johniam

Authority is a funny thing. Eccl. 7:16 - be not righteous over much, neither make thyself over wise. Why shouldest thou destroy thyself. This is not gender specific. NOBODY can juggle too much authority. Why is it that us men are always suckered into believing that women are inherently morally superior to us? Was it something our moms instilled in us from birth...continued by teachers....permanently validated when we had sex the first time? Dunno. In a Christian marriage, the man (1 Cor. 7:4) hath not power over his body, but the wife. Men are physical beings. Everything they are and hope to be is processed through a physical/logical filter. If a woman has authority over a man's body then she also has authority over that man's heart, soul, mind, and strength. This authority has been sufficient for many women historically. But now women want authority over the man's money. Back in the 60s a lot of women felt that a lot of men had abused their authority over them. They rebelled by burning their bras. The bras were symbolic of any restraints men used over women. Plus those women refused to be "sex objects" and homemakers and other things women did traditionally. Their rebellion had a lot of impact; no question about it. I once read that since 1976 when the ERA passed, women earn $1.01 per hour for every $1.00 made by men. But women still weren't satisfied. What would happen if men rebelled as women did? They probably wouldn't do the nonsense of burning their wallets, but what if they, too, refused to do what men traditionally have done? No more military service. No more construction work. All the paved roads, bridges, houses, office buildings, autos, planes, trucks, etc. that you women enjoy the use of would have to be built by women now. That would be interesting. What do men have to lose? Women have already taken our dignity and shattered it; made us into 2nd class citizens. Why COULDN'T men follow the women's example and say to hell with you I don't need you? Ironically, that movie 'Thelma and Louise' portrayed 2 women put in mortal peril just because they wanted a break from their authoritative husbands. Today, I think it would be more true to life if 2 men had peril trying to get a break from their wives! I think women have proven that they CAN be in authority like men. They've also proven that they can be abusive in authority just like men. Like I said, nobody can juggle too much authority. If you women insist on having authority over men's money, then you just may water down the effectiveness of your authority over their hearts, souls, minds, and strengths. Talk about winning the battle and losing the war! ...so it goes, we make what we make since the world began. nothing more; the love of the women, work of men. John Barlow

Nowadays if you're not taking some of your marching orders from religious nut bars then you're taking them from politically correct nut bars.

Hey, I'm pouring as fast as I can! From a purely denotative definition, a policeman is a man with a ministry. We serve and protect, right. Ditto military, medical, social workers, etc. But, biblically, a man with a ministry is a man who is tapped by God to perform a service, whether it's recognized by a religious credible organization or not.

quote: Hey, my Mom was married to my Dad till the day he died. He was a jerk (to use a nice name) The Catholic Church discouraged divorce. Somebody should have killed that a**hole, as far as I'm concerned. Staying married in a bad marriage doesnt' prove nothen, my freind. Did I say discouraged? They told her she was going to hell, and my dad's abuse was his right as a MAN. GRUNT! Yeah, this really happened. I'm curious. How do you think it would have affected you personally if your parents had divorced? Were you too young to give any meaningful input? Most children of divorced parents blame themselves. Could your mom have been looking out for you? Right as a man? Jeez. By the way, good to see your Rott on the pages again. I post as sporadically as I always have, but it seems that you haven't been around much lately.

quote: The point is, does any organization have a right to dictate who their members may date or marry? I heard on the radio recently that Orthodox Jews still arrange marriages with a divorce rate at a whopping one percent.

I tend to look at situations like this from the big picture first, then whittle down to the day by day stuff. I believe that authority is not merely something delegated by people, but is a God given quality of life put there to help ALL interpersonal relationships stay on course. As a child I had a friend named Al. We met in the 4th grade and by the end of high school there were 3 other guys in our clique. Al was the recognized leader. The rest of us did not get together and vote for Al to be our clique leader; Al just assumed the role. He created the authority he had and we let him function that way. In Eph. 5 and 6 there are 3 interpersonal relationships basic to life covered in detail. Most people IMO are part of all 3 at times. They are husband/wife, parent/child, and employer/employee. In all 3 the one under authority is addressed first followed by the one in authority. Ideally, the one in authority is successful because those under authority let that person be successful. Each side of the equation needs to give the other their space for it to work.

James Thurber once wrote a story called 'The Wonderful O' about a king who outlawed the use of the vowel 'o' in speech. I don't think it was punishable by death, just jail, but one man's name was Otto Ott, and, well...

quote: What was it that made way leaders think someone was Homosexual? Something they observed, like the guy from fellowship in the back seat of a parked car with his male lover, going at it? A man being sweet? His clothing? Tone of voice? Color choices? (and, why mainly men? Don’t recall women being accused.. maybe some where?) It was the whims of their evil thinking. LCM set the tone for that. In 1990 at corps week he said someone had a certain devil spirit "because only a 5 star general would DARE say such and such in front of the entire way corps". Nothing about God, by His revealing it to you. So if Moe (LCM) can make pronouncements like that, then Larry and Curly (butt kisser leaders who carried out those purges) could walk by their flesh and call it "reasonable spiritual suspicion".

I remember being told once that Playboy centerfolds were women's bodies with 12 yr old boys' faces superimposed on them. Never heard any TWI policy about that, but every so often I'd be at a bachelor party for someone in TWI and porno movies would be shown, or a 'strip-o-gram' would happen. I didn't mind the way those pictures were used in the CFS class, but considering that the Christian marriage is compared with Christ's relationship to the church, and the very first marriage produced the sin that required Christ to redeem us, I've come to the conclusion that there is no better witness for Christianity than a married couple that lives Ephesians 5...and no worse witness than one that doesn't.

This is just totally nuts. I thought it was bad that they had the war on debt, the homo purge, the unproductive evil purge, then coming into your house and looking in your drawers for "objects of evil"...all that was bad enough, but SHOES??? I can still remember Howard Allen bragging about how he made a refridgerator last 30 yrs..."Appliances are like spouses; if you take better care of them, they last longer!" Shoes?

He died with his boo ts on...OFF! No good; have to scale it down to running shoes.

quote: The sermon was on the parables about being lost then found (the shepherd leaving the 99 to look for the lost sheep) Keep reading. In the same chapter later a disgraced son comes back to his father willing to take the lowest position available only to be honored and restored. You may feel like God won't spit in your direction. You sound like it. He will. Umm...what I mean is...no matter how unworthy you feel in asking God to help your business, do it anyway. It really sounds to me like you feel the weight of the world is on your shoulders. ASK GOD TO HELP YOU!

On a slightly related subject, I remember there was a much maligned baseball player for the Giants in the 80s named Lemaster. He got so sick of it he removed his last name from the back of his uniform and replaced it with "BOO". I think the league fined him for it.

I've seen this clapping guy all the time. I JUST now realized it was somebody clapping. Before I thought it was somebody foaming at the mouth.

Imagine what would happen if people started booing in church.

...or spritely and alluring?

quote: What you really should look for is the devil spirit outfits. We should all go to a Sunday Teaching Service as devil spirits. But which type would be most appropriate? Sensual and devilish?

I gotta mention this. My mom liked jazz. Mostly older style like dixieland and big band jazz. There's this place in Grand Rapids, MI called Savory Street where they feature that kind of music. She went there with a friend when she was 75 yrs old. She and her friend (a woman in her 60s) were on the dance floor when these 2 guys in their early 30s start dancing with them. The guys knew how to dance properly for that style of music. But my mom is embarrassed. "I'm old enough to be your grandmother"! Yeah, well...they tried to buy drinks for them. My mom didn't think they were sleazy or nothing, just appreciated that she and her friend could dance like that, but my mom was spooked. But later, the first possible opportunity, she proud as a peacock told me ALL ABOUT IT! I guess that thrill never gets old.

I had so much waybrain that I . . .thought Nelson Rockefeller was the top seed in the pro am golf tournament.

That Y2K thing didn't bother me much because I figured that IF something big was going to go down, then the power brokers of this world would stand to lose a lot, and us little people would surely feel some "trickle down" uneasiness in the interim. Nothing of the kind. I thought MAYBE some utilities may be affected, but no. Nothing.

quote: Johniam------- No offence intended but just because something was on a Sunday Night Service tape neither validates nor invalidates the information presented. There seems to be a recurring theme on GSC that a) VP said something in PFAL, then b) certain leadership tweaked what VP said and morphed it into something hurtful to some people, and then c) someone on GSC declares years later that VP intended to hurt people. Like NWA once said, bacdafucup! Well, SOMEBODY said that.

quote: Is there anywhere in the Word that says doubt, worry, fear is a law. I don't think so. Is there anywhere that says gravity is a law? While in TWI I never had a phobia type problem I had to overcome, but there were times I had to do things I was afraid to do at the moment and I did them believing God would cover me and everything went OK. To be fair, I think that yes if you can convince your self that a) you NEED to do something you're normally afraid to do, and b) God will help you do it, then you can overcome fear by believing. BUT!!! If you're just not ready to take that step, then it would be abusive for someone to try to guilt you into doing it in the name of "spiritual victory" or whatever.

quote: The performance of classical conditioning experiments in such a manner are considered unacceptable and unethical by scientists today, for reasons we now see as obvious--the damage done afterwards and the lingering affects. I would be very interested to read the case you cite, John, and will happily provide more data to support what I've said here if you are interested. I can't remember the name of the film or anything; it was 20 plus yrs ago, but I had a similar experience in childhood. When I was 7 I was staying at my sister's for the day and I walked between 2 yards just down the street. Two dogs lunged at me biting my arm. Someone was there to limit the damage (physically) but I was afraid of dogs for awhile. Then when I was 13 I stayed over night at a friend's house and he had a big German Shepherd. We were down stairs and I had to go upstairs to go to the bathroom. I get to the stairs and the dog is laying across the top step going rowrrr rowrr. This was a problem. I got frightened. So they got me to just let the dog smell my hand and after a few times going over there I wasn't afraid of dogs any more. Still not, ain't that right, Bear? He says rowrr rowrr.

quote: The problem is that Wierwille made this a law. Any fear, any doubt, any worry, was wrong, was negative believing. I dispute this. In 1984 I got the 'Tape of the month' HQ sent out. One of them was a rather long teaching by Walter Cummins and he made a distinction between natural fear and learned fear, citing that natural fear was healthy. I think VP didn't spell out stuff like this is because he didn't feel he needed to. I took a psych class once and they told of a 4 yr old child who heard a sudden loud disturbing noise when he was staring intently at a white kitten. For a time after the child was afraid of cats. They cured him progressively, by first showing him a small cloth the same size but a different color as the kitten, then a white cloth, then a stuffed kitten a different color, then a white stuffed kitten.....like THAT. Eventually the child overcame the fear.

quote: It's usually some 20 year old that wants a mommy to teach him the ropes. I am amazed at how many 20 year old boys are looking to be with their mommy. LCM was right. A mother and a vixen. Truth is stranger than fiction.