was. I could see if someone was still in TWI and didn't want them to know they posted here. But other than that, what's the big deal? If someone googled your name and found your posts here, why is that a problem? I'm not criticizing anyones's choice, I just don't understand what the big deal is.

Not a new version, but a different understanding of it. I don't want to get into it here, since this isn't the doctrinal forum, but I wrote an explanation of it on my website, you can find it here. But this is only one of several areas where he differs from TWI.

Why do all of these posters assume that V. Finnegan hasn't rejected or denounced his TWI doctrines and practices? And as for the offshoots that do continue to hold to the old ways, they are not always secretive about it. Many of them still openly give VPW credit for "teaching them the Word like it hasn't been known since the first century." But Finnegan does not.

...And these accusations against Vince Finnegan prove my point. He has distanced himself from everything TWI and yet is being accused of doing the same things they did. How much have those accusers looked into what he's doing now? For the record, I don't agree with everything he teaches, but I do agree with most of it, and it is so different from TWI that his site isn't allowed to be linked on the Cortright site. Mine isn't either, because of the "false doctrines" that Cortright's site considers us to be teaching.

The only things he has in common with TWI, doctrinally, is the rejection of the Trinity and the idea of the dead being unconscious. But the whole dispensationalist view of the Scriptures, and the focus on what WE do instead of what God does, along with the "we are spiritual heavies" attitude, as well as the controlling of its people, were the among the things that were wrong in TWI, and Vince has renounced those. His focus is on the coming Kingdom of God, as was Jesus' focus, and TWI misunderstood that completely.

Yes, but I'm not running a ministry. It seems (this is a generalization, and I could be wrong) as if the ones who do so and have any connection with TWI are thought to be trying to continue the legacy in some way.

Just for the sake of accuracy, Vince Finnegan doesn't consider himself to be in any way carrying on VPW's legacy. He has a very different theology these days, as can be seen on his website (kingdomready.org). He has distanced himself from his past with TWI, which makes John Juedes think he's hiding something, yet if he were to speak of any connection with The Way he'd be accused of trying to keep the old stuff alive, and/or cash in on his past. Sometimes you just can't win.

In my day, the extended finger meant "One Way - Jesus!" :D

I still maintain that the Way was about power more than money. Not that they didn't do a lot of things for money, but that was second in importance to power, which is easier to disguise as a motive. Desire to control people can be easily spun to look like a desire to "see the Word prevail in the hearts and minds of men and women in our day and in our time." (Makes me want to barf that I can still recite those cliches.)

It is an opportunity for the SOWERS participants to learn how to string chairs! Everyone sing... "He plunged me to victory Beneath the cleansing flood!"

I liked this response to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYBBMmSQjxI...;watch_response

They must have seen your post. The caption has been changed to "Dinner Table." Have you gotten any thank you notes for setting them straight? ;)

If he wants to avoid going in the same direction as the old ministry, he should try sounding different, at least. But that letter, once you take out all of the old Way cliches, says virtually nothing. And letters from HQ were already sounding like that back in the early 90s.

This is a perfect example of how they went against their own doctrine to try to control people. It was clearly taught that once you were born again, you were "heaven bound" and nothing you did later would undo that. The worst that could ever happen was that you would lose rewards, according to their own doctrine. But when so many people started "tripping out" (as they called it) more and more leaders began to use terms like "done for spiritually." It was fear motivation to try and control us/them/you. But they sacrificed their own credibility when they did that, IMO.

We've got two different subjects here. One, what TWI said about "once saved always saved" and the other, what does the Bible say. In response to bowtwi, when TWI taught that some were "turned over to Satan" and "no longer under God's protection" that was supposed to refer to consequences in this life, and rewards in the next, but eternal life was not affected, because of seed (according to them). Then there were some whom they decided were probably not really saved to begin with. I'm actually not sure which of those two categories we would fall in at this point. In response to that seed issue though, I would point out that that whole idea comes from misunderstanding I Peter 1:23 and what "the seed" really is. Jesus taught that the seed is the Word, and having it is the key to having eternal life when Christ returns. The seed is incorruptible, but it doesn't say WE are, nor is there a guarantee that the seed will remain in us and bear fruit. That was the whole point of the Parable of the Sower. It is important to realize that there are also some conditional phrases used in the New Testament. Not salvation by works, mind you, but if we're saved by grace through faith, we must continue in that faith until the end. I wrote about this in an article on my website here. Following is an excerpt:

Doesn't look like they're coming near me either. Maybe they'll film it.

I can relate. Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking about how my brain won't shut up!