I was just posting over on the Fellowlaborers thread, and I think at least the one I was in fit into that category also in some ways.
We didn't choose our roommates, our work detail, our leisure activities, anything. We were never alone, we were always watched and reported on and supposed about. We were all supposed to be crammed into that little mold and like it.
My three months in FWC were even worse, because it extended to the children. God forbid you step out of line, start walking with the wrong foot, touch a wall.
I agree with you on the motivation behind the corpusle program. For the most part it was one of deceit and lies.
It's hard to believe God was able to work in those situations. But I have to say God is bigger than my small brain.
I will say one thing, there were a few good hearted people like you who did not let themselves get hardened by twi's system of error. Your example affected my life and I will always remember it. I never saw your heart hardened in any way.
Your life continues to touch many here. I think you would be a great writer. I'd buy your books.
I agree with you on the motivation behind the corpusle program. For the most part it was one of deceit and lies.
It's hard to believe God was able to work in those situations. But I have to say God is bigger than my small brain.
I will say one thing, there were a few good hearted people like you who did not let themselves get hardened by twi's system of error. Your example affected my life and I will always remember it. I never saw your heart hardened in any way.
Your life continues to touch many here. I think you would be a great writer. I'd buy your books.
Thanks polar bear. I appreciate your kind words.
Yeah........IN SPITE of the regimentation, many of us went out onto the field and forsook the hardened approach to "helping" others. Many of us, you included.....endeavored to take the high road of Christ's love and help carry the burdens of others that could be shared. Many corps sidestepped the twit-leadership's counsel of stern micro-management and allowed the spirit of God to come alive in ways far surpassing the pee-brain training.
The corps training.....I was expecting SO MUCH MORE. It was a numbing experience to be herded in and out of classroom teachings day after day, roll calls, reproof sessions to everyone because of ONE violator, and the hundreds of regimented techniques in the three-ring circus of inrez-ville.
So much of those two years of inresidence were hoops and hoopla. Heck, the little "good" from that structured set-up could have been easily addressed in a three-month training. All the other stuff was indoctrination into the wierwille propaganda machine.......not the MEMBERS IN PARTICULAR concept of the One Body.
Polar bear...........your song-writing is awesome and your heart to serve others is beyond reproach. You and your wife were truly some of the good-hearted ones, not because of twit-training......but because of WHO YOU ARE IN CHRIST and your walk of faith.
I detest the wierwille-adulation indoctrination that was pushed by the corps coordinators. I detest the idolatry of the trustees/emeritus trustees/presidents cabinet/trunk coordinator/region coordinators lift lists that were to be our prayer-rosary at the first of each day. I detest the "wierwille -- father in the word" jargon that martindale and geer promoted. So very many tares......and very little wheat in twitville.
The corps training.....I was expecting SO MUCH MORE.
Hear, hear!!! I had been in the College Division and actually enjoyed it and learned a lot of Bible, History, Study Skills, etc. I expected the corps to be so much more. I expected the corps to teach me how to get to an even higher level of together-ness with my lord, and how to communicate that to others. HAH!!! Was I a dupe or what?
Two years of teaching me that independent thinking was forbidden. Two years of teaching me that respect and kindness toward others was not the first thought of any great leader, but suspicion was. Two years of teaching me that the greatest leader was the one who could yell the loudest over the littlest incident. Two years of teaching me that God only answered prayers if you gave enough money, enough time, and enough loyalty to twi. Two years of teaching me watch my back, look over my shoulder, and don't reach out to those in need. Boy, how's that for christian leadership training?
I think that skyrider's depiction of corps training is right on the money.
Looking back, I think that it was a microcosm of futility and despair. Herding people in and out of buildings, sleep deprivation, screaming at people, mundane activities with very little, if any, real learning. The vast majority of "classes" were mostly reviews of what we had learned before entering the corps...along with such spiritually enlightening subjects as "jet style packing", grade school spelling classes and teaching men how to shave properly.
The main goal of corps training was to indoctrinate into a mind numbing obedience of religious servitude...it was like a sinister form of toilet training.
At least I learned how to file and floss my teeth.
It was downhill from there.
I learned how to floss in grade school. No offense meant to anyone, but why did they have to teach the Corps to floss their teeth? Did they have some enlightened way to do it??
Wierwille seemed to pride himself on being able "to teach his keeds." Time and time again, he said that NONE of the corps knew how to work. So, those 3 1/2 hours work assignments of pulling weeds, mowing grass, mopping floors, etc was soooo essential to our corps training.......PULEEASE.
Sure there were some who needed help to learn some work areas, but to lump ALL in the same batch and degrade them publically was wierwille's mode of sicko teaching. Of course, having been raised on a farm with crops and livestock, driving a tractor when I was nine attending to fieldwork, etc. etc.....I took exception to wierwille's vaunted ego and put-downs (while he sipped on his drambuie).
The work program was just ANOTHER means to milk the money and stock the coffers for twi......free labor, especially from the skilled workers i.e. electrians, plumbers, carpenters, painters, etc.
So was wierwille REALLY an expert in chopping wood and clearing trees?
Hear, hear!!! I had been in the College Division and actually enjoyed it and learned a lot of Bible, History, Study Skills, etc. I expected the corps to be so much more. I expected the corps to teach me how to get to an even higher level of together-ness with my lord, and how to communicate that to others. HAH!!! Was I a dupe or what?
Two years of teaching me that independent thinking was forbidden. Two years of teaching me that respect and kindness toward others was not the first thought of any great leader, but suspicion was. Two years of teaching me that the greatest leader was the one who could yell the loudest over the littlest incident. Two years of teaching me that God only answered prayers if you gave enough money, enough time, and enough loyalty to twi. Two years of teaching me watch my back, look over my shoulder, and don't reach out to those in need. Boy, how's that for christian leadership training?
You would have been better off spending TWO years at a Rolling Stones Concert!! :biglaugh:
I was just posting over on the Fellowlaborers thread, and I think at least the one I was in fit into that category also in some ways.
We didn't choose our roommates, our work detail, our leisure activities, anything. We were never alone, we were always watched and reported on and supposed about. We were all supposed to be crammed into that little mold and like it.
My three months in FWC were even worse, because it extended to the children. God forbid you step out of line, start walking with the wrong foot, touch a wall.
WG
Some of this could be applied to the MTC for LDS missionaries, Catholic Seminary for priests, and other religious groups training for thieir ministers, pastors, rabbis, imans etc.
The idea is to take those who wish to spread the gospel through missionary and pastorial duties and have them immerse themselves in the scriptures of their religion. To have them learn to be able to live and work with a variety of individuals in a variety of situations. This involves life skills which demand, cooperation, listening, understanding and compromise.
TWI's downfall was, IMO, that they left no room for personality of the individual. In an effort to squash any personal characteristics that they perceived as "contrary to the word" by the application of strict authoritarian rule--they all too often squashed the personal characteristics of the individual which would have enabled them to grow and mature spritually in their individaul walk. No individual walk or allowance for the fact that "individual walk" means individual timeline and understanding means, eventually, personal spritual growth stops.
I, for one, never went into the Corpse. I never really had the desire... I think this was God's protection on my life.
I saw too many people go into the Corpse - people who were fun, people who were smart, and people who had great strengths who all came out devoid of personality and any spark of life. Good friends became people who looked down at me because I hadn't had the training they had... But from what I saw, their "in depth spiritual understanding" only seemed to consist of being better able to belittle others. I never felt like I could truly be myself in front of someone who was active WC (WC alum - a little different, but they were kicked out for their faults and were therefore still human.)
I thank God every day that I never went in, despite the pressure to do so. I even remember telling one overly zealous Corpse that God hadn't told me to go into the Corpse, and as PFAL taught, God would always tell me first, right? Since Corpse was a "spiritual" decision, I felt that I needed to have that understanding in my spirit to go in... if I went in because someone else told me to, I would be breaking fellowship and that was wrong.
It was hard when I became involved with my husband because he was gung-ho go in the Corpse - THAT IS THE THING TO DO!! But he changed his mind after seeing how the WC we knew were miserable. They were OWNED by the ministry and had no choice in anything. By signing up, we would also be subjecting ourselves totally to their control. We had no desire to do anything of the sort. If neither one of us wanted to sign up for the military because of how we would be told to live our lives, why would we want to be Corpse - a LIFETIME committment.
HAY-ELL NO!!!
My life is my life. I will live it before God as I choose to. He is the only One Who can judge my "level of committment," not some "program" that would cause me to be uncomfortable, spend less time with my family and husband, work long hours, and learn basically that VPW = God. No thank you. I would rather have more than two beers, not submit a schedule to anyone, and know I can move where I want when I want... while having as many children as I care to.
Wierwille seemed to pride himself on being able "to teach his keeds." Time and time again, he said that NONE of the corps knew how to work. So, those 3 1/2 hours work assignments of pulling weeds, mowing grass, mopping floors, etc was soooo essential to our corps training.......PULEEASE.
Sure there were some who needed help to learn some work areas, but to lump ALL in the same batch and degrade them publically was wierwille's mode of sicko teaching. Of course, having been raised on a farm with crops and livestock, driving a tractor when I was nine attending to fieldwork, etc. etc.....I took exception to wierwille's vaunted ego and put-downs (while he sipped on his drambuie).
The work program was just ANOTHER means to milk the money and stock the coffers for twi......free labor, especially from the skilled workers i.e. electrians, plumbers, carpenters, painters, etc.
So was wierwille REALLY an expert in chopping wood and clearing trees?
Please remember that the same man who was reported- in twi's OWN "the way:living in love"-
to have shirked his own chores growing up and slipping off for hours at a time instead-
and convinced his dad that he should go to college rather than the farm (no small task)-
THAT was the one who insisted that HE knew how to work, and NONE of the younger folk DID-
even the ones who DID work on farms, or come right out of the military, and so on.
So, there was a "work program" that didn't actually "educate" how to perform various jobs, but got
menial work on the grounds performed without paying for workers.
In fact, the workers PAID TO PERFORM MANUAL LABOR.
I, for one, never went into the Corpse. I never really had the desire... I think this was God's protection on my life.
I saw too many people go into the Corpse - people who were fun, people who were smart, and people who had great strengths who all came out devoid of personality and any spark of life. Good friends became people who looked down at me because I hadn't had the training they had... But from what I saw, their "in depth spiritual understanding" only seemed to consist of being better able to belittle others. I never felt like I could truly be myself in front of someone who was active WC (WC alum - a little different, but they were kicked out for their faults and were therefore still human.)
I thank God every day that I never went in, despite the pressure to do so. I even remember telling one overly zealous Corpse that God hadn't told me to go into the Corpse, and as PFAL taught, God would always tell me first, right? Since Corpse was a "spiritual" decision, I felt that I needed to have that understanding in my spirit to go in... if I went in because someone else told me to, I would be breaking fellowship and that was wrong.
It was hard when I became involved with my husband because he was gung-ho go in the Corpse - THAT IS THE THING TO DO!! But he changed his mind after seeing how the WC we knew were miserable. They were OWNED by the ministry and had no choice in anything. By signing up, we would also be subjecting ourselves totally to their control. We had no desire to do anything of the sort. If neither one of us wanted to sign up for the military because of how we would be told to live our lives, why would we want to be Corpse - a LIFETIME committment.
HAY-ELL NO!!!
My life is my life. I will live it before God as I choose to. He is the only One Who can judge my "level of committment," not some "program" that would cause me to be uncomfortable, spend less time with my family and husband, work long hours, and learn basically that VPW = God. No thank you. I would rather have more than two beers, not submit a schedule to anyone, and know I can move where I want when I want... while having as many children as I care to.
Thank God I at least made that decision right.
Of course,
once you completed your "tour of duty" with the military, you were free to live your life as you wished.
However,
once you completed the corps training- at least how it was reported after the first few corps-
it became, as participants put it,
"we own your @$$ and will tell you where to live and what to do for the rest of your life."
Many of those nightowls were spent listening to wierwille share, again, about how God showed him the word. Along with these "Look at ME sharings" were the expounding on the wierwille family, the wierwille farm, the way woods, veepee's childhood......you get the picture.
I understand some of you wierwille apologists are thankful for pfal......I get that. But from where I sit, having heard the wierwille bravado in countless ways.....and seeing wierwille idolatry surrounding HQ i.e. 1) wierwille road, 2) The Victor Paul Wierwille Prevailing Word Auditorium, 3) pictures of wierwille all over, 4) wierwille plaques, 5) the fountain area with wierwille at the pinnacle gravesite, 6) names of side streets after the wierwille family, 7) paintings and prints of wierwille in them, 8) "Founders' Hall and etc........IT ALL POINTS TO THE WIERWILLE IDOLATRY THAT PERMEATES TWI.
So, yeah......go ahead and boast about "all you learned in pfal".......and when the curtain is fully pulled back its WIERWILLE, not Jesus Christ, that is standing FRONT AND CENTER.
From the perspective of someone who was in TWI II....
I thought you had to be an LCM clone to WANT to go in the WC to begin with... the WC was just finishing school for teaching you how to be a complete @$$hole.*
*I am not saying all WC were @$$holes - I am saying that they were taught how to potentially be ones.... k?
From the perspective of someone who was in TWI II....
I thought you had to be an LCM clone to WANT to go in the WC to begin with... the WC was just finishing school for teaching you how to be a complete @$$hole.*
*I am not saying all WC were @$$holes - I am saying that they were taught how to potentially be ones.... k?
Mmmm... I just don't think a lot of us realized what a horse's patootie he (and much of the leadership) was, though...
We were taught that to be a strong leader (a good leader) meant you had to know the Word, and stand strong on the Word, and not give in to our (weaker) emotional side when someone was crying on our shoulder for the 50th time (like you have to be with an alcoholic... not get suckered in by your emotions, because they will play on your emotions to get off the hook and get away with their bad behaviors). Looking at it like that, yes, we wanted to be like LCM (but only what we knew of LCM from the field, which wasn't all that much.)
And once you got to HQ and were in-rez corps, you were kinda committed to doing the program. It was really hard to back out even when you started seeing the red flags. And, of course, we were taught to ignore the red flags, and to blame ourselves for not understanding. We wanted to be strong leaders. We wanted to help people. But the big flaw in the twi II logic is that MOST situations, and MOST people are not "addicts"... not EVERY flaw was life-threatening, and not EVERY mistake indicated a habit-pattern, and not EVERY weakness meant the person was possessed. USUALLY the emotional, compassionate, patient response is the right one. And we were taught the exact opposite.
I wanted to go into Corp Leadership Trainning in 96...But the classes were changing, lengths of commitment to trainning was changing, leadership getting tossed out, families falling apart....it all grew worrisum for me...It was the very special corp folks that I served with for years that brought me to heart of serving God by thier loving commitments and examples of living 'In CHrist'..my heart grew more to give as I stayed within my own resolve to keep steadfast.I was willing to walk away from the things of the flesh to serve God..not because anyone told me I had too. I am glad I didnt go in..it's been hard enough to swallow what I have found here on GSC.
OMG, my heart goes out to you corp..I pray for your cont'd healing.
I wanted to go into Corp Leadership Trainning in 96...But the classes were changing, lengths of commitment to trainning was changing, leadership getting tossed out, families falling apart....it all grew worrisum for me...It was the very special corp folks that I served with for years that brought me to heart of serving God by thier loving commitments and examples of living 'In CHrist'..my heart grew more to give as I stayed within my own resolve to keep steadfast.I was willing to walk away from the things of the flesh to serve God..not because anyone told me I had too. I am glad I didnt go in..it's been hard enough to swallow what I have found here on GSC.
OMG, my heart goes out to you corp..I pray for your cont'd healing.
Thanks likeaneagle........I appreciate it.
IMO there is very little doubt that there were some awesome believers and corps who genuinely served God and their fellow man. Yet, when one closely looks at the hardness of heart and searing of one's conscience that progressed throughout twi's doors......it seems apparent to me that "the searing and branding of corporate loyalty" leads back to the root, to hq.....and namely back to wierwille himself.
When applying constant pressure to the corps and upper leadership, the pressure intensity was blowing some gaskets....for sure. Seems like neither wierwille nor martindale had the spiritual perception to recognize this......or the long-term effects on corps marriages and families, etc.
Is it any wonder why the inresidence corps numbers have plummeted to single-digit numbers?
But please note.....the first corps principle is: Acquire an in-depth spiritual perception and awarenes.
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Ham
What you describe matches the pfal series as well.
They had a pretty big cloned army of mog wanabes, marching in step to the vicster's drum as it was.
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Watered Garden
I was just posting over on the Fellowlaborers thread, and I think at least the one I was in fit into that category also in some ways.
We didn't choose our roommates, our work detail, our leisure activities, anything. We were never alone, we were always watched and reported on and supposed about. We were all supposed to be crammed into that little mold and like it.
My three months in FWC were even worse, because it extended to the children. God forbid you step out of line, start walking with the wrong foot, touch a wall.
WG
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polar bear
I agree with you on the motivation behind the corpusle program. For the most part it was one of deceit and lies.
It's hard to believe God was able to work in those situations. But I have to say God is bigger than my small brain.
I will say one thing, there were a few good hearted people like you who did not let themselves get hardened by twi's system of error. Your example affected my life and I will always remember it. I never saw your heart hardened in any way.
Your life continues to touch many here. I think you would be a great writer. I'd buy your books.
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skyrider
Thanks polar bear. I appreciate your kind words.
Yeah........IN SPITE of the regimentation, many of us went out onto the field and forsook the hardened approach to "helping" others. Many of us, you included.....endeavored to take the high road of Christ's love and help carry the burdens of others that could be shared. Many corps sidestepped the twit-leadership's counsel of stern micro-management and allowed the spirit of God to come alive in ways far surpassing the pee-brain training.
The corps training.....I was expecting SO MUCH MORE. It was a numbing experience to be herded in and out of classroom teachings day after day, roll calls, reproof sessions to everyone because of ONE violator, and the hundreds of regimented techniques in the three-ring circus of inrez-ville.
So much of those two years of inresidence were hoops and hoopla. Heck, the little "good" from that structured set-up could have been easily addressed in a three-month training. All the other stuff was indoctrination into the wierwille propaganda machine.......not the MEMBERS IN PARTICULAR concept of the One Body.
Polar bear...........your song-writing is awesome and your heart to serve others is beyond reproach. You and your wife were truly some of the good-hearted ones, not because of twit-training......but because of WHO YOU ARE IN CHRIST and your walk of faith.
I detest the wierwille-adulation indoctrination that was pushed by the corps coordinators. I detest the idolatry of the trustees/emeritus trustees/presidents cabinet/trunk coordinator/region coordinators lift lists that were to be our prayer-rosary at the first of each day. I detest the "wierwille -- father in the word" jargon that martindale and geer promoted. So very many tares......and very little wheat in twitville.
Thank God for opening my eyes to this leavon.
Back to higher ground.
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TheHighWay
Hear, hear!!! I had been in the College Division and actually enjoyed it and learned a lot of Bible, History, Study Skills, etc. I expected the corps to be so much more. I expected the corps to teach me how to get to an even higher level of together-ness with my lord, and how to communicate that to others. HAH!!! Was I a dupe or what?
Two years of teaching me that independent thinking was forbidden. Two years of teaching me that respect and kindness toward others was not the first thought of any great leader, but suspicion was. Two years of teaching me that the greatest leader was the one who could yell the loudest over the littlest incident. Two years of teaching me that God only answered prayers if you gave enough money, enough time, and enough loyalty to twi. Two years of teaching me watch my back, look over my shoulder, and don't reach out to those in need. Boy, how's that for christian leadership training?
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GrouchoMarxJr
I think that skyrider's depiction of corps training is right on the money.
Looking back, I think that it was a microcosm of futility and despair. Herding people in and out of buildings, sleep deprivation, screaming at people, mundane activities with very little, if any, real learning. The vast majority of "classes" were mostly reviews of what we had learned before entering the corps...along with such spiritually enlightening subjects as "jet style packing", grade school spelling classes and teaching men how to shave properly.
The main goal of corps training was to indoctrinate into a mind numbing obedience of religious servitude...it was like a sinister form of toilet training.
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outandabout
At least I learned how to file and floss my teeth.
It was downhill from there.
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Nottawayfer
I learned how to floss in grade school. No offense meant to anyone, but why did they have to teach the Corps to floss their teeth? Did they have some enlightened way to do it??
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skyrider
Wierwille seemed to pride himself on being able "to teach his keeds." Time and time again, he said that NONE of the corps knew how to work. So, those 3 1/2 hours work assignments of pulling weeds, mowing grass, mopping floors, etc was soooo essential to our corps training.......PULEEASE.
Sure there were some who needed help to learn some work areas, but to lump ALL in the same batch and degrade them publically was wierwille's mode of sicko teaching. Of course, having been raised on a farm with crops and livestock, driving a tractor when I was nine attending to fieldwork, etc. etc.....I took exception to wierwille's vaunted ego and put-downs (while he sipped on his drambuie).
The work program was just ANOTHER means to milk the money and stock the coffers for twi......free labor, especially from the skilled workers i.e. electrians, plumbers, carpenters, painters, etc.
So was wierwille REALLY an expert in chopping wood and clearing trees?
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Bumpy
You would have been better off spending TWO years at a Rolling Stones Concert!!
:biglaugh:
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templelady
Some of this could be applied to the MTC for LDS missionaries, Catholic Seminary for priests, and other religious groups training for thieir ministers, pastors, rabbis, imans etc.
The idea is to take those who wish to spread the gospel through missionary and pastorial duties and have them immerse themselves in the scriptures of their religion. To have them learn to be able to live and work with a variety of individuals in a variety of situations. This involves life skills which demand, cooperation, listening, understanding and compromise.
TWI's downfall was, IMO, that they left no room for personality of the individual. In an effort to squash any personal characteristics that they perceived as "contrary to the word" by the application of strict authoritarian rule--they all too often squashed the personal characteristics of the individual which would have enabled them to grow and mature spritually in their individaul walk. No individual walk or allowance for the fact that "individual walk" means individual timeline and understanding means, eventually, personal spritual growth stops.
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excathedra
sky, i've said more than once it's the corps program that just about destroyed me
--
bumpy, there should be more than two choices, here
yes i could have been out doing or dealing drugs or whatever
or being told by a pastor of my new church why he (God) chose young women to serve (service) him
but then maybe i could have just hung out with my family, got a good job having graduated with a college degree, etc., etc., etc.
see what i mean ?
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polar bear
I think there were ulterior motives to VPees plan for the corps.
I think he wanted to beat into submission some good hearted believers to do "his will" vs "God's will" by subtle manoeuvers.
Yes I agree we were "herded" like cattle. We were also roped, branded and penned up.
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JavaJane
I, for one, never went into the Corpse. I never really had the desire... I think this was God's protection on my life.
I saw too many people go into the Corpse - people who were fun, people who were smart, and people who had great strengths who all came out devoid of personality and any spark of life. Good friends became people who looked down at me because I hadn't had the training they had... But from what I saw, their "in depth spiritual understanding" only seemed to consist of being better able to belittle others. I never felt like I could truly be myself in front of someone who was active WC (WC alum - a little different, but they were kicked out for their faults and were therefore still human.)
I thank God every day that I never went in, despite the pressure to do so. I even remember telling one overly zealous Corpse that God hadn't told me to go into the Corpse, and as PFAL taught, God would always tell me first, right? Since Corpse was a "spiritual" decision, I felt that I needed to have that understanding in my spirit to go in... if I went in because someone else told me to, I would be breaking fellowship and that was wrong.
It was hard when I became involved with my husband because he was gung-ho go in the Corpse - THAT IS THE THING TO DO!! But he changed his mind after seeing how the WC we knew were miserable. They were OWNED by the ministry and had no choice in anything. By signing up, we would also be subjecting ourselves totally to their control. We had no desire to do anything of the sort. If neither one of us wanted to sign up for the military because of how we would be told to live our lives, why would we want to be Corpse - a LIFETIME committment.
HAY-ELL NO!!!
My life is my life. I will live it before God as I choose to. He is the only One Who can judge my "level of committment," not some "program" that would cause me to be uncomfortable, spend less time with my family and husband, work long hours, and learn basically that VPW = God. No thank you. I would rather have more than two beers, not submit a schedule to anyone, and know I can move where I want when I want... while having as many children as I care to.
Thank God I at least made that decision right.
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WordWolf
Please remember that the same man who was reported- in twi's OWN "the way:living in love"-
to have shirked his own chores growing up and slipping off for hours at a time instead-
and convinced his dad that he should go to college rather than the farm (no small task)-
THAT was the one who insisted that HE knew how to work, and NONE of the younger folk DID-
even the ones who DID work on farms, or come right out of the military, and so on.
So, there was a "work program" that didn't actually "educate" how to perform various jobs, but got
menial work on the grounds performed without paying for workers.
In fact, the workers PAID TO PERFORM MANUAL LABOR.
Of course,
once you completed your "tour of duty" with the military, you were free to live your life as you wished.
However,
once you completed the corps training- at least how it was reported after the first few corps-
it became, as participants put it,
"we own your @$$ and will tell you where to live and what to do for the rest of your life."
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skyrider
Corps indoctrination was one BIG CLONING COMMUNE.
Many of those nightowls were spent listening to wierwille share, again, about how God showed him the word. Along with these "Look at ME sharings" were the expounding on the wierwille family, the wierwille farm, the way woods, veepee's childhood......you get the picture.
I understand some of you wierwille apologists are thankful for pfal......I get that. But from where I sit, having heard the wierwille bravado in countless ways.....and seeing wierwille idolatry surrounding HQ i.e. 1) wierwille road, 2) The Victor Paul Wierwille Prevailing Word Auditorium, 3) pictures of wierwille all over, 4) wierwille plaques, 5) the fountain area with wierwille at the pinnacle gravesite, 6) names of side streets after the wierwille family, 7) paintings and prints of wierwille in them, 8) "Founders' Hall and etc........IT ALL POINTS TO THE WIERWILLE IDOLATRY THAT PERMEATES TWI.
So, yeah......go ahead and boast about "all you learned in pfal".......and when the curtain is fully pulled back its WIERWILLE, not Jesus Christ, that is standing FRONT AND CENTER.
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ChasUFarley
From the perspective of someone who was in TWI II....
I thought you had to be an LCM clone to WANT to go in the WC to begin with... the WC was just finishing school for teaching you how to be a complete @$$hole.*
*I am not saying all WC were @$$holes - I am saying that they were taught how to potentially be ones.... k?
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TheHighWay
Mmmm... I just don't think a lot of us realized what a horse's patootie he (and much of the leadership) was, though...
We were taught that to be a strong leader (a good leader) meant you had to know the Word, and stand strong on the Word, and not give in to our (weaker) emotional side when someone was crying on our shoulder for the 50th time (like you have to be with an alcoholic... not get suckered in by your emotions, because they will play on your emotions to get off the hook and get away with their bad behaviors). Looking at it like that, yes, we wanted to be like LCM (but only what we knew of LCM from the field, which wasn't all that much.)
And once you got to HQ and were in-rez corps, you were kinda committed to doing the program. It was really hard to back out even when you started seeing the red flags. And, of course, we were taught to ignore the red flags, and to blame ourselves for not understanding. We wanted to be strong leaders. We wanted to help people. But the big flaw in the twi II logic is that MOST situations, and MOST people are not "addicts"... not EVERY flaw was life-threatening, and not EVERY mistake indicated a habit-pattern, and not EVERY weakness meant the person was possessed. USUALLY the emotional, compassionate, patient response is the right one. And we were taught the exact opposite.
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likeaneagle
I wanted to go into Corp Leadership Trainning in 96...But the classes were changing, lengths of commitment to trainning was changing, leadership getting tossed out, families falling apart....it all grew worrisum for me...It was the very special corp folks that I served with for years that brought me to heart of serving God by thier loving commitments and examples of living 'In CHrist'..my heart grew more to give as I stayed within my own resolve to keep steadfast.I was willing to walk away from the things of the flesh to serve God..not because anyone told me I had too. I am glad I didnt go in..it's been hard enough to swallow what I have found here on GSC.
OMG, my heart goes out to you corp..I pray for your cont'd healing.
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skyrider
Thanks likeaneagle........I appreciate it.
IMO there is very little doubt that there were some awesome believers and corps who genuinely served God and their fellow man. Yet, when one closely looks at the hardness of heart and searing of one's conscience that progressed throughout twi's doors......it seems apparent to me that "the searing and branding of corporate loyalty" leads back to the root, to hq.....and namely back to wierwille himself.
When applying constant pressure to the corps and upper leadership, the pressure intensity was blowing some gaskets....for sure. Seems like neither wierwille nor martindale had the spiritual perception to recognize this......or the long-term effects on corps marriages and families, etc.
Is it any wonder why the inresidence corps numbers have plummeted to single-digit numbers?
But please note.....the first corps principle is: Acquire an in-depth spiritual perception and awarenes.
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