Oakspear

Hard to do, since the store i work in was not built until 1986, the first store in the chain was built in 1984 :blink:

Thanks WordWolf, you saved me the trouble :ph34r: Snopes is a great site, and they're usually right on top of the latest internet b.s. although the Lincoln-Kennedy one has been around for awhile What about this: Hmmm.... WordWolf = 8 letters Oakspear = 8 letters WordWolf - from New York Oakspear - from New York WordWolf - knows Rafael Olmeda Oakspear - drank a lot of beer with Rafael Olmeda WordWolf - was in TWI in the 80's Oakspear - was in TWI in the 80's WordWolf - provides analysis of posts by Mike Oakspear - has a brother named Mike I could go on & on ;)

Then you can settle the argument about whether the protaganist was blind, gay, or both

Without getting into a doctrinal discussion of what "renewing one's mind" is, no, I disagree. All it takes is one "psycho" in the group, and all the renewing of the mind in the world will not make the situation work out. I would agree that a group who all shared the same goals and level of maturity and committment could make it work, and many did, but the fact that many WOW groups had one or more troublemakers, or folks who were unsuited in one way or another, speaks to the inability of the "leadership" to properly run the program

For me, I had a desire to determine what the truth was. As a young man I decided that the bible was the truth, but hadn't been taught much detail about it. Followers of The Way were the first people to claim that it was even possible to read and understand the bible. "The class" seemed an easy way to check out their claims. For several sessions, Wierwille hammers home the theme that the bible is "The Revealed Word and Will of God", "The Integrity of The Word", "The God Breathed Word", etc. He reads a lot of verses, but doesn't really say anything other than "God wrote the bible, so it's true" for hours upon hours. Finally, he starts reading verses that contradict what the mainstream churches teach. "Wow", I thought, "how can the churches have missed this stuff? It's written plainly in black & white". He spends quite a while building his own credibility as someone who simply reads what's written, and the churches unreliability at the same. To me, it undermined any trust I may have had in the churches and built up Wierwille in my eyes. So far, in my opinion, he's done little that's obviously wrong, he pretty much just reads (although he's already putting his own spin on II Timothy 3:16-17 and I Peter 1:20-21) Then he starts hitting us with "the fireworks" - the "apparent contradictions". After convincing us that the bible cannot contradict itself, since it's "godbreathed", and tearing down the churches' credibility and building up his own, he starts throwing around definitions of greek words and concepts with little visible support. Reasonable posters can disagree about his doctrines, but my point is that, while being told that we could check things out for ourselves, we were being expected to accept his premises and definitions, from which his conclusions arose. I knew very few people who had any concept of "working the Word" back when I took PFAL, so there really wasn't anyone to check this stuff out with. And he had done such a thorough job of discrediting churches that I probably wouldn't have listened anyway. After getting my head filled with a bewildering array of doctrine, then we hit "the holy spirit field". Whatever one thinks of the doctrine, Wierwille was schooled in the art of preaching, and knew how to build up the excitement, culminating in the emotional speaking in tongues in session twelve. Looking back with what I know now, a lot of what Wierwille had in his class was poorly done "research", unwarranted assumptions, and biblical pretzel baking. Yet I accepted what he taught, I accepted him as an expert. By the time I could 'work the Word" on my own, I was so thoroughly indoctrinated with Wierwille's assumptions, that it was difficult to view the bible without my Way-colored glasses.

In what way do you feel "tricked" by PFAL? (Assuming that you do, of course :) ) I realize that there are extremes in opinion about "the class", some believe it's the "reissued Word of God", some feel that it's the best teaching about the bible to come down the pike, some never thought it was worth the film it was printed on. Many of us bought into PFAL, maybe warily, maybe skeptically, but we at least conditionally accepted it. Looking back from the perspective of someone who realizes that they've been scammed, how did he do it? How was the wool pulled over your eyes?

Part of the inattention paid to who went with whom was due to the fallacy that any two believers, renewing their minds, could live together and get along (similar to the belief that any two standing believers could get married and make it work). How many horror stories are out there of WOW groups who were literally at each others' throats? And don't forget the sexual dynamic: young men and women living together was a serious temptation for many people. How many WOW groups fell apart because they ended up in the sack with each other?

TheHighWay: That's right! Whatever the highest level of leadership in any situation decided was ,by definition, right, simply because the highest level of leadership in that situation had decided it.

will you accept a check?

WordWolf mentioned, on his thread about The Way, Living in Love, Wierwille's lack of experience with any kind of training program, yet he established several: ThecWay Corps and the W.O.W. Ambassadors. What kind of training did we receive as W.O.W.'s? I went out once, in 1980-81. We spent two or three hours per day during the ROA, for three days, listening to various leaders read bible verses that might or might not have any relationship to what we were going to face "on the field". We were supplied with a "family coordinator" who was twenty years old and overly impressed with his own spirituality, as well as how much women were attracted to him. We were overseen by a Limb Coordinator who provided little, if any, practical advice. Any good that could be strained from the year's experiences cxan be credited to our own tenacity and ability, not to any alleged "training" that we received.

Of course, he's from Nebraska!!

The other day at the store where I work a customer tried to return a bottle of prune juice. Usually, no problem. This time, the checker looked at the expiration date, and saw that it had expired in September...of 1980!!!! :o Of course the refund was not issued

If the "simplicity of The Word" is so simple, why do we need "keys"? Why do we need to understand Orientalisms and figures of speech? Why is it that a "simple" reading of "The Word" yields so many different answers?

I left twice. Once in 1983, due to an argument with local "leadership" over interfeence in my personal life. But since I had retained most of my TWI beliefs, I went back when, in my opinion, things had changed. That was 1990. I stuck around 11 years the second time around. The lawsuit was my impetus for leaving, but they actually had to throw me out, since I was sticking around waiting for my then-wife to see the light also.

Discussions of the nature of the godhead are complicated. Whatever verses or concepts one chooses to elevate, the other guys have verses to prove the opposite. The doctrinal debates of the second and third centuries revolved around the nature of Jesus and God and their connection to each other.

Sure, but it has taken on the meaning of one particular branch of Christianity

Allan: My opinion is that we really don't know for sure whether the teachings of Jesus and the "First Century Church" were recorded faithfully and "accurately". Of course it's possible that they were, but the factional battles resulted in the writings and teachings of the dominant and most politically powerful faction becoming enshrined as the "canon of scripture". In my view, Joseph Smith's claim to unique revelation isn't any more silly than some of what is in what we know as "The Bible". What we call the New Testament was not handed down on stone tablets from Sinai, but collected and argued over for centuries before being declared "scripture". Your opinion of what Christianity is, what truth is, is as as valid as anyone else's, and I hope it works for you, but there being so many views of what the truth is, even within the relatively small group of ex-wayfers still using Wierwille's "keys", that using your view as the truth as a platform to beat down and deride others' beliefs stands on very shaky ground.

I heard that he found the skunk pelt in a box of cracker jacks...and the rest is history

I'm usually not much of a complainer or a whiner, and in some ways I feel really stupid for starting this thread :blink: but if I had it deleted, it would genearate another thread, with challenges to the moderators about why the thread was gone... ...I couldn't sleep at night with that on my conscience :unsure:

The sex aside, this was typical Wierwille "biblical research": take a verse, decide that it doesn't mean what it plainly says, and supply the words that God would have used if God meant what everybody thought it meant

same ol', same ol' Big build up, no delivery :huh:

I guess it depends on how much our hypothetical "innies" are willing to think.

Who was paying for all these subscriptions that got thrown in the trash?

Hmmm, haven't heard that handle in a while B)