Cults. Cults. Everywhere.

[Thomas Loy Bumgarner]

A recent cult called The Gathering and run by Wayne Jolliet of Franklin, TN sounds eerily similar to Jim Jones, David Koresh, and VPW. Contemporary Church Musician Ed Cash is a member of this group. He is a contributor to Chris Tomlin music wise. Scary.

[Grace Valerie Claire]

On 12/11/2015 at 2:44 PM, skyrider said:

Yeah.....I get that.

But if the word "cult" is going to continually be diluted to ascribe it to mothers who promote

the benefits of breast-feeding their newborn......then I've got to find a better way to describe

and LABEL that blood-sucking, money-fleecing, scum-hypocritical, scam-deceiving, plagiarist,

organization hitch-hiking a ride on the true christian/believer narrative.

Sky, wow!  You have some interesting posts!!  Tell us how you really feel about VBW/TWI.

[Grace Valerie Claire]

On 12/12/2015 at 9:38 AM, Steve Lortz said:

One of the problems of fundamentalist/evangelical protestant thinking in general, and of TWI specifically, is narrowing down the meanings of terms to the point where they can't really be used in free-flowing conversation.

It's hard for me to see that narrowing the term "cult" is particularly useful. There are "cults" that are harmless, like the followings of sports figures or rock stars, and at the other extreme there are cults that are much more cold-blooded and vicious than TWI was, such as Scientology or Momentus. There are even spoof cults like The Church of the SubGenius!

The feature that distinguishes a harmless cult from a harmful one is whether or not the leaders are honest with the followers about what they are in for. The leaders of harmful cults make their followers deployable to a hidden agenda. The overt agenda of TWI was to take the Word Over the World. The hidden agenda was to provide money, power, adulation and sexual prey for Wierwille and the Trustees.

Love,

Steve

Steve, we have a winner!!  Your post is spot-on, especially about VPW, and the Trustees.  Thanks for posting it!!

[Grace Valerie Claire]

On 12/15/2015 at 7:34 AM, waysider said:

Would any of us have joined The Way if we had known what was in our futures?

Way, that is a great question.  I wish I had a great answer for you.  If I had known about VPW's wantonness, I would never have gotten involved with TWI.  However, I did meet some wonderful people in TWI, and I truly enjoyed most of The Rocks, I attended.