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The Absent Christ?


OldSkool
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It is preposterous to draw parallels of TWI with the Corinthian church. Paul addressed their lackadaisical attitude toward sin - it seems they were even proud of the fact that they were not being judgmental of sexual scandals known in the church. Paul was very emphatic that a little leaven affects the whole lump!

 

There was and still is a double standard in TWI. To the general TWI public it’s along the lines of “walk in the light and make no allowances for the flesh…walk an upright morally sound life.”  … YET  upper leadership - from founding president wierwille on down - they sexually preyed on women , WITH IMPUNITY !!!!

 

The big distinction in comparing the situation of Corinth  with TWI is that - in TWI one can see what happens when the moral demands of Christ are flagrantly ignored and persistent sin is like leaven that ultimately has consequences for the whole group.

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1 minute ago, T-Bone said:

It is preposterous to draw parallels of TWI with the Corinthian church. Paul addressed their lackadaisical attitude toward sin - it seems they were even proud of the fact that they were not being judgmental of sexual scandals known in the church. Paul was very emphatic that a little leaven affects the whole lump!

 

There was and still is a double standard in TWI. To the general TWI public it’s along the lines of “walk in the light and make no allowances for the flesh…walk an upright morally sound life.”  … YET  upper leadership - from founding president wierwille on down - they sexually preyed on women , WITH IMPUNITY !!!!

 

The big distinction in comparing the situation of Corinth  with TWI is that - in TWI one can see what happens when the moral demands of Christ are flagrantly ignored and persistent sin is like leaven that ultimately has consequences for the whole group.

Mike - I couldn't have said it any better.

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53 minutes ago, Rocky said:

Dude, I've been working on changing ever since I left twi. It's a journey.

Am I willing to acknowledge your position on biblical matters of any kind? I might be, if that was the focus of my journey these days. But it isn't. Too many other, more pertinent, things to learn and to do before it's all said and done and I take my last breath. :wink2:

 

Well the absent Christ was a pure doctrinal issue. The complaint was that it misled people and caused them to have a poor relationship with Jesus and God.  If you choose to make false doctrines something you ignore, I am not the one to complain about it.  Raf is not interested in the doctrine, but could see that this "absent Christ" was a bogus complaint, and hyped up negativity.  Maybe if you read the thread you could agree on that level.

 

50 minutes ago, Rocky said:

To succeed on that objective, it will take doing some emotional work. I hope you avail yourself of the insights I shared with video of Brene Brown.

Her insights can powerfully assist in that regard.

It's not like GSC is my only learning grounds.  It is pretty difficult to come in here all cheery and vulnerable and face the crowd with strength.  I did that for the first few days I was here, but alphacat  launched a campaign against me as soon as he recognized me.  Actually, he started that campaign a couple of months against me BEFORE i came and posted my first post. When he recognized me it was a pile on. 

There's no defense in vulnerability when it's almost a literary gang-rape.  I fought hard, and suddenly people who dished it out could not handle it when it came back at them. 

I see how vulnerability works with dogs often, but it requires a semi-serene atmosphere.  Once a fight starts it often must go to the death, because their vulnerability-signal is to expose the neck while on their backs.  I thought I did that in the serenity of last night when I offered you some options to make things go smoother for you.

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1 hour ago, OldSkool said:

Mike - I couldn't have said it any better.

Well I did say it better, but T-bone missed it.
What we see in the NT are the beginnings of the crazy negatives that devil inspired Christians can do to each other.  In the next century it got worse, after Paul died. The early negativity swirls got worse as the centuries ticked by. The early stuff is documented so we can spot the early signs of it and halt it. 

 

Did you spot anything and blow the whistle on it ever?  I did.  My twig and I came up with a precursor to the John Scheonheit paper on adultery about 6 years before him.  I was flabbergasted when I first saw his paper in 1987.  We in my twig saw the early warning signs and did an extensive 2 week study on adultery and fornication in our Young's Concordance.  Amateurs though we were, we mirrored what was in that famous 1986 paper around 1981.  His paper had 14 appendixes to bust "pick-up lines" and ours handled 10 of them.

Edited by Mike
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Something I think a lot of big wierwille fans miss is the disparity of wierwille’s claim and supposed ministry of teaching “the Word” like it hasn’t been known since the 1st century and the actual beginnings of Christianity. 

 

1st century church had NO   KJV Bibles, most NT docs weren’t even compiled till toward the end of the 1st century. What they DID HAVE was the Lord Jesus Christ as the head of the church and His apostles to oversee in an official capacity the work of Christ’s church. From what we gather in reading the NT is that Christ and His apostles ran a really tight ship.

 

Now let’s zip back to wierwille and way-world. He ran a supposedly Biblical research teaching and fellowship ministry. We’ve got printed Bibles - entire OT and NT in one book - in many translations and versions - and all kinds of Biblical resources in book and on computer.

But you know what wierwille missed? He didn’t PRACTICE what he preached. He was a supreme hypocrite, a thief a liar a plagiarist a sexual predator and as head of TWI he was a law unto himself.

 

Know what else he missed? That Christ is LORD and head of His church.

Edited by T-Bone
Typos of the 21st century
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3 hours ago, OldSkool said:

Play the victim...then become the agressor....then play the victim...rinse...repeat.

Don't forget being the rescuer. That's the third leg of the drama triangle. If you're one, you're probably all three.

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8 minutes ago, So_crates said:

Don't forget being the rescuer. That's the third leg of the drama triangle. If you're one, you're probably all three.

Yeah...hes that too...Mike's here to convert us back to pfal from our negative ways.

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5 hours ago, Mike said:

Response: Maybe if you had a group of people pounding on you from all directions, many hateful, many insincere, many only trying to play gotcha, then you'd accept my reasons for dodging some times. 

You know the typical ministry response? It's your believing. If you believe people are out to get you then they are.

There's also the factor that I don't go into the opposite political party's forums and start espousing my ideals and expect them to want to ask questions and say "Please tell us more."

5 hours ago, Mike said:


Time is another factor.  When I have it (like lately) then I try to answer more.  I explained how I don;t like to go down rabbit holes of negativity. 

It isn't a rabbit hole, it's as real as you being here is real.

5 hours ago, Mike said:

I know they are there,

Do you? I'm sure you give lip service, but your words say otherwise.

5 hours ago, Mike said:

and have been down them at times, but i never see any solutions there, so I avoid them.

The solution is to not allow yourself to be duped again.

5 hours ago, Mike said:

May I make a peace offering to you. like I did with Rocky, and answer any ONE question that nags at you that I have either dodged or not had time to get to?  No guarantees, like I said to him, but I will try. 

Didn't the ministry say trying is a half heart attempt with the foreknowledge of failure?

I prefer Yoda: "No try. Do. No do."

5 hours ago, Mike said:

Did you see that offer of mine to him?

Yes I did?

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8 hours ago, Mike said:

Looks like you have not read how I corrected this error of yours.

If you have read my position of NOT ignoring the negatives and only shunting them off for private handling, and still maintain what you just posted, then it is you who have head in sand.

Maybe in the past 2 hours you did read or re-read better what I am saying to you today.

Repeat:  I do not want to magnify the negatives to the top of my public posting priorities, but I do give the negatives (in private) ample time to hear, process, and search for solutions.

I disagree with your whole frame of positives and negatives as it frames any conversation around biblical truth with your distortion of how the truth receives PFAL or not.

I do not believe that you give any other view than your PFAL colored glasses ample time to hear or process because a decade later and your logic has not progressed beyond that same avoidance of any conversation about VP that might be unpleasant.

But you keep repeating some opinion about you correcting my error?

There is no error.  There is just logic I present that challenges your statements so you ignore it and make up false stories about what you are doing in your mind.

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8 hours ago, Mike said:

 

If I wanted to ignore the negatives, I simply would not come here and hear them constantly. Think that through for a minute.

What you posted above may have applied to some mature grad back in the 70s, but certainly not to me in the 2020s.  

Well what you do is very similar to what the Way leadership does.  Refuse to talk about anything that could possibly reflect badly on Gods chosen ministry.

Whitewash.  It’s a beautiful thing.  See?  You only have to look at the white surface?  Who cares what is under that coat?

God does.  That is why God inspires people to speak things that you consider negative.

Maybe if it bothers you that much you should take it up with the One inspiring us.

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3 hours ago, Mike said:

I'm not going to budge on the Word, but I am always trying to better communicate. I am learning there.

Are YOU capable of change, and admitting that the "absent Christ" is a good thing, and that we were taught rightly there? 

It's all in this thread.  I won't budge on the doctrine I posted here, but I can modify how I express it.  Find me a post that should be re-written here in this thread and we can discuss it.

But the doctrine of the absent Christ is sound as we were taught it.  Yes, some got it wrong.  At least we can correct their error here and move on. Even Raf had to admit this "absent christ crisis" is phoney.  It is hyped up negativity, and incorrect.  Can you relax long enough to admit that?
 

 

The doctrine of the absent Christ is one hundred percent horse puckey centered around Jesus telling his followers they would do works like he did and greater.

So the Way has never ever ever duplicated any of the works of Christ despite VP making up stories about trains that match withered hand records of Jesus.

The greater works they say is pressing a DVD player button and watch people being herded into public SIT at the end of a class.  While they stack chairs.

All I got to say is some of us are gonna be way more surprised when Jesus returns than others.

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1 hour ago, So_crates said:

Didn't the ministry say trying is a half heart attempt with the foreknowledge of failure?

I prefer Yoda: "No try. Do. No do."

 

COMMON GROUND ALERT !!!

I agree with you on this!
I have seen that kind of thing in the TVTs.
TVT means Twi Verbal Tradition

(That reminds me that we probably have a lot of common-ground righteous gripes in the TVT collection we hammered out here in the early 2000s here.  That would be a pretty unique archive search word, TVT.)

*/*/*/*

Yes, common ground on the mis-use of common English words and their definitions in everyday life.

"Trying is a half heart attempt with the foreknowledge of failure."

That is a perfect example of a good phrase for the gym, or baseball team, but terrible in real life. 

I saw that meme misapplied often in TVT behavior.

It especially is misapplied when referring to the past. "But I tried! "

Here is how I fight it: 

When I am expressing an idea that uses one of these "loaded" words like "try" and I run into that stupid brick wall, I have a strategy.  This only works if I am in the right, and they misapply  the meme. Sometimes I am wrong and that meme could be properly applied to me.
 

When they blurt out that meme, I look them in the eye, and with a demanding voice, say something like:

“Ok, YOU come up with the right word for my situation!   If you know what I am trying to communicate, that should be easy for you!  Ok, time's up. Listen better to the IDEA that I am expressing, not the vocabulary, and shut up until you understand it!  THEN we can both come up with a better word than try.”

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Mike said:

When they blurt out that meme, I look them in the eye, and with a demanding voice, say something like:

“Ok, YOU come up with the right word for my situation!   If you know what I am trying to communicate, that should be easy for you!  Ok, time's up. Listen better to the IDEA that I am expressing, not the vocabulary, and shut up until you understand it!  THEN we can both come up with a better word than try.”

So when you're confronted with the ministry philosophy you claim to enspouse, you get cheesed off and turn into the incredible hulk, huh? 

I see you think it's okay for you to reprove others, but heaven help those that reprove you.

A better term? How about: "I'll make the effort*?

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9 minutes ago, So_crates said:

So when you're confronted with the ministry philosophy you claim to enspouse, you get cheesed off and turn into the incredible hulk, huh? 

I see you think it's okay for you to reprove others, but heaven help those that reprove you.

A better term? How about: "I'll make the effort*?

Not sure what you mean with the bold fonts.  I think you have a sloppy read on me and my positions, but I could be wrong.

No, I'm not the hulk type.  When I used the words "something like" up there I meant this was the goal in detail of how to deal with mis-applications of that otherwise decent meme. It took me years to come up with that idea for responding, and I have had a chance to practice my lines a little, but they didn't come out quite that hulky.

"I see you think it's okay for you to reprove others, but heaven help those that reprove you."
Sorry, that is out of the blue wrong. You completely misread me there.  Did you see the wording where I said "This only works when I am right"  ??? it sounds like you glossed over them inattentive.

You are focused on the exact words of my response, and not the ideas.  Funny, that should come up!  I should call Douglas Hofstadter about this. 

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1 hour ago, chockfull said:

Well what you do is very similar to what the Way leadership does.  Refuse to talk about anything that could possibly reflect badly on Gods chosen ministry.

Whitewash.  It’s a beautiful thing.  See?  You only have to look at the white surface?  Who cares what is under that coat?

God does.  That is why God inspires people to speak things that you consider negative.

Maybe if it bothers you that much you should take it up with the One inspiring us.

 Why is it you have avoided my explanations above where I negated all that by saying  I  DO look at these negative things in private, with those who need it, and I only post publically what I feel qualified to post, which are the positives.

But thanks for being such a sloppy reader, or deliberate obfuscator, because it allowed me to say AGAIN for others, that I prefer and insist on negatives being in private and at a lower priority FOR ME.

My public posting is devoted to helping us all remember what went right.  All these negatives are out in the open, and need no more attention, especially from me.

<speaking close to the vest>

Now, I should answer another one of your posts to distract you from carefully reading the above paragraphs, and thus allowing me to repeat it the next time you forget to address what I actually say.

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17 minutes ago, Mike said:

"I see you think it's okay for you to reprove others, but heaven help those that reprove you."

:rolleyes: 

 

17 minutes ago, Mike said:

Sorry, that is out of the blue wrong. You completely misread me there.  Did you see the wording where I said "This only works when I am right"  ??? it sounds like you glossed over them inattentive.

Nobody here is able to read your mind. It MIGHT be easier to figure out what you really mean if we were face to face. We're not, so there's no body language to enhance your communication.

Bottom line is you HAVE said essentially the meaning/message Socrates responded to NUMEROUS times. One time acknowledging you might not always be right doesn't outweigh.

Really, Mike, you are overmatched on GSC and always have been.

I don't believe you when you claim you have won GSC hearts over to your side/view.

IF you see (read) that you have been misunderstood, telling the person they are wrong is an unfruitful way to clarify your message.

IF you see (read) someone and you believe the person has misunderstood you, you might be more effective to say "It appears I wasn't clear, here's another way for me to state my message. I hope I succeed in making it clear.

ANY time you blame the other person for getting your meaning wrong, you are BLAMING them, when they aren't able to control how you convey your intended message.

That's ONE key to why people don't accept your 20 years of saying the same damn thing.

Edited by Rocky
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1 hour ago, chockfull said:

The doctrine of the absent Christ is one hundred percent horse puckey centered around Jesus telling his followers they would do works like he did and greater.

So the Way has never ever ever duplicated any of the works of Christ despite VP making up stories about trains that match withered hand records of Jesus.

The greater works they say is pressing a DVD player button and watch people being herded into public SIT at the end of a class.  While they stack chairs.

All I got to say is some of us are gonna be way more surprised when Jesus returns than others.

I rest on the words of Jesus here:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

I also like what he says about believing.

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3 minutes ago, Mike said:

Not sure what you mean with the bold fonts.  I think you have a sloppy read on me and my positions, but I could be wrong.

That's your sales pitch isn't it? Way and Weirwille all the time.

3 minutes ago, Mike said:

No, I'm not the hulk type. 

Maybe not physically, but you think you are verbally, as your words attest.

3 minutes ago, Mike said:

When I used the words "something like" up there I meant this was the goal in detail of how to deal with mis-applications of that otherwise decent meme. It took me years to come up with that idea for responding, and I have had a chance to practice my lines a little, but they didn't come out quite that hulky.

Didn't come out that hulky, in your opinion. There was a lot of emotions in your words s lot of anger.

What would I do? Probably palm it off as a joke back at them like: "And you're trying to make a point by trying to ruffle my feathers? Try harder!"

3 minutes ago, Mike said:

"I see you think it's okay for you to reprove others, but heaven help those that reprove you."
Sorry, that is out of the blue wrong. You completely misread me there.  Did you see the wording where I said "This only works when I am right"  ??? it sounds like you glossed over them inattentive.

Really. You snap at someone who repeats a meme and you claim I misread you?

3 minutes ago, Mike said:

You are focused on the exact words of my response, and not the ideas.  Funny, that should come up!  I should call Douglas Hofstadter about this. 

Do that and I'll call Johnny Jump up and Maggie Muggins.

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4 minutes ago, Mike said:

I rest on the words of Jesus here:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

I also like what he says about believing.

You rest on words that YOU apparently recognize but don't really acknowledge you haven't effectively communicated.

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29 minutes ago, So_crates said:

That's your sales pitch isn't it? Way and Weirwille all the time.

 

Absolutely NOT !!!

I am accused of that often, and you may have read those accusations.
Or you surmised that wrong, ...dead wrong.

TWI was wrong about LOTS of things. 

I just got done saying that lots of the TVTs were wrong.

Lots of TWI policies were horribly wrong after 1986, some before.

I have thought the the Way Corps was either a mistake or badly managed.

I witnessed VPW say that he was wrong about PFAL'77 being a replacement for the class.

VPW admitted on tape, and on his tombstone that he blew it.

The First John Epistle told me when I first took the class that VPW had sin in his life, and I never supposed that was stealing nickle candy bars.

No, there were policy errors and deliberate sins at the top. There always are!  ONE kind or type or another.

The GREAT positive I believe is that God works with sinners like me and you and VPW, as far as we are willing to go.

The great positive that went right in VPW's life is that God worked with him to pull together what God wanted.  This process was aided by lots of smart people with great spiritual ability.

It is the finished product that I preach is to be thankful for and that is the collaterals, in their final edit. God worked with the editors.  I knew some personally. I heavily interviewed most of them, including Karen Martin a little. I need to get back to her, because we were interrupted by her brother's death.
 

I believe the collaterals are God-breathed and good food for us to master.
That is the best of the best in this ministry. 
I study them, and they help me read deeper into the Bible.


I think TWI and VPW did some other good things, but lots of things went wrong also.

I am thankful for what went right: the collaterals.

That is my pitch. 

Never did I endorse all of TWI and all of VPW.

I believe the collaterals are God-breathed and good food for us to master.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Mike
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40 minutes ago, Mike said:

The GREAT positive I believe is that God works with sinners like me and you and VPW, as far as we are willing to go.

As always you forget the one caveat: He will go with us as far as we are willing to go, IF we repent, as in change our act.

The whole idea of God favoring a person refusing to repent is full of trapdoors.

God doesn't bless people who don't repent. How do I know? If God is going to shower blessings on an alcoholic rake, who made it his life's mission to see how many commandments he could break, the why should I follow the bible? Why don't I follow Saint Vic's example and let grace abound for me? After all, God is no respecter of persons, right?

Ridiculous isn't it? So why isn't it ridiculous to believe God would rewrite every law in the universe to accommodate Saint Vic?

Edited by So_crates
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26 minutes ago, So_crates said:

As always you forget the one caveat: He will go with us as far as we are willing to go, IF we repent, as in change our act.

God doesn't bless people who don't repent. How do I know? If God is going to shower blessings on an alcoholic rake, who made it his life's mission to see how many commandments he could break, the why should I follow the bible? Why don't I follow Saint Vic's example and let grace abound for me? After all, God is no respecter of persons, right?

Ridiculous isn't it? So why isn't it ridiculous to believe God would rewrite every law in the universe to accommodate Saint Vic?

 

 

It is not ridiculous when you see it from the RIGHT angle.

"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."

You are looking at the wrong guy.  I don't. Why are you? 

Edited by Mike
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18 minutes ago, Mike said:

It is not ridiculous when you see it from the RIGHT angle.

"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."

You are looking at the wrong guy.  I don't. Why are you? 

So now you're trying to compare Saint Vic with Jesus Christ? Remember Christ was without sin.

Otherwise you seem to have this backwards.

I'm looking at it from God's POV as per what He wrote in His Word.

You seem to be trying to rationalize Saint Vic's behavior, seeing it from a man's POV then trying to make excuses for his (lower case h) poor judgement.

 

 

Edited by So_crates
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"It's not like GSC is my only learning grounds.  It is pretty difficult to come in here all cheery and vulnerable and face the crowd with strength.  I did that for the first few days I was here, but alphacat  launched a campaign against me as soon as he recognized me.  Actually, he started that campaign a couple of months against me BEFORE i came and posted my first post. When he recognized me it was a pile on. "

 

[That may be how you remember it (and your memories often seem to differ wildly with what the written posts say and people remember- but that's hardly news by now), but that's not how it happened.   It was never personal against YOU- except when you insisted on making it so.]

 

"There's no defense in vulnerability when it's almost a literary gang-rape.  I fought hard, and suddenly people who dished it out could not handle it when it came back at them. "

 

[A literary gang-rape?   Something in one of Charles Dickens' books where the stevedores surrounded some young heroine?      Again, this is how you remember it= after lots of editing to make you look much better and everyone else looks worse.  IN YOUR MIND, you haven't lost an argument here yet.  However, the rest of us and the board itself are not in your mind, and so there's disparities of accounts.]

 

"I see how vulnerability works with dogs often, but it requires a semi-serene atmosphere.  Once a fight starts it often must go to the death, because their vulnerability-signal is to expose the neck while on their backs.  I thought I did that in the serenity of last night when I offered you some options to make things go smoother for you."

 

[I hope nobody's counting on you as their expert on canine behavior, because intra-pack fights RARELY go to the death, and inter-pack fights RARELY do so either. (The one exception I'm aware of got lots of attention among naturalists because it actually was a rare exception.)  If a fight goes, it goes to either a submission, or until one canine is driven off.   But, again, you insist on seeing things through your own lenses, so there's disparities between your posts and reality.]

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