From what I've read and heard, some folks left TWI because someone wasn't "doing the Word". They left because the organization and/or its leaders weren't living up to "the standard". No change in belief system took place, other than believing that TWI was "where the Word was taught".
Other folks left because they saw that TWI doctrine didn't line up with what they understood the bible to say.
Still others were thrown out with no choice in the matter.
For those who have changed their beliefs, how did the circumstances of your exit from TWI influence your subsequent religious/spiritual beliefs?
Wow, Oak, you really know how to ask the questions. My short answer is, any "belief system" that treats people, and real life relationships as secondary, is suspect. Idealogies are great for discussion, teachings, debate, whatever, but when people don't understand the basics of family relationships, friendships, work, and basic things about getting along in life, forget about it.
Talk all you want about how good God is, and how great life is supposed to be, but if you can't resolve conflicts that all humans have, something is really wrong. If people can't do things like make a decent living, love and support their families, have rewarding friendships............uh, what else is left?
Oh gee, there was so much going on at the time my husband and I were leaving. The ministry was in shambles, it was after POP and it was still reeling, the Corps seemed to be being torn in two between CG and LCM, teachings were out from Scotland in how the heads of the Jerusalem church tried to set up the Apostle Paul and get him killed, there fore alluding to LCM being despicable in the way he was treating CG, LCM did some type of teaching claiming that POP wasn't godly because the reproof wasn't done in a godly way according to "the word." LCM and CG were blaming the Corps for not getting their act together and that was the reason the ministry was screwed up, it was all their fault, not the leaders and a Corps hook up from nearly a year before by CG and LCM (??) accused the big guns at HQ for killing VP with their unbelief. All this filtered down to us.
Add to that, JL was touring the country, meeting with believers and tapes were being made by JL and RD and they were telling people what was really going on and how long it was going on and how LCM didn't seem he was going to repent. I am speaking of the alleged sexual escapades.
People were whispering, trying to figure out what was going on without being found out otherwise you were in big doo doo with local leadership.
This was right before the mass firings.
Anyway, the one thing I had wanted since I was a born was a safe family. A safe family in a safe home. I got it. A wonderful hubby and a beautiful child. I was apprentice corps before, was an Advanced Class grad (so was hubby) both hubby and I were WOW vets a couple times over, twig coordinators, family coordinators out WOW, and other outreach programs were under our belts.
We were happy. I started rocking the boat when I defied leadership and refused to rip my baby out of their crib from their nap and take them to meetings. I refused to get the house cleaned and dinner made for hubby, clean up, make bottles, change the baby's diaper and pj's and get ready, pack the diaper bag to sit in the back bedroom because my baby was a distraction. My husband backed me up. We quit tithing because we used our money for formula and diapers and baby food.
Damn us, we were putting our child first.
Then the problems started. Not in an area you would think either. A believer who lived with our branch/area leader like to pretend they were something great, and I would joke to my husband that we were dealing with a Simon the Sorceror, you know, like to give out that they were something great. They started interfering with my marriage. They would come and tell me all the things that people were saying about him so I could confront him and help him. At the same time they were going to him and telling him all the things that was being said about me so he could confront me and help me. They were going around to believers talking about the both of us, saying how screwed up we were and needed help. It got ugly and it grew.
Our area/branch coordinator called me, and spoke with me and hubby and said he wanted a confrontation. He told my husband what others were now saying. My husband and I were like totally confused having no idea how this all started and we talked and realized how this ONE person said the same things to me that they said to him and were now going about the branch with it. My husband confronted the area/branch leader and told him off and told him he has one possessed sob living with him and giving him advice and if the area/branch leader wanted a show down with all of us there, we would go but it would be damn ugly because he was blankety blank fed up with people screwing with our lives.
Wouldn't you know that the showdown meeting was called off? It didn't end there though. My hubby got in the car and drove to every one's house that this bastard involved and told them all off and told them to keep their fuking noses out of our marriage....he told that to the Corps and non Corps people involved, he had had it.
He was a hero in my eyes and still is.
Anyway, I called someone, they were married to talk with them. I knew they had trouble with the same person we did so I called although I knew that they were meeting with JL and I didn't know if they would talk with me but they did. I found out that the person that tried to mess with my marriage had tried the same thing with them, using the same methods. They went to the wife then to the husband, saying people were talking and this is what they were saying and then got people involved in the branch. They were unsuspecting because they thought highly of this person just to find out what sickness drove them. Not only that, we found out through them that this person had a rep of doing this as far back as Chicago, left a trail behind them of nearly broken and broken marriages of people.
Then I wondered for the upteenth time, if the gift ministries were to be the eyes and ears of the church, ie as in ordained clergy, how come they miss it every time and accuse the people who are right on and trying their best? Something was wrong.
My husband and I met with this couple and we got the tapes that JL and others made and listened. It was heart breaking to hear of all the misconduct, the crappy way women were abused and how the ministry was confronted and refused to change. This is back now in 1988. What year is it now?
I cried. I was broken hearted. TWI was all I knew. I had wanted to be a good faithful Christian wife and have my home available for believers, for it to be an oasis in a desert for them, a port in the storm. I felt like someone had died, the grief was so great.
I prayed to God. I asked him if it was true if he told VP that he would teach him the bible like it had never been known before. Then I went to the bible bookstore and found books by Clarence Larkin and Bullinger. I found out it had been know and taught long before VP. I realized then that VP was a fraud and a liar, a liar using God's name and that is something I cannot and will not tolerate from anyone. I will never take seriously anyone who is so hard hearted and calloused that they have NO fear about lying about God.
It was a slow process. We moved out of that area. We were taught against in twigs, we were mocked before we left. Those who pledged to stand with us and help us raise our daughter with their wisdom, having older children turned on us.
We attended fellowship sporadically over the next two years but then made the cut permanent. We studied hard, read much and went to church as well and asked a lot of questions. It was a very hard time as we unraveled one doctrine after another. It took time .
So we left voluntarily but we had information presented to us that we never had before. Even if we did not have that information, we would have slipped into the woodwork to preserve our family unit from the sharks that populated TWI.
For those who have changed their beliefs, how did the circumstances of your exit from TWI influence your subsequent religious/spiritual beliefs?
I left of my own choice. I was miserable and I had done enough of my own research and found enough errors in what was being taught in TWI, that I no longer believed they were the only ones with the truth or that they even had only truth.
Realizing that alloed me to be open to researching what other people had written and studied, along with my own studies. I have learned a ton and I am still learning!!
WOW Fullcircle- this is so crazy to hear all this stuff going on. I got in 74 and left in 83 and went back in 90 and again left in 2000.....there is such of gap in what happened..thanks for bearing your heart...what flippin idiots..
We left at the end of the nineties after four or five years of screw tightening. The more we did, the more exhausted we were, and the more trouble we were in, the more we had to do….
It seemed like nearly every area of our lives was open for scrutiny, and while in way doctrine the husband was the head of the family, in reality our HFC and Limb coord trumped hubby.
Our HFC had a string of couples whose marriages broke up or they left the ministry from his fellowship, in fact the couple who became the asst co ords after we walked split up, and we have since heard from several couples. Usually it was the wife who was the problem, it certainly was with us. We often split fellowship nights because we had kids in grade school who just couldn’t stay up that late—I would be treated harshly, hubby would get the pat on the back…this went on for years. HFC wifey barely even spoke to me, and never once called to chat or did anything friendly in all the years I was in their fellowship. Cold.
I wanted to leave a few years before we did, but hubby didn’t want to—“Where would we go?” I basically shut my mouth and went along with business as usual. The last year we were in I worked pretty hard to keep my kids away from the fellowship, and hubby did too, even though we never talked about it.. Our kids were never ever good enough—even though they were and are well behaved, get good grades, are kind and friendly, teachers love them…
We stayed out of any big reproof issues for a year or so, but then something came up, and the way this stuff went, it would start with one issue, like finances or ministry priorities or what ever, and by the time it was over, it would be in all kinds of other areas—marriage, family, what ever, plus it all would be communicated to the limb and maybe to the region co ord, too.
We didn’t leave because we knew they were off the word or anything like that. We left because we didn’t think we would survive another ‘reproof’ cycle as a couple. I already had tentative plan to move to a place where I could get a job immediately, and cheap housing, if things went bad, plus for the first time in years we had two cars. I didn’t want to, but I thought maybe hubby would wake up if I took drastic measures. By this time though hubby a had seen and overheard a few things his ol’ buddy the HFC aimed at me. So when a ‘We just want to help you’ session was pushed, we walked.
At first we were not Marked and avoided—I think they thought we’d come back. But a month or so later we found out from a friend that we were. We lost all our friends but the one who still keeps in touch.
After a few months we got into a CFF twig, but it was just like TWI. Right after our first fellowship, the co ord had all kinds of things we could do for them. We’d had that breather away, and it seemed and was rude and intrusive. It was weird being on our own, but also far less stressful.
After that exways we knew tried to get us involved in different ex way groups. We got booklets and stuff,,, but we were just weary. Both of us put it all aside.
And life continued to get better! And then it got worse, and then better...just life. Ups and downs, pebbles in the brook, life just like other people. not the perfect life of TWI, but real life.
Wer found we could make good decisions just fine with out 'counsel' . Pretty sad to find that out in your forties.
Eventually we hit some mainstream churches, and found them friendly but not ‘we’re your new best friend, friendly’. It was nice.
While involved somewhat with various churches I read lot. We moved, too, across the country. I felt more free and more able to make decisions on my own, not be part of any group—groups are still hard.
Hubby quit going all together, quit exway stuff—in fact after we moved we never reordered any tapes or anything. I continued to go because this is what mom’s do or something. I learned about different churches, I could see their reasoning on many issues…but I didn’t want to get deeply involved. That made me uncomfortable.
I had read some Divine feminine stuff…and back before TWI I had a little interest in the witchcraft movement, though books etc were hard to find back then. I started reading Wicca books and websites. I had an ‘unverifiable personal’ gnosis type experience… felt as though I’d come home.
Did the way we left make a difference? I think so. We didn’t leave with our twig or pals like many did after pop, so there was a big shift in lifestyle. It seemed that our exway acquaintances were either dealing with damaged lives, or trying to get us to do something with some ministry. And we were so sick of people trying to get us to do stuff, to change, to be different in this area or that area, read this, think that, go to this.
I say we alot, but actually, hubby is pretty much agnostic, though he doesn't mind what I'm into since I never turned into some wacko. I'm pretty much the same porson I always was in my relationships with family and friends...
Re-evaluate. Beliefs. Circumstances around my "exit".
First, how can something that can't be proven be re-evaluated? Were they teachings or mandates? They had the answers but not to my questions.
What do I believe? I don't know. I'm a scientist. If it works. Use it. When old ideas fail, upgrade. I only know what I know relative to something else and within a specified degree of uncertainty. I use one theory until a better one is developed. I expect everything I know today to be proven false tomorrow.
If life is like one of those games where you develop a map based only upon where you have been; then twi is just one of the big boundary walls. Bump . . Bump. . Okay, big wall here. Just keep changing direction to you find what you didn't know you needed. (. . . Whoo hoo! . . . The magic acorn! . . . . . What do I do with a magic acorn?)
"Circumstances surrounding my exit". . . . hmmm. . . . What was the question again?
What is wierd is...that it was nearly 5 years after leaving before I even QUESTIONED a single teaching. I truly believed that I would become posessed if I considered....
I was SO burned up when I finally found out that almost every thing that I had been taught about God was a lie...I became hyper sensative to anybody trying to manipulate me through doctrine.
About all I can manage these days is *Love God and Love my neighbor* It is simple and it works for me after all of the years of *straining at gnats* :)
What is wierd is...that it was nearly 5 years after leaving before I even QUESTIONED a single teaching. I truly believed that I would become posessed if I considered....
I was SO burned up when I finally found out that almost every thing that I had been taught about God was a lie...I became hyper sensative to anybody trying to manipulate me through doctrine.
About all I can manage these days is *Love God and Love my neighbor* It is simple and it works for me after all of the years of *straining at gnats* :)
Wow!
That just about says it for me, too. Except that the 5 years turned out to be much longer and I never really believed I would get posessed.(I did think,though, that"bad" things would happen, especially after I quit tithing/ABS.)
For those who have changed their beliefs, how did the circumstances of your exit from TWI influence your subsequent religious/spiritual beliefs?
I'll happily discuss any religion or social group as a disinterested 3rd person. Any attempts to recruit me will result in me running as fast and as far away as I can.
I started re-evaluating what I believed after the lawsuit announcement in 2000. Martindale's new doctrine's often had little visible support, so I began to look into them, at first using biblical research principles taught in PFAL. I found a lot of what I thought were errors. Eventually I began to find errors and inconsistancies in what Wierwille taught as well. The number of errors undermined any trust that I might have had in either man's ability to accurately teach the bible.
I had reevaluated when I went LOA from the 11th . I saw then the corruption of Leadership on my interm year. ....for some reason I still stuck aroun for 5 more years...but definitely after we left in 2000, I started to be more aggressive in questioning things....Many things still stuck with me. But some things like the JCNG issue...covered on another thread...(Im a Forrest GumP--groucho) became more maleable....I spend way less time thinking about being spiritual or if other things are spiritual or not...
Did I re-evaluate my beliefs: YES. After being out for 10 years, I finally got through my thick skull that maybe, just maybe, I was mistaken in my beliefs. So I took a fresh look and found that the TWI beliefs could not be justified. (I know that others will disagree)
What were the circumstances of my leaving: I disappeared in conjunction with a military move, shortly after the "loyalty letter." I re-emerged for a little bit a couple of years later...with some offshoot organizations...but it didn't really last...
I began having problems with twi doctrine a couple of years after Vic croaked...Martindale starting giving out directives that I thought were contrary to the bible...I suppose it was the teachings on ABS that really stuck in my craw...and then when lcm demanded that twig coordinators start making lists of "who's faithful and who isn't" and sending it in to hdqrts every week...I simply refused...and I also announced that I would be sending in my ABS anonymously from now on...I figured that God kept track of it and "they" didn't need to know....THAT really p*ssed them off.
Shortly after that, I announced that I was leaving the ministry...it wasn't until AFTER I left, that people were told to stay away from me because I was possessed... ...This was in 1987.
Soon after I left, it was almost like a veil was lifted from my eyes and most of the twi doctrine simply unraveled before my eyes...
I contribute it to breaking free of group think and beginning to think for myself again.
I think since leaving TWI I have learned and relearned many sides to wrong practice and spiritual manipulation..THe two main area's I had to learn in order to survive the guilt opposed on me by TWI..I do not label every fellowship or leader that was former TWI to be liars or are determined to follow VPW..Some hold his words higher, some have found it more serving to repave the road,so to speak..I have observed much here @ GSC, and also from my travels..
It has always been my concern to get healed...from the afflictions..I stuck to simple christian practices.JC is not God, he is my Lord. The dead are not alive.
I will never be a pagan,wiccan,catholic nor agnostic..I cannot recreate my inner most person...
There is much more to this journey...I will learn more.
I started re-evaluating what I believed after the lawsuit announcement in 2000. Martindale's new doctrine's often had little visible support, so I began to look into them, at first using biblical research principles taught in PFAL. I found a lot of what I thought were errors. Eventually I began to find errors and inconsistancies in what Wierwille taught as well. The number of errors undermined any trust that I might have had in either man's ability to accurately teach the bible.
Once that trust was undermined I started looking more carefully, and found that a lot of not only what Martindale was saying, but what Wierwille had taught was set upon a foundation of sand.
To me, there were too many problems woven into the fabric of TWI doctrine to not start over and see where it led me.
And to clarify, it was the behavior of Martindale that got me started questioning, it wasn't the behavior itself that caused my subsequent rejection of TWI teachings.
Another key ingredient in my decision to put aside what I had been taught in TWI was stumbling across the CES website. They had a (long) list of areas where they disagreed with what TWI taught. This wasn't just disagreement with Martindale, but disagreement with Wierwille as well. I realized after looking at what other offshoots were teaching, as well as what individual ex-wayfers were saying, that simply using the "keys to research" taught in PFAL (or in Bullinger for that matter) in no way guarantees that the results will be the same.
[For those who have changed their beliefs, how did the circumstances of your exit from TWI influence your subsequent religious/spiritual beliefs?]
It showed me that my faith and my principles weren't from the Way Ministry. It was kind of comforting actually. It takes alot of faith and courage and tenacity to leave something that is everything to you - your job, your family, your belief system and then go make a whole new life for yourself and your family. Takes a lot of guts. And look how many of us did it. When I left the ministry God told me He would become my everything. And He did and He saw me through all the hardships of starting over in everything and in every way. I got stronger and tighter with God.
The fallout from me leaving the ministry, the Corps and my marriage was HUGE because there were so many lies told by the leaders in the ministry when I left it and by my husband when I left him. They pretty much destroyed my reputation to anyone who would listen to them. It was terrible and it was painful. But, eveything I had learned from the ministry that became corrupt held me in good stead when I left it. Is that a paradox or what???
Actually I'm glad I met the Way. At the time it was EARLY 70s - free love, sex, drugs etc era. When I picked up the bible (when I got in the Way) I threw away my "peace" pipe and other paraphanalia and started studying the Bible. I figure that saved me from a whole lot of problems and set me on the path to studying to show myself approved, rightly dividing the word of truth for the rest of my life.
Just because a lot of the people in the ministry were really screwed up in alot of ways doesn't mean it negated the truth of the scriptures that we read, loved, studied and learned from. It was the beginning for me. I left and I never looked back and I'm still going strong today.
Are you related to James Joyce? You seem to have the gift of gab, at least in ASCII. I often enjoy it when you lay out your logic.
You wrote: “Another key ingredient in my decision to put aside what I had been taught in TWI was stumbling across the CES website. They had a (long) list of areas where they disagreed with what TWI taught. This wasn't just disagreement with Martindale, but disagreement with Wierwille as well. I realized after looking at what other offshoots were teaching, as well as what individual ex-wayfers were saying, that simply using the "keys to research" taught in PFAL (or in Bullinger for that matter) in no way guarantees that the results will be the same.”
It’s this last phrase of yours that catches my attention, “that simply using the "keys to research" taught in PFAL (or in Bullinger for that matter) in no way guarantees that the results will be the same.”
I agree wholeheartedly with this point.
This is a major point in my thesis, that sense knowledge cranking away on those keys, when applied to the tattered remnants of scripture, CANNOT produce the same final answer repeatedly for all those cranking.
This DOES happen somewhat in science, that repeatable results are received at times. In fact, they’re insisted upon before a theory is accepted.
My thesis (as presented here so far) is that the essence and full power of the ancient scriptures are IRRECOVERABLE with sense knowledge methods, due to the superior intelligence that suppressed the originals 2000 years ago. The devil messed up the original FULL understanding in a way that it is not possible for man to untangle on his own.
My thesis has been that in 1942 God intervened to settle this issue of the impossibility of scripture recovery, but He chose to do it an a MOST non-traditional way, kinda secretive until it was all done, like a thief in the night even.
However, I do think the keys will produce much more repeatable results when applied to written form PFAL, especially and fully when the spiritual perspective (as in the “Viewpoints: God’s - Man’s” chapter in Volume III, WWAY) is given predominance.
...This is a major point in my thesis, that sense knowledge cranking away on those keys, when applied to the tattered remnants of scripture, CANNOT produce the same final answer repeatedly for all those cranking.
This DOES happen somewhat in science, that repeatable results are received at times. In fact, they're insisted upon before a theory is accepted.
My thesis (as presented here so far) is that the essence and full power of the ancient scriptures are IRRECOVERABLE with sense knowledge methods, due to the superior intelligence that suppressed the originals 2000 years ago. The devil messed up the original FULL understanding in a way that it is not possible for man to untangle on his own.
My thesis has been that in 1942 God intervened to settle this issue of the impossibility of scripture recovery, but He chose to do it an a MOST non-traditional way, kinda secretive until it was all done, like a thief in the night even.
However, I do think the keys will produce much more repeatable results when applied to written form PFAL, especially and fully when the spiritual perspective (as in the "Viewpoints: God's - Man's" chapter in Volume III, WWAY) is given predominance.
I agree – it is not possible to recover the original Scripture documents. Excuse me for being so "irreverent" – but exactly what do you think we're going to find in them that will have a major impact on Christian doctrine? What is on the missing pieces to these tattered remnants?...Genesis 1:32 Oh and one more thing God did on the sixth day – He created the law of believing. He waited until then because He worried His believing might not have been big enough to create the heavens and the earth [from The TWI-Light Last Gleaming Version].
I believe the "essence and full power" of the Scriptures reside not IN the Scriptures – but in the author of Scripture – God Almighty! After all, the Scriptures are HIS words and HE watches over them – such as in the case of Jehoiakim destroying some of them:
Jeremiah 36: 20-32 NASB
20 So they went to the (AN)king in the court, but they had deposited the scroll in the chamber of (AO)Elishama the scribe, and they reported all the words to the king.
21Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and he took it out of the chamber of Elishama the scribe. And Jehudi (AP)read it to the king as well as to all the officials who stood beside the king.
22Now the king was sitting in the (AQ)winter house in the (AR)ninth month, with a fire burning in the brazier before him.
23When Jehudi had read three or four columns, the king cut it with a scribe's knife and (AS)threw it into the fire that was in the brazier, until all the scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazier.
24Yet the king and all his servants who heard all these words were (AT)not afraid, nor did they (AU)rend their garments.
25Even though Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah (AV)pleaded with the king not to burn the scroll, he would not listen to them.
26And the king commanded Jerahmeel the king's son, Seraiah the son of Azriel, and Shelemiah the son of Abdeel to (AW)seize Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet, but the (AX)LORD hid them.
27Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah after the king had (AY)burned the scroll and the words which (AZ)Baruch had written at the dictation of Jeremiah, saying,
28"(BA)Take again another scroll and write on it all the former words that were (BB)on the first scroll which Jehoiakim the king of Judah burned.
29"And concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah you shall say, 'Thus says the LORD, "You have (BC)burned this scroll, saying, '(BD)Why have you written on it that the (BE)king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land, and will make man and beast to cease from it?'"
30'Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah, "He shall have (BF)no one to sit on the throne of David, and his (BG)dead body shall be cast out to the heat of the day and the frost of the night.
31"I will also (BH)punish him and his descendants and his servants for their iniquity, and I will (BI)bring on them and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the men of Judah all the calamity that I have declared to them--but they did not listen."'"
32Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch the son of Neriah, the scribe, and he (BJ)wrote on it at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire; and many similar words were added to them.
Getting back to Oakspear's topic – it's obvious YOU didn't re-evaluate what you were taught. Insinuating any understanding other than the "original full understanding" as taught by VPW is wrong. I find the assumption in your "thesis" confusing. What has the unrecoverable ancient Scriptures have to do with God intervening in 1942 and allowing PFAL/the "spiritual perspective" to have predominance?
There's two different issues here. Efforts to recover ancient documents are typically carried on by scholars for a number of reasons [textual criticism, translations, etc.] and are based on existing artifacts. That's quite different from PFAL's way of twisting Scripture around pet doctrines and making students think they're getting back to the original God-breathed Word. Are students given a whole new translation of the Bible when they take PFAL? Nope – they're given a whole new way to look at the Bible – the way VPW looked at it. Students are shown a number of ways to twist Scripture into VPW's theology: Refer to/Plagiarize any material to prove your point, when that won't help re-define Hebrew, Greek or English words, ignore context, wish you could see it in the original, etc.
One or two topics at a time is all I have time for,
so I’ll have to chose which of your points to respond to in this immediate now.
***
I have often, very often in fact, quoted the exact same passage in Jeremiah 36 that you just quoted.
There is a short time gap between God’s originally giving the words for that burned scroll and God’s giving the second scroll WITH MANY WORDS ADDED. God altered via addition His own word after a short time gap.
There is another instance where a scroll(s?) was buried in the temple debris for a longer time gap, and then found.
It just so happens that there was a 2000 year gap for us.
***
The fullness that was lost, that was in the spoken and originally written Word of the first century, was the learning of the power to do all the things Jesus Christ did and greater.
***
You wrote:
“Getting back to Oakspear's topic – it's obvious YOU didn't re-evaluate what you were taught. Insinuating any understanding other than the "original full understanding" as taught by VPW is wrong. I find the assumption in your "thesis" confusing…”
I don’t blame you for finding it confusing. My presentation of that thesis here has always been in the midst of tumult. If you want a more clear understanding of it, that is available if you want to PM me about it.
It’s neither obvious nor factual that I’ve neglected my re-evaluation responsibilities. I did neglect them 20 plus years ago, but about 9 years ago I finally got down to business on this important matter. Not only that, but I informed many others (like in posts here) of Dr’s two calls to us to do the same in his last magazine article to us. Dr twice urged us to re-thing EVERYTHING, in writing, just before he died.
I’ve posted on this double re-evaluation urging of Dr’s here before. Here’s a repeat of some of that info:
It was in the July/Aug 1985 issue of the Way Magazine that Dr issued that
challenge, twice. They were in his last two prepared articles, both in
that same issue.
The first one is in "Our Only Rule for Faith and Practice" on page 17,
right column, in the upper half. there he says (with my bold fonts):
"You have to honestly come to the place that you're willing to keep asking
yourself, 'Where did I learn what I believe? How did I get to the place
where I believe what I believe today?' For the most part, men believe what
they have received from tradition and not from directly reading it in the
Word of God."
In other words, this self examination should be on-going. I see an
implication here that we were NOT doing this even once by that time. When
Dr says "men" I see him primarily referring to leadership of the ministry.
I don't see him charging this to and about denominational churchgoers
outside the ministry. The tradition they (we) were believing was the
verbal tradition(s) that grew up within the ministry and that I have
called TVTs. We were not (by that time) forming and maintaining beliefs
from directly reading God's Word, the written material we were supplied in
PFAL. Many were forming beliefs not from written PFAL but from their own
KJV or Greek research, the traditional approach, and drifting farther and
farther from the written revelations God gave Dr and Dr gave us. This is
why in his last teaching (and on many previous occasions) Dr stresses the
written forms of PFAL for mastery.
***
The second location of this challenge from Dr is in the Our Times Insight
article on page 12, left column, lower half. There he writes:
"We must honestly come to the place of asking ourselves: Where did I learn
this? How did I get to the place of believing this? Who taught me this?
The counterfeit is so much like the genuine, you have to know the accuracy
of the Word to separate truth from error."
The accuracy of the Word cannot be read from the KJV. The accuracy of the
Word cannot be conjured up from stale memories, or learned from verbal
traditions like sitting through the film class a lot of times. It is
written.
***
In addition to the twice occurrence of this challenge in one magazine, he
also twice (once in each article) decries the "dark clouds that hover over
us" due to the traditions of men. I am convinced that the "us" Dr is
referring to here is not rhetoric for "us human beings" nor for "us
Christians throughout the world" but is referring to "us PFAL grads." I
believe the traditions Dr refers to here are not things like the trinity
or salvation by works. He's nailing our whole scale reverting back to
tradition of searching for truth in the writings of men like the KJV,
other versions, or the critical Greek texts. That job had been essentially
finished by October 1982, as Dr reported at Craig's installation and on
that week's SNS tape. In both of those articles he was urging us to take
the REAL Bible as our only rule for faith and practice, not some version.
In Session One Dr says that the greatest secret in the world today is that
the Bible is the revealed Word and will of God. Millions and millions of
the world's population believe that their KJV or NIV or Greek texts are
the Word of God. How many know that those are good tools to start finding
God's will at best, and counterfeits at worst? How many know that God
commissioned Dr to commit to writing His Word like it has not been known
since the first century? THAT is the greatest literal secret in the world,
that the written forms of PFAL comprise God's book, the Bible, the written
Word of God.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: Mike, July 27, 2005 13:20
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ex10
Wow, Oak, you really know how to ask the questions. My short answer is, any "belief system" that treats people, and real life relationships as secondary, is suspect. Idealogies are great for discussion, teachings, debate, whatever, but when people don't understand the basics of family relationships, friendships, work, and basic things about getting along in life, forget about it.
Talk all you want about how good God is, and how great life is supposed to be, but if you can't resolve conflicts that all humans have, something is really wrong. If people can't do things like make a decent living, love and support their families, have rewarding friendships............uh, what else is left?
Yeah, I re-evaluated everything I was taught.
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likeaneagle
What you have at the end of the day..is how much love did you give or feel....
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FullCircle
Oh gee, there was so much going on at the time my husband and I were leaving. The ministry was in shambles, it was after POP and it was still reeling, the Corps seemed to be being torn in two between CG and LCM, teachings were out from Scotland in how the heads of the Jerusalem church tried to set up the Apostle Paul and get him killed, there fore alluding to LCM being despicable in the way he was treating CG, LCM did some type of teaching claiming that POP wasn't godly because the reproof wasn't done in a godly way according to "the word." LCM and CG were blaming the Corps for not getting their act together and that was the reason the ministry was screwed up, it was all their fault, not the leaders and a Corps hook up from nearly a year before by CG and LCM (??) accused the big guns at HQ for killing VP with their unbelief. All this filtered down to us.
Add to that, JL was touring the country, meeting with believers and tapes were being made by JL and RD and they were telling people what was really going on and how long it was going on and how LCM didn't seem he was going to repent. I am speaking of the alleged sexual escapades.
People were whispering, trying to figure out what was going on without being found out otherwise you were in big doo doo with local leadership.
This was right before the mass firings.
Anyway, the one thing I had wanted since I was a born was a safe family. A safe family in a safe home. I got it. A wonderful hubby and a beautiful child. I was apprentice corps before, was an Advanced Class grad (so was hubby) both hubby and I were WOW vets a couple times over, twig coordinators, family coordinators out WOW, and other outreach programs were under our belts.
We were happy. I started rocking the boat when I defied leadership and refused to rip my baby out of their crib from their nap and take them to meetings. I refused to get the house cleaned and dinner made for hubby, clean up, make bottles, change the baby's diaper and pj's and get ready, pack the diaper bag to sit in the back bedroom because my baby was a distraction. My husband backed me up. We quit tithing because we used our money for formula and diapers and baby food.
Damn us, we were putting our child first.
Then the problems started. Not in an area you would think either. A believer who lived with our branch/area leader like to pretend they were something great, and I would joke to my husband that we were dealing with a Simon the Sorceror, you know, like to give out that they were something great. They started interfering with my marriage. They would come and tell me all the things that people were saying about him so I could confront him and help him. At the same time they were going to him and telling him all the things that was being said about me so he could confront me and help me. They were going around to believers talking about the both of us, saying how screwed up we were and needed help. It got ugly and it grew.
Our area/branch coordinator called me, and spoke with me and hubby and said he wanted a confrontation. He told my husband what others were now saying. My husband and I were like totally confused having no idea how this all started and we talked and realized how this ONE person said the same things to me that they said to him and were now going about the branch with it. My husband confronted the area/branch leader and told him off and told him he has one possessed sob living with him and giving him advice and if the area/branch leader wanted a show down with all of us there, we would go but it would be damn ugly because he was blankety blank fed up with people screwing with our lives.
Wouldn't you know that the showdown meeting was called off? It didn't end there though. My hubby got in the car and drove to every one's house that this bastard involved and told them all off and told them to keep their fuking noses out of our marriage....he told that to the Corps and non Corps people involved, he had had it.
He was a hero in my eyes and still is.
Anyway, I called someone, they were married to talk with them. I knew they had trouble with the same person we did so I called although I knew that they were meeting with JL and I didn't know if they would talk with me but they did. I found out that the person that tried to mess with my marriage had tried the same thing with them, using the same methods. They went to the wife then to the husband, saying people were talking and this is what they were saying and then got people involved in the branch. They were unsuspecting because they thought highly of this person just to find out what sickness drove them. Not only that, we found out through them that this person had a rep of doing this as far back as Chicago, left a trail behind them of nearly broken and broken marriages of people.
Then I wondered for the upteenth time, if the gift ministries were to be the eyes and ears of the church, ie as in ordained clergy, how come they miss it every time and accuse the people who are right on and trying their best? Something was wrong.
My husband and I met with this couple and we got the tapes that JL and others made and listened. It was heart breaking to hear of all the misconduct, the crappy way women were abused and how the ministry was confronted and refused to change. This is back now in 1988. What year is it now?
I cried. I was broken hearted. TWI was all I knew. I had wanted to be a good faithful Christian wife and have my home available for believers, for it to be an oasis in a desert for them, a port in the storm. I felt like someone had died, the grief was so great.
I prayed to God. I asked him if it was true if he told VP that he would teach him the bible like it had never been known before. Then I went to the bible bookstore and found books by Clarence Larkin and Bullinger. I found out it had been know and taught long before VP. I realized then that VP was a fraud and a liar, a liar using God's name and that is something I cannot and will not tolerate from anyone. I will never take seriously anyone who is so hard hearted and calloused that they have NO fear about lying about God.
It was a slow process. We moved out of that area. We were taught against in twigs, we were mocked before we left. Those who pledged to stand with us and help us raise our daughter with their wisdom, having older children turned on us.
We attended fellowship sporadically over the next two years but then made the cut permanent. We studied hard, read much and went to church as well and asked a lot of questions. It was a very hard time as we unraveled one doctrine after another. It took time .
So we left voluntarily but we had information presented to us that we never had before. Even if we did not have that information, we would have slipped into the woodwork to preserve our family unit from the sharks that populated TWI.
So yes, we did evaulate everything.
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Abigail
I left of my own choice. I was miserable and I had done enough of my own research and found enough errors in what was being taught in TWI, that I no longer believed they were the only ones with the truth or that they even had only truth.
Realizing that alloed me to be open to researching what other people had written and studied, along with my own studies. I have learned a ton and I am still learning!!
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likeaneagle
WOW Fullcircle- this is so crazy to hear all this stuff going on. I got in 74 and left in 83 and went back in 90 and again left in 2000.....there is such of gap in what happened..thanks for bearing your heart...what flippin idiots..
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Bramble
This is long:
We left at the end of the nineties after four or five years of screw tightening. The more we did, the more exhausted we were, and the more trouble we were in, the more we had to do….
It seemed like nearly every area of our lives was open for scrutiny, and while in way doctrine the husband was the head of the family, in reality our HFC and Limb coord trumped hubby.
Our HFC had a string of couples whose marriages broke up or they left the ministry from his fellowship, in fact the couple who became the asst co ords after we walked split up, and we have since heard from several couples. Usually it was the wife who was the problem, it certainly was with us. We often split fellowship nights because we had kids in grade school who just couldn’t stay up that late—I would be treated harshly, hubby would get the pat on the back…this went on for years. HFC wifey barely even spoke to me, and never once called to chat or did anything friendly in all the years I was in their fellowship. Cold.
I wanted to leave a few years before we did, but hubby didn’t want to—“Where would we go?” I basically shut my mouth and went along with business as usual. The last year we were in I worked pretty hard to keep my kids away from the fellowship, and hubby did too, even though we never talked about it.. Our kids were never ever good enough—even though they were and are well behaved, get good grades, are kind and friendly, teachers love them…
We stayed out of any big reproof issues for a year or so, but then something came up, and the way this stuff went, it would start with one issue, like finances or ministry priorities or what ever, and by the time it was over, it would be in all kinds of other areas—marriage, family, what ever, plus it all would be communicated to the limb and maybe to the region co ord, too.
We didn’t leave because we knew they were off the word or anything like that. We left because we didn’t think we would survive another ‘reproof’ cycle as a couple. I already had tentative plan to move to a place where I could get a job immediately, and cheap housing, if things went bad, plus for the first time in years we had two cars. I didn’t want to, but I thought maybe hubby would wake up if I took drastic measures. By this time though hubby a had seen and overheard a few things his ol’ buddy the HFC aimed at me. So when a ‘We just want to help you’ session was pushed, we walked.
At first we were not Marked and avoided—I think they thought we’d come back. But a month or so later we found out from a friend that we were. We lost all our friends but the one who still keeps in touch.
After a few months we got into a CFF twig, but it was just like TWI. Right after our first fellowship, the co ord had all kinds of things we could do for them. We’d had that breather away, and it seemed and was rude and intrusive. It was weird being on our own, but also far less stressful.
After that exways we knew tried to get us involved in different ex way groups. We got booklets and stuff,,, but we were just weary. Both of us put it all aside.
And life continued to get better! And then it got worse, and then better...just life. Ups and downs, pebbles in the brook, life just like other people. not the perfect life of TWI, but real life.
Wer found we could make good decisions just fine with out 'counsel' . Pretty sad to find that out in your forties.
Eventually we hit some mainstream churches, and found them friendly but not ‘we’re your new best friend, friendly’. It was nice.
While involved somewhat with various churches I read lot. We moved, too, across the country. I felt more free and more able to make decisions on my own, not be part of any group—groups are still hard.
Hubby quit going all together, quit exway stuff—in fact after we moved we never reordered any tapes or anything. I continued to go because this is what mom’s do or something. I learned about different churches, I could see their reasoning on many issues…but I didn’t want to get deeply involved. That made me uncomfortable.
I had read some Divine feminine stuff…and back before TWI I had a little interest in the witchcraft movement, though books etc were hard to find back then. I started reading Wicca books and websites. I had an ‘unverifiable personal’ gnosis type experience… felt as though I’d come home.
Did the way we left make a difference? I think so. We didn’t leave with our twig or pals like many did after pop, so there was a big shift in lifestyle. It seemed that our exway acquaintances were either dealing with damaged lives, or trying to get us to do something with some ministry. And we were so sick of people trying to get us to do stuff, to change, to be different in this area or that area, read this, think that, go to this.
I say we alot, but actually, hubby is pretty much agnostic, though he doesn't mind what I'm into since I never turned into some wacko. I'm pretty much the same porson I always was in my relationships with family and friends...
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Bolshevik
Re-evaluate. Beliefs. Circumstances around my "exit".
First, how can something that can't be proven be re-evaluated? Were they teachings or mandates? They had the answers but not to my questions.
What do I believe? I don't know. I'm a scientist. If it works. Use it. When old ideas fail, upgrade. I only know what I know relative to something else and within a specified degree of uncertainty. I use one theory until a better one is developed. I expect everything I know today to be proven false tomorrow.
If life is like one of those games where you develop a map based only upon where you have been; then twi is just one of the big boundary walls. Bump . . Bump. . Okay, big wall here. Just keep changing direction to you find what you didn't know you needed. (. . . Whoo hoo! . . . The magic acorn! . . . . . What do I do with a magic acorn?)
"Circumstances surrounding my exit". . . . hmmm. . . . What was the question again?
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FullCircle
To my above post, I can't edit it, it should have said the year was 1989.
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rascal
What is wierd is...that it was nearly 5 years after leaving before I even QUESTIONED a single teaching. I truly believed that I would become posessed if I considered....
I was SO burned up when I finally found out that almost every thing that I had been taught about God was a lie...I became hyper sensative to anybody trying to manipulate me through doctrine.
About all I can manage these days is *Love God and Love my neighbor* It is simple and it works for me after all of the years of *straining at gnats* :)
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waysider
Wow!
That just about says it for me, too. Except that the 5 years turned out to be much longer and I never really believed I would get posessed.(I did think,though, that"bad" things would happen, especially after I quit tithing/ABS.)
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Jim
I'll happily discuss any religion or social group as a disinterested 3rd person. Any attempts to recruit me will result in me running as fast and as far away as I can.
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outintexas
That was my experience. 25 years wasted in an organization that was doing nothing for me and yet I stayed until they threw me out!
Now my policy is don't stay in any group (bowling league, church, etc.) that's not making my life better.
Twi used to talk about being in charge of your life. I guess that's what I'm finally doing.
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Mod Kirk
Posts regarding Wicca were moved to a new thread in the Open Forum
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Oakspear
I started re-evaluating what I believed after the lawsuit announcement in 2000. Martindale's new doctrine's often had little visible support, so I began to look into them, at first using biblical research principles taught in PFAL. I found a lot of what I thought were errors. Eventually I began to find errors and inconsistancies in what Wierwille taught as well. The number of errors undermined any trust that I might have had in either man's ability to accurately teach the bible.
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washingtonweather
I had reevaluated when I went LOA from the 11th . I saw then the corruption of Leadership on my interm year. ....for some reason I still stuck aroun for 5 more years...but definitely after we left in 2000, I started to be more aggressive in questioning things....Many things still stuck with me. But some things like the JCNG issue...covered on another thread...(Im a Forrest GumP--groucho) became more maleable....I spend way less time thinking about being spiritual or if other things are spiritual or not...
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markomalley
Did I re-evaluate my beliefs: YES. After being out for 10 years, I finally got through my thick skull that maybe, just maybe, I was mistaken in my beliefs. So I took a fresh look and found that the TWI beliefs could not be justified. (I know that others will disagree)
What were the circumstances of my leaving: I disappeared in conjunction with a military move, shortly after the "loyalty letter." I re-emerged for a little bit a couple of years later...with some offshoot organizations...but it didn't really last...
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GrouchoMarxJr
I began having problems with twi doctrine a couple of years after Vic croaked...Martindale starting giving out directives that I thought were contrary to the bible...I suppose it was the teachings on ABS that really stuck in my craw...and then when lcm demanded that twig coordinators start making lists of "who's faithful and who isn't" and sending it in to hdqrts every week...I simply refused...and I also announced that I would be sending in my ABS anonymously from now on...I figured that God kept track of it and "they" didn't need to know....THAT really p*ssed them off.
Shortly after that, I announced that I was leaving the ministry...it wasn't until AFTER I left, that people were told to stay away from me because I was possessed...
...This was in 1987.
Soon after I left, it was almost like a veil was lifted from my eyes and most of the twi doctrine simply unraveled before my eyes...
I contribute it to breaking free of group think and beginning to think for myself again.
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likeaneagle
I think since leaving TWI I have learned and relearned many sides to wrong practice and spiritual manipulation..THe two main area's I had to learn in order to survive the guilt opposed on me by TWI..I do not label every fellowship or leader that was former TWI to be liars or are determined to follow VPW..Some hold his words higher, some have found it more serving to repave the road,so to speak..I have observed much here @ GSC, and also from my travels..
It has always been my concern to get healed...from the afflictions..I stuck to simple christian practices.JC is not God, he is my Lord. The dead are not alive.
I will never be a pagan,wiccan,catholic nor agnostic..I cannot recreate my inner most person...
There is much more to this journey...I will learn more.
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rascal
Never say never :) heh heh
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Oakspear
To me, there were too many problems woven into the fabric of TWI doctrine to not start over and see where it led me.
And to clarify, it was the behavior of Martindale that got me started questioning, it wasn't the behavior itself that caused my subsequent rejection of TWI teachings.
Another key ingredient in my decision to put aside what I had been taught in TWI was stumbling across the CES website. They had a (long) list of areas where they disagreed with what TWI taught. This wasn't just disagreement with Martindale, but disagreement with Wierwille as well. I realized after looking at what other offshoots were teaching, as well as what individual ex-wayfers were saying, that simply using the "keys to research" taught in PFAL (or in Bullinger for that matter) in no way guarantees that the results will be the same.
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Edi
[For those who have changed their beliefs, how did the circumstances of your exit from TWI influence your subsequent religious/spiritual beliefs?]
It showed me that my faith and my principles weren't from the Way Ministry. It was kind of comforting actually. It takes alot of faith and courage and tenacity to leave something that is everything to you - your job, your family, your belief system and then go make a whole new life for yourself and your family. Takes a lot of guts. And look how many of us did it. When I left the ministry God told me He would become my everything. And He did and He saw me through all the hardships of starting over in everything and in every way. I got stronger and tighter with God.
The fallout from me leaving the ministry, the Corps and my marriage was HUGE because there were so many lies told by the leaders in the ministry when I left it and by my husband when I left him. They pretty much destroyed my reputation to anyone who would listen to them. It was terrible and it was painful. But, eveything I had learned from the ministry that became corrupt held me in good stead when I left it. Is that a paradox or what???
Actually I'm glad I met the Way. At the time it was EARLY 70s - free love, sex, drugs etc era. When I picked up the bible (when I got in the Way) I threw away my "peace" pipe and other paraphanalia and started studying the Bible. I figure that saved me from a whole lot of problems and set me on the path to studying to show myself approved, rightly dividing the word of truth for the rest of my life.
Just because a lot of the people in the ministry were really screwed up in alot of ways doesn't mean it negated the truth of the scriptures that we read, loved, studied and learned from. It was the beginning for me. I left and I never looked back and I'm still going strong today.
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Mike
Hi Oakspear,
Are you related to James Joyce? You seem to have the gift of gab, at least in ASCII. I often enjoy it when you lay out your logic.
You wrote: “Another key ingredient in my decision to put aside what I had been taught in TWI was stumbling across the CES website. They had a (long) list of areas where they disagreed with what TWI taught. This wasn't just disagreement with Martindale, but disagreement with Wierwille as well. I realized after looking at what other offshoots were teaching, as well as what individual ex-wayfers were saying, that simply using the "keys to research" taught in PFAL (or in Bullinger for that matter) in no way guarantees that the results will be the same.”
It’s this last phrase of yours that catches my attention, “that simply using the "keys to research" taught in PFAL (or in Bullinger for that matter) in no way guarantees that the results will be the same.”
I agree wholeheartedly with this point.
This is a major point in my thesis, that sense knowledge cranking away on those keys, when applied to the tattered remnants of scripture, CANNOT produce the same final answer repeatedly for all those cranking.
This DOES happen somewhat in science, that repeatable results are received at times. In fact, they’re insisted upon before a theory is accepted.
My thesis (as presented here so far) is that the essence and full power of the ancient scriptures are IRRECOVERABLE with sense knowledge methods, due to the superior intelligence that suppressed the originals 2000 years ago. The devil messed up the original FULL understanding in a way that it is not possible for man to untangle on his own.
My thesis has been that in 1942 God intervened to settle this issue of the impossibility of scripture recovery, but He chose to do it an a MOST non-traditional way, kinda secretive until it was all done, like a thief in the night even.
However, I do think the keys will produce much more repeatable results when applied to written form PFAL, especially and fully when the spiritual perspective (as in the “Viewpoints: God’s - Man’s” chapter in Volume III, WWAY) is given predominance.
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T-Bone
I agree – it is not possible to recover the original Scripture documents. Excuse me for being so "irreverent" – but exactly what do you think we're going to find in them that will have a major impact on Christian doctrine? What is on the missing pieces to these tattered remnants?...Genesis 1:32 Oh and one more thing God did on the sixth day – He created the law of believing. He waited until then because He worried His believing might not have been big enough to create the heavens and the earth [from The TWI-Light Last Gleaming Version].
I believe the "essence and full power" of the Scriptures reside not IN the Scriptures – but in the author of Scripture – God Almighty! After all, the Scriptures are HIS words and HE watches over them – such as in the case of Jehoiakim destroying some of them:
Jeremiah 36: 20-32 NASB
20 So they went to the (AN)king in the court, but they had deposited the scroll in the chamber of (AO)Elishama the scribe, and they reported all the words to the king.
21Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and he took it out of the chamber of Elishama the scribe. And Jehudi (AP)read it to the king as well as to all the officials who stood beside the king.
22Now the king was sitting in the (AQ)winter house in the (AR)ninth month, with a fire burning in the brazier before him.
23When Jehudi had read three or four columns, the king cut it with a scribe's knife and (AS)threw it into the fire that was in the brazier, until all the scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazier.
24Yet the king and all his servants who heard all these words were (AT)not afraid, nor did they (AU)rend their garments.
25Even though Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah (AV)pleaded with the king not to burn the scroll, he would not listen to them.
26And the king commanded Jerahmeel the king's son, Seraiah the son of Azriel, and Shelemiah the son of Abdeel to (AW)seize Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet, but the (AX)LORD hid them.
27Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah after the king had (AY)burned the scroll and the words which (AZ)Baruch had written at the dictation of Jeremiah, saying,
28"(BA)Take again another scroll and write on it all the former words that were (BB)on the first scroll which Jehoiakim the king of Judah burned.
29"And concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah you shall say, 'Thus says the LORD, "You have (BC)burned this scroll, saying, '(BD)Why have you written on it that the (BE)king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land, and will make man and beast to cease from it?'"
30'Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah, "He shall have (BF)no one to sit on the throne of David, and his (BG)dead body shall be cast out to the heat of the day and the frost of the night.
31"I will also (BH)punish him and his descendants and his servants for their iniquity, and I will (BI)bring on them and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the men of Judah all the calamity that I have declared to them--but they did not listen."'"
32Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch the son of Neriah, the scribe, and he (BJ)wrote on it at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire; and many similar words were added to them.
Getting back to Oakspear's topic – it's obvious YOU didn't re-evaluate what you were taught. Insinuating any understanding other than the "original full understanding" as taught by VPW is wrong. I find the assumption in your "thesis" confusing. What has the unrecoverable ancient Scriptures have to do with God intervening in 1942 and allowing PFAL/the "spiritual perspective" to have predominance?
There's two different issues here. Efforts to recover ancient documents are typically carried on by scholars for a number of reasons [textual criticism, translations, etc.] and are based on existing artifacts. That's quite different from PFAL's way of twisting Scripture around pet doctrines and making students think they're getting back to the original God-breathed Word. Are students given a whole new translation of the Bible when they take PFAL? Nope – they're given a whole new way to look at the Bible – the way VPW looked at it. Students are shown a number of ways to twist Scripture into VPW's theology: Refer to/Plagiarize any material to prove your point, when that won't help re-define Hebrew, Greek or English words, ignore context, wish you could see it in the original, etc.
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Mike
Hi T-Bone,
One or two topics at a time is all I have time for,
so I’ll have to chose which of your points to respond to in this immediate now.
***
I have often, very often in fact, quoted the exact same passage in Jeremiah 36 that you just quoted.
There is a short time gap between God’s originally giving the words for that burned scroll and God’s giving the second scroll WITH MANY WORDS ADDED. God altered via addition His own word after a short time gap.
There is another instance where a scroll(s?) was buried in the temple debris for a longer time gap, and then found.
It just so happens that there was a 2000 year gap for us.
***
The fullness that was lost, that was in the spoken and originally written Word of the first century, was the learning of the power to do all the things Jesus Christ did and greater.
***
You wrote:
“Getting back to Oakspear's topic – it's obvious YOU didn't re-evaluate what you were taught. Insinuating any understanding other than the "original full understanding" as taught by VPW is wrong. I find the assumption in your "thesis" confusing…”
I don’t blame you for finding it confusing. My presentation of that thesis here has always been in the midst of tumult. If you want a more clear understanding of it, that is available if you want to PM me about it.
It’s neither obvious nor factual that I’ve neglected my re-evaluation responsibilities. I did neglect them 20 plus years ago, but about 9 years ago I finally got down to business on this important matter. Not only that, but I informed many others (like in posts here) of Dr’s two calls to us to do the same in his last magazine article to us. Dr twice urged us to re-thing EVERYTHING, in writing, just before he died.
I’ve posted on this double re-evaluation urging of Dr’s here before. Here’s a repeat of some of that info:
It was in the July/Aug 1985 issue of the Way Magazine that Dr issued that
challenge, twice. They were in his last two prepared articles, both in
that same issue.
The first one is in "Our Only Rule for Faith and Practice" on page 17,
right column, in the upper half. there he says (with my bold fonts):
"You have to honestly come to the place that you're willing to keep asking
yourself, 'Where did I learn what I believe? How did I get to the place
where I believe what I believe today?' For the most part, men believe what
they have received from tradition and not from directly reading it in the
Word of God."
In other words, this self examination should be on-going. I see an
implication here that we were NOT doing this even once by that time. When
Dr says "men" I see him primarily referring to leadership of the ministry.
I don't see him charging this to and about denominational churchgoers
outside the ministry. The tradition they (we) were believing was the
verbal tradition(s) that grew up within the ministry and that I have
called TVTs. We were not (by that time) forming and maintaining beliefs
from directly reading God's Word, the written material we were supplied in
PFAL. Many were forming beliefs not from written PFAL but from their own
KJV or Greek research, the traditional approach, and drifting farther and
farther from the written revelations God gave Dr and Dr gave us. This is
why in his last teaching (and on many previous occasions) Dr stresses the
written forms of PFAL for mastery.
***
The second location of this challenge from Dr is in the Our Times Insight
article on page 12, left column, lower half. There he writes:
"We must honestly come to the place of asking ourselves: Where did I learn
this? How did I get to the place of believing this? Who taught me this?
The counterfeit is so much like the genuine, you have to know the accuracy
of the Word to separate truth from error."
The accuracy of the Word cannot be read from the KJV. The accuracy of the
Word cannot be conjured up from stale memories, or learned from verbal
traditions like sitting through the film class a lot of times. It is
written.
***
In addition to the twice occurrence of this challenge in one magazine, he
also twice (once in each article) decries the "dark clouds that hover over
us" due to the traditions of men. I am convinced that the "us" Dr is
referring to here is not rhetoric for "us human beings" nor for "us
Christians throughout the world" but is referring to "us PFAL grads." I
believe the traditions Dr refers to here are not things like the trinity
or salvation by works. He's nailing our whole scale reverting back to
tradition of searching for truth in the writings of men like the KJV,
other versions, or the critical Greek texts. That job had been essentially
finished by October 1982, as Dr reported at Craig's installation and on
that week's SNS tape. In both of those articles he was urging us to take
the REAL Bible as our only rule for faith and practice, not some version.
In Session One Dr says that the greatest secret in the world today is that
the Bible is the revealed Word and will of God. Millions and millions of
the world's population believe that their KJV or NIV or Greek texts are
the Word of God. How many know that those are good tools to start finding
God's will at best, and counterfeits at worst? How many know that God
commissioned Dr to commit to writing His Word like it has not been known
since the first century? THAT is the greatest literal secret in the world,
that the written forms of PFAL comprise God's book, the Bible, the written
Word of God.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: Mike, July 27, 2005 13:20
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