Oakspear

Must be out of fllowship

Is this a misprint of yours, or is it written this way in Way material?Howard replaced Harry Wierwille on the BOT, Don Wierwille replaced Ermal Owens

Okaaaay... God loves and accepts us all BUT there are consequenses to our actions wherein he will KILL us and our wives and children and cattle sounds conditional to me Oh, wait...he loves us as he's having his "chosen people" burn our city. Sounds about right to me. :blink:

The greatest unknown guitar player...as someone once said!

It doesn't look like they were given an opportunity to repent either.

Well, you at least believe in that which you despise I think you just made my point :blink: Thank you Mark, I will...and by the way, neither one of us claim to be atheists

No, they battle against the belief in something whose existance they deny, and it's influence on society. Nice doubletalk. Some theists can't imagine not having a god, so they project that lack of imagination on those who don't have one.

Actually, "The Way Corps as enforcers" was one of the things that came about in this time frame, now that you mention it. Since most of the independent-minded, in-it-to-serve-God people had quit or were fired, those that were left in mnay cases were anxious to "keep the household pure", and identify anyone who wasn't 100% with the program.

LG: There might be some that say that morals and ethics among the non-theistic are situational or opportunistic. I would put the same argument back to the theists: If your god changed his mind, about murder, would you? Or stealing? Or lying? Or adultery?

Lovin' Spoonful, maybe...no idea as to the name of then tune

Apparently those who posted on the subject.

Another thing was that I could actually interact with people, and have honest conversations about what was going on, with people who were going through similar things. Abigail, Belle and I were all married to "innies" who wanted to stay in, and we were all either recently out or heading in that direction. The support that I received from those two ladies was priceless.

Congratulations anamchara

There's a bit of inconsistancy in your posts doojable. It looks like you're saying that even though LG's daughter never believed in God, she was influenced by theistic beliefs since she has heard of him, but you're not influenced by "the god or gods of volcanos, the sea, rivers, the seasons, the sun, moon, and stars...fairy, leprechaun, or forest nymph bells", even though you've heard of them, since you never believed in them. LG is presenting his daughter as an example of someone who can be a good, moral person without ever having a belief in a god, and you're doubting that it can be so. I would guess that LG knows his daughter better than either of us.

I...heard...about...it...from...a...couple...who...had...left Nothing specific, just that some people had left and that those that left were still having meetings, teachings, witnessing, etc. One thing that I was told was that "HQ could move the Word in Ohio, we're going to move the Word in Texas". As far as being hard to control, I don't think that any area couild be controlled without the cooperation of local WC. After all, they were the way the control had always been administered. When there is an en masse walk-out, or firing, and the structure of twigs, branches, etc is carried over, what most people came to twigs for still exists. they don't have to get involved in battles, they just continue on as before. In doing the mass firings, the BOT just made it easier for parrellel organizations to flourish.

Dizzy: In my opinion, Wierwille included this in his class (he apparently got it from Bullinger), not because he cared, or thought it was necessary for salvation, but because it afforded him an opportunity to demonstrate his superiority over the majority of Christian theologians. It positioned him as the one who we should listen to, and mainstream Christianity as unreliable.

WD & GS helped me see that the problems that we were having in our area where not abberations, but par for the course. That the abuse by "leaders" was systemic, not isolated. Discussion with others helped motivate me to investigate their teachings.

Scribes who study insects?

Actually, i didn't hear about the "trouble in Texas" from TWI, I heard about it from a couple who had left.

http://www.meta-religion.com/Psychiatry/De...tal_illness.htmYou can't seriously think that there aren't other explanations that are as plausible as possession.

I don't know that I was saying that it was a loving ministry, but that the atmosphere appeared that way, kind of a calm before the storm kind of thing. Looking back, the BOT were laying low, so to speak, until they could reinstitute their controlling policies. The tide changed when the plans were laid for an "Advanced Class Special on Discerning of Spirits", held at Headquarters. The first few days of the class turned out to be the filming of the new class, Defeating the Adversary. A large portion of the class turned out to an exposition on the Book of Job, focussing on the "miserable comforters", and the fourth guy (whose name escapes me), who he declared was "seed of the serpent", that Martindale laid the foundation for in "The Leadership Tapes". The second part of the class was a disjointed walk through Martindale's files, where he "identified" people in politics, music, sports, etc, who were "seed of the serpent" or possessed. This is also where he introduced the concept that "discerning of spirits" was not necessarily revelation, but that possession could be identified purely by observed characteristics.

Main Entry: jin·go·ism Pronunciation: 'ji[ng]-(")gO-"i-z&m Function: noun : extreme chauvinism or nationalism marked especially by a belligerent foreign policy

I too remember the first couple of years in the 90's being a lot more fun than what came later. Not that there were no problems, but that local areas for the most part were self-governing. People hung out together outside of twig, and it was tough to get people to go home after a twig or limb meeting. As far as interference from the Way Corps, our LC was so ineffectual that if he tried to get pushy, people would politely smile and nod, and do whatever they wanted to do, with no follow up by the LC. In fact, the opposite was true; there were several people who saw things were too loose. They thought that "the standard of The Word" was not being adhered to, that people who had no intention of "doing The Word" were being allowed to attend twigs. The main agitators were three women who had been involved in TWI since the early 70's, including my ex-wife. In a lot of respects things in our area had swung quite far from legalism. There were several PFAL grads who refused to even consider speaking in tongues. They hadn't SIT'd during Session Twelve, didn't see the need for it, and resisted all attempts to "lead them into" tongues. We had a sixty-ish lady who hung around mainly out of loneliness, would say, after every teaching "That was a nice lesson", but couldn't tell you what was actually taught. We didn't do a lot of organized witnessing, but would bring folks who we thought were interested. We ran a PFAL class in late 1990, mostly for children of grads, and didn't run another during the 1989-1992 time frame. Things were laid back, but there was that undercurrent of agitation from the women I previously mentioned. All during this time, Martindale was being portrayed as the strong leader who had stood against the forces of darkness and survived, a true heir to "Doctor" Wierwille, and worthy of our loyalty. For most of us, having missed out on the "fog", the P.O.P., and everything else that followed, our opinions were skewed by lack of information. We were not given all the facts and didn't really know where we could go to get them. During this time, Martindale was usually yelling whenever he taught. At the time, fooled as I was, I thought that the yelling showed how serious he was about "The Word". The yelling hadn't filtered down to the twigs yet.

I had more silly reproofs come out of my mouth than I can keep track of. My oldest son and I get together occassionally and laugh about them.