johniam

I have a friend who went to a catholic HS who said he was taught that bit about patent leather shoes by a nun. He also said girls had to wear long sleeved shirts all the time because if they wore short sleeved shirts then every time the girl would raise their hand to answer a question a guy sitting on either side of her could look and see her bra. Not to be outdone, girls were not to use white blankets on a picnic because a white blanket would remind a guy of bed sheets and he'd want to go all the way. I'm surprised some of those people ever left their houses.

He'd get pulled over in a school zone.

The guy himself should be held accountable for his own behavior IMO. I can't see the church even knowing anything about it since nobody came forward. Looks like the Norris's are trying to get any kind of justice they can. This part reminds me of an episode of 'LA Law' where a guy sued the catholic church because the priest got sick of absolving his wife for something she kept doing over and over again so this priest finally wouldn't absolve her and she thought she was going to hell and wouldn't have sex with her husband and so the husband claimed he "wanted his wife back". Seemed kind of hokey on the show and it still seems that way, but it sounds like the Norris's are due something. If those other female parish workers testify she should get something.

Even if she's wearing pants???

Pedro Reunion here.

That's ONE consideration, but couldn't he also be trying to apply the verse in 1 Thes. that says avoid all appearance of evil? Any minister is a target, especially if they have fame and recognition. If Jimmy Swaggart had BG's policy maybe his ministry would've turned out different.

Part of the GSC homepage link to 'What is a cult' says that cult leaders claim to have a special relationship with God. VP did, Joseph Smith did, and, ahem, so does the pope. The word 'cult' loses some of its fizz if TWI is a cult because of its doctrine, but the RC church is not. Speaking of special relationships, it seems to me that some of the TWI spinoffs were started by people who claim to have had a special relationship with...VPW!!!

There are 170 prime numbers between 0 and 1000.

Wonder if he digs the Scorpions.

I had heard all the stuff VP said about him; besides that tape 'the way of life and death' I heard VP say BG didn't stick up for Anita Bryant the way VP thought he should have (1978) and then at Living Victoriously VP said BG didn't have any more guts than a dead ant. I heard all that, but I was impressed by a newspaper column I read by BG. He was answering questions by mail similar to Dear Abby and this person wrote him a letter about something going on in their life and I can't remember the subject matter of it but I remember thinking to myself "This person's dealing with devil spirits big time!" But BGs answer was comforting and reassuring and even then as a 'good wayfer', I could see that just maybe it isn't a good idea to tell people they're possessed when you're ministering to them even if they really are. Duh! I don't know much about his doctrine or what character flaws he may have, but he isn't this respected for nothing.

Perhaps it's time to have a seance to get Dorothy Owens to advise for a GSC Ettiquette booklet.

Hey, what's up with this poll? I voted ostriches and the poll results I saw only had 2 total votes, neither of which was ostriches. Update: Now there's 4 total votes, one of which is ostriches, my bad.

I'm not responsible for the actions of people I will never meet, either VPW or JP2. If I spend money at McDonalds am I intentionally supporting institutionalized obesity? If I buy beer am I part of a conspiracy of institutionalized alcoholism? The truth is that for every molested catholic or even TWI girl there are over a thousand who will never have to worry. I once read a pamphlet that said JP2 was into molesting young boys as far back as when he was a priest in Poland.

Nothing sick about it. He's THINKING FOR HIMSELF!!! What a concept! If she didn't say "NO!" it's NOT RAPE!

Someone recently posted about how some people survived TWI by having "one foot in reality" the whole time. I think loyalty is basically a good thing, but it has to be reciprocated. Looking from the outside, it does seem hard to swallow that someone could get to the point that they'd lose a marriage, job, mortgage, etc. because "God's representative" said to do it. I finally left TWI because they tried to drive a wedge between me and my wife. I DID have second thoughts, but not enough to seriously consider going back and it DID feel scary for a bit. I guess that's my version of having one foot in reality. Before that I came close to being kicked out of WOW and a Way home for not having a job for small increments of time, and one time I got ....ed at a music group coordinator and went off on him in front of everybody, but most of the time the 'powers that were' seemed to accept me for the bad as well as the good. I was abuse at times, but I gave abuse as well. Before Waydale/GSC we really didn't have any way to compare note like this. Looking back I now will not put up with some things I routinely put up with 20 yrs ago. Churches really HAVE caught up with TWI in a lot of ways. But I think where Oldies is coming from is.... We all know the stereotype behavior where someone is always blaming others for their own screw ups and seems to always make the same mistakes never making any progress. We also know that great breakthroughs are made when people genuinely understand they need to change and do so. This might just be my own perception of these things but IMO saying TWI is/was manipulative is more accurate because, well, they ARE/WERE just as people in other areas of life can be that way, but saying TWI is a "mind control cult evil devilish hellbound etc....." is a misrepresentation by degrees. To turn it around, just because you didn't see any healing doesn't mean it didn't happen. I am 100% sure the fear and terror and intimidation expressed by Rascal and others was quite real. I merely submit that by constantly saying mind control this and cult that...there's no room to get healed. There's only the appearance of blaming others rather than taking control. I think Oldies is just saying his "blame meter" is getting loud when he posts this stuff. I don't think he's really unsympathetic.

If they're guilty of mind control then so is any good salesman.

At that age my kids (3) all would spend up to an hour at a time taking things like cardboard boxes, then lay on their backs and just study it (hold it above them and stare at it). I'm no professional, but I suspect that that age is when kids figure out a lot of cause-and-effect type stuff, like repeatedly stepping on the matt that opens the automatic door at the grocery store just to see that it does work over and over again. I doubt if anything is guaranteed to hold his attention for that long, but if you see him playing with something like that that isn't actually a toy...well, who knows.

Quick question here. In STL there's flags at half mast all over the city. I can't imagine this to be a direct order from the mayor, just a common token of respect. I was wondering if this is going on all over the country.

The first time I heard of the office of Pope it was when John the 23rd died, and John Paul 1 barely made it out of the starting gate, so the only 2 popes I'm familiar with are Paul the 6th and JP2. I don't recall Paul 6th making any impression on me at all; I rarely heard his name in the news, but JP2 was always referred to in the news. Even LCM respected the clout the guy had. I think it interesting that Paul 6th came to Yankee stadium in '65 and that was IT, but JP2 was a regular visitor to the USA.

Eddie Murphy singing "Roxanne" in '48 Hours' and Julia Roberts singing that Prince song in 'Pretty Woman'. I used to sing Way prod songs like "Gathering of the Family" imitating Mick Jagger's voice. God, did I get some weird looks.

quote: how much of those "blessings", etc were due to the doctrine taught in PFAL, and how much was due to the personalities of those who were around you? I think and still do think that ideally both feed off each other. PFAL was a 'rallying point'; if you came to twig even once every two weeks you were at least marginally aware of how the word was moving (classes running or being put together). Also, if there was a golden age it was because things were kept simple; no grievous burdens/ no spittle. When things were simple you didn't have to dread going to twig. There was no compulsion. Oak didn't mention it, but some of us still believe that God is very real and that He actually healed many peoples' lives in those fellowships via both PFAL AND the love in the fellowship.

I can think of one first hand example, though minor, of VP not knowing about something. In early '84 he came to STL for a area fellowship. During the milling around after the fellowship he noticed that the bookstore had that Earl Burton book 'Spiritual Phenomena in the senses realm' for sale. He immediately ordered it removed and vowed to find out who caused the mistake. Apparently, he didn't want that book available to the ministry general public.

Congratulations!

Geo Aar: I think the girl you referred to is Gayle Chapman. Looker for sure. She was at my AC (Emp. '84).

Whether it was deliberate or not, all the emphasis on people who were possessed or seed did only to foster the "us against them" mentality where...we're the standing believers; the good guys and everybody else is out to get us...that kind of crap. I agree it's always sad when someone dies, although I'm curious who the next one will be and what impact he'll have. Even LCM had respect as to JP2's impact on the church.