Oakspear

Several years ago I was in Florida for my son's wedding (I was the best man!). We were waiting for the rehearsal to start and decided we needed to make a food run to a nearby Subway's. My wife and stepdaughter went with me and my son asked me to get a sandwich and drink for him. We ordered a "#2" (combo with sandwich, chips & a drink) for my stepdaughter a salad for my wife 2 sandwiches and 2 drinks for my son and I When we got up front to pay we were missing one of the drinks. I pointed this out to the counter girl. Gritting her teeth, she pointed out that I had ordered only two drinks (Big Rule of Customer Service - just take care of the customer - don't point out why he is wrong). I pointed out to her that I had ordered two drinks and a #2 which included a drink. With a straight face she countered with "I didn't know that you wanted a drink with that". (They just give you the cups, you fill it up with what you want at the fountain) Amazed that a combo that included a drink might not really include a drink, or why I would have to ask for a drink when I ordered something that came with a drink I directed her attention to the menu board, which clearly showed that a "#2" included a drink. In a tone of voice that indicated that she thought that I was the idiot, she informed me that not everybody wants a drink with that and that she would have to charge me extra. At this point I was irritated enough and hungry enough to pay whatever it took to escape from the madhouse, so I forked over the extra money. While I was doing this she was muttering about how I should have given her clearer instructions, to which I responded by asking her if she realized that I was the one paying her money for food and not the other way around. At this she stepped back from the counter and threw up her arms in front of her as if to ward off a blow and yelled at me to "get my happy foot out of there". Call the manager? She was the manager. P.S. When I got home I contacted their regional office to complain and found out that not only do they have very good video surveillance, but audio as well and the whole thing was recorded. She was fired.

An interesting bit of Martindale trivia. The 1992 "Defeating the Adversary" class was in large part a reworked version of the "Galatians teachings"/"Leadership Tapes" that came out in the very late 80's and into 1990 and '91 in response to Geer's POP.The class was filmed live in the auditorium as part of a week-long "Advanced Class Special on Discerning of Spirits" during the summer of 1992.

So that makes it okay?

We can have it good in so many categories and be so much farther ahead than the rest of the world in material comforts, religious freedom and ability to live our lives the way we choose, but does that mean that we can't strive to do better, or be angry or disappointed when our leaders don't measure up to the high standard that is set for them? I don't measure our leaders against third world dictators or middle eastern theocrats, but hold them to a higher standard.

Anyone who strongly and unequivocally states their opinion can be considered insulting. A non-believer might state that he no longer is superstitious nor is he an idiot who follows foolish religions. The believer might be insulted, feeling that he is being called a superstitious, idiotic fool. A believer might just as strongly and unequivocally state their theistic belief, implying that non-believers are blind, willfully ignorant and hate God. There are folks on both endes of the "believing" spectrum who shun diplomacy.

Thanks for those who contributed to the collection of second-hand incidents of people understanding tongues. The biblical uses of the phrase "speaking in tongues" seems to presuppose that people knew what it was. Does this mean that SIT was known outside of Christianity, or just that the biblical writers assumed that their readers would be familiar with the Christian version of it? George brought up uses of speaking in tongues in paganism. I know several pagans who speak in tongues, and those among them who claim that it's a real language that someone once recognized. Most that I am aware of utilize tongues as an "ecstatic utterance", not at all for its content, but more for the meditative aspects of it.

No kidding! If it's from God, how can you decide what the first letter would be? The same way he knew gee, guh, goo was

Before someone jumps on WordWolf for comparing Wierwille to Gacy... He is not saying that Wierwille was a serial killer, rapist or child molestor or even a clown. The point is that someone doing "nice" things doesn't mean that he didn't do the evil things as well. That a good exterior sometimes hides a rotten interior.

Malakasito!A personal religious faith requires no objective proof, because it's subjective, i.e. whatever you experience is for you, not for me and certainly not assembly-lined for the masses. That's what organized, institutionalized religion does, tries to make everybody fit in a one-size-fits-all box.

My personal opinion is that tongues were genuine for some people and others made it up, probably because it isn't something everyone can do, despite the TWI doctrine of "all nine all the time".

Not once have I heard or read of anyone with their own ears claim to have unmistakably recognized a tongue while in TWI (or out of it for that matter). Twice have I seen where posters have said that someone who they considered reliable had heard a tongue that they not only recognized but the interpretation resembled what was said in the tongue. One was just this weekend, where Don't Worry Be Happy related how his father, who spoke over a dozen languages, recognized two tongues, and Allan, a poster from Australia or New Zealand who claimed that his wife, who was of aboriginal ethnicity, recognized a tribal tongue and verified that the interpretation was correct. I've never had anyone tell me that they heard such a thing themselves, and most tongues that I heard during my time in TWI were so simple and repetitive that after hearing someone speak in tongues a few times I could almost tell you word for word what their tongue would be each time. I even remember hearing some folks from other countries speaking in tongues and then interpreting in their native language and I could always tell the difference, even when it was a language like French with which I had no experience But there were always stories floating about of so-and-so speaking Spanish, or Gaelic or Japanese or whatever (my tongue was once described as a cross between a Thai sportscaster and a Klingon) Of course there's VP claiming to have quoted Hebrew and Greek when asked to "speak in another language" that time in Tulsa and Karl Kahler's dad repeating the names of some Pacific volcanoes over and over when he took PFAL. Whether or not you think that speaking in tongues in general is real, do you think that speaking in tongues in TWI was real?

I wasn't being sarcastic, I was basing my observation on the assumption that the types of churches that I mentioned taught tithing. Being brought up Catholic, I'm not surprised that they were that low. Very few Catholics that I knew gave 10% or more and were shocked that I was giving that much when I joined up with TWI. Frankly I'm not surprised at the low numbers for atheists and agnostics. To me it seems logical that if you're going to a building every Sunday that is asking you for money, even if it is in a low key manner, you're going to give more than someone who isn't in that position, all other things being equal.

"Looking for his can opener" :blink: Holy crap!

I would have thought that evangelicals, conservatives, penecostals, et al would have been higher.

By masturbation Only in war Yes, but they all fight about masturbation. Seriously, these are three different topics. Maybe three different threads? You do ask some good questions though.

My opinion is that the way that "God" was viewed changed with the changing culture. The OT god was portrayed the way he was because the Israelites were successful militarily, conquering most of Canaan and slaughtering their enemies. For the most part the OT god was portrayed as acting in much the same way as the gods of the neighboring nations were. In that culture their god would have been portrayed as "good" because he was taking care of business, making it safe for their tribe to prevail over their enemies. While the Hebrews viewed their god as the creator of the universe, he was their god, and not the god of all mankind; Yahweh was the biggest, baddest deity on the block in their opinion. The Christian viewpoint is different, "God" is not the god of one tribal people, but everybody's god. From that viewpoint, the biblical god's commands to slaughter whole peoples seems cruel and not at all "good". I think that before we can intelligently opine whether "God" is good or not, we need a definition of "good" that is non-circular.

For most believers in the biblical god, God defines good. Not being one of those, I'd say that God, as described in at least the OT is not such a good guy.

I wasn't so much looking for names, just asking if you were thinking of specifics or just an impression. You answered my question. Thanks. Don wasn't a Way rev, his ordination was from someone outside of TWI, but he never to my knowledge used the title. I'm sure about C0ulter, he wasn't ordained until the 90's.

Why was it green if it wasn't oxidized copper?

People are not trained to think. It's not too much of a stretch to assume that a cheeseburger will have cheese on it. Or that the baconator will have bacon on it. You have to spell out every little thing to folks. The breaded chicken one was the best.

Exactly!The verse that I heard thrown around was the one in Corinthians about all things being done decent(ly) and in order. First of all, it's talking about speaking in tongues, not your furniture. And even if it was talking about housekeeping, everybody has a different idea of what constitutes "orderly". Some of the things that I was reproved for in the "decent & orderly" category: I re-used my tea bags and kept the bags in a cup on top of the stove after the first use. Leadership thought that the used tea bag was messy Kids had school desks that they did their school work on. We kept the desks in the living room arranged in a manner that we thought was most conducive to multiple children working at different grade levels. Leadership insisted that they be lined up (stringing chairs anyone?) Same desks were used to store pens, pencils, paper etc, hidden from view. Leadership told us that all the pens & pencils should be lined up and pointed the same way Books, including TWI books, on shelves were arranged according to category. For example, all collaterals together, next to PFAL, next to RHST, etc. Leadership thought they should be arranged according to size. Since our living/dining room was also our school room, boxes of books and papers were stacked in corners. Leadership wanted them hidden away. Yada Yada Yada During one particularly busy time for our branch coordinators, we invited them over for dinner. They had just moved, were running a WayAP class and I forget what else. We thought it would be a nice gesture, freeing them from cooking one night. We weren't pressured or guilted into doing it. We were just being nice. We made no special effort to tidy up the house, just set the food out and fed them. During the whole meal Mr. BC seemed to be simmering with anger over something. is wife seemed perplexed at his attitude, buit didn't say anything. When they were done eating, he abruptly left with Mrs. BC in tow. The next day I received a call from Mr. BC, asking to meet with us. We agreed to a time and met at our house. When the BC's arrived we were treated to doctrine, reproof and correction on the so-called disorder in our house. When it was done, we were expected to drop everything and start working on it. This was in the middle of a work/school day :o I would say that this incident and its aftermath was what got me thinking seriously that leadership in TWI was just plain nuts.

Mal George was a TWI rev. - I don't think George Jess was You know, I knew that, but never really thought about it. Was ordination a shiny toy dangled in front of young folks' eyes to make them feel important? I recall seeing a picture of someone (B.G. Leonard maybe?) laying hands on Don W and ordaining him when he was still a teenager (Don, not Leonard), but he never used the title to my knowledge. I remember Howard Allan saying that he didn't want to be ordained "because he didn't want to bury people", i.e. preside over funerals. I thought when I first heard it that it made very little sense. Are you aware of any specific situations where this happened? I can't think of any examples of people who were ordained because their spouse was. In fact I can think of only a few instances when both husband and wife were ordained: the Greenes and the Lallys. I think that there was an expectation that region coordinators and above were to be clergy, although this wasn't always the case. In 1990 Bill Sage was a region coordinator before he was ordained. Joe Coulter was on the President's cabinet for years before finally letting Martindale slap the "reverend" title on him. I think it was more the case that the pool of candidates for these higher positions came from the clergy ranks. Looking back, there was no clear-cut difference between clergy and non-clergy. As was stated, non-clergy held positions at the top of the pyramid and clergy sometimes were twig coordinators or held no titles whatsoever.

Who said there weren't?

I'm the husband who does most of the cleaning at my house, kinda like Java Jane's husband. My dad was and still is a neat freak; some of it rubbed off on me! Mainly I just like to be able to find things when I'm looking for them. When I was in TWI we homeschooled six children and I had my office in the house; it wasn't the easiest thing in the world to keep the house tidy.

No, i think there was another version after Walter's and before Martindale's That's right; and they were two diferent classes