Mike

I too would not include sexual assault in the "collateral damage." I was thinking of things like career detours, education, financial independence, etc. From the "Me Too" movement we are hearing that young women are assaulted in nearly every human organization on the planet. I started seeing this with High School football players having their way with the cheer leaders. We will soon see if the "Me Too" movement has any ability to make changes. I fear this problem is far too entrenched in our DNA (of both sexes even) and that it will not go away fast or easily.

My call that most posters here lately are fixated on a pure evil model of VPW is purely subjective. I make that call, and I expect that less involved readers will see the exact same attitudes that I see. It might for you all to see yourselves this way, though. It might take some uncomfortable examination and some ego tarnishing.

You completely missed my point.. I'm not thinking theological charges at all. Try picturing it again: TWI comes to judge with complaint that someone is stealing their material. Then judge sees evidence that TWI stole the same material from someone else. HILARIOUS!

Did you first read Bullinger before or AFTER you were fed the translation in PFAL? My take on Bullinger is that if it weren't for PFAL absolutely NO ONE here would have ever heard of him. Ask around in the churchianity machine about him, and I think you'll find no one there knows about him either.

I knew him personally. I know what the scriptures say about OUR old man nature. I know all sin stinks. I do NOT buy the model him being pure evil being sold here. I saw him do good. The pure evil model does not fly with reality. Get a rounded education and you may think differently. If you spent a year with some pfoPFAL people you would be able to see more.

Wouldn't that belong on a separate thread?

What I was saying is that the operation of tough love can start out being genuine, but that it easily degenerates, unless tender love is well mastered. I've never thought that VPW had mastered perfect love. I look ONLY at the printed product the large team of workers which VPW headed, in order to see perfect love. He was a sick puppy... at times. I know that happens to me some times. I’ve gone down the wrong roads and regretted it. Haven’t you? Because I'm not leading thousands of students, when my life goes into a tailspin phase (it happens) I can keep it pretty private. But a teacher doesn't have that luxury. And when some unhappy students (that happens also) document those errors copiously, leaving out all the good phases that happened, it paints a distorted picture of VPW for you. *** I know MUCH less about LCM. I don’t see his life ever blessing thousands of non-Corps, except for those years where LCM was moving PFAL, which he did well. When he was teaching the Corps, and then when he took over the ministry in 1982, there seems to be far less blessing than VPW’s years prior to 1982. At the 1972 Rock of Ages, which was comparatively small, I happened to park next to VPW and his wife. For 3 days I had many opportunities to get to know him informally. He was a pretty normal guy in a very unusual role. I liked him from that early encounter, but as time went on he could get on my nerves. I went through phases; he went through phases. From what I saw he was VERY tough on those who wanted to work close to him. When I worked close to him he was tough on me. I survived. It was a war of sorts we were engaged in. He was a tough general. I think the job got done, and yes, there was collateral damage. I CHOOSE to look at what was successful and full of light, the contents of written PFAL.

Good question. Have you ever tried to supervise a couple of thousand people? It sounds challenging to me. I hate yelling, but sometimes, rarely, it's necessary. I would think, that because VPW and LCM are human, some of the times they were just plain wrong. Other times it may have been needed. Of course when Jesus Christ got angry, he was right on in how he applied that anger. When he faced the Pharisees or Peter's unrenewed mind, he was pretty tough. Tough love is usually counterfeit, IMO. When someone gets real practiced at tender love, like Jesus was, THEN and then only, do they qualify for the tough love applications. Paul was VERY tough (and rightly) on one of the Corinthian believers in his first epistle to them but he later switched back to the tender in his second epistle. He and Barnabas also had some tough conflict. There were many other teachers in TWI that unwisely resorted to tough love. Maybe even a few posters here. I sometimes get the equivalent of yelling from the keyboards of angry posters here. It's human to yell. It's more human to yell inappropriately.

Interesting topic. Let's brainstorm a little, because this is an area I am not yet settled on. How do you know the fruit of a teacher? I'm talking IN GENERAL, not just in vpw's case. (A) Do you look at HIS life to see what fruit, good or bad, he has cooking? (B) Do you look at other students lives to see what fruit they have cooking? (C) Do you look at your own life to see what fruit YOU have cooking that wasn't there before? All my life, both in and out, before and after TWI, I've seen MANY people judge MANY teachers by how accurately they THINK they can see (A) and (B). I've always found it very difficult to accurately see inside another person's life. I know we can see SOME things, but I always get the impression that there can be much more that is unseen, especially before and after contrasts. But when it comes to (C), when I look there I am an EXPERT. I can see it all, accurately, and I see the before and accurate. Which of these three items do you think YOU are an expert at judging? Hmmm?

I think that it's fair to say you completely avoided commenting on any of my points. Your argument here is "Mike, you're too different to be right."

Hypothetically, if you interviewed Shadrack, Mishack, and Abendigo as they exited the burning fiery furnace, would you strongly encourage them to obey the law, after all, and bow down to Nebuchadnezzar? That IS the law! OK then. Shadrack, Mishack, and Abendigo refuse AGAIN and vow allegiance to God. So what now? Back for round two of the burning fiery furnace? Too bad no one was back there with good advice like that.

I agree 100%. There are reasons whey it morphed that way. It started out with some good intentions, but completely got out of hand.

Not exactly. The original Scriptures no one has. We have only tattered remnants of them from the 3rd or 4th century. The modern (16th century and later) scholarly reconstructions of the ancient scriptures known as the “Critical Greek Texts” are void of authority. We also have no official, authoritative, God-breathed, English translation of the ancient scriptures. NONE. I am saying the PFAL writings are the only God-breathed documents in the world right now, and as such they are on an equal footing with the ancient Scriptures when they were in the world long ago.

I think I can 98% agree with this. Even the copyrights thing is important... MOST of the time. I love the hippie thing, but I also see it's limitations and distortions.

I agree. At least we're not going to change (and especially not quickly) as a result of this kind of posting. What we CAN do is come to a better understand each others' very greatly differing positions. After that happens we might then compare ideas better, and decide on better courses of action.

Everyone must select basic assumptions in life, and build from there. Euclid's Geometry does this. It starts with Euclid's BEST set of FIVE assumptions or postulates, and built the rest from there.

Everyone here is arguing VERY POORLY against me IF IT IS THE CASE that PFAL (and some of its predecessors) is God-breathed, and therefore owned by God. This ownership is current, and not that vague, overall, eventual ownership someone keeps throwing at me. But you don’t want to come over to my side to see this and the good sense it makes. Try it; you might like it. In order to see that I am correct you must temporarily adopt my assumptions to see the logical structure I have constructed here. Now, I’ll show you how to do it. I’ll come over to your side. *** Ok, here I am on your side (little stale here). I’ve dropped my fundamental assumption that PFAL is God-breathed, and I’ve read all your arguments. Everyone here is arguing CORRECTLY against me regarding PFAL and plagiarism, as I hold onto this temporary assumption that PFAL did NOT originate from God. There, I just came over to your side (temporarily) to adopt your assumption. Not one of you folks have done this kind of temporary assumption adoption yet. This is obvious to anyone who is reading this dialog. You’re all ragging on me from your side of the Assumption Bar. I agree that if my assumption is wrong, then I’m SUPER wrong in everything I said about plagiarism and PFAL. The fact that none of you want to admit the converse (PFAL from God, no plagiarism) is obvious to all. If my assumption is wrong, then I’m in deep doo doo. If my assumption is right, then eventually you’ll have to face the fact that all my plagiarism arguments were right, and were deliberately unseen. *** Anyone want to see a proof that PFAL is God-breathed? It wont come from bull-headedly insisting it’s pure evil. It comes from becoming meek again. BTW, none of my plagiarism arguments are designed to inspire you to come back to PFAL. God will have to do that. I argue what I do on this topic to show you I am not mindlessly worshipping VPW, and that I have put a massive amount of careful thought into recognizing the great merits of PFAL. I am able to face great opposition with my mindset. Can you folks claim the same? I think you get too little resistance in these issues. I wish more proPFAL posters would be here to help me show you folks how much you’ve NOT sufficiently thought through. Come over to my side of the Assumption Bar and show the readers here how mentally flexible you can be. So far you’ve meticulously avoided ALL MENTION of how right I am IF it is the case that PFAL is God-breathed.

Thank you. Good to know.

This is interesting. New to me. I wonder if VPW thought Bullinger was unreadable to most students? If I were VPW I'd want to translate their light for the everyday believer. It was a need. I needed it. I know others who needed it.

Nope. Bullinger writing style REALLY was a stuffy old English academic and high on churchiness. The only reason I could understand his "How to Enjoy the Bible" was I had the PFAL book to translate. I knew nothing of BGL back in the early 70s. Also don't ever remember VPW saying BGL was dense and unreadable. Where did he say that?

I remember how things went in court for the Chicago 8 and for the Pentegon Papers. Sometimes the stuffy pomp of human courts blanches when higher principles come into play.

How deep did you look? Long ago I'd love talking with grads who thought deeper than I could. Not so many in recent decades, but many years ago these things were discussed by some of us. Here's an angle on supposed plagiarism that I heard some years ago, but haven't brainstormed much with yet. I'm sure it never dawned on anyone here, so brace yourselves for a big surprise. Remember the Peoples' Tree? It's not stealing to take the fruit from the the Peoples' Tree. Discuss.