But THIS is wierwille at his charming best. That's how he got rich, charming the socks off of believers. Well, the dollars out of their wallets anyway.
Exactly. If he had been an out-front monster, we would have run in the opposite direction (I would hope!). I'm reminded of those TV commercials trying to sell us drugs with hideous side effects. The ad depicts smiling people doing everday tasks. The voice over sounds like your dearest friend. The voice tells us a litany of ghastly side effects but the ad makers are counting on our being distracted by the fun-loving, often beautiful, healthy looking people we assume are taking the drug, so we miss listening closely to the gravity of the side effects, "on rare occasions, even death."
That was brutal. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't as charming as advertised. Knowing what we now know really changes the whole game with this predatory huckster.
That was brutal. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't as charming as advertised. Knowing what we now know really changes the whole game with this predatory huckster.
I know. I can find myself still somewhat drawn to his good words on first read, then I get this bristling feeling and the urge to run.
first song was boring. not even as good as early Selah(Paul Vergilio, not South African trio of more recent times), Good Seed, or Pressed Down, much less Hillsongs, Casting Crowns, etc. Thanks to Calvary is by Bill Gaither, not Ted Farrell, and Wierwille's sermons remind me of Jerry Falwell instead of Nicky Gumbel of Alpha, Rob Weber(United Methodist) of Beginings, or even Rick Warren.
You know, don't you, that "prosper" doesn't necessarily mean financially?
A better meaning from our current vocabulary might be "thrive" - or just "do well". Plants in the garden can prosper. After a visit to someone, you might be asked if it was a prosperous visit - ie, did you have a nice time together?
It's another of those words that VPW took out of context - he added a 20th century meaning to a 16th century word. And he chose a word that is very emotive in our day and time - isn't part of the American dream to do well financially for oneself? To build up material wealth?
But what are we exhorted to do? This is how to prosper, from God's point of view:
19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal : 20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal : 21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
And this is how to lay up those treasures, explicitly:
17 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. 19 In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.
I do not see much there, about accreting money, physical wealth, to oneself.
Interestingly, although money is mentioned in the extract from Timothy, it's not in context of tithing to one's church leaders, etc, as covered in the booklet Christians should be Prosperous - but in context of giving it away and being generous and sharing with unspecified others.
I know. I can find myself still somewhat drawn to his good words on first read, then I get this bristling feeling and the urge to run.
The draw, for me, is LONG gone. I hope you get there too. But I'm glad you can recognize the seductive nature of wierwille's charm.
first song was boring. not even as good as early Selah(Paul Vergilio, not South African trio of more recent times), Good Seed, or Pressed Down, much less Hillsongs, Casting Crowns, etc. Thanks to Calvary is by Bill Gaither, not Ted Farrell, and Wierwille's sermons remind me of Jerry Falwell instead of Nicky Gumbel of Alpha, Rob Weber(United Methodist) of Beginings, or even Rick Warren.
I recognize Bill Gaither's style in that song. Just to clarify, in case anyone wondered, I didn't attribute the authorship of the song to Farrell, just the performance. :)
You know, don't you, that "prosper" doesn't necessarily mean financially?
A better meaning from our current vocabulary might be "thrive" - or just "do well". Plants in the garden can prosper. After a visit to someone, you might be asked if it was a prosperous visit - ie, did you have a nice time together?
It's another of those words that VPW took out of context - he added a 20th century meaning to a 16th century word. And he chose a word that is very emotive in our day and time - isn't part of the American dream to do well financially for oneself? To build up material wealth?
But what are we exhorted to do? This is how to prosper, from God's point of view:
And this is how to lay up those treasures, explicitly:
I do not see much there, about accreting money, physical wealth, to oneself.
Interestingly, although money is mentioned in the extract from Timothy, it's not in context of tithing to one's church leaders, etc, as covered in the booklet Christians should be Prosperous - but in context of giving it away and being generous and sharing with unspecified others.
I'm with you Twinky, 100 percent. Your post nicely underscores the issue of wierwille's sociopathic nature... his "research" and indoctrination speeches were, consciously or not, focused on what would enrich HIM, not the listener.
Exactly. If he had been an out-front monster, we would have run in the opposite direction (I would hope!). I'm reminded of those TV commercials trying to sell us drugs with hideous side effects. The ad depicts smiling people doing everday tasks. The voice over sounds like your dearest friend. The voice tells us a litany of ghastly side effects but the ad makers are counting on our being distracted by the fun-loving, often beautiful, healthy looking people we assume are taking the drug, so we miss listening closely to the gravity of the side effects, "on rare occasions, even death."
That's a tremendous analogy. And it makes the point that this kind of charm (marketing propaganda) is pervasive in our society and culture.
Sometimes you hear what you want to hear, despite what's being said. At 21 years old and struggling financially, I was primed to accept what Wierwille was hawking, even though, in retrospect, I can clearly see how he took John 10:10 out of context, twisted it around and made it say what he wanted it to say. Then, he went to great lengths to support his premise with his own convoluted interpretation of scripture. I'd like to say it would be a lot harder to fool me now but, who really knows?
Sometimes you hear what you want to hear, despite what's being said. At 21 years old and struggling financially, I was primed to accept what Wierwille was hawking, even though, in retrospect, I can clearly see how he took John 10:10 out of context, twisted it around and made it say what he wanted it to say. Then, he went to great lengths to support his premise with his own convoluted interpretation of scripture. I'd like to say it would be a lot harder to fool me now but, who really knows?
We ALWAYS hear what we want to hear. Or at least what we hope to hear.
The antidote to wierwille, in retrospect from my perspective, is two-fold: teach children critical thinking skills... and make sure they have their emotional needs mets growing up.
Of course, both of those are easier said than done.
We were indeed primed to accept his gobbledegook. I'm thankful I eventually figured it out. :)
However, I faced a similar dilemma when I divorced and my ex decided to hook up with the mormon church. It took a good bit of doing to keep my daughter and stepson from taking that bait, but now they are grown and have chosen more mainstream spiritual paths. Even though their mother is still mormon.
There's 2 ways to prosper: either have a lot of money, or have no lack. It's possible to have a lot of money, yet still lack something.
Yes, I've heard this TWI line before. This is used to justify paying overqualified staff members minimum wage or just over "on a need basis". I just recently read a study that was trying to correlate money to happiness. The interesting results were that the correlation disappeared once the income rose a percentage above the poverty line.
So the one thing left out in that analogy is that it's also possible to not have any money, and lack a lot of things. Actually, that is common sense. If your baseline needs are not being met or if meeting them consumes all of your energy, then you are going to lack a lot of things. Once you get into the middle class range, there's a lot more leeway.
TWI causes the problem by their lack of care for their own people, then uses rote clichés to convince people the problem is with them, and all prosperity, satisfaction, happiness requires is to adjust their attitude and obey their cruel taskmasters. This is evil, this is using people, and this by any just means SHOULD cause TWI to lose followers. And it is. It just takes a little more time to manifest what with all the lies propounded in their public position. It's even more evil when they pay their leadership position people better - so the people tasked with fielding the complaints and keeping people happy themselves aren't experiencing the problem and have an unspoken threat hanging over them such that if they aren't 100% compliant that their positions and salaries will be busted back to the minimum wage range.
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penworks
Exactly. If he had been an out-front monster, we would have run in the opposite direction (I would hope!). I'm reminded of those TV commercials trying to sell us drugs with hideous side effects. The ad depicts smiling people doing everday tasks. The voice over sounds like your dearest friend. The voice tells us a litany of ghastly side effects but the ad makers are counting on our being distracted by the fun-loving, often beautiful, healthy looking people we assume are taking the drug, so we miss listening closely to the gravity of the side effects, "on rare occasions, even death."
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Raf
That was brutal. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't as charming as advertised. Knowing what we now know really changes the whole game with this predatory huckster.
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OldSkool
I know. I can find myself still somewhat drawn to his good words on first read, then I get this bristling feeling and the urge to run.
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Thomas Loy Bumgarner
first song was boring. not even as good as early Selah(Paul Vergilio, not South African trio of more recent times), Good Seed, or Pressed Down, much less Hillsongs, Casting Crowns, etc. Thanks to Calvary is by Bill Gaither, not Ted Farrell, and Wierwille's sermons remind me of Jerry Falwell instead of Nicky Gumbel of Alpha, Rob Weber(United Methodist) of Beginings, or even Rick Warren.
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chockfull
Well, looking at the fruit of what this produced, you've got a mausoleum dedicated to enshrine VP called TWI, and $52 million dollars.
It's all about the Benjamins.
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Twinky
You know, don't you, that "prosper" doesn't necessarily mean financially?
A better meaning from our current vocabulary might be "thrive" - or just "do well". Plants in the garden can prosper. After a visit to someone, you might be asked if it was a prosperous visit - ie, did you have a nice time together?
It's another of those words that VPW took out of context - he added a 20th century meaning to a 16th century word. And he chose a word that is very emotive in our day and time - isn't part of the American dream to do well financially for oneself? To build up material wealth?
But what are we exhorted to do? This is how to prosper, from God's point of view:
And this is how to lay up those treasures, explicitly:
I do not see much there, about accreting money, physical wealth, to oneself.
Interestingly, although money is mentioned in the extract from Timothy, it's not in context of tithing to one's church leaders, etc, as covered in the booklet Christians should be Prosperous - but in context of giving it away and being generous and sharing with unspecified others.
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Rocky
The draw, for me, is LONG gone. I hope you get there too. But I'm glad you can recognize the seductive nature of wierwille's charm.
I recognize Bill Gaither's style in that song. Just to clarify, in case anyone wondered, I didn't attribute the authorship of the song to Farrell, just the performance. :)
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OldSkool
I would first feed my right arm to wild dogs before having anything to do with TWI, Wierwille Jr - grandJr., offshoots, etc.
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Rocky
I'm with you Twinky, 100 percent. Your post nicely underscores the issue of wierwille's sociopathic nature... his "research" and indoctrination speeches were, consciously or not, focused on what would enrich HIM, not the listener.
That's a tremendous analogy. And it makes the point that this kind of charm (marketing propaganda) is pervasive in our society and culture.
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krys
In the very beginning, most of us were searching so as we followed along, we never saw t his stuff. We trusted too much.
VP, of course, had no integrity - so he'd snag any kind of interested party and squeeze it beyond the point where he could get the blood to drip.
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waysider
Sometimes you hear what you want to hear, despite what's being said. At 21 years old and struggling financially, I was primed to accept what Wierwille was hawking, even though, in retrospect, I can clearly see how he took John 10:10 out of context, twisted it around and made it say what he wanted it to say. Then, he went to great lengths to support his premise with his own convoluted interpretation of scripture. I'd like to say it would be a lot harder to fool me now but, who really knows?
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johniam
There's 2 ways to prosper: either have a lot of money, or have no lack. It's possible to have a lot of money, yet still lack something.
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Rocky
We ALWAYS hear what we want to hear. Or at least what we hope to hear.
The antidote to wierwille, in retrospect from my perspective, is two-fold: teach children critical thinking skills... and make sure they have their emotional needs mets growing up.
Of course, both of those are easier said than done.
We were indeed primed to accept his gobbledegook. I'm thankful I eventually figured it out. :)
However, I faced a similar dilemma when I divorced and my ex decided to hook up with the mormon church. It took a good bit of doing to keep my daughter and stepson from taking that bait, but now they are grown and have chosen more mainstream spiritual paths. Even though their mother is still mormon.
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chockfull
Yes, I've heard this TWI line before. This is used to justify paying overqualified staff members minimum wage or just over "on a need basis". I just recently read a study that was trying to correlate money to happiness. The interesting results were that the correlation disappeared once the income rose a percentage above the poverty line.
So the one thing left out in that analogy is that it's also possible to not have any money, and lack a lot of things. Actually, that is common sense. If your baseline needs are not being met or if meeting them consumes all of your energy, then you are going to lack a lot of things. Once you get into the middle class range, there's a lot more leeway.
TWI causes the problem by their lack of care for their own people, then uses rote clichés to convince people the problem is with them, and all prosperity, satisfaction, happiness requires is to adjust their attitude and obey their cruel taskmasters. This is evil, this is using people, and this by any just means SHOULD cause TWI to lose followers. And it is. It just takes a little more time to manifest what with all the lies propounded in their public position. It's even more evil when they pay their leadership position people better - so the people tasked with fielding the complaints and keeping people happy themselves aren't experiencing the problem and have an unspoken threat hanging over them such that if they aren't 100% compliant that their positions and salaries will be busted back to the minimum wage range.
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excathedra
i really need to prosper right now
i'm a christian
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