Of course none of this pertains to any of the "innies" now!
Ask them.
I was so thrilled the day LCM announced that sex before marriage was NOT SIN. I was at the Indiana Campus at the time, and so excited about this "new revelation" that I think I danced the jig!
It was like," I am free to do this now? No more guilt about it?"
Mind you i was no hussy, but the few "love'' relations I had were now a weight off my shoulders.
In the latest "SEX" class, I mean ,"Christian sex for boring living" or "family living for godly sex", whatever....................they of course refute that logic saying it is best to wait for marriage.
darn
It all depends on what time frame of TWI you are in, leadership, area and all as to what TWI really represented.
I just stick to God and I as knowing what is best. I don't feel guilt. I also don't agree that sleeping around is ok.
If I could do it over again.......................I wouldn't.
It all kinda reminds me of that guy on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE who would say " Yeah----------Yeah that's the ticket!" and expect that would lend credability to his ruse.
It all kinda reminds me of that guy on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE who would say " Yeah----------Yeah that's the ticket!" and expect that would lend credability to his ruse.
Tommy Flanagan, aka the Pathological Liar, aka the Liar.
His most famous claim was his marriage to Morgan Fairchild.
It seems that so many of twi`s doctrines were simply excuses WHY we didn`t need to adhere to the scriptural standards that one expected of a Christian...It reminds me of that old teaching in pfal where the sepent was saying ...did God REALLY say....yada yada
EVERY standard given as a measuring stick for the genuine Christian`s walk and life style
was discredited, and instead replaced with scriptures that could be taken out of context to mean do what ever you will.
I think that in reality, rather than teaching us scripture that helped us to mature as believers.....twi taught us how to comfortably ignore our spiritual obligations....it`s almost like we were pretending to be christians.
You've made an interesting point there, Rascal. There was definitely a moral aspect to the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. Thinking back on when I first took PFAL - here's another biblically illiterate sucker [me] thinking he's getting the inside scoop on the Bible. And really it's more like that ol' serpent's lie re-packaged - like they do in marketing, labeling it "new and improved" on the same old stuff...TWI sure has a knack for doing scriptural origami - folding and twisting Bible verses into a belief system that says it's okay to sin.
The excuse twi used for all of this was the Grace Administration. If you F'd up God forgave you. That just made it so much easier in the minds of some that it was okay to screw up as much as they wanted because God would basically forgive you as twi taught it.
I believe in God forgiving but to use his word as an excuse to do what twi leaders did. I think He will have something to say about that at the bema.
Goes back to PFAL and the button on the string and the glass of water.
I was so thrilled the day LCM announced that sex before marriage was NOT SIN. I was at the Indiana Campus at the time, and so excited about this "new revelation"
Bliss: he actually taught this publically???? Did other leaders also? (I mean, I know they did in practice, but as "new revelation"?) When was this?
It all kinda reminds me of that guy on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE who would say " Yeah----------Yeah that's the ticket!" and expect that would lend credability to his ruse.
"sex before marriage is okay" was definately taught publically
In the early 90s (I don't remember the exact year but perhaps in the aftermath of the ROA being shut down) they made a point of teaching down the way tree (RCs taught LCs, LCs taught BCs, BCs taught FCs, and FCs taught the rest) that sex before marriage was NOT, repeat NOT a sin. That bed-hopping was NOT condemned in the new testament.
BUT... they tied it in to "children obey your parents before the Lord" so that if mom and dad didn't want junior fooling around, junior would be in trouble with God (and the leadership) if he fooled around.
And they tied it in to "most women can't have sex without becoming emotionally involved", so you have to be careful who you fool around with so you don't cause harm.
And they tied it in to "don't be a stumbling block to your brother's faith" so that if your "freedom in Christ" was causing a fellow believer to have doubts you should rethink your activities. (Of course this ties back in to a person being "spiritually mature enough" to handle our freedom in Christ, which is what VP and the rest used to justify their damaging behaviors.)
I distinctly remember these teachings because it caused no small stir in our area... it was not new information to me, but apparently it was new to a lot of the families who didn't appreciate it being taught to their teens without prior warning, and a couple of families felt it was such a wrong teaching they eventually left twi because of it.
Not that it wasn't practiced all along (such as in our society at large, methinks)...and actively in twi, but just hadn't heard the "official" teaching on this as barfed out by lcm.
Yes, J, LCM publically said this in 94! I remember it clear as day. Thanks Highway for the added info, I had forgotten the reaction from others in light of this (like parents!!)
I even remember him shaking his head (LCM) as if he was in "deep research" trying to find one verse , just one that said sex "before marriage" is sin.
He kept looking around saying "I just don't see it ".
YUCK
All it did was give more license to the evil that was trickling down from the top br"foot". :evildenk:
He also taught that it was okay to grope your spouse whenever you wanted to, regardless of whether your spouse wanted you to or not, or felt it was an appropriate time to or not. Afterall, that's just they way men are built and your body is no longer your own once you are married.
Yes, J, LCM publically said this in 94! I remember it clear as day.
Me too, my wife & I were there. I remember the sinking feeling in my gut. I believe it was an advanced class, no? That was a pretty horrible time for the both of us. Worse for my wife. My wife was spouse corps at the time. WC treated her like she wasn't any kind of anything worth trusting or fellowshipping with. She said that was the last time she was going to something like that. I couldn't blame her. She was quicker on the uptake than I was. I was stupid & loyal & ready to make too many excuses for a$$ holes.
It was taught in Believers Family Class.
He also taught that it was okay to grope your spouse whenever you wanted to, regardless of whether your spouse wanted you to or not, or felt it was an appropriate time to or not. Afterall, that's just they way men are built and your body is no longer your own once you are married.
No, your don't have power over your body to satisfy yourself sexually. Doesn't that sort of mean that men (& women) should be unselfishly looking to satisfy their mate instead of themselves?
Fom what I can tell since leaving twi and meeting other Christians.....it seems like gnuine Christians, when they have experienced the life impacting change of the new birth ... are different...old things, destructive things begin to fall away...as you grow as christian, you change for the better.
Alcoholics are freed from their demons, smokers and drug users are free from their addiction....people change....and from what I see...not so much of a conscious decision, but they have been changed on the inside..... those things have lost their appeal.....
What I saw in twi was that the longer I was there ...the more vulger I became....I became sexually active....started drinking regularly....was able to justify mean ness...was smug, arrogant...condescending..
It seems like we are given a chrystal clear set of instructions in the scriptures as to how to live , and yet there is always a teaching from twi that excuses us from our obligations.
Rascal, may I weigh in here as an ex-alcoholic who was freed from his demon, & an ex-smoker, & ex-heroin addict who was freed from his addictions after contact with the Way. I was freed from the heroin addiction during TWI 1, the others later. Perhaps that explains something of my attitudes on the other thread that motivated you to start this one. A lot of what happened to people depends on where & when they got involved with the way.
Not everyone experienced only what you did (although many experienced a lot of what you did). It wasn't all about the man with the thin black tie.
He also taught that it was okay to grope your spouse whenever you wanted to, regardless of whether your spouse wanted you to or not, or felt it was an appropriate time to or not. Afterall, that's just they way men are built and your body is no longer your own once you are married.
No, your don't have power over your body to satisfy yourself sexually. Doesn't that sort of mean that men (& women) should be unselfishly looking to satisfy their mate instead of themselves?"
Tom, that was not what I was referring to and that was not what was taught. What was taught was that one could not refuse sex, could not say no to a spouse. Or, as some took it - you couldn't rape a spouse because their body wasn't their own.
Beyond that, in principal I agree with what you are saying regarding sex between a married couple. If a relationship is a good one, it will work that way. However, if the relationship is bad, the sex life will usually be bad also. The best way to fix the sex life is to repair the relationship, not force yourself upon an unwilling partner. And, BTW, I cannot imagine forcing or even coericing someone into sex by saying "thus saith the Lord" if that person does not wish to have sex with you.
[iNo, your don't have power over your body to satisfy yourself sexually. Doesn't that sort of mean that men (& women) should be unselfishly looking to satisfy their mate instead of themselves?"[/i]
Tom, that was not what I was referring to and that was not what was taught. What was taught was that one could not refuse sex, could not say no to a spouse. Or, as some took it - you couldn't rape a spouse because their body wasn't their own.
Sorry I wasn't clearer, Abi. I understand what you were saying. I agree with you. I was trying to point out that what was taught was selfish & not a true representation of the unselfish relationship the Word presents.
No problem, Tom. Just one of those hazards of communicating in this fashion. I probably would have got you loud and clear if I had heard you say it, instead of reading it. :)
He said that in 94?...Many of the top leadership confronted lcm about his sexcapades around 87...this was part of the reason for so many leaving...
Sounds to me that lcm had rationalized in his mind and justified from the bible that what he was doing was ok...
The guy really WAS dumber than a box of hammers.
Clarification here please, Groucho. In, or around, '87, did lcm apparently accept the reproof & then rationalize & justify from the bible by the time '94 came around? What was lcm's reaction to the confrontation in '87?
one thing i haven't figured out
is the difference between my brain then
and my brain now
i mean, i have kind of figured it out but it's strange
today i'm 50 (well so the adversary says) then i was a young innocent young lady
two different minds
but not exactly because i'm still me
but hopefully today i would tell that old man what i really think
ha
I don't know, Excie. My brother desribes himself as not quite being the idiot that he used to be. Hope springs eternal.
A few years back, Dave sent me the 37-page letter of February 1987 from John & Pat Lynn, Tom Reahard, Robert Belt and Ralph D., to Craig, Don, Howard, Johnny & Ricardo, wherein they wrote they were marking and avoiding the BOT for essentially, their dereliction of duty.
Quote after quote of Dr. Wierwille's teachings and concepts; but NOTHING mentioned about the immoral sex being practiced.
I think if the illicit sex of twi was an issue to these folks, who virtually started the exodus of 1987, their letter would have been the perfect opportunity to present that in their argument.
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bliss
Of course none of this pertains to any of the "innies" now!
Ask them.
I was so thrilled the day LCM announced that sex before marriage was NOT SIN. I was at the Indiana Campus at the time, and so excited about this "new revelation" that I think I danced the jig!
It was like," I am free to do this now? No more guilt about it?"
Mind you i was no hussy, but the few "love'' relations I had were now a weight off my shoulders.
In the latest "SEX" class, I mean ,"Christian sex for boring living" or "family living for godly sex", whatever....................they of course refute that logic saying it is best to wait for marriage.
darn
It all depends on what time frame of TWI you are in, leadership, area and all as to what TWI really represented.
I just stick to God and I as knowing what is best. I don't feel guilt. I also don't agree that sleeping around is ok.
If I could do it over again.......................I wouldn't.
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waysider
It all kinda reminds me of that guy on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE who would say " Yeah----------Yeah that's the ticket!" and expect that would lend credability to his ruse.
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WordWolf
Tommy Flanagan, aka the Pathological Liar, aka the Liar.
His most famous claim was his marriage to Morgan Fairchild.
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T-Bone
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T-Bone
You've made an interesting point there, Rascal. There was definitely a moral aspect to the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. Thinking back on when I first took PFAL - here's another biblically illiterate sucker [me] thinking he's getting the inside scoop on the Bible. And really it's more like that ol' serpent's lie re-packaged - like they do in marketing, labeling it "new and improved" on the same old stuff...TWI sure has a knack for doing scriptural origami - folding and twisting Bible verses into a belief system that says it's okay to sin.
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WordWolf
He also downgraded "sin" into "broken fellowship".
As Raf has pointed out, "broken fellowship" is ONE CONSEQUENCE of sin,
not the same as sin.
Taken as an aggregate, the sum total of what he said on sin was FAR more in terms of encouraging
permissiveness than mourning and refraining from sin.
Not that beating people with a terror and complex over sin is a goal either,
but most Christians have a much healthier position than the 2 extremes.
We don't have to choose between "the leader can rape the women because he doesn't
condemn himself in that which he alloweth"
and
"you can never, ever make the slightest mistake or you'll be a greasespot by midnight".
We've been delivered from BOTH of those.
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justloafing
The excuse twi used for all of this was the Grace Administration. If you F'd up God forgave you. That just made it so much easier in the minds of some that it was okay to screw up as much as they wanted because God would basically forgive you as twi taught it.
I believe in God forgiving but to use his word as an excuse to do what twi leaders did. I think He will have something to say about that at the bema.
Goes back to PFAL and the button on the string and the glass of water.
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jardinero
Bliss wrote:
Bliss: he actually taught this publically???? Did other leaders also? (I mean, I know they did in practice, but as "new revelation"?) When was this?
J.
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doojable
That was Jon Lovett (sp?)
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Belle
Jard, our BC told my ex that he needed to "test drive that car" before he "bought it" in reference to our marriage. :blink:
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TheHighWay
Jardinero,
"sex before marriage is okay" was definately taught publically
In the early 90s (I don't remember the exact year but perhaps in the aftermath of the ROA being shut down) they made a point of teaching down the way tree (RCs taught LCs, LCs taught BCs, BCs taught FCs, and FCs taught the rest) that sex before marriage was NOT, repeat NOT a sin. That bed-hopping was NOT condemned in the new testament.
BUT... they tied it in to "children obey your parents before the Lord" so that if mom and dad didn't want junior fooling around, junior would be in trouble with God (and the leadership) if he fooled around.
And they tied it in to "most women can't have sex without becoming emotionally involved", so you have to be careful who you fool around with so you don't cause harm.
And they tied it in to "don't be a stumbling block to your brother's faith" so that if your "freedom in Christ" was causing a fellow believer to have doubts you should rethink your activities. (Of course this ties back in to a person being "spiritually mature enough" to handle our freedom in Christ, which is what VP and the rest used to justify their damaging behaviors.)
I distinctly remember these teachings because it caused no small stir in our area... it was not new information to me, but apparently it was new to a lot of the families who didn't appreciate it being taught to their teens without prior warning, and a couple of families felt it was such a wrong teaching they eventually left twi because of it.
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jardinero
Thanks, TheHighway ~
Wow, moral relativism at its best.
Not that it wasn't practiced all along (such as in our society at large, methinks)...and actively in twi, but just hadn't heard the "official" teaching on this as barfed out by lcm.
Thanks.
J.
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bliss
Yes, J, LCM publically said this in 94! I remember it clear as day. Thanks Highway for the added info, I had forgotten the reaction from others in light of this (like parents!!)
I even remember him shaking his head (LCM) as if he was in "deep research" trying to find one verse , just one that said sex "before marriage" is sin.
He kept looking around saying "I just don't see it ".
YUCK
All it did was give more license to the evil that was trickling down from the top br"foot". :evildenk:
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Abigail
It was taught in Believers Family Class.
He also taught that it was okay to grope your spouse whenever you wanted to, regardless of whether your spouse wanted you to or not, or felt it was an appropriate time to or not. Afterall, that's just they way men are built and your body is no longer your own once you are married.
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WordWolf
lcm never found the verses saying that fornication and adultery are wrong
for the same reason a thief can't find a policeman.
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Tom
Me too, my wife & I were there. I remember the sinking feeling in my gut. I believe it was an advanced class, no? That was a pretty horrible time for the both of us. Worse for my wife. My wife was spouse corps at the time. WC treated her like she wasn't any kind of anything worth trusting or fellowshipping with. She said that was the last time she was going to something like that. I couldn't blame her. She was quicker on the uptake than I was. I was stupid & loyal & ready to make too many excuses for a$$ holes.
No, your don't have power over your body to satisfy yourself sexually. Doesn't that sort of mean that men (& women) should be unselfishly looking to satisfy their mate instead of themselves?
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Tom
Rascal, may I weigh in here as an ex-alcoholic who was freed from his demon, & an ex-smoker, & ex-heroin addict who was freed from his addictions after contact with the Way. I was freed from the heroin addiction during TWI 1, the others later. Perhaps that explains something of my attitudes on the other thread that motivated you to start this one. A lot of what happened to people depends on where & when they got involved with the way.
Not everyone experienced only what you did (although many experienced a lot of what you did). It wasn't all about the man with the thin black tie.
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Abigail
"It was taught in Believers Family Class.
He also taught that it was okay to grope your spouse whenever you wanted to, regardless of whether your spouse wanted you to or not, or felt it was an appropriate time to or not. Afterall, that's just they way men are built and your body is no longer your own once you are married.
No, your don't have power over your body to satisfy yourself sexually. Doesn't that sort of mean that men (& women) should be unselfishly looking to satisfy their mate instead of themselves?"
Tom, that was not what I was referring to and that was not what was taught. What was taught was that one could not refuse sex, could not say no to a spouse. Or, as some took it - you couldn't rape a spouse because their body wasn't their own.
Beyond that, in principal I agree with what you are saying regarding sex between a married couple. If a relationship is a good one, it will work that way. However, if the relationship is bad, the sex life will usually be bad also. The best way to fix the sex life is to repair the relationship, not force yourself upon an unwilling partner. And, BTW, I cannot imagine forcing or even coericing someone into sex by saying "thus saith the Lord" if that person does not wish to have sex with you.
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Tom
Sorry I wasn't clearer, Abi. I understand what you were saying. I agree with you. I was trying to point out that what was taught was selfish & not a true representation of the unselfish relationship the Word presents.
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Abigail
No problem, Tom. Just one of those hazards of communicating in this fashion. I probably would have got you loud and clear if I had heard you say it, instead of reading it. :)
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GrouchoMarxJr
He said that in 94?...Many of the top leadership confronted lcm about his sexcapades around 87...this was part of the reason for so many leaving...
Sounds to me that lcm had rationalized in his mind and justified from the bible that what he was doing was ok...
The guy really WAS dumber than a box of hammers.
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excathedra
one thing i haven't figured out
is the difference between my brain then
and my brain now
i mean, i have kind of figured it out but it's strange
today i'm 50 (well so the adversary says) then i was a young innocent young lady
two different minds
but not exactly because i'm still me
but hopefully today i would tell that old man what i really think
ha
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Tom
Clarification here please, Groucho. In, or around, '87, did lcm apparently accept the reproof & then rationalize & justify from the bible by the time '94 came around? What was lcm's reaction to the confrontation in '87?
I don't know, Excie. My brother desribes himself as not quite being the idiot that he used to be. Hope springs eternal.
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oldiesman
Tom,
A few years back, Dave sent me the 37-page letter of February 1987 from John & Pat Lynn, Tom Reahard, Robert Belt and Ralph D., to Craig, Don, Howard, Johnny & Ricardo, wherein they wrote they were marking and avoiding the BOT for essentially, their dereliction of duty.
Quote after quote of Dr. Wierwille's teachings and concepts; but NOTHING mentioned about the immoral sex being practiced.
I think if the illicit sex of twi was an issue to these folks, who virtually started the exodus of 1987, their letter would have been the perfect opportunity to present that in their argument.
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