Oakspear

Uh, yeah, okay -->

When I first got involved, everybody got revelation. "Father, which way do I turn, right or left?" - "God, do I buy Tide or Surf to clean my clothes in?"; as ridiculous as it sometimes was, everybody was equal, and many of us were convinced that we were receiving revelation, why not the leaders? Later, probably the 90's, it was the leaders who got revelation because...uh...they were leaders! We were led by the hand (or the ring in our collective nose) to believe that of course leaders were getting revelation, that us "true believers" never gave it a second thought unless we were willing to chuck it all.

Even though I never saw any genuine revelation, for years I thought that they still got it. I wanted to believe that what they taught was right, that God was in TWI. Until I made some stupid financial decisions and got into credit card debt after having previously retired all my debts, and hid it from "leadership". For several years I was allowed to attend two advanced classes, several advanced class specials, teach at and run fellowship meetings, and particiapate in other activities that were barred to people in debt, all the while, not only in debt, but LYING about it to the spiritually discerning "leadership". And they didn't find out about it, until my then-wife told them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending running up credit cards or lying to anyone, but here I was, engaging in what TWI considered the biggest obstacle to godliness aside from homosexuality, and no one got revelation about it. Even though I accepted the six-month probation that they subjected me to, and even sincerely wanted (at the time) to get back in TWI's good graces, the knowledge that no one knew, no one figured it out for several years caused the seeds of doubt to grow and blossom. By the time the lawsuit was announced and I started posting secretly on WayDale, I didn't think that there was a chance in h#ll that anyone from TWI would get revelation about anything.

When I got out in 2001 they were not referring to RFR as "The Woman of God" or anything like that, but she was still being treated as such by TWI "leadership". Her suggestions were still equivalent to commands.

They don't justify it, Belle; they just give the "present truth" about their website (and probably wayfer-run websites like the insipid "Family Tables") and pretend that they never said any different.

TWI was infamous for changing the rules, and pretending that they'd always been that way, without ever admitting that what had come before was an error or in need of changing. The subject of the Man of God was one of the more recent examples.

I nominate Catcup to head the Cafe Research Department :D-->

CFF is headquartered in Tipp City, Ohio. The leaders are ex-Way reverends.

Kind of true..if you are including telling them indirectly by letting identifying information slip.There are people in TWI who are tasked to reading this and other websites to determine if any "innies" are posting. They look for hints, and compare what people are saying to what peopel are saying in their fellowships. This is not speculation!!! - several of us were found out in this manner when we were still "in". Some of us use our real names as handles, others, including me, have posted our real names at times. Some folks just like internet anonymity in general. For those who are still "in", there are a number of reasons to stay in the closet.

I don't know...who's assuming that?

Here's what Howie wrote above his signature at the end of the POP: http://www.greasespotcafe.com/waydale/gallery/papletter.gif

I didn't give them up, but I sure ticked them off

Yay! No Way Disciples in Nebraska again!

Alfakat: You don't give WOWmobiles tune ups...ya just buhlieve Gawd!

Yeah def, you're right about pre-Constantine councils, but it was when the power of the state backed up the words of the church that a charge of heresy became something other than name calling. Your use of confederation, as opposed to fragmentation, is closer to what I meant, thanks for serving as my personal thesaurus ;)--> - difference of opinion was tolerated, not necessarily because they liked it, but because there wasn't anything that could be done about it. Even after Constantine, expulsion of heretics, and supression of heretical sects was only effective in areas controlled by Rome. The "Church of the East", sometimes called the Nestorians, operated inependently of Rome & Constantinople; the Copts, the Armenians, and the Monophysites all went their separate ways as well, since they were outside the sphere of governmental control.

Hide the fact that the babies were born from Vader?

I think a rift in the church was as likely as anything else. As a new faith, with no enforcement apparatus, what would keep groups or individuals with varying doctrines from splitting off from each other? Look at what we know: Biblically, Paul laments that virtually everybody has abandoned him; there is evidently a difference of opinion about who has godly authority between James and whoever else is with him in Jerusalem versus Paul and those he has ordained/appointed out in the gentile areas. Peter seems to be the leader at the start, but hits the road after a while. There doesn't seem to be a completely unified central governing body. There does seem to be one group attempting to set up an "organization" and Paul and other attempting to set up a "system" whereas the good news is propagated. What we know historically is that when Constantine the Great gave his approval to Christianity, "the church" was a loose collection of semi-independent and far-flung entities, despite the Catholic conceit that all was one unified, universal church, with an unbroken line of popes from Peter onward. It was not until the councils attempted to enforce uniformity in doctrine that some sets of beliefs came to be classed as "heresy". They never did. Christianity was fragmented from earliest times. Why not during bibliacl times as well?

Let's see... One guy in 1978 who was a childhood friend. He came up to me in a bar and asked about my green bumper sticker. Took the class, went WOW in Nebraska the year before I did, went into the Corps. One guy on my WOW year. Struck up a conversation with him on the street. Everything other than his name was a lie! He crashed on our couch for a while, followed us when we got reassigned to another city, took PFAL. The last time I remember seeing him was when my WOW brother and I were trying to collect money that he owed some other wayfers, he marched into a police station and told the cops that we were cult members and that he wanted protection. Another guy, in 1993 maybe. Met him in a bar, invited him to twig. He stuck around for a year before a class came together, went to the ROA, went as far as the intermediate class and left because he couldn't stand all the demands on his time.

Hey, I know Chip! We were WOWs in Nebraska the same year. Fruit soup...eeesh!

Plenty of Way Corps grads ran there own successful business...then got screwed by the everybody-is-a-full-time-minister "revelation". That's not who you're talking about though, is it? ;)--> We had a guy in our area, who came in as a branch coordinator and was bumped up to Limb Coordinator before he left. The first year here he was a dry-waller. Worked hard all day, and went out witnessing most nights. Was a jerk in a lot of ways, but he actually did everything that he asked us to do. One of the PFAL classes during the last year that we had them had everybody but one person witnessed to by him. Anyway, after one year as a dry-waller/branch coordinator, they made him and his new wife full-time "ministers". By the time it was time to go back and join the work force, Martindale had convinced everyone that they could all be "managers". Most people who have never had managerial experience think that managers are just the folks who sit on their butts and tell everyone else what to do all day...kind of like what TWI "leadership" did . So here's all these people, who have been completely out of the workforce for several years, and who worked blue-collar or service industry jobs before that, applying for positions as managers in various businesses in their towns. Reality set in pretty quick for most of them.

Oldies, are you saying that you don't care that I couldn't care less that signals couldn't care less that Jim doesn't agree with him? Or do you not care that...oh forget it ;)-->

Just what the h*ll did that mean? In the context of the TWI heirarchy, Don & Howard, who were not ordained, had more power and authority than any Corps grad with a worthless "Rev." tacked on before his name.

No, and Elisha didn't run around preaching that what ever he ended up dying of was a devil spirit either. It wasn't the cancer that negated any ministry that Wierwille might have had, it was his behavior. The cancer only gets brought up because he himself taught that cancer was a devil spirit. How ironic that he died of cancer.

And I couldn't care less that you couldn't care less if Jim agrees with you. :P-->

Although this is listed as "Corps Notes", I remember hearing all of it: maybe our local Corps went over their notes with us, or the same ground was covered with advanced class grads or something. As I recall, Martindale was saying that Wierwille didn't wait until the last minute to name a successor, I also recall him saying that Wierwille didn't expect to die so soon...implying that he did the right, biblical, thing, but that the adversary killed him off. I don't know what people who were around Wierwille thought, but from where I sat, he looked hale & hearty when he stepped down in '82. The quick decline over the next 3 years is another story. Of the original three trustees, Harry Wierwille died "in office", Ermal Owens retired in 1977, and died in 1980 or '81.