Some 15 years have passed.......and the people have noticed!
In Rosalie's pig headed arrogance, she likes to say that God's people (read way international followers) will always be a remnant. Personally, I really think Rosalie prefers a smaller "more committed" group that can be micro-managed. Either way they are not blind to the fact that the ship is sinking. Check the following examples:
Advanced Class attendance was VERY low and staff numbers were so low that there were not enough hands on deck to support the class. Solution? Start a work/study program for the advanced class grads. After all this approach gets warm bodies in the otherwise empty auditorium and also puts warm bodies in the dish room to run the Hobart.
Sunday teaching service attendance was dismal and staff numbers were so low they could barely fill the first three rows. (Remember that all staff are REQUIRED to be at the service unless they are "volunteering" to support it) Solution? Start a rotating schedule to bus in people from the field to try and fill a few more rows. Even with several buses coming in they still can barely manage to fill the center section of the house...
Oh, and I used to hear the usual drivel from John Rupp and other big shot, boot lickers. "We keep doing God's will even if no one is interested" or "If the ship goes down we go down with it" or "We build it and they will come" or.... ya the list could go on.
The way international is in a serious state of decline and has slipped into irrelevance. They are a preservation society committed to the image of victor paul wierwille.
Oh, and I used to hear the usual drivel from John Rupp ... "If the ship goes down we go down with it" ...
Quickly, please!
The way international is ... a preservation society committed to the image of victor paul wierwille.
Only argument about that, OS, is that I don't think they're preserving his image so much as using it to preserve the cushy lifestyle and accumulated wealth for the head honchos.
preserve the cushy lifestyle and accumulated wealth for the head honchos.
Well, since the Allen lawsuit this has been modified and not by choice. the way international is scared to death of another lawsuit, trouble with the IRS, etc. Rosalie (likely under pressure from their lawyers) clamped down on spending ministry money for personal use. I believe the term is private inurement, where an insider receives benefits greater than they provide in return. IRS is all over this sort of thing with non-profits and usually charges hefty excise taxes when they catch up with offenders.
Anyway, back in vic and craig's days I understand they lived high on the hog, would use donations for shopping trips and such. Well, not anymore. Now the cush lifestyle the directors enjoy is relegated to services they can justify because of their position. That's not to say that Rosie does not have various departments work at her house. Housekeeping and Grounds are there all the time. But they have to show a paper trail that she pays for the services. So they charge her a nominal amount. I guess you could thank the Allen's for bringing so much attention to them for stopping what they used to do.
WW---in reading your linked page, I saw this statement by LCM:
"Temperance is self-control. That's the ninth one--finality, complete completeness, 3 x 3. The result of all this is self-control in all phases of life. The body holds the same relationship to reason as reason does to the spirit. That's what it means to go in and 'possess the land'--manage it, control it, utilize it for what it's there for. The ninth fruit of the spirit--makes tremendous depth of sense here."
The underlined phrase---that's how he defines Temperance?? Temperance is to 'possess the land'?? He sounds completely insane...
"Temperance is self-control. That's the ninth one--finality, complete completeness, 3 x 3. The result of all this is self-control in all phases of life. The body holds the same relationship to reason as reason does to the spirit. That's what it means to go in and 'possess the land'--manage it, control it, utilize it for what it's there for. The ninth fruit of the spirit--makes tremendous depth of sense here."
Hah, haven't thought of that in years. But I don't think it accurately reports how LCM put it. It was more along the lines of "The body holds the same relationship to the mind, as reason does to the spirit." I'm pretty sure this is what he taught.
And the idea behind that was: the body is under subjection to the mind and did what the mind told it to do; and reasoning should be along spiritual lines and is subject to our spirits.
Of course, the phrase could have been said in a variety of ways over the various years that it was recited - add a word, change a word, omit a word - LOL, it wouldn't be the first time that Way doctrine had been subtly changed without any overt statement. But that was it in the early 90s.
Alternatively, I could be misremembering it.
No recollection whatsoever of the underlined bit that's quoted. Could be that it's some of the later (or earlier) ramblings of this out-of-control loudmouth. He wouldn't know temperance if it hit him with a 2x4.
I'm not going to dredge any further back into the dustbin marked "TWI" for further recollections. My Corps years - in fact, all my TWI years - were spent suffering under his inordinately long ramblings and rantings and histrionics. That's more than long enough.
WordWolf, that's a great summation, thank you. It's like a Cliff Notes version of the TWI self-implosion. My mind is now clearer on how it all progressed thru the 80s and 90s. Thank you.
"Temperance is self-control. That's the ninth one--finality, complete completeness, 3 x 3. The result of all this is self-control in all phases of life. The body holds the same relationship to reason as reason does to the spirit. That's what it means to go in and 'possess the land'--manage it, control it, utilize it for what it's there for. The ninth fruit of the spirit--makes tremendous depth of sense here."
Interesting when you think about it. I don't believe he was ever known for self control. Threw constant temper tantrums, and encouraged by example for leaders under him to do the same. While most leaders in twi had no self control, the believers they were leading were expected to live at a higher standard.
One night, he had the entire inres corpse woken up to have an emergency meeting. Someone had written a nasty letter to him and he couldn't sleep. So he ranted and raved about it.
His idea of an emergency was his feelings being hurt. High maintenance prima dona. Somebody should have called him a waaaahmbulance.
lcm decided that everything he uttered was infallible, and to question that was to question
God Almighty.
One of the reasons I got booted was for not taking seriously LCM's rant about "The only reason for a space program is military defense." (I preferred Ps. 19:1.) Ironically, my Twig Leader, who was complicit in my ouster, was a mathematician for NASA.
One of the reasons I got booted was for not taking seriously LCM's rant about "The only reason for a space program is military defense." (I preferred Ps. 19:1.) Ironically, my Twig Leader, who was complicit in my ouster, was a mathematician for NASA.
George
Makes me wonder how that attitude affected his employment at Nasa and if he still works there. Or did he move on from twi.....
One of the reasons I got booted was for not taking seriously LCM's rant about "The only reason for a space program is military defense." (I preferred Ps. 19:1.) Ironically, my Twig Leader, who was complicit in my ouster, was a mathematician for NASA.
George
How is a NASA mathematician in TWI? hummmmmmmmmmm.
How is a NASA mathematician in TWI? hummmmmmmmmmm.
Good point. Same reason there were grads from Cornell Univ. and Yale Univ. in my Corps group. No understanding of protestant fundamentalism and a real susceptiblity to VP's charisma. Etc. etc.
Good point. Same reason there were grads from Cornell Univ. and Yale Univ. in my Corps group. No understanding of protestant fundamentalism and a real susceptiblity to VP's charisma. Etc. etc.
I don't think its just protestant fundamentalism you can be a fundamentalist in almost anything.... I think it is just the washing of the brain of ideas like " No one can go beyond what he is taught" and someone who has been wowed by the philosophy presented in the Universities today would be easily taken by such a statement. Because it is so abstract of a statement that it doesn't make since so it sounds amazing.
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outandabout
They don't even have good music.
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OldSkool
In Rosalie's pig headed arrogance, she likes to say that God's people (read way international followers) will always be a remnant. Personally, I really think Rosalie prefers a smaller "more committed" group that can be micro-managed. Either way they are not blind to the fact that the ship is sinking. Check the following examples:
Advanced Class attendance was VERY low and staff numbers were so low that there were not enough hands on deck to support the class. Solution? Start a work/study program for the advanced class grads. After all this approach gets warm bodies in the otherwise empty auditorium and also puts warm bodies in the dish room to run the Hobart.
Sunday teaching service attendance was dismal and staff numbers were so low they could barely fill the first three rows. (Remember that all staff are REQUIRED to be at the service unless they are "volunteering" to support it) Solution? Start a rotating schedule to bus in people from the field to try and fill a few more rows. Even with several buses coming in they still can barely manage to fill the center section of the house...
Oh, and I used to hear the usual drivel from John Rupp and other big shot, boot lickers. "We keep doing God's will even if no one is interested" or "If the ship goes down we go down with it" or "We build it and they will come" or.... ya the list could go on.
The way international is in a serious state of decline and has slipped into irrelevance. They are a preservation society committed to the image of victor paul wierwille.
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Twinky
Quickly, please!
Only argument about that, OS, is that I don't think they're preserving his image so much as using it to preserve the cushy lifestyle and accumulated wealth for the head honchos.
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OldSkool
Well, since the Allen lawsuit this has been modified and not by choice. the way international is scared to death of another lawsuit, trouble with the IRS, etc. Rosalie (likely under pressure from their lawyers) clamped down on spending ministry money for personal use. I believe the term is private inurement, where an insider receives benefits greater than they provide in return. IRS is all over this sort of thing with non-profits and usually charges hefty excise taxes when they catch up with offenders.
Anyway, back in vic and craig's days I understand they lived high on the hog, would use donations for shopping trips and such. Well, not anymore. Now the cush lifestyle the directors enjoy is relegated to services they can justify because of their position. That's not to say that Rosie does not have various departments work at her house. Housekeeping and Grounds are there all the time. But they have to show a paper trail that she pays for the services. So they charge her a nominal amount. I guess you could thank the Allen's for bringing so much attention to them for stopping what they used to do.
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Naten00
Being a newbie what is TWI's prevailing word.... Is this something VPW picked up from the sonar waves of God?
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WordWolf
This is going to take some explaining, and I'll add links when I have time.
Back when vpw hijacked the hippies. he sold them a complete package.
The package was "twi doctrine and practice" and offered a structure more liberal than any church.
(How many respectable churches are cool with people smoking pot and making out at meetings?)
That was obviously meant to lure in the hippies.
For the serious Christians, there was a GOAL, one made into a nice slogan every twi'er heard
regularly- "Word Over the World." The idea was to take God's Word (as taught by twi) to every
person on the Earth so they could make an informed decision as to whether to choose to serve
God or to refuse to do so. There were a few rumors that accompanied that, of course. I can think of
two. One, that Jesus Christ would return shortly after every single person had heard. Two, that it
would happen during vpw's lifetime. (A lot of people I knew were surprised it didn't happen before he
died.) So, there were programs (Word Over the World Ambassadors, aka WOW Ambassadors), there were slogans,
songs, and even hand signals. (The hand signal didn't last, but it's seen in a photo in twi's own
book, The Way:Living in Love.) So, "we've got to take The Word over the world", and "it's up to us
because no other Christians can possibly manage it since they're all screw-ups." This was a cause and
a goal for expansive growth locally, among others- more people spoken to meant more Christians, which is
a victory to begin with, but also more people to speak to those who haven't heard, and thus we're a tiny
bit closer to the goal with each new Christian who joined the group. If they were not born again before,
then there's a new Christian, and if they were, now they're an "effective" Christian since now they've
learned to do things "correctly."
After vpw died, a few years followed with lots of controversy. Women came forward about vpw molesting them
or other twi leaders molesting them (vpw said they could...) This led to "the fog years" where lcm wandered
around, wondering what happened because he was following vpw doctrine rather than The Spirit, and it wasn't
working but he thought he was doing God's will. At the end (1988-1989), lcm demanded an oath of loyalty from
all the twi'ers, starting with the top leaders and down to the local ones. Any one who didn't swear one to
lcm HIMSELF (for example, those who quoted the Bible and didn't want to choose among men) was KICKED OUT.
In about a year (not counting exits in the Fog Years), twi lost about 80% of its membership and leadership.
Since lcm kicked them out en masse, many were able to continue to work together locally and statewide,
and this really worked against twi.
So, lcm now had a small group left. Now he began teaching about "the remnant" and things about how numbers
don't count", and had blind loyalists as the rank-and-file. Within a few years, he got REALLY weird- he had
decided that every fool thought that went through his head was approved by God and probably was sent directly
BY God. A guy who liked to condemn doctrines of Papal Infallibility began to, in effect, claim just that for
himself....and worse, since Papal Infallibility only affects formal declarations and not "I'd like chicken
for dinner." lcm decided that everything he uttered was infallible, and to question that was to question
God Almighty. Naturally, his gross incompetence combined with that and led to one major failure after
another, plus one minor failure after another.
One evening, lcm went up to the podium and made an announcement:
God Almighty had just told him that The Word was now Over The World.
Naturally, this sounded like nonsense- twi was now tiny compared to what it once was, and NOW they got to
EVERYONE? But this was the era of overt blind loyalty, and to even THINK lcm was wrong was heresy.
Now what? Well, if twi's goal was accomplished, they needed a new one. Now that The Word was Over The World,
lcm announced twi had crossed into The Promised Land of The Prevailing Word, which has pretty much been the
twi slogan, goal, etc since then.
www.greasespotcafe.com/main2/waydale/waydale-documents-html/staff-meeting-at-the-way-international-headquarters-on-04/14/1996.html
Where did the slogan come from?
lcm was lousy at Bible research (an odd deficiency for a Biblical Research ministry, but there's been
a low standard since the beginning-although vpw was very good at FAKING IT for the masses.)
His one supposed claim was he understood Acts. He even taught a class and "wrote a book" on the
subject, "The Rise and Expansion (of the First Century Church)". Mind you, twi's expert on how the
early Christians exploded in numbers oversaw a period of 80% of the people leaving- followed by
slow trickles of more people leaving after that and during his reign.
He used the KJV for Acts 19:20
"So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed."
I'm not aware of vpw using it like this, but perhaps he did and lcm ran with it. That wouldn't be
the first time. vpw taught ONCE on "athletes of the spirit" and lcm (the dumb jock) ran with it,
wouldn't let it go, and plagiarized a Hollywood movie (Staying Alive) to put on a 2-hour
dance production on the subject. (I kid you not.)
As you can see from the link I provided, lcm was seriously unstable while he was making his
initial explanations about how this was supposed to work.
Since lcm was kicked out (officially he was "placed on spiritual probation" and the official word
is that he's out), nobody's had enough personality to even ATTEMPT something new. If they did,
rfr would have them kicked out as a threat to her authority, as if the remaining twi hasn't
strangled out the ability to think from the remaining insiders. So, wherever vpw or lcm left
off with stuff is where it will stay, more or less, until twi closes its doors because nobody
is listening any more.
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Rejoice
WW---in reading your linked page, I saw this statement by LCM:
"Temperance is self-control. That's the ninth one--finality, complete completeness, 3 x 3. The result of all this is self-control in all phases of life. The body holds the same relationship to reason as reason does to the spirit. That's what it means to go in and 'possess the land'--manage it, control it, utilize it for what it's there for. The ninth fruit of the spirit--makes tremendous depth of sense here."
The underlined phrase---that's how he defines Temperance?? Temperance is to 'possess the land'?? He sounds completely insane...
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OldSkool
In retrospect he was nucking futts. And to think I used to hang on his every word back in my
days.
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chockfull
No, this is something the big Okie picked up being in tune with the same sonar waves that the Iraqi minister of defense was on during the Iraq war.
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Twinky
Hah, haven't thought of that in years. But I don't think it accurately reports how LCM put it. It was more along the lines of "The body holds the same relationship to the mind, as reason does to the spirit." I'm pretty sure this is what he taught.
And the idea behind that was: the body is under subjection to the mind and did what the mind told it to do; and reasoning should be along spiritual lines and is subject to our spirits.
Of course, the phrase could have been said in a variety of ways over the various years that it was recited - add a word, change a word, omit a word - LOL, it wouldn't be the first time that Way doctrine had been subtly changed without any overt statement. But that was it in the early 90s.
Alternatively, I could be misremembering it.
No recollection whatsoever of the underlined bit that's quoted. Could be that it's some of the later (or earlier) ramblings of this out-of-control loudmouth. He wouldn't know temperance if it hit him with a 2x4.
I'm not going to dredge any further back into the dustbin marked "TWI" for further recollections. My Corps years - in fact, all my TWI years - were spent suffering under his inordinately long ramblings and rantings and histrionics. That's more than long enough.
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OperaBuff
WordWolf, that's a great summation, thank you. It's like a Cliff Notes version of the TWI self-implosion. My mind is now clearer on how it all progressed thru the 80s and 90s. Thank you.
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100% Free
Interesting when you think about it. I don't believe he was ever known for self control. Threw constant temper tantrums, and encouraged by example for leaders under him to do the same. While most leaders in twi had no self control, the believers they were leading were expected to live at a higher standard.
One night, he had the entire inres corpse woken up to have an emergency meeting. Someone had written a nasty letter to him and he couldn't sleep. So he ranted and raved about it.
His idea of an emergency was his feelings being hurt. High maintenance prima dona. Somebody should have called him a waaaahmbulance.
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GeorgeStGeorge
One of the reasons I got booted was for not taking seriously LCM's rant about "The only reason for a space program is military defense." (I preferred Ps. 19:1.) Ironically, my Twig Leader, who was complicit in my ouster, was a mathematician for NASA.
George
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100% Free
Makes me wonder how that attitude affected his employment at Nasa and if he still works there. Or did he move on from twi.....
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GeorgeStGeorge
Interestingly, that person is a lurker here, and just contacted me. Left NASA to join the Corps. Left TWI to join the human race! :lol:
George
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100% Free
Yikes! Hope he ends up ok. Did he apologize?
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GeorgeStGeorge
Yes. And the person is doing quite well.
George
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100% Free
That's good to hear, and really nice he made it right. Sounds like a good guy.
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Naten00
How is a NASA mathematician in TWI? hummmmmmmmmmm.
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penworks
Good point. Same reason there were grads from Cornell Univ. and Yale Univ. in my Corps group. No understanding of protestant fundamentalism and a real susceptiblity to VP's charisma. Etc. etc.
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Naten00
I don't think its just protestant fundamentalism you can be a fundamentalist in almost anything.... I think it is just the washing of the brain of ideas like " No one can go beyond what he is taught" and someone who has been wowed by the philosophy presented in the Universities today would be easily taken by such a statement. Because it is so abstract of a statement that it doesn't make since so it sounds amazing.
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GeorgeStGeorge
I'm not sure I understand the question. I'm a PhD Chemist who reads Greek. Does that mean I was too smart for PFAL?
George
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waysider
No, George.
I think the point is that everyone is vulnerable on one level or another.
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chockfull
Didn't you know? We were ALL rocket scientists when we were in TWI. ;)
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