Yeah, there's nothing like leaving a cult to find out who your real friends aren't. I remember thinking to myself that these people never really were my friends anyway...
Excellant point! The entire time I was in twi (13 years), the so called "friends" that I made were invariably conditional friends...when I left twi, they turned on me like the brainwashed fake friends that they were. After I left twi, I discovered that my real friends...people I did acid with, people I drank beer with, worked with knew from the "old days"...were still my real friends...
The FA&HC center was a stately old house in Sidney, OH. The fine art consisted of way art , like Meg K*sh' drawing of crayons-which was actually better than it sounds.
I recall seeing the famous window where it 'snowed', and wondering who went on that expedition to retrieve it.
I worked in the kitchen for some honcho's wedding reception once. I haven't the foggiest memory how that happened.
Nope then, I saw this in the auditorium at way international must of been early to mid 90's.
And what finally turned you off to the doctrine? The fact that VPW plagiarized or made outright mistakes or was it something else?
I didn't discover the plagiarism until much later.
Martindale's admission (after being confronted with a lawsuit) of adultery made me want to investigate everything that he taught. My thinking was that if someone was so screwed up that he couldn't tell that something so glaringly obvious as screwing another man's wife was wrong, how could we assume that he had the soundness of mind to put together a set of teachings (the WayAP class) that was to be the foundational teaching for The Way?
Before this, I was troubled by many practices by The Way's leaders, but was willing to put up with what I saw as human frailties in order to have access to "the greatness of The Word".
I began a systematic study of Martindale's WayAP class page by page in the syllabus and found enough glaring errors and inconsistencies to fill ten closely typed pages. I did not compare what he taught to mainstream Christianity, but used the standards of study and biblical research that had been taught in The Way for decades. In my opinion, what he was teaching just did not hold up to careful scrutiny. Eventually I began to look at some of what Wierwille taught, mainly in places where Martindale quoted him or used one of Wierwille's doctrine's without any change and found some of the same inconsistencies and errors as well.
I brought these questions and concerns to Way leadership and was rebuffed and with the doctrinal underpinning eroded, I was no longer so accepting of bad behavior in the name of 'The Word' - my loyalty to the organization evaporated and I was eventually banned from contact with TWI.
I was no longer so accepting of bad behavior in the name of 'The Word'
This is where I really don't get it. People KNEW it was bad behavior and simply because people were TOLD that it was ok, or that the person was in "leadership" so that made it was OK, and we were to simply believe that it was OK. Clearly from a scriptural perspective it was NOT ok. It was NOT ok. The things like adultery and fornication did not require "careful study" to determine if either was right or wrong. I didn't know about the adultery. I did know about the use of fornication to get people to take the class, and I confronted leadership about that - at the limb level. Not because I had a problem with premarital sex, but I had a huge problem with using people relationally in that manner to get them into the class. As I told that one guy who I knew did it, "We don't have a good thing going here if this is what you have to do to bring people to it." I was given the standard, "You obviously aren't spiritual enough to understand this, " alluding to my lack of name tag. To which I replied that my bible says we're all given the same measure of holy spirit, and it doesn't take a name tag to determine what is right or wrong. I was told by the limb leader that this kind of behavior was isolated. However, the whole experience of being on team running a class was a real eye-opener. I came away with a very bad taste in my mouth and I never participated at that level again. I got my first mouthful of never being able to do enough, or be good enough while others were given a free pass. When people would ask me to help out, I told them the one time I did it was one of the worst "Christian" experiences I'd ever had, and would never subject myself to that again. There would be no second chance. Harsh? Perhaps.
That's when I realized that people weren't applying any of the "keys to studying" that we were given in PFAL. Was it that people didn't dare?
This is where I really don't get it. People KNEW it was bad behavior and simply because people were TOLD that it was ok, or that the person was in "leadership" so that made it was OK, and we were to simply believe that it was OK. Clearly from a scriptural perspective it was NOT ok. It was NOT ok. The things like adultery and fornication did not require "careful study" to determine if either was right or wrong.
I was unaware of the adultery and most of the "big" issues that get discussed here while I was "in". Most of the crap that I put up with was more along the lines of big egos, hyper-control of our lives by leadership, the yelling etc. That kind of stuff often changed when leadership did. I, like so many others, rationalized leaders' behavior, "reasoning" that a little yelling, or writing up a schedule was nothing compared to "Da Greatness of Da Word".
For a lot of people, being in TWI was a classic abuse situation. Why do people stay with abusive spouses? Why do people stay in jobs that they hate? Why do people do any number of things that they don't like, or know is wrong? It's not logical, it's not reasonable, but there you have it. There's always something, whether it's fear of the unknown, a conviction that you'll be alone/be unemployed/be outside God's protection or just ignorance that keeps one in a bad situation. For most, however, there's a final straw, a tipping point, where the imagined benefits are outweighed by the negatives and out you go.
Good for you that you supposedly never fell for the bull and that it was all so obviously wrong to you. Pat yourself on the back and buy yourself a drink.
I arrived in Idaho in Fall of '83. Just as you were leaving. I started in Coeur D'lane and finished in Lewiston. We left in '86 when my daughter was born. We took her with us.
I did know about the use of fornication to get people to take the class, and I confronted leadership about that - at the limb level. Not because I had a problem with premarital sex, but I had a huge problem with using people relationally in that manner to get them into the class.
Wait minute, are you saying...nahh, you can't be saying that.
Good for you that you supposedly never fell for the bull and that it was all so obviously wrong to you. Pat yourself on the back and buy yourself a drink.
Hopefully you didn't intend to sound snarky. I know why people stay in abusive relationships - many stick around hoping to see the thing that attracted them in the beginning. Most abusers are smart enough to throw a few bones from time to time, even if they are cruel. TWI attracted me because I don't like religious organizations and it claimed that it wasn't. As soon as it started acting like one, and one that wasn't all that nice; one that didn't extend grace; one that was JUST as legalistic as the organizations it held in such disdain, I retreated. To me it was a contract of sorts and for me TWI failed to hold up its end of the contract - that it wasn't an organization, much less a legalistic one. I'm probably overly pragmatic when it comes to stuff like that. In this case, being the way I am was probably a good thing. However, it didn't feel that way at the time. Do you get that?
Wait minute, are you saying...nahh, you can't be saying that.
(What are you saying?)
What I am saying is that I don't care what takes place between two consenting adults as long as both sides have the same understanding about the relationship. It wasn't that they were having sex that bothered me. It's that the way corp guy used the lure of a relationship (a deeply committed Christian relationship, I might add) to get this girl to take the class. Then when it was all said and done, he dropped her because "now they were brothers and sisters in Christ". He was feeding the same line to a girl who was taking the class I was helping with and the dropped girl was there as well. That's how I found out what was going on. What that guy did, in my opinion, is wrong. There were a couple of way corp females who were doing the same thing.
It's that the way corp guy used the lure of a relationship (a deeply committed Christian relationship, I might add) to get this girl to take the class. Then when it was all said and done, he dropped her because "now they were brothers and sisters in Christ". He was feeding the same line to a girl who was taking the class I was helping with and the dropped girl was there as well. That's how I found out what was going on. What that guy did, in my opinion, is wrong. There were a couple of way corp females who were doing the same thing.
I arrived in Idaho in Fall of '83. Just as you were leaving. I started in Coeur D'lane and finished in Lewiston. We left in '86 when my daughter was born. We took her with us.
Wow we missed each other by Months and I have no doubt I would have known you.
I have to say the believers in Idaho were really awesome...I do mean just the plain believers not talking about the Corps ... Also Twin Falls Idaho was like hell on Earth but Boise was wonderful.
At least while I was there. NOT sure how it changed after we left.. Like I said things were starting to change.
OR maybe I was just waking up to what they really were like all along... as now I was technically a corps person... (spouse Corps... so I got to see it in all it's ugliness)
Wow we missed each other by Months and I have no doubt I would have known you.
I have to say the believers in Idaho were really awesome...I do mean just the plain believers not talking about the Corps ... Also Twin Falls Idaho was like hell on Earth but Boise was wonderful.
At least while I was there. NOT sure how it changed after we left.. Like I said things were starting to change.
OR maybe I was just waking up to what they really were like all along... as now I was technically a corps person... (spouse Corps... so I got to see it in all it's ugliness)
I knew the couple well that were sent to Idaho Falls. Very nice people, not ambitious, loving, and extremely funny. Not typical of many Way Corps.
TWI was becoming more authoritarian during that time. Everything is Idaho is so far away, it was a nine-hour drive for me to go to a meeting in Boise where the Limb was. Yet, every month, but Way Corp butt was there for a meeting. Why? "Because the suggestion of a leader is paramount to a command". Going to the Rock and Corps Week was a major ordeal. V.P. wrote a letter to the Corps saying his heart was broken that so many Corps left prior to the Rock. His words were, "Corps...if you can't stand with me at the Rock, then don't bother coming to Corps Week either. If your job won'e let you to, quite your job!" Then he said something about wavering in our believing.
So, to pull that off, one had to get a job that gave you 3 weeks vacation a year. It takes about 3 days to drive from Idaho to Ohio, 2 weeks at HQ, 3 days to drive back. It took money to fly, which meant you had to have a good job, which few of us did. So tell me where a person can get a job that gives them 3 weeks off a year right off the bat. Yet, if one was on staff, you were given time for Rock and Corps Week, plus given two weeks vacation a year. Then one day visiting clergy came to the state. One of the Corps Coordinators and taught a seminar on government. Oooh! Now that's certainly worth a 9-hour trip! Afterwards, he meets with the Corps and asks us why more Corps don't come to Way Family Camps. It was then I realized that TWI leadership was completely out of touch with what was going on out on the field. For the first time in my 10-year involvement in TWI, I'm starting to get disgruntled.
Then, to top it off, I received a letter from Donald Wierwille. He's mad because the College Division Alumnae who were also Corps Grads (me) were not attending special College Division funtions. He went as far as to say we had "attitude problems". I worked 12-hour days at the Rock, man, for free! In fact, I paid my own way to get there. One year I sold my car just to have enough to go and listen to "God's Word Served on a Silver Platter" for the like the 15th time. Now here's this guy in his ivory tower issuing smart-assed accusations about something of which he knows nothing. I was ....ed!
I was considering writing a nasty letter back and weighing whether it was worth getting kicked out of the Corps over. I doubt I would have had the guts to really do it, but I was on my way. It became a moot point about a week later because that's when Geer read Passing of the Patriarch for the first time. I sort of thought that Dean Don may be somewhat busy at that point.
So, there you have it. Was it the final straw? No, but it was one of them.
One final not of irony: after all of my struggles to get to headquarters for the Rock every year, I moved to Ohio, about 2 hours away from hq as opposed to 36 hours. Never went to another Rock. I went to a couple of meetings, but no more Rocks. That engendered a lot of guilt like I was outside the Will of God. Lord only knew what could happen once you leave the protection of the Household, you know.
That's what I thought you said. :)
I can't tell you how messed up I think that is.
VP never actually came out and said to do that. He did say to use one's sex appeal to "move the Word" and left it to us to fill in the gaps. There were many, though, that did not need his admonition to do that sort of thing.
The Children of God ended as an organizational entity in February of 1978. Berg reorganized the movement amid reports of serious misconduct, financial mismanagement, and established leaders having abused their positions (and others having opposed flirty fishing). He dismissed more than 300 of the movement's leaders and declared the general dissolution of the COG structure. This shift was known as the "Reorganization Nationalization Revolution" (RNR). A third of the total membership left the movement, and those who remained became part of the reorganized movement, dubbed the Family of Love, and later the Family. Most of the group's beliefs, however, remained the same.[7]
VP never actually came out and said to do that. He did say to use one's sex appeal to "move the Word" and left it to us to fill in the gaps. There were many, though, that did not need his admonition to do that sort of thing.
Wow, just wow. My mind reels with the possibilities...
But ultimately, it wouldn't matter. What's done is done.
Were you sad yet "grateful" for the "word you were taught"?
It was a Platonic relationship. When I discovered the ploy, at about the fifth or sixth session, it was too late. I had already been hooked by the class, itself.
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GrouchoMarxJr
Excellant point! The entire time I was in twi (13 years), the so called "friends" that I made were invariably conditional friends...when I left twi, they turned on me like the brainwashed fake friends that they were. After I left twi, I discovered that my real friends...people I did acid with, people I drank beer with, worked with knew from the "old days"...were still my real friends...
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soul searcher
And what finally turned you off to the doctrine? The fact that VPW plagiarized or made outright mistakes or was it something else?
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Human without the bean
Nope then, I saw this in the auditorium at way international must of been early to mid 90's.
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Oakspear
Martindale's admission (after being confronted with a lawsuit) of adultery made me want to investigate everything that he taught. My thinking was that if someone was so screwed up that he couldn't tell that something so glaringly obvious as screwing another man's wife was wrong, how could we assume that he had the soundness of mind to put together a set of teachings (the WayAP class) that was to be the foundational teaching for The Way?
Before this, I was troubled by many practices by The Way's leaders, but was willing to put up with what I saw as human frailties in order to have access to "the greatness of The Word".
I began a systematic study of Martindale's WayAP class page by page in the syllabus and found enough glaring errors and inconsistencies to fill ten closely typed pages. I did not compare what he taught to mainstream Christianity, but used the standards of study and biblical research that had been taught in The Way for decades. In my opinion, what he was teaching just did not hold up to careful scrutiny. Eventually I began to look at some of what Wierwille taught, mainly in places where Martindale quoted him or used one of Wierwille's doctrine's without any change and found some of the same inconsistencies and errors as well.
I brought these questions and concerns to Way leadership and was rebuffed and with the doctrinal underpinning eroded, I was no longer so accepting of bad behavior in the name of 'The Word' - my loyalty to the organization evaporated and I was eventually banned from contact with TWI.
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dmiller
I don't actually recollect correct what or when the "last straw" for me was but - - -
the "legalism" became more and more predominant. Sure, it was always there, but - - -
one day it finally became eminently clear that twi was headed in a direction that I had no interest in going.
Being told what to do/ how to think/ what to believe by a bunch of bozos living on a silver lined cloud,
never did appeal to me very much. I finally saw that we were being told to "do as we say, not as we do".
Once I got to that point, it wasn't too hard to walk away and never look back.
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penworks
I helped do that
. See my post in Relics: http://www.greasespo...c/20652-relics/
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Tzaia
This is where I really don't get it. People KNEW it was bad behavior and simply because people were TOLD that it was ok, or that the person was in "leadership" so that made it was OK, and we were to simply believe that it was OK. Clearly from a scriptural perspective it was NOT ok. It was NOT ok. The things like adultery and fornication did not require "careful study" to determine if either was right or wrong. I didn't know about the adultery. I did know about the use of fornication to get people to take the class, and I confronted leadership about that - at the limb level. Not because I had a problem with premarital sex, but I had a huge problem with using people relationally in that manner to get them into the class. As I told that one guy who I knew did it, "We don't have a good thing going here if this is what you have to do to bring people to it." I was given the standard, "You obviously aren't spiritual enough to understand this, " alluding to my lack of name tag. To which I replied that my bible says we're all given the same measure of holy spirit, and it doesn't take a name tag to determine what is right or wrong. I was told by the limb leader that this kind of behavior was isolated. However, the whole experience of being on team running a class was a real eye-opener. I came away with a very bad taste in my mouth and I never participated at that level again. I got my first mouthful of never being able to do enough, or be good enough while others were given a free pass. When people would ask me to help out, I told them the one time I did it was one of the worst "Christian" experiences I'd ever had, and would never subject myself to that again. There would be no second chance. Harsh? Perhaps.
That's when I realized that people weren't applying any of the "keys to studying" that we were given in PFAL. Was it that people didn't dare?
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Oakspear
For a lot of people, being in TWI was a classic abuse situation. Why do people stay with abusive spouses? Why do people stay in jobs that they hate? Why do people do any number of things that they don't like, or know is wrong? It's not logical, it's not reasonable, but there you have it. There's always something, whether it's fear of the unknown, a conviction that you'll be alone/be unemployed/be outside God's protection or just ignorance that keeps one in a bad situation. For most, however, there's a final straw, a tipping point, where the imagined benefits are outweighed by the negatives and out you go.
Good for you that you supposedly never fell for the bull and that it was all so obviously wrong to you. Pat yourself on the back and buy yourself a drink.
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Broken Arrow
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soul searcher
Moscow, by any chance?
Wait minute, are you saying...nahh, you can't be saying that.
(What are you saying?)
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Tzaia
Hopefully you didn't intend to sound snarky. I know why people stay in abusive relationships - many stick around hoping to see the thing that attracted them in the beginning. Most abusers are smart enough to throw a few bones from time to time, even if they are cruel. TWI attracted me because I don't like religious organizations and it claimed that it wasn't. As soon as it started acting like one, and one that wasn't all that nice; one that didn't extend grace; one that was JUST as legalistic as the organizations it held in such disdain, I retreated. To me it was a contract of sorts and for me TWI failed to hold up its end of the contract - that it wasn't an organization, much less a legalistic one. I'm probably overly pragmatic when it comes to stuff like that. In this case, being the way I am was probably a good thing. However, it didn't feel that way at the time. Do you get that?
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Oakspear
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Tzaia
What I am saying is that I don't care what takes place between two consenting adults as long as both sides have the same understanding about the relationship. It wasn't that they were having sex that bothered me. It's that the way corp guy used the lure of a relationship (a deeply committed Christian relationship, I might add) to get this girl to take the class. Then when it was all said and done, he dropped her because "now they were brothers and sisters in Christ". He was feeding the same line to a girl who was taking the class I was helping with and the dropped girl was there as well. That's how I found out what was going on. What that guy did, in my opinion, is wrong. There were a couple of way corp females who were doing the same thing.
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soul searcher
That's what I thought you said. :)
I can't tell you how messed up I think that is.
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waysider
Date & Switch----That's what got me to sign The Green Card.
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leafytwiglet
Wow we missed each other by Months and I have no doubt I would have known you.
I have to say the believers in Idaho were really awesome...I do mean just the plain believers not talking about the Corps ... Also Twin Falls Idaho was like hell on Earth but Boise was wonderful.
At least while I was there. NOT sure how it changed after we left.. Like I said things were starting to change.
OR maybe I was just waking up to what they really were like all along... as now I was technically a corps person... (spouse Corps... so I got to see it in all it's ugliness)
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soul searcher
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Broken Arrow
No, I was sent to Coeur d'Lane. However, the lady that would be my first wife was in Moscow in '83/'84.
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Broken Arrow
I knew the couple well that were sent to Idaho Falls. Very nice people, not ambitious, loving, and extremely funny. Not typical of many Way Corps.
TWI was becoming more authoritarian during that time. Everything is Idaho is so far away, it was a nine-hour drive for me to go to a meeting in Boise where the Limb was. Yet, every month, but Way Corp butt was there for a meeting. Why? "Because the suggestion of a leader is paramount to a command". Going to the Rock and Corps Week was a major ordeal. V.P. wrote a letter to the Corps saying his heart was broken that so many Corps left prior to the Rock. His words were, "Corps...if you can't stand with me at the Rock, then don't bother coming to Corps Week either. If your job won'e let you to, quite your job!" Then he said something about wavering in our believing.
So, to pull that off, one had to get a job that gave you 3 weeks vacation a year. It takes about 3 days to drive from Idaho to Ohio, 2 weeks at HQ, 3 days to drive back. It took money to fly, which meant you had to have a good job, which few of us did. So tell me where a person can get a job that gives them 3 weeks off a year right off the bat. Yet, if one was on staff, you were given time for Rock and Corps Week, plus given two weeks vacation a year. Then one day visiting clergy came to the state. One of the Corps Coordinators and taught a seminar on government. Oooh! Now that's certainly worth a 9-hour trip! Afterwards, he meets with the Corps and asks us why more Corps don't come to Way Family Camps. It was then I realized that TWI leadership was completely out of touch with what was going on out on the field. For the first time in my 10-year involvement in TWI, I'm starting to get disgruntled.
Then, to top it off, I received a letter from Donald Wierwille. He's mad because the College Division Alumnae who were also Corps Grads (me) were not attending special College Division funtions. He went as far as to say we had "attitude problems". I worked 12-hour days at the Rock, man, for free! In fact, I paid my own way to get there. One year I sold my car just to have enough to go and listen to "God's Word Served on a Silver Platter" for the like the 15th time. Now here's this guy in his ivory tower issuing smart-assed accusations about something of which he knows nothing. I was ....ed!
I was considering writing a nasty letter back and weighing whether it was worth getting kicked out of the Corps over. I doubt I would have had the guts to really do it, but I was on my way. It became a moot point about a week later because that's when Geer read Passing of the Patriarch for the first time. I sort of thought that Dean Don may be somewhat busy at that point.
So, there you have it. Was it the final straw? No, but it was one of them.
One final not of irony: after all of my struggles to get to headquarters for the Rock every year, I moved to Ohio, about 2 hours away from hq as opposed to 36 hours. Never went to another Rock. I went to a couple of meetings, but no more Rocks. That engendered a lot of guilt like I was outside the Will of God. Lord only knew what could happen once you leave the protection of the Household, you know.
VP never actually came out and said to do that. He did say to use one's sex appeal to "move the Word" and left it to us to fill in the gaps. There were many, though, that did not need his admonition to do that sort of thing.
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Tzaia
Were you sad yet "grateful" for the "word you were taught"?
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Ham
Doesn't surprise me.. the tactic worked for David Berg's organization as well..
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Ham
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_International
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soul searcher
Wow, just wow. My mind reels with the possibilities...
But ultimately, it wouldn't matter. What's done is done.
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waysider
It was a Platonic relationship. When I discovered the ploy, at about the fifth or sixth session, it was too late. I had already been hooked by the class, itself.
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