Oakspear

Ham: It sounds like you're saying that Wierwille's character indicated or pointed out the falsity of what he was teaching, not that it made false what was otherwise true. Also that his character was a red flag to accept nothing he said at face value. Correct me if I'm wrong and you were really saying that there was truth that his sins turned into lies.

Still waiting for this assertion to be made, other than some posters claiming it has been made.Every poster who has been accused of saying that Wierwille's sins invalidate any truth in his teachings has explained the misunderstanding. Come on! If you're out there and believe that any truth that is in Wierwille's teachings is no longer truth because of Wierwille's sins, step up to the microphone and say so!

They were trying to soak the brides & grooms up here. Last year there was a bill in the legislature to increase the marriage license fee from $15 to $100. It didn't pass. From what I've read, Nevada has the most restrictions and requirements and fees on wedding officiants.

Wierwille defined a prophet as one who spoke for God, which he strongly implied that he did. Someone can't be what they don't explicitly claim to be? Why not?

Is there anyone here who believes that any truth in Wierwille's work is somehow not truth due to any of Wierwille's sins or abuses? If so, please step up and say so clearly. I don't think such a poster exists. I hear posters asserting that Wierwille's character influenced what he taught, should cause one to not take it at face value and that the teachings were not truth. Yet various arguments are addressed by the statement that Wierwille's sins don't negate the truth in them. This strawman has been around so long that it's taken on a life of its own.

They don't require ministerial licenses up here Whitey. They just take your word for it.

In Nebraska & Iowa you don't have to register or get a license.

So, shiftthis, not wanting anything to do with TWI = not being into God?

Google "wedding officiant requirements"

During the ! wedding a few years back my then-fiancee, now wife Susie, noting that the "minister", our esteemed Raf, was not a professional minister, but nonetheless did a great job, mentioned that she thought that I would be good at marrying people. In 2005 I got a Universal Life Church ordination, but waited about a year to put an ad in the yellow pages, advertising as a wedding officiant. I ended up performing eight weddings in 2007, including an "emergency wedding" at 11PM on a front lawn, wearing my grocery store uniform, with vows that I had made up in the car on the way over. For 2008 I set an initial goal of averaging 1 per month, which would have covered advertising for my wife's business as well as mine, but soon increased it to 2 per month. I've done 5 so far, including one alternating between Spanish and English and have contracts and deposits for 12 more, plus 3 appointments with couples this week for future weddings. I'm about ready to hire a secretary!

It's a Grateful Dead thing

Wierwille agreed with Lamsa, who believed that the NT was originally written in Aramaic. He threw around the term "Estrangelo Aramaic" which referred to the script that the language was written in, not a dialect.

To be fair to John, I think it's pretty much a given that most people know that the verse wasn't written in 1611.

One of the recurring battles here at the ol' cafe features a disagreement between those who assign responsibility for certain woes that befell us to Wierwille and his subordinates and those who feel that each individual is completely responsible for anything that happened to them. It is my position that in most cases we are responsible for how we think and act, and we decide how we will respond to people who treat us wrongly. It is also my position that this kind of discussion gets pushed into a false dilemma: TWI and its leaders are totally responsible for our problems or we are totally responsible for our problems. The third alternative is that although we decided to stick with a group that was in many cases abusive, the leaders of TWI were wrong to take advantage of the position that we put ourselves in. The emphasis should not be on whether Wierwille, Martindale or Joe Corps Grad was responsible for our mental state, or the problems that we encountered, but whether the actions that they took were ethical or not. The way I see it, abusive leaders saw that there were people who, for one reason or another, were willing to put up with whatever level of abuse they were subject to in exchange for what they perceived were benefits: being part of "the household", having access to "the Word like it wasn't known since the 1st century", or whatever other reason people had for putting up with b.s. - Those leaders then took advantage of those people who had put themselves in that position by abusing them. The emphasis should not be on whether those abused people could have theoretically walked away, or spoken up, but should be on those "leaders" who acted unethically and unbiblically when they knew that they had some people by the b@lls. An analogy might be found in the workplace. Some people, whether due to lack of skills, inability to find a job in the same pay range, or just fear of change, might be convinced that they cannot quit their job. Does that mean that a supervisor is justified in treating the employee in an abusive manner because the employee has the option of leaving? Or is the supervisor being a bully, knowing that the employee that he or she picks on has no meaningful alternative? It is a distraction to attempt to turn the spotlight back on those who feel victimized or abused. The spotlight should instead be on the perpetrators.

That's the only sensible option in my view. Unfortunately, the way many folks "rework" what was in PFAL is to glance at the King James or maybe crack open a Young's concordance for a cursory look. Unless one tosses out Wiewille's made-up definitions of Greek and Hebrew words, his false assumptions and unwarranted leaps of illogic, his misrepresentations of what other Christians actually believe, and generally shoddy research skills, one isn't really "checking it for yourself". "Keeping the fish and spitting out the bones" assumes that you can tell the difference between the fish and the bones.

Of course someone who commits suicide is partly responsible for their actions, they didn't turn into zombies, totally unaware of their actions without any control. The fact that there was an alternative to suicide, that there was a possibility, no matter how large or how small, of not taking one's life, does not in any way negate the responsibility of those who provoked the suicide, pushed the person toward it, and acted without any love or compassion for a fellow human being.

I figure I'm a little bit too hairy for you bro'

Tell me pawtucket (if that's your real name), did Ralph have anything to say about the Lord Krishna during your conversation?

:wub: Happy Beltane to the handful of neopagans out there; Happy May Day & enjoy the nice weather to the rest of you!

It hit me a few years ago when a poster that we don't see around here too much anymore posted about how she got out when she saw things going down the tubes, legalism, etc...and she was talking about 1974...on the same thread another poster talked about the good times, the good people "hot bible" and "sweet fellowship" and he was talking about 1992

The "Actual Errors" thread deals mainly with errors in fact that can be verified, not doctrinal interpretations. But that's only my interpretation Dude...not the cows...anything but the cows. :ph34r:

One of the things that I've learned here at the cafe is that no matter what year you look at you'll find people who look at that year as a time of sweet fellowship, moving the Word and personal growth. You'll also find people who view the same year as a time when the ministry was going downhill, the Word wasn't moving, and everything was going to hell.

Never thought of it that way, I just capitaized WOW because they're initials Word Over the World doncha know. But I like dmiller's take better. In fact I think I'll plagiarize it and say it's mine As far as docvic, I usually refer to him as "Wierwille", no honorific or title. I certainly don't refer to him as "Doctor" (as in not "Doctor Wierwille", just "Doctor" or "The Doctor") because I won't use a term of endearment or a title of respect for the man.

About two and a half years before leaving for good I had been put on probation. My wife and I had been having some marital problems and I had made some stupid decisions that while serious, should have been between my wife and I. We were put on six months probation. We had to come to the twig meeting where the LC announced our probation to everyone. The LC declared that I was "treacherous". I had no infamous last words at that time, since I didn't exactly have the moral high ground and I wanted to prove them wrong and be allowed back in to TWI. A few days before I was finally booted I was confronted by Tom and Dorothy Horrocks and my twig leader. They had printouts of some of my posts from GSC. I never found out if they had made the connection between some of the concerns that I had brought to their attention and had put in writing to a member of the BOT and what was being posted, or if someone ratted me out. (My wife at the time is my #1 suspect). They tried to get me to admit that I was "Twyril", the handle that I used back then (even asking me, seemingly innocently, how to pronounce "Twyril"), but I admitted to nothing. Several doctrinal issues were brought up by me during this meeting that I felt could not be supported biblically, including the WayAP class segment about the devil impersonating a beautiful woman and having lesbian sex with Eve. I commented that someone either needed to show me where I was wrong, or the Trustees were going to have to change what they were teaching. Dorothy Horrocks said "that's not going to happen". Several days later I was called by Tom Horrocks who informed me that I was no longer welcome at Way fellowships because I "didn't believe that the Trustees were leading the ministry in the right direction". I laughed and asked him if I was being thrown out for believing that the Trustees were capable of mistakes. He said no, and repeated his initial comment about me not believing the Trustees were leading in the right direction. I had long ago left TWI in my heart, but was sticking around to see if I could convince my wife to leave with me, so it was a relief to be kicked out, no longer having to live a double life. Horrocks told me that if I was interested in getting back into the household I was to contact him for information. He then asked me to put my wife on the phone, but she was not at home, so he asked me to have her call him later. I kind of chuckled and said something like "Sure, whatever". He told me that it didn't sound like I was going to pass on the message and that I "needed to convince him". Now that made me laugh! I told him that by kicking me out he had abdicated what little authority that he had over me and that I would pass on the message if that's what I decided to do, I wished him a good day and hung up.

Initially they were called the "Galatians" tapes, but later became known as the "Leaders" tapes, "Leaders I" and "Leaders II". I no longer ahve my notes, but if I remember correctly they consisted largely of Martindale listing what devil spirits that he thought Chris Geer had, and diatribes against people who left, accusing them of stealing abundant sharing and PFAL tapes among other things. I believe that it was at least half of the "Leaders II" tapes where he goes on about the "miserable comforters" of Job and how he thought they related to what took place in the wake of the P.O.P..Nowhere does he ever discuss specific accusations against him and the other Trustees, not even to rebut them. He never mentions that there were other people that came forward other than Geer. He made it seem as if there were never anything other than vague warnings about "returning to the centrality of the Word" and no specifics. Ralph made it clear that there were specifics and what they were and how they were responded to.