Here, deep in the obscure crevasses of Archive.org, is a three session, fifteen+ hour recoding of the thief in clown shoes holding forth. Perhaps, someone here knows the date of the recording. It's a later version, I suspect, because vic apologizes for the omission of the beastiality images - someone advised him to remove them, he admits. He seems sincerely regretful of the omission; you can tell he really wanted to show it and hold forth on his fetish.
In one session he goes into a profoundly immature and stupid exegesis of the Garden and Eve and the Serpent and the Trees. He admits to no proof for his conclusions and only carnal, childish opinion as the source and power of his logic. Even the amateur student, with a mere superficial, elementary understanding of hermeneutics and exegesis, can't miss the obvious error, stupidity, mathematical imprecision and scientific inaccuracy of this thief in clown shoes.
For anyone still in denial of victor as the thief, here's some more evidence.
1 hour ago, Rocky said:
15 hours? Do you have any insight on where on those videos to find the specifics to which you refer?
I don’t know about the videos Nathan_Jr posted a link to – I watched less than 1 minute of it and couldn’t take anymore – but if you (Rocky) are talking about Adam and Eve and the Serpent and the trees part of CF&S class – I do remember a section of that class which in my opinion was wierwille’s piece de resistance of promiscuity…in one of his most bizarre and twisted interpretations of Genesis 3 saying the original sin was masturbation. wierwille elaborated on the imagery of fruit in the midst of the garden and tree of knowledge of good and evil as being an allusion to genitalia and especially the penis – and I vaguely remember him referring to a healing in the gospels where as the person’s sight was being restored the person said they see men walking as trees. I'm embarrassed to admit in my cult-daze it all made sense to me …funny - if you believe the original sin was Adam and Eve masturbating – it puts Genesis 3:22 in a whole new light: And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
...also makes me think of that old phrase 'one hand doesn't know what the other one is doing'.
And now it’s all coming together - wierwille did teach us to be jerks
It is noteworthy just how malleable the Bible can be in the deceitful hands of someone leading a harmful and controlling cult…and talk about hiding a sexual predator in plain sight… What qualified wierwille to teach about the Bible, the Christian Family and sex? It’s about like asking Jeffrey Dahmer to teach a class on humanitarianism .
Btw, Nathan, I don’t know if you’ve read this whole thread – but if not - let me point out 2 relevant posts on this point - there is a Dec. 3rd, 2017, post by Don’t Worry Be Happy that mentions wierwille showing that bestiality video in a live CF&S Camp in 1973…a few posts before Don’t Worry’s – I mentioned wierwille showing the porno to our family corps – there were teens present !… here > Family corps with teens + video porn .
Edited by T-Bone I see editors walking like typewriters with White-Out
I don’t know about the videos Nathan_Jr posted a link to – I watched less than 1 minute of it and couldn’t take anymore – but if you (Rocky) are talking about Adam and Eve and the Serpent and the trees part of CF&S class – I do remember a section of that class which in my opinion was wierwille’s piece de resistance of promiscuity…in one of his most bizarre and twisted interpretations of Genesis 3 saying the original sin was masturbation. wierwille elaborated on the imagery of fruit in the midst of the garden and tree of knowledge of good and evil as being an allusion to genitalia and especially the penis – and I vaguely remember him referring to a healing in the gospels where as the person’s sight was being restored the person said they see men walking as trees
It's nauseating, I know. I remember reading about his bizarre and twisted interpretation of Genesis 3 here on GSC before I found the CFS videos on Archive.org. I don't remember him getting into the masturbation bit in the small section I watched. I do remember his anachronistic back-tracking of Paul's description of the gentiles and Jews being grafted into the same tree as a way to understand that trees aren't just symbols of people for Paul, but even for the authors of Genesis - the trees of Genesis couldn't be understood as symbols for people until Paul used the metaphor in an unrelated way.
This is where, frozen in shock, I stopped listening, because that's simply not how exegesis works. You just can't read into it that way. Paul devises a metaphor to explain how Jews and gentiles fit together in the divine plan and now every mention of a tree from Genesis to Revelation is a symbol for a person!?!?!? There is no glove for this swollen infected hand! Pure stupidity and error. Willful ignorance. Not only from a religiously doctrinal perspective, but simply from a text-critical perspective - hermeneutics 101.
1 hour ago, T-Bone said:
Btw, Nathan, I don’t know if you’ve read this whole thread – but if not - let me point out to relevant posts - there is a Dec. 3rd, 2017, post by Don’t Worry Be Happy that mentions wierwille showing that bestiality video in a live CF&S Camp in 1973…a few posts before Don’t Worry’s – I mentioned wierwille showing the porno to our family corps – there were teens present !… here > Family corps with teens + video porn .
Yes, I have read all of the threads on CFS, including the live porn at family corps - so disturbing.... that's what motivated me to search until I found the CFS class... but, alas, I don't have the stomach to watch all of it.
Edited by Nathan_Jr If vic missed the mark on Gen 3, what else was he wrong about? Turns out damn near everything.
alas, I don't have the stomach to watch all of it.
I don't blame you or T-Bone. I actually got through about 7 minutes of the first linked video.
It's ALL bull$hit. In that 7 minutes he says, actually, nothing other than nonsense that can only now be reasonably interpreted as working to hypnotize his audience.
He's aiming a firehouse of BS at the audience to mesmerize all viewers/listeners.
"I am SOOOO grateful to Almighty Gawd for the privilege..." blah blah blah.
This is where, frozen in shock, I stopped listening, because that's simply not how exegesis works. You just can't read into it that way. Paul devises a metaphor to explain how Jews and gentiles fit together in the divine plan and now every mention of a tree from Genesis to Revelation is a symbol for a person!?!?!? There is no glove for this swollen infected hand! Pure stupidity and error. Willful ignorance. Not only from a religiously doctrinal perspective, but simply from a text-critical perspective - hermeneutics 101.
Hopefully not too off-topic
And hopefully a cure for the common cold cultic mindset
Hey, Nathan_Jr with your mentioning of hermeneutics I thought I’d mention an author you might enjoy – if you haven’t read anything by him already – his name isAnthony Thiseltonand he “…is an English Anglican priest, theologian, and academic. He has written a number of books and articles on a range of topics in Christian theology, biblical studies, and the philosophy of religion…His main published work has been in the areas of hermeneutics (especially hermeneutical theory and its relationship to biblical interpretation), Christian doctrine (including eschatology and pneumatology), and biblical studies, in particular with two substantial commentaries on 1 Corinthians. He is unusual in academic theology for publishing research-level works across such a broad range of topics…”from Wiki - Anthony Thiselton
Here's a description of one of his books on Amazon:
“Anthony Thiselton here brings together his encyclopedic knowledge of hermeneutics and his nearly four decades of teaching on the subject to provide a splendid interdisciplinary textbook. After a thorough historical overview of hermeneutics, Thiselton moves into modern times with extensive analysis of scholarship from the mid-twentieth century, including liberation and feminist theologies, reader-response and reception theory, and postmodernism. No other text on hermeneutics covers the range of writers and subjects discussed in Thiselton’s Hermeneutics.” From Hermeneutics: An Introduction Kindle Edition
I have a number of his books and I’m currently reading Thiselton on Hermeneutics Collected Works with New Essays. Sometimes I come across something that is thought-provoking and reminds me once again of the narrowminded TWI-mindset I was trapped in. I remember an old Sunday Night Teaching tape of wierwille saying we’re to be masters of the word – that may even have been in the title of the tape…Please bear with me for a sec, cuz I’ll come back to wierwille’s delusional self-importance and self-assumed authority OVER the Bible, sex, and anything else in life.
What’s interesting in Thiselton’s book is it does more than just get into the nuts and bolts of hermeneutics (such as syntax, Biblical languages, literary genres, etc.) he also gets into theory and philosophy of hermeneuticsand besides offering his own ideas he also references others …One of them isEmilio Betti ( 1890 to 1968) who was an Italian jurist, Roman Law scholar, philosopher and theologian. He is best known for his contributions to hermeneutics, part of a broad interest in interpretation. Betti said “Nothing is of greater importance to humankind than living in mutual understanding with one’s fellow human beings…” and that it calls for the ethical virtues of patience, tolerance, openness, and respect for the other person.
Another thing that Thiselton points out in Betti’s work is that he attacked the self-centeredness of an epistemological tradition that takes the self as its starting-point and its center. In my humble opinion that describes wierwille’s theory of knowledge to a T , especially with regard to his dubious methods, self-assuming validity, biases, salacious topics, and phallocentric-creepiness to boot !
Another fascinating person Thiselton refers to is Friedrich Schleiermacher( 1768 to 1834 ) a German Reformed theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Enlightenment with traditional Protestant Christianity. He also became influential in the evolution of higher criticism, and his work forms part of the foundation of the modern field of hermeneutics…and from Schleiermacher onwards the goal of hermeneutics has been that of LISTENINGto “the other” , rather than seeking mastery of “objects” to know “on my terms”.
Another of Schleiermacher’s pithy observations was “in the interpretation it is essential that one be able to step out of one’s own frame of mind into that of the author.”As a former-huge-wierwille-fan who bought into wierwille’s bull$hit of “mastering the word” Schleiermacher’s pearls of wisdom hit me right between the eyes! I’ve come to believe an essential aspect of Bible study is to read for the author’s intended meaning – try to understand passages from the author’s perspective and not my own.
~ ~ ~ ~
I had debated whether I should say anything about his works on this thread“Christian Family and Sex” for fear of derailing it – or just out of respect for the original intent of the person who started this thread…but the more I thought about it, the more I thought about the corrective element of Grease Spot Café that seems to permeate this website – which for want of a better description seems to be for me like something of a godly-design to correct or counteract the harmful and undesirable theory and practice of The Way International…Sometimes I’ve thought of a metaphor for TWI as if it were a man-made structure picturing it as a closed system of stifling proportions that does not allow transfer of matter or energy in or out of the system…my inner sci-fi fan often thinks of it as a supermassive black hole.
Perhaps some folks come here and see everything as an either/or choice - of either TWI’s way or the Grease Spot way…but that’s a false dichotomy…I feel Grease Spot blows to smithereens ( via the Socratic method ) the erroneous premise that mistakenly limits what options are available when analyzing TWI’s theory and practice. I’m not saying everything is wrong in TWI’s “stuff” – but as a survivor of a harmful and controlling cult, I believe everything about TWI is suspect – because of the negative consequences I’ve experienced and observed…
…I think we could drive ourselves crazy trying to figure out the intentions or what motivates harmful and controlling cult-leaders…But we’re not God…we’re not mind-readers…as the old proverb goes “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” - wrong or evil actions are often undertaken with good intentions...and there’s another variation- good intentions when acted upon may have unintended consequences…and what are intentions anyway? They are merely guiding principles for our thoughts, attitudes, choices, and actions. Usually, our intentions make us feel good about the beliefs we have. But intentions become irrelevant if they are not aligned with actions.
I have been coming to Grease Spot since 2006 and one of the most noteworthy things about this website is that for the most part posters in relating their stories, ideas, and opinions, have usually focused – NOT on intentions or motives – but on actions, things that were said and done, observations, experiences, events, situations, and practical consequences…I really like that about Grease Spot - it causes me - and probably a lot of other folks - to look at how well the publicly stated intentions and goals of TWI align with Christian ideology.
It's difficult to resist the temptation to ponder WHY wierwille was so keen on pushing his depraved views of Christian family and sex. In the war for my soul, it’s like trying to figure out what is the objective of my enemy. That’s where I need to fortify my defenses. The genius strategy of wierwille was that it was an inside job. A war crime committed with the assistance of a person living on the premises where it occurred – me ! Absorbing wierwille’s sick ideology sabotaged my cognitive skills.
My wife and I were talking the other night about some of the stuff wierwille and LCM would say and do when we were in-residence training...and how much we dodged a bullet leaving TWI when we did. As a guy, I never fooled around on my wife…but who knows…if we had continued in TWI as way corps grads – how long would it take for all the toxic and depraved essence of wierwille’s ideology to really sink in? “Anything done in the love of God is okay ” ...Yikes - that attitude is playing with fire !!!!!!!!!!!!
I believe Jesus Christ set forth the two highest priorities for his followers inMatthew 22: 37 – 40...to love God and love your neighbor as yourself…It seems obvious to me that how we treat people matters to God...so it makes sense that we should judge ourselves on how we actually deal with people rather than judging ourselves on why we think we serve God's people...evaluating our actions to see if they are in tune with our ideology…a great thread on dealing with that issue isWere we taught to be jerks in TWI ?
Well…it’s like a lot of things Grease Spotters
Edited by T-Bone My editor Herman recently developed some repeated spasms with his eyes and facial muscles. I said out loud “has anyone else noticed Herman’s new tics?”
And hopefully a cure for the common cold cultic mindset
Hey, Nathan_Jr with your mentioning of hermeneutics I thought I’d mention an author you might enjoy – if you haven’t read anything by him already – his name isAnthony Thiseltonand he “…is an English Anglican priest, theologian, and academic. He has written a number of books and articles on a range of topics in Christian theology, biblical studies, and the philosophy of religion…His main published work has been in the areas of hermeneutics (especially hermeneutical theory and its relationship to biblical interpretation), Christian doctrine (including eschatology and pneumatology), and biblical studies, in particular with two substantial commentaries on 1 Corinthians. He is unusual in academic theology for publishing research-level works across such a broad range of topics…”from Wiki - Anthony Thiselton
Here's a description of one of his books on Amazon:
“Anthony Thiselton here brings together his encyclopedic knowledge of hermeneutics and his nearly four decades of teaching on the subject to provide a splendid interdisciplinary textbook. After a thorough historical overview of hermeneutics, Thiselton moves into modern times with extensive analysis of scholarship from the mid-twentieth century, including liberation and feminist theologies, reader-response and reception theory, and postmodernism. No other text on hermeneutics covers the range of writers and subjects discussed in Thiselton’s Hermeneutics.” From Hermeneutics: An Introduction Kindle Edition
I have a number of his books and I’m currently reading Thiselton on Hermeneutics Collected Works with New Essays. Sometimes I come across something that is thought-provoking and reminds me once again of the narrowminded TWI-mindset I was trapped in. I remember an old Sunday Night Teaching tape of wierwille saying we’re to be masters of the word – that may even have been in the title of the tape…Please bear with me for a sec, cuz I’ll come back to wierwille’s delusional self-importance and self-assumed authority OVER the Bible, sex, and anything else in life.
What’s interesting in Thiselton’s book is it does more than just get into the nuts and bolts of hermeneutics (such as syntax, Biblical languages, literary genres, etc.) he also gets into theory and philosophy of hermeneuticsand besides offering his own ideas he also references others …One of them isEmilio Betti ( 1890 to 1968) who was an Italian jurist, Roman Law scholar, philosopher and theologian. He is best known for his contributions to hermeneutics, part of a broad interest in interpretation. Betti said “Nothing is of greater importance to humankind than living in mutual understanding with one’s fellow human beings…” and that it calls for the ethical virtues of patience, tolerance, openness, and respect for the other.
Another thing that Thiselton points out in Betti’s work is that he attacked the self-centeredness of an epistemological tradition that takes the self as its starting-point and its center. In my humble opinion that describes wierwille’s theory of knowledge to a T, especially with regard to his dubious methods, self-assuming validity, biases, salacious topics, and for some ungodly reason phallocentric-creepy.
Another fascinating person Thiselton refers to is Friedrich Schleiermacher( 1768 to 1834 ) a German Reformed theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Enlightenment with traditional Protestant Christianity. He also became influential in the evolution of higher criticism, and his work forms part of the foundation of the modern field of hermeneutics…and from Schleiermacher onwards the goal of hermeneutics has been that of LISTENINGto “the other” , rather than seeking mastery of “objects” to know “on my terms”.
Another of Schleiermacher’s pithy observations was “in the interpretation it is essential that one be able to step out of one’s own frame of mind into that of the author.”As a former-huge-wierwille-fan who bought into wierwille’s bull$hit of “mastering the word” Schleiermacher’s pearls of wisdom hit me right between the eyes! I’ve come to believe an essential aspect of Bible study is to read for the author’s intended meaning – try to understand passages from the author’s perspective and not my own.
I had debated whether I should say anything about his works on this thread“Christian Family and Sex” for fear of derailing it – or just out of respect for the original intent of the person who started this thread…but the more I thought about it, the more I thought about the corrective element of Grease Spot Café that seems to permeate this website – which for want of a better description seems to be for me like something of a godly-design to correct or counteract the harmful and undesirable theory and practice of The Way International…Sometimes I’ve thought of a metaphor for TWI as if it were a man-made structure picturing it as a closed system of stifling proportions that does not allow transfer of matter or energy in or out of the system…my inner sci-fi fan often thinks of it as a supermassive black hole.
Perhaps some folks come here and see everything as an either/or choice - of either TWI’s way or the Grease Spot way…but that’s a false dichotomy…I feel Grease Spot blows to smithereens (via the Socratic method) the erroneous premise that mistakenly limits what options are available when analyzing TWI’s theory and practice. I’m not saying everything is wrong in TWI’s “stuff” – but as a survivor of a harmful and controlling cult, I believe everything about TWI is suspect – because of the negative consequences I’ve experienced and observed…
…I think we could drive ourselves crazy trying to figure out the intentions or what motivates harmful and controlling cult-leaders…But we’re not God…we’re not mind-readers…as the old proverb goes “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” - wrong or evil actions are often undertaken with good intentions...and there’s another variation- good intentions when acted upon may have unintended consequences…and what are intentions anyway? They are merely guiding principles for our thoughts, attitudes, choices, and actions. Usually, our intentions make us feel good about the beliefs we have. But intentions become irrelevant if they are not aligned with actions.
I have been coming to Grease Spot since 2006 and one of the most noteworthy things about this website is that for the most part posters in relating their stories, ideas, and opinions, have usually focused – NOT on intentions or motives – but on actions, things that were said and done, observations, experiences, events, situations, and practical consequences…I really like that about Grease Spot - it causes me - and probably a lot of other folks - to look at how well the publicly stated intentions and goals of TWI align with Christian ideology.
I believe Jesus Christ set forth the two highest priorities for his followers inMatthew 22: 37 – 40...to love God and love your neighbor as yourself…It seems obvious to me that how we treat people matters to God...so it makes sense that we should judge ourselves on how we actually deal with people rather than judging ourselves on why we think we serve God's people...evaluating our actions to see if they are in tune with our ideology…a great thread on dealing with that issue isWere we taught to be jerks in TWI?
Well…it’s like a lot of things Grease Spotters
Thanks T-Bone. I always appreciate your posts here, even if I don't read them all the way through. Your posts are looooonnnggg... and usually cover so much ground and so many tangential points.... well, it's just hard sometimes. LOL. I've been coming here for close to ten years and your words (all 7 trillion of them) are important to me. I read your entire post this time! (May I recommend Strunk and White.)
Thanks for recommending Thiselton. I'll check him out. I don't think I knew anything about hermeneutics or exegesis of biblical texts until I took "the class." I had to find out. So I did. On my own. Because I'm curious. It all may appeal to me because I was an English major and studied several languages. Explication of literary texts, textual criticism, it's like exegesis of scripture - it fits, you know, like a hand...
I don't adhere to any Judeo-Christian ideology. I don't claim any dogmatic doctrinal religious theology of any kind. I cling to no religious ideology whatsoever. But I do love Matt 22:37-40. I try to live my life by this principle. But not out of fear, or because the Bible says it - just because I simply don't know how else to live. Loving your neighbor is like loving God; loving God is like loving your neighbor. There is a trinity of love going on here: your self, your neighbor, God... if you get too bogged down in the weeds trying to MAKE it fit, you'll miss the point. It's ineffable, really. At least to me it is.
I come here to endeavor inquiry. And sometimes for catharsis. Those are my intentions, anyway.
Thiselton seems like a brilliantly educated writer. Is his stuff readable, though, to a lay person? I looked at the Amazon "Look Inside" version and it's full of long words with specific meanings and I hesitate on the jargon aspect.
FYI he's considered a "conservative evangelist" in the Anglican tradition. Please don't think that's anything like American evangelism or right-wing Christianity. We "don't do that stuff" in the UK. Evangelism here is about proclaiming the gospel, not about politics.
Thiselton seems like a brilliantly educated writer. Is his stuff readable, though, to a lay person? I looked at the Amazon "Look Inside" version and it's full of long words with specific meanings and I hesitate on the jargon aspect.
FYI he's considered a "conservative evangelist" in the Anglican tradition. Please don't think that's anything like American evangelism or right-wing Christianity. We "don't do that stuff" in the UK. Evangelism here is about proclaiming the gospel, not about politics
For me, this stuff is a hobby…it’s something I really enjoy - so I guess I don’t realize how involved it can get…I’m no intellectual – often I have to reread a paragraph of his and look up a lot of stuff online or in the dictionary…I completely understand your hesitancy.
And I’m with you on American evangelicalism / right-wing Christianity being more political than gospel oriented.
Recommended Posts
Top Posters In This Topic
8
7
6
10
Popular Days
Dec 7
19
Dec 6
10
Dec 8
6
Jul 14
5
Top Posters In This Topic
skyrider 8 posts
T-Bone 7 posts
chockfull 6 posts
Grace Valerie Claire 10 posts
Popular Days
Dec 7 2017
19 posts
Dec 6 2017
10 posts
Dec 8 2017
6 posts
Jul 14 2022
5 posts
Popular Posts
DontWorryBeHappy
Hi Greasespotters! Dr. Rawlings birthed all 3 of our babies at St. Margaret's Hospital in Hammond, IN. 1979, 1982, and 1984. Our first was the first baby delivered in the pre-runner to what was t
DontWorryBeHappy
Hi Greasespotters! My first ever exposure to this most stupid of all dictor's "classes", was at The Way of NY CF&S Family Camp on Shelter Island in 1973. Back in those days, CFS was ONLY taug
skyrider
OMG..............every time I think that I've heard the full extent of wierwille's demented pathologies and depravity, THERE IS MORE. I agree that this CF&S class was the "most stupid" [perve
T-Bone
I don’t know about the videos Nathan_Jr posted a link to – I watched less than 1 minute of it and couldn’t take anymore – but if you (Rocky) are talking about Adam and Eve and the Serpent and the trees part of CF&S class – I do remember a section of that class which in my opinion was wierwille’s piece de resistance of promiscuity…in one of his most bizarre and twisted interpretations of Genesis 3 saying the original sin was masturbation. wierwille elaborated on the imagery of fruit in the midst of the garden and tree of knowledge of good and evil as being an allusion to genitalia and especially the penis – and I vaguely remember him referring to a healing in the gospels where as the person’s sight was being restored the person said they see men walking as trees. I'm embarrassed to admit in my cult-daze it all made sense to me …funny - if you believe the original sin was Adam and Eve masturbating – it puts Genesis 3:22 in a whole new light: And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
...also makes me think of that old phrase 'one hand doesn't know what the other one is doing'.
And now it’s all coming together - wierwille did teach us to be jerks
It is noteworthy just how malleable the Bible can be in the deceitful hands of someone leading a harmful and controlling cult…and talk about hiding a sexual predator in plain sight… What qualified wierwille to teach about the Bible, the Christian Family and sex? It’s about like asking Jeffrey Dahmer to teach a class on humanitarianism .
Btw, Nathan, I don’t know if you’ve read this whole thread – but if not - let me point out 2 relevant posts on this point - there is a Dec. 3rd, 2017, post by Don’t Worry Be Happy that mentions wierwille showing that bestiality video in a live CF&S Camp in 1973…a few posts before Don’t Worry’s – I mentioned wierwille showing the porno to our family corps – there were teens present !… here > Family corps with teens + video porn .
Edited by T-BoneI see editors walking like typewriters with White-Out
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Nathan_Jr
It's nauseating, I know. I remember reading about his bizarre and twisted interpretation of Genesis 3 here on GSC before I found the CFS videos on Archive.org. I don't remember him getting into the masturbation bit in the small section I watched. I do remember his anachronistic back-tracking of Paul's description of the gentiles and Jews being grafted into the same tree as a way to understand that trees aren't just symbols of people for Paul, but even for the authors of Genesis - the trees of Genesis couldn't be understood as symbols for people until Paul used the metaphor in an unrelated way.
This is where, frozen in shock, I stopped listening, because that's simply not how exegesis works. You just can't read into it that way. Paul devises a metaphor to explain how Jews and gentiles fit together in the divine plan and now every mention of a tree from Genesis to Revelation is a symbol for a person!?!?!? There is no glove for this swollen infected hand! Pure stupidity and error. Willful ignorance. Not only from a religiously doctrinal perspective, but simply from a text-critical perspective - hermeneutics 101.
Yes, I have read all of the threads on CFS, including the live porn at family corps - so disturbing.... that's what motivated me to search until I found the CFS class... but, alas, I don't have the stomach to watch all of it.
Edited by Nathan_JrIf vic missed the mark on Gen 3, what else was he wrong about? Turns out damn near everything.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Rocky
I don't blame you or T-Bone. I actually got through about 7 minutes of the first linked video.
It's ALL bull$hit. In that 7 minutes he says, actually, nothing other than nonsense that can only now be reasonably interpreted as working to hypnotize his audience.
He's aiming a firehouse of BS at the audience to mesmerize all viewers/listeners.
"I am SOOOO grateful to Almighty Gawd for the privilege..." blah blah blah.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
T-Bone
Hopefully not too off-topic
And hopefully a cure for the common cold cultic mindset
Hey, Nathan_Jr with your mentioning of hermeneutics I thought I’d mention an author you might enjoy – if you haven’t read anything by him already – his name is Anthony Thiselton and he “…is an English Anglican priest, theologian, and academic. He has written a number of books and articles on a range of topics in Christian theology, biblical studies, and the philosophy of religion…His main published work has been in the areas of hermeneutics (especially hermeneutical theory and its relationship to biblical interpretation), Christian doctrine (including eschatology and pneumatology), and biblical studies, in particular with two substantial commentaries on 1 Corinthians. He is unusual in academic theology for publishing research-level works across such a broad range of topics…” from Wiki - Anthony Thiselton
Here's a description of one of his books on Amazon:
“Anthony Thiselton here brings together his encyclopedic knowledge of hermeneutics and his nearly four decades of teaching on the subject to provide a splendid interdisciplinary textbook. After a thorough historical overview of hermeneutics, Thiselton moves into modern times with extensive analysis of scholarship from the mid-twentieth century, including liberation and feminist theologies, reader-response and reception theory, and postmodernism. No other text on hermeneutics covers the range of writers and subjects discussed in Thiselton’s Hermeneutics.” From Hermeneutics: An Introduction Kindle Edition
I have a number of his books and I’m currently reading Thiselton on Hermeneutics Collected Works with New Essays . Sometimes I come across something that is thought-provoking and reminds me once again of the narrowminded TWI-mindset I was trapped in. I remember an old Sunday Night Teaching tape of wierwille saying we’re to be masters of the word – that may even have been in the title of the tape…Please bear with me for a sec, cuz I’ll come back to wierwille’s delusional self-importance and self-assumed authority OVER the Bible, sex, and anything else in life.
What’s interesting in Thiselton’s book is it does more than just get into the nuts and bolts of hermeneutics (such as syntax, Biblical languages, literary genres, etc.) he also gets into theory and philosophy of hermeneutics and besides offering his own ideas he also references others … One of them is Emilio Betti ( 1890 to 1968) who was an Italian jurist, Roman Law scholar, philosopher and theologian. He is best known for his contributions to hermeneutics, part of a broad interest in interpretation. Betti said “Nothing is of greater importance to humankind than living in mutual understanding with one’s fellow human beings…” and that it calls for the ethical virtues of patience, tolerance, openness, and respect for the other person.
Another thing that Thiselton points out in Betti’s work is that he attacked the self-centeredness of an epistemological tradition that takes the self as its starting-point and its center. In my humble opinion that describes wierwille’s theory of knowledge to a T , especially with regard to his dubious methods, self-assuming validity, biases, salacious topics, and phallocentric-creepiness to boot !
Another fascinating person Thiselton refers to is Friedrich Schleiermacher ( 1768 to 1834 ) a German Reformed theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Enlightenment with traditional Protestant Christianity. He also became influential in the evolution of higher criticism, and his work forms part of the foundation of the modern field of hermeneutics…and from Schleiermacher onwards the goal of hermeneutics has been that of LISTENING to “the other” , rather than seeking mastery of “objects” to know “on my terms”.
Another of Schleiermacher’s pithy observations was “in the interpretation it is essential that one be able to step out of one’s own frame of mind into that of the author.” As a former-huge-wierwille-fan who bought into wierwille’s bull$hit of “mastering the word” Schleiermacher’s pearls of wisdom hit me right between the eyes! I’ve come to believe an essential aspect of Bible study is to read for the author’s intended meaning – try to understand passages from the author’s perspective and not my own.
~ ~ ~ ~
I had debated whether I should say anything about his works on this thread “Christian Family and Sex” for fear of derailing it – or just out of respect for the original intent of the person who started this thread…but the more I thought about it, the more I thought about the corrective element of Grease Spot Café that seems to permeate this website – which for want of a better description seems to be for me like something of a godly-design to correct or counteract the harmful and undesirable theory and practice of The Way International…Sometimes I’ve thought of a metaphor for TWI as if it were a man-made structure picturing it as a closed system of stifling proportions that does not allow transfer of matter or energy in or out of the system…my inner sci-fi fan often thinks of it as a supermassive black hole .
Perhaps some folks come here and see everything as an either/or choice - of either TWI’s way or the Grease Spot way…but that’s a false dichotomy…I feel Grease Spot blows to smithereens ( via the Socratic method ) the erroneous premise that mistakenly limits what options are available when analyzing TWI’s theory and practice. I’m not saying everything is wrong in TWI’s “stuff” – but as a survivor of a harmful and controlling cult, I believe everything about TWI is suspect – because of the negative consequences I’ve experienced and observed…
…I think we could drive ourselves crazy trying to figure out the intentions or what motivates harmful and controlling cult-leaders…But we’re not God…we’re not mind-readers…as the old proverb goes “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” - wrong or evil actions are often undertaken with good intentions...and there’s another variation - good intentions when acted upon may have unintended consequences…and what are intentions anyway? They are merely guiding principles for our thoughts, attitudes, choices, and actions. Usually, our intentions make us feel good about the beliefs we have. But intentions become irrelevant if they are not aligned with actions.
I have been coming to Grease Spot since 2006 and one of the most noteworthy things about this website is that for the most part posters in relating their stories, ideas, and opinions, have usually focused – NOT on intentions or motives – but on actions, things that were said and done, observations, experiences, events, situations, and practical consequences…I really like that about Grease Spot - it causes me - and probably a lot of other folks - to look at how well the publicly stated intentions and goals of TWI align with Christian ideology.
It's difficult to resist the temptation to ponder WHY wierwille was so keen on pushing his depraved views of Christian family and sex. In the war for my soul, it’s like trying to figure out what is the objective of my enemy. That’s where I need to fortify my defenses. The genius strategy of wierwille was that it was an inside job. A war crime committed with the assistance of a person living on the premises where it occurred – me ! Absorbing wierwille’s sick ideology sabotaged my cognitive skills.
My wife and I were talking the other night about some of the stuff wierwille and LCM would say and do when we were in-residence training...and how much we dodged a bullet leaving TWI when we did. As a guy, I never fooled around on my wife…but who knows…if we had continued in TWI as way corps grads – how long would it take for all the toxic and depraved essence of wierwille’s ideology to really sink in? “Anything done in the love of God is okay ” ...Yikes - that attitude is playing with fire !!!!!!!!!!!!
I believe Jesus Christ set forth the two highest priorities for his followers in Matthew 22: 37 – 40 ...to love God and love your neighbor as yourself…It seems obvious to me that how we treat people matters to God...so it makes sense that we should judge ourselves on how we actually deal with people rather than judging ourselves on why we think we serve God's people... evaluating our actions to see if they are in tune with our ideology…a great thread on dealing with that issue is Were we taught to be jerks in TWI ?
Well…it’s like a lot of things Grease Spotters
Edited by T-BoneMy editor Herman recently developed some repeated spasms with his eyes and facial muscles. I said out loud “has anyone else noticed Herman’s new tics?”
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Nathan_Jr
Thanks T-Bone. I always appreciate your posts here, even if I don't read them all the way through. Your posts are looooonnnggg... and usually cover so much ground and so many tangential points.... well, it's just hard sometimes. LOL. I've been coming here for close to ten years and your words (all 7 trillion of them) are important to me. I read your entire post this time! (May I recommend Strunk and White.)
Thanks for recommending Thiselton. I'll check him out. I don't think I knew anything about hermeneutics or exegesis of biblical texts until I took "the class." I had to find out. So I did. On my own. Because I'm curious. It all may appeal to me because I was an English major and studied several languages. Explication of literary texts, textual criticism, it's like exegesis of scripture - it fits, you know, like a hand...
I don't adhere to any Judeo-Christian ideology. I don't claim any dogmatic doctrinal religious theology of any kind. I cling to no religious ideology whatsoever. But I do love Matt 22:37-40. I try to live my life by this principle. But not out of fear, or because the Bible says it - just because I simply don't know how else to live. Loving your neighbor is like loving God; loving God is like loving your neighbor. There is a trinity of love going on here: your self, your neighbor, God... if you get too bogged down in the weeds trying to MAKE it fit, you'll miss the point. It's ineffable, really. At least to me it is.
I come here to endeavor inquiry. And sometimes for catharsis. Those are my intentions, anyway.
Edited by Nathan_JrSo many hands, so few gloves.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Twinky
Thiselton seems like a brilliantly educated writer. Is his stuff readable, though, to a lay person? I looked at the Amazon "Look Inside" version and it's full of long words with specific meanings and I hesitate on the jargon aspect.
FYI he's considered a "conservative evangelist" in the Anglican tradition. Please don't think that's anything like American evangelism or right-wing Christianity. We "don't do that stuff" in the UK. Evangelism here is about proclaiming the gospel, not about politics.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
T-Bone
For me, this stuff is a hobby…it’s something I really enjoy - so I guess I don’t realize how involved it can get…I’m no intellectual – often I have to reread a paragraph of his and look up a lot of stuff online or in the dictionary…I completely understand your hesitancy.
And I’m with you on American evangelicalism / right-wing Christianity being more political than gospel oriented.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.