This is how I responded until about the last 5 years we were in. Thats when we got the leadership from hell. At first they scared me into obediance, then I started to be resentful of their constant intrusian into every facit of our lives. Especially when they started telling me when I could or couldn't go to my son's baseball games, I had to keep a record of everything I did during the day in 15 minute intervals, I hadda do a lot of lying on that then ask God for forgiveness cuz I didn't give every waking moment of my life to TWI.
Thats when I really started to beleive that there was something seriously wrong with LCM and TWI, all that cussing and homo bashing got old real quick. So I started to pray to God that I could leave TWI without loosing my husband. THEN I started thinking and praying to God to get me OUT no matter what.
The last straw was when they blamed us for our son running away (we later found out he was running from TWI not us). They said we were no longer suitable? to run a twig and they called our assistant twig coor. and his wife over to our house and took our twig away and gave it to them. On their part there was alot of cussing, screaming, and table pounding going on. We were told that we had to face the whole branch and I guess confess our sin's? what sin's?
After they left I finally told my husband that I was not going to this meeting or mental crucifiction? I said I was getting out of TWI as of that night and glory be my hubby said he wanted out too for a long time but didn't think I would go too. HHHMM so much for communication huh? So we finally left, thank you God for answering our prayers. BTW the whole rest of our twig left with us except the couple who took our twig. and we had about 30- 40 people in our twig so they TWI lost alot of ABS. hee hee. P.S. our son ran away because of abuse by leader from hell. :D--> :D--> This is how we feel now and all of us are prospering. And we still tithe but not to TWI. ;)-->
Yeah Oak I started to see the bad press too about TWI around that time peroid. I have to say the media did like a lot things never seem to get the story quite right and TWI was no exception. I remeber the full media blitz being in full force when Takit performed I think around 81 with that "Take A Stand Caravan" or whatever it was called. Dam it was all over the papers and hostlie crowds greeted us lovely TWI folks as we entered the theatre in Minneapolis.I felt sorry for the Way peole living here then as I drove back home ! Even my boss had heard of Takit as I asked for time off ! sheeeesh He got it from the paper ! lol I for one was never too impressed with the media on the coverage and dam Int'l would have made a great 60 minute spot ! Probally just too many cults and a lawsuit about LCM doesn't make much of a ripple outside of The New Knoxville area. What was interesting to me was as soon as Takit left town all was forgotton in our news. They also did an article on TWI in my hometown which was half accurate. Dam lousy reporting I thought !I had conditioned myself too against any bad press but most of what I read was pretty crappy reporting. Hey I found my WOW name tage from 75. Is WOW still a radio station in Omaha ? Dam they thought we were radio WOW'S ! Excuse the side bar talk Oak ! Maybe some have some articles they can post on here ?
I first heard bad press about TWI in 1979. My girlfriend and her mother had taken PFAL, and had both left in the face of family pressure following a divorce. I was in the hospital for a few days for some minor surgery and they brought me a pile of press clippings about TWI.
Most of it centered on doctrine. "They're a cult because they believe that Jesus ain't Gawd". The other stuff was so bizarre, and outside what I was experiencing that I couldn't believe that any of it was true.
During my deprogramming, I had the "pleasure" of "examining" a large binder of press clippings and letters which supposedly showed how bad TWI was. As Oak points out, stuff from the outside tends to reek with lack of authority. Some of the letters were interesting because thay had some stuff from the inside, but one didn't have the intended effect. It was a letter protesting Ohio University's decision to allow the use (rental) of its facilities for advanced class '79. The reasons the protester gave seemed to be taken from the clippings. Furthermore, and I think this was an "oversight", the letter was accomanied by the university's reply which made basically two points...that the decision to allow the rental use was not made on the group's (TWI) religious beliefs, and also that information obtained from Ball State University officials referred very favorably to TWI's care of their facilities during PFAL '77.
BTW, the "Jesus Christ is not God" thing was apparently a prime motivator in arranging my deprogramming, in which a certain Lutheran Church was involved.
I remember getting a phone call at work from my worried mother who had seen a report on local TV in the north west of England (I was living in Bristol and didn't see it) about TWI.
It had apparantly latched on to the holocaust denial theory and also the use of guns in Corpse training programmes. The Limb leader Robert Wilkinson had refused to be interviewed which added to her suspicions.
I then knew nothing about the denial but I told her that the guns bit was specific to the USA and was training only, that not everyone in TWI had to carry a gun or be prepared to use it. That I would not be involved with something that had been presented as so extreme and potentially dangerous.
The gun aspect was picked up in the national press with such headlines as "US gun cult moves in." Jewish groups picketed the European WOW Festival that year because of the holocaust denial and it was only then I heard of this aspect. Robert Wilkinson explained his refusal to be interviewed as the negative way the reporters had approached him. I guess we all tried to make light work of this incident at the time and as I showed no sign of becoming a gun toting assassin my mother never raised it again although she remained unhappy with my continued involvement.
I remember listening to a tape about an attempted deprogramming from one of the sunday night services. It was clear that the emphasis was upon the immorality of deprogramming and that it was not done for altruistic motives but for money. This made me feel resentful towards the deprogrammers rather than TWI. If we were being so hated then we must be doing something right.
I think that we had to learn by experience about the negative things about TWI. Anything we were told or anything we heard or read could be dismissed as propoganda and lies. They did not like what TWI believed and because they could not refute those beliefs biblically they could only resort to tactics like this. That some of the assertions made were demonstrably false only strengthened our resolve and commitment.
I did not see any long term effects of the negative publicity over here. We were too small and insignificant to hold the attention of the media for too long and soon put it to the back of our minds.
When I started going to things they would talk about how we were called a cult and that for people to be attacking us so vehemently we must be doing something right. The adversary didn't want people to learn the truth so he was attacking us through bad publicity and lies and rumors.
After hearing that and loving the "truth" I was being taught I simply dismissed anything negative that was said. If someone had insisted that it was a bad group I probably would have gotten very ugly and rude. I'm so glad my family didn't try that because I would have quit talking to them.
I saw too many people making outrageous claims that were so obviously false or exaggerated that I didn't believe any of it.
Mainstream media relies so much on sensationalism that showing the truth about psychological manipulation and control is just too dull. Can't keep people's eyes glued to the ads that way; we have to have stories of paramilitary training or something. Pictures of sad little frightened sheep with fake smiles singing the same &*^% songs every night just won't sell. Stories of sexual abuse are of course sensational enough - but until there's proof, why would a mainstream news source risk legal action (and its credibility) to address them? I believe many of them now, but if all I had to go on was the word of "disgruntled ex-followers," my BS meter would have been through the roof. Keep in mind that I believed we were in a spiritual battle and the Adversary would make up anything he could to sow seeds of doubt.
Religious groups were... religious groups. They had their panties in such a wad over the trinity that they had nothing else of substance to offer - and unless you've been a victim of the manipulation (brainwashing, if you prefer - and I do), you wouldn't understand the real danger anyway. They were just upset because we had a different flavor of caca to sell so they were easy to ignore or ridicule.
I never paid much attention to the internet because honestly, it's a horrible source of information. 90% of what you see is made up or exaggerated and the other 10% is too subjective to take seriously. This is the internet on the whole, not anti-Way sites. I never paid attention to Waydale at all and only peeked at Greasespot when all my questions and concerns were answered with "Sounds like you've been listening to those people on the internet. You need to read 'Christians Should be Prosperous' and take the Class again." After a few dozen times of hearing that, I started thinking that if other people were coming to the same conclusions I was, there must be something to it.
In short, I don't know how much good the truth does anyone unless they've already been moving along those lines independently. When you believe you're in a spiritual battle and even hardcore proof is suspect because you can't trust your five senses and native intelligence, all you can really rely on is the cult making such huge mistakes that you can't help but step back and ask questions.
The good news is, TWI has been run by f'ups for years and they're only getting worse as time goes on. Incompetence could be their downfall in the end...
If I happened to run into someone who thought twi was off the wall, I asked them to come see for themselves whether it was off the wall or not. Have them decide for themselves, rather than take someone else's word for it. The couple of folks I knew who were in that category never checked it out for themselves, seemed like they had their minds already made up, so after that, I had little respect for them, even contempt, for speaking about something they thought they knew so much about, without any experiences. It's one thing to speak from experience; that I can try to respect and understand. But it's entirely another to speak from gossip alone.
And yeah, in those days lots of folks thought we were a cult all because of JCING.
I took the same approach and did have a few takers. One changed her mind and started coming. The other saw that she was wrong but actually told me she "liked being miserable." (No, really) Another had heard the really crazy stuff like we duck taped you to a chair and kept you there like the deprogrammers. Had some coworkers come, etc. No one came away with a bad impression because I think my first twig was pretty cool. Great folks who genuinely loved each other.
For myself, most of the stories I had heard seemed just a little too outrageous to be true. Paramilitary camps, devil worship, etc. Maybe they had us confused with Ozzy Osbourne? :-) As I've said before, we lived pretty far from any corpse or leaders so we probably got spared a lot.
They never seemed to have much "real" substance to me... of course back then (the 70's) there was a pro-active stance by TWI to help thwart these "attacks"... I don't recall ever hearing of anything much that took me by surprise...
They (TWI) would say, "they'll say this.. and they'll say that... but here's where they're all wrong..." so, we were always pretty much 'prepared'...
Like I said though, most of the stuff I always heard lacked substance... now... if they'd told us about a lot of the crap we've since come to learn, that'd be a different sto-ree! But to just come at me with "they don't believe this or that" was nothing... heck I already knew that!
IMO, many anti-cults writers as just as disingenouus as the cults they attempt to expose. Like others have said, they tend not to get their facts straight.
I read quite a bit of anti-TWI stuff back in the mid to late 70's. In one cult book I found at the a mall bookstore, TWI was 5th on the list, wedged in between the Unification Church and Alcohlics Anomymous.
As I recall, the main complaint by anti-cultists was TWI's rejection of the Trinity. It seem apparent to me that most of the these anti-cult writers were really only defending their own sacred cow in the Trinity (as if a groups that espouses the Trninity cannot be a cult). Considering TWI's growth in the 70's/ 80's, TWI was a threat to mainstreamers whose children might could be pulled away from the sacred cow of the Trinity.
The Trininty complaint was usually followed by an expose on Wierwille's phoney academic credentials, and then some usually inaccurate descriptions of Way Corps and WOW programs.
If the writer was a Cessationist (mostly Southern Baptists) they might attack TWI's practice of speaking in tougues, healing, etc.
It probably wasn't until after I got out of TWI that many of the anti-cult writers had much of a clue about the true nature of cults and what made TWI one. It was much deeper than the Trinity and other doctrinal issues.
But anyway, back then when I heard negatives about TWI, I just shrugged them off because they were mostly inaccurate or just doctrinal disputes. It was the inside stuff that bugged me.
For the most part I didn't hear much bad news about it, although I do remember it making an "Ask Sam" article in the local paper when I was a lot younger. TWI leaders basically told us how it was just a bunch of B.S., an attack from the adversary, etc. Quite a few people wrote to the paper to complain, and that was about the end of it. The other sources were basically family members who were not in, such as one of my grandmothers who viewed TWI as "better than nothing" when it came to religious beliefs. My other grandparents refused to attend TWI functions when they visited us, and since my parents ran a home fellowship in their house, my grandparents would sit upstairs and wait for it to be over. I'm not entirely sure what they thought of it, as I didn't discuss it with them. I did discuss it some with an uncle who I rarely see, but I was drunk so I don't really remember what we said. I remember him being worried about my immediate family for being in TWI though. He probably heard the same reports that Trefor's mom did, I would imagine.
All in all, the desire to leave and to change my life came from the inside. There was nothing anyone else could do, I had to realize for myself that it was bad and leave.
Yes it's certainly true that a lot of people were prepared to judge TWI as a cult upon the one issue - denial of the Trinity.
When I was WOW we met some christian people in Hull market place and we were getting on very well discussing the Bible etc. The next week we saw them again and they were very different in their attitude - they had found out that we did not believe in the Trinity and walked off calling us a Cult.
They would have done that even if there was no other reason. Whereas the media wouldn't have worried too much about that aspect, for other churches it was indeed the keystone by which TWI was judged.
The only negative things I encountered was from family back when the Jim Jones stuff was happening. They did not know much about twi, and were concerned that I might be involved with something similar.
I was able to make them see that we were no "Jim Jones" outfit, and they were content. There has been over the years, "bad press" from the media, but I basically blew them off since (as others have already stated) they came across with a lot of accusations, and no proof to back up their claims.
quote: I remeber the full media blitz being in full force when Takit performed I think around 81 with that "Take A Stand Caravan" or whatever it was called. Dam it was all over the papers and hostlie crowds greeted us lovely TWI folks as we entered the theatre in Minneapolis.
Doug -- You were there then??? So was I! I was working a retail job at the time, and got off at 5 pm, and had to really haul a$$ to get there for the beginning of the show at 7:30. I did 150 miles in just under one and a half hours. I remember all the bad press the papers, etc., gave those guys from Takit, as well as the protesters out front.
I walked into the theater, and there was some wanna-be-rock-and-roller telling Dean Ellenwood that he should be allowed on stage to "jam" with Takit. -->
Dean was glad to see me (he used to be my twig leader back in Indiana), and used my being there to get rid of the wanna-be guy. :D-->
For me...My sister and brother-in-law came out to Iowa to deprograme me. I was a WOW in Ames and that was their mission.Well they never got past 1st base and left me alone.
Oddly enough they got involved with a Bible study group that was much like TWI. They attended for years and later was "marked and avoided" They have since gotten through the craziness of it and still live in Iowa.
I saw Takit and love the show. It was in Ca. early 80's or late 70's I think. After we went out wow and F9 we came back to Ca. and guess who's twig we were put in...Tom Saffold and Takit all of them, what a great time we had, Tom was so funny, Vicky and I could talk for hours along with Nancy Mesquite. Wish I could see them again. If any of you are lurking in here I Love You. And would love to get an e-mail from any of you then I will tell you my real name. Love, Dovey
A few years back now, I made contact with a woman here in Melbourne who was doing exit councelling on cult members and I expressed some interest in getting involved. The first thing she asked me was whether I believed in Jesus Christ.
I said I didnt.
Then she said "Well how can you councel people out of cults if you dont believe in Christ."
Well, I was too stunned to reply.
But I think if you are interested in planting future seed in peoples minds with the aim of waking them up to the cult they are in, then you are better off finding out what THEY are concerned with about their cult.
Its no use throwing (say)a whole load of "False Prophecy" evidences at JWs. It doesnt work.
You ask questions and, say, discover that they have had some miserable experiences with "judicial committees"who were harsh and unfeeling.
Then you give them evidences of even more shockingly harsh judicial committee practises than even what they have experienced.
You have to get off your own personal agenda / interest (false prophecy, or whatever) and get onto theirs.
I recall investigating the "cult" charges before I got involved, and I agree, most were doctrinal in nature.
The few that were not doctrinal, I either didn't believe or, frankly, didn't care about.
"Wierwille was a plagiarist." I never denied that, but I never cared either because plagiarism does not affect the content of the finished product. If it called Wierwille's integrity into question, that didn't matter to me because my involvement was not centered around or dependent on the integrity of VPW.
"Wierwille said God talked to him and promised that God would teach him blah blah blah..."
My response: Well, at least God didn't try to extort $8 million from Wierwille's followers by threatening his life.
The guns thing was no longer happening, and the hunting course explanation seemed credible.
I thought the Myth of the Sixth Million and other Anti-Semitic accusations were outright lies. It wasn't until these Web Sites came online that I realized this was true.
I was not concerned about the allegations of "adultery" committed by a dead man, and by the time I heard rumors of sexual misconduct involving Martindale, I was just about out the door.
Quote:"The rating system I developed doesn't use religious criteria to characterize a group as a cult ... TWI in my opinion is a category 5 militant cult on a scale of 6..."
What criteria are those PJ? Id be most intertested in hearing your theory.
I remember one article about Twi that mocked VPW's account from the Way Living In Love about the snow storm. I think TWI was pretty good at keeping their deep dirty secrets from the media. At that time I remember you had "The Children Of God" "The Moonies" and they seemed to really get the bad press. Having been raised Catholic the term cult never really meant anything and amazing how that so called very large cult kept dirty secrets hidden pretty well too !As bad as TWI was there were worse groups out there but that to me, that does not excuse their behavoir and some left with less scars than others and me I still have some anger I am working through ! Maybe I should call a reporter and see if another media story should be written or even if it's worth repoting ? A an updated story and maybe call it "The Way and What The HELL Happened ? No pasing pasties either ! Probally not worth the ink ! TWI sucks ! Excuse me .
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wyteduv58
Thats when I really started to beleive that there was something seriously wrong with LCM and TWI, all that cussing and homo bashing got old real quick. So I started to pray to God that I could leave TWI without loosing my husband. THEN I started thinking and praying to God to get me OUT no matter what.
The last straw was when they blamed us for our son running away (we later found out he was running from TWI not us). They said we were no longer suitable? to run a twig and they called our assistant twig coor. and his wife over to our house and took our twig away and gave it to them. On their part there was alot of cussing, screaming, and table pounding going on. We were told that we had to face the whole branch and I guess confess our sin's? what sin's?
After they left I finally told my husband that I was not going to this meeting or mental crucifiction? I said I was getting out of TWI as of that night and glory be my hubby said he wanted out too for a long time but didn't think I would go too. HHHMM so much for communication huh? So we finally left, thank you God for answering our prayers. BTW the whole rest of our twig left with us except the couple who took our twig. and we had about 30- 40 people in our twig so they TWI lost alot of ABS. hee hee. P.S. our son ran away because of abuse by leader from hell.
:D--> 
:D--> 
This is how we feel now and all of us are prospering. And we still tithe but not to TWI. 
;)-->
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dougie73
Yeah Oak I started to see the bad press too about TWI around that time peroid. I have to say the media did like a lot things never seem to get the story quite right and TWI was no exception. I remeber the full media blitz being in full force when Takit performed I think around 81 with that "Take A Stand Caravan" or whatever it was called. Dam it was all over the papers and hostlie crowds greeted us lovely TWI folks as we entered the theatre in Minneapolis.I felt sorry for the Way peole living here then as I drove back home ! Even my boss had heard of Takit as I asked for time off ! sheeeesh He got it from the paper ! lol I for one was never too impressed with the media on the coverage and dam Int'l would have made a great 60 minute spot ! Probally just too many cults and a lawsuit about LCM doesn't make much of a ripple outside of The New Knoxville area. What was interesting to me was as soon as Takit left town all was forgotton in our news. They also did an article on TWI in my hometown which was half accurate. Dam lousy reporting I thought !I had conditioned myself too against any bad press but most of what I read was pretty crappy reporting. Hey I found my WOW name tage from 75. Is WOW still a radio station in Omaha ? Dam they thought we were radio WOW'S ! Excuse the side bar talk Oak ! Maybe some have some articles they can post on here ?
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Lifted Up
During my deprogramming, I had the "pleasure" of "examining" a large binder of press clippings and letters which supposedly showed how bad TWI was. As Oak points out, stuff from the outside tends to reek with lack of authority. Some of the letters were interesting because thay had some stuff from the inside, but one didn't have the intended effect. It was a letter protesting Ohio University's decision to allow the use (rental) of its facilities for advanced class '79. The reasons the protester gave seemed to be taken from the clippings. Furthermore, and I think this was an "oversight", the letter was accomanied by the university's reply which made basically two points...that the decision to allow the rental use was not made on the group's (TWI) religious beliefs, and also that information obtained from Ball State University officials referred very favorably to TWI's care of their facilities during PFAL '77.
BTW, the "Jesus Christ is not God" thing was apparently a prime motivator in arranging my deprogramming, in which a certain Lutheran Church was involved.
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Trefor Heywood
I remember getting a phone call at work from my worried mother who had seen a report on local TV in the north west of England (I was living in Bristol and didn't see it) about TWI.
It had apparantly latched on to the holocaust denial theory and also the use of guns in Corpse training programmes. The Limb leader Robert Wilkinson had refused to be interviewed which added to her suspicions.
I then knew nothing about the denial but I told her that the guns bit was specific to the USA and was training only, that not everyone in TWI had to carry a gun or be prepared to use it. That I would not be involved with something that had been presented as so extreme and potentially dangerous.
The gun aspect was picked up in the national press with such headlines as "US gun cult moves in." Jewish groups picketed the European WOW Festival that year because of the holocaust denial and it was only then I heard of this aspect. Robert Wilkinson explained his refusal to be interviewed as the negative way the reporters had approached him. I guess we all tried to make light work of this incident at the time and as I showed no sign of becoming a gun toting assassin my mother never raised it again although she remained unhappy with my continued involvement.
I remember listening to a tape about an attempted deprogramming from one of the sunday night services. It was clear that the emphasis was upon the immorality of deprogramming and that it was not done for altruistic motives but for money. This made me feel resentful towards the deprogrammers rather than TWI. If we were being so hated then we must be doing something right.
I think that we had to learn by experience about the negative things about TWI. Anything we were told or anything we heard or read could be dismissed as propoganda and lies. They did not like what TWI believed and because they could not refute those beliefs biblically they could only resort to tactics like this. That some of the assertions made were demonstrably false only strengthened our resolve and commitment.
I did not see any long term effects of the negative publicity over here. We were too small and insignificant to hold the attention of the media for too long and soon put it to the back of our minds.
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Shellon
Passing of the Pasties. HA!
For me, it was three simple words.
avoid avoid avoid
Change the subject, suddenly have to do something very important, whatever.
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WaywardWayfer
When I started going to things they would talk about how we were called a cult and that for people to be attacking us so vehemently we must be doing something right. The adversary didn't want people to learn the truth so he was attacking us through bad publicity and lies and rumors.
After hearing that and loving the "truth" I was being taught I simply dismissed anything negative that was said. If someone had insisted that it was a bad group I probably would have gotten very ugly and rude. I'm so glad my family didn't try that because I would have quit talking to them.
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Jason P
I saw too many people making outrageous claims that were so obviously false or exaggerated that I didn't believe any of it.
Mainstream media relies so much on sensationalism that showing the truth about psychological manipulation and control is just too dull. Can't keep people's eyes glued to the ads that way; we have to have stories of paramilitary training or something. Pictures of sad little frightened sheep with fake smiles singing the same &*^% songs every night just won't sell. Stories of sexual abuse are of course sensational enough - but until there's proof, why would a mainstream news source risk legal action (and its credibility) to address them? I believe many of them now, but if all I had to go on was the word of "disgruntled ex-followers," my BS meter would have been through the roof. Keep in mind that I believed we were in a spiritual battle and the Adversary would make up anything he could to sow seeds of doubt.
Religious groups were... religious groups. They had their panties in such a wad over the trinity that they had nothing else of substance to offer - and unless you've been a victim of the manipulation (brainwashing, if you prefer - and I do), you wouldn't understand the real danger anyway. They were just upset because we had a different flavor of caca to sell so they were easy to ignore or ridicule.
I never paid much attention to the internet because honestly, it's a horrible source of information. 90% of what you see is made up or exaggerated and the other 10% is too subjective to take seriously. This is the internet on the whole, not anti-Way sites. I never paid attention to Waydale at all and only peeked at Greasespot when all my questions and concerns were answered with "Sounds like you've been listening to those people on the internet. You need to read 'Christians Should be Prosperous' and take the Class again." After a few dozen times of hearing that, I started thinking that if other people were coming to the same conclusions I was, there must be something to it.
In short, I don't know how much good the truth does anyone unless they've already been moving along those lines independently. When you believe you're in a spiritual battle and even hardcore proof is suspect because you can't trust your five senses and native intelligence, all you can really rely on is the cult making such huge mistakes that you can't help but step back and ask questions.
The good news is, TWI has been run by f'ups for years and they're only getting worse as time goes on. Incompetence could be their downfall in the end...
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oldiesman
If I happened to run into someone who thought twi was off the wall, I asked them to come see for themselves whether it was off the wall or not. Have them decide for themselves, rather than take someone else's word for it. The couple of folks I knew who were in that category never checked it out for themselves, seemed like they had their minds already made up, so after that, I had little respect for them, even contempt, for speaking about something they thought they knew so much about, without any experiences. It's one thing to speak from experience; that I can try to respect and understand. But it's entirely another to speak from gossip alone.
And yeah, in those days lots of folks thought we were a cult all because of JCING.
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JustThinking
Oldies,
I took the same approach and did have a few takers. One changed her mind and started coming. The other saw that she was wrong but actually told me she "liked being miserable." (No, really) Another had heard the really crazy stuff like we duck taped you to a chair and kept you there like the deprogrammers. Had some coworkers come, etc. No one came away with a bad impression because I think my first twig was pretty cool. Great folks who genuinely loved each other.
For myself, most of the stories I had heard seemed just a little too outrageous to be true. Paramilitary camps, devil worship, etc. Maybe they had us confused with Ozzy Osbourne? :-) As I've said before, we lived pretty far from any corpse or leaders so we probably got spared a lot.
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Tom Strange
They never seemed to have much "real" substance to me... of course back then (the 70's) there was a pro-active stance by TWI to help thwart these "attacks"... I don't recall ever hearing of anything much that took me by surprise...
They (TWI) would say, "they'll say this.. and they'll say that... but here's where they're all wrong..." so, we were always pretty much 'prepared'...
Like I said though, most of the stuff I always heard lacked substance... now... if they'd told us about a lot of the crap we've since come to learn, that'd be a different sto-ree! But to just come at me with "they don't believe this or that" was nothing... heck I already knew that!
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Goey
IMO, many anti-cults writers as just as disingenouus as the cults they attempt to expose. Like others have said, they tend not to get their facts straight.
I read quite a bit of anti-TWI stuff back in the mid to late 70's. In one cult book I found at the a mall bookstore, TWI was 5th on the list, wedged in between the Unification Church and Alcohlics Anomymous.
As I recall, the main complaint by anti-cultists was TWI's rejection of the Trinity. It seem apparent to me that most of the these anti-cult writers were really only defending their own sacred cow in the Trinity (as if a groups that espouses the Trninity cannot be a cult). Considering TWI's growth in the 70's/ 80's, TWI was a threat to mainstreamers whose children might could be pulled away from the sacred cow of the Trinity.
The Trininty complaint was usually followed by an expose on Wierwille's phoney academic credentials, and then some usually inaccurate descriptions of Way Corps and WOW programs.
If the writer was a Cessationist (mostly Southern Baptists) they might attack TWI's practice of speaking in tougues, healing, etc.
It probably wasn't until after I got out of TWI that many of the anti-cult writers had much of a clue about the true nature of cults and what made TWI one. It was much deeper than the Trinity and other doctrinal issues.
But anyway, back then when I heard negatives about TWI, I just shrugged them off because they were mostly inaccurate or just doctrinal disputes. It was the inside stuff that bugged me.
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Mister P-Mosh
For the most part I didn't hear much bad news about it, although I do remember it making an "Ask Sam" article in the local paper when I was a lot younger. TWI leaders basically told us how it was just a bunch of B.S., an attack from the adversary, etc. Quite a few people wrote to the paper to complain, and that was about the end of it. The other sources were basically family members who were not in, such as one of my grandmothers who viewed TWI as "better than nothing" when it came to religious beliefs. My other grandparents refused to attend TWI functions when they visited us, and since my parents ran a home fellowship in their house, my grandparents would sit upstairs and wait for it to be over. I'm not entirely sure what they thought of it, as I didn't discuss it with them. I did discuss it some with an uncle who I rarely see, but I was drunk so I don't really remember what we said. I remember him being worried about my immediate family for being in TWI though. He probably heard the same reports that Trefor's mom did, I would imagine.
All in all, the desire to leave and to change my life came from the inside. There was nothing anyone else could do, I had to realize for myself that it was bad and leave.
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Trefor Heywood
Yes it's certainly true that a lot of people were prepared to judge TWI as a cult upon the one issue - denial of the Trinity.
When I was WOW we met some christian people in Hull market place and we were getting on very well discussing the Bible etc. The next week we saw them again and they were very different in their attitude - they had found out that we did not believe in the Trinity and walked off calling us a Cult.
They would have done that even if there was no other reason. Whereas the media wouldn't have worried too much about that aspect, for other churches it was indeed the keystone by which TWI was judged.
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dmiller
The only negative things I encountered was from family back when the Jim Jones stuff was happening. They did not know much about twi, and were concerned that I might be involved with something similar.
I was able to make them see that we were no "Jim Jones" outfit, and they were content. There has been over the years, "bad press" from the media, but I basically blew them off since (as others have already stated) they came across with a lot of accusations, and no proof to back up their claims.
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dmiller
Doug -- You were there then??? So was I! I was working a retail job at the time, and got off at 5 pm, and had to really haul a$$ to get there for the beginning of the show at 7:30. I did 150 miles in just under one and a half hours.
I remember all the bad press the papers, etc., gave those guys from Takit, as well as the protesters out front.
I walked into the theater, and there was some wanna-be-rock-and-roller telling Dean Ellenwood that he should be allowed on stage to "jam" with Takit.
-->
Dean was glad to see me (he used to be my twig leader back in Indiana), and used my being there to get rid of the wanna-be guy.
:D-->
Those were the days.
:)-->
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imbus
For me...My sister and brother-in-law came out to Iowa to deprograme me. I was a WOW in Ames and that was their mission.Well they never got past 1st base and left me alone.
Oddly enough they got involved with a Bible study group that was much like TWI. They attended for years and later was "marked and avoided" They have since gotten through the craziness of it and still live in Iowa.
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pjroberge
My criteria for calling a cult is more based on practices and how they treat their members.
The rating system I developed doesn't use religious criteria to characterize a group as a cult or the other classifications.
To make a long story short, TWI in my opinion is a category 5 militant cult on a scale of 6 (terrorist group).
The criteria for militant cult includes allegations or actual practice of criminal acts, which has been alleged many times about TWI.
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wyteduv58
I saw Takit and love the show. It was in Ca. early 80's or late 70's I think. After we went out wow and F9 we came back to Ca. and guess who's twig we were put in...Tom Saffold and Takit all of them, what a great time we had, Tom was so funny, Vicky and I could talk for hours along with Nancy Mesquite. Wish I could see them again. If any of you are lurking in here I Love You. And would love to get an e-mail from any of you then I will tell you my real name. Love, Dovey
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Refiner
A few years back now, I made contact with a woman here in Melbourne who was doing exit councelling on cult members and I expressed some interest in getting involved. The first thing she asked me was whether I believed in Jesus Christ.
I said I didnt.
Then she said "Well how can you councel people out of cults if you dont believe in Christ."
Well, I was too stunned to reply.
But I think if you are interested in planting future seed in peoples minds with the aim of waking them up to the cult they are in, then you are better off finding out what THEY are concerned with about their cult.
Its no use throwing (say)a whole load of "False Prophecy" evidences at JWs. It doesnt work.
You ask questions and, say, discover that they have had some miserable experiences with "judicial committees"who were harsh and unfeeling.
Then you give them evidences of even more shockingly harsh judicial committee practises than even what they have experienced.
You have to get off your own personal agenda / interest (false prophecy, or whatever) and get onto theirs.
just my 2c.
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Raf
That's interesting advice, Refiner.
I recall investigating the "cult" charges before I got involved, and I agree, most were doctrinal in nature.
The few that were not doctrinal, I either didn't believe or, frankly, didn't care about.
"Wierwille was a plagiarist." I never denied that, but I never cared either because plagiarism does not affect the content of the finished product. If it called Wierwille's integrity into question, that didn't matter to me because my involvement was not centered around or dependent on the integrity of VPW.
"Wierwille said God talked to him and promised that God would teach him blah blah blah..."
My response: Well, at least God didn't try to extort $8 million from Wierwille's followers by threatening his life.
The guns thing was no longer happening, and the hunting course explanation seemed credible.
I thought the Myth of the Sixth Million and other Anti-Semitic accusations were outright lies. It wasn't until these Web Sites came online that I realized this was true.
I was not concerned about the allegations of "adultery" committed by a dead man, and by the time I heard rumors of sexual misconduct involving Martindale, I was just about out the door.
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Refiner
PJRoberg said:
Quote:"The rating system I developed doesn't use religious criteria to characterize a group as a cult ... TWI in my opinion is a category 5 militant cult on a scale of 6..."
What criteria are those PJ? Id be most intertested in hearing your theory.
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Refiner
Raf. Ultimately it bocomes a matter of misery ratio.
If youre in a lovely church that is such a Utopia, why do you feel so horrible/ guilty/Fearful all the time??
Thats what ultimately gets people out I think.
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excathedra
i couldn't agree more, refiner
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dougie73
I remember one article about Twi that mocked VPW's account from the Way Living In Love about the snow storm. I think TWI was pretty good at keeping their deep dirty secrets from the media. At that time I remember you had "The Children Of God" "The Moonies" and they seemed to really get the bad press. Having been raised Catholic the term cult never really meant anything and amazing how that so called very large cult kept dirty secrets hidden pretty well too !As bad as TWI was there were worse groups out there but that to me, that does not excuse their behavoir and some left with less scars than others and me I still have some anger I am working through ! Maybe I should call a reporter and see if another media story should be written or even if it's worth repoting ? A an updated story and maybe call it "The Way and What The HELL Happened ? No pasing pasties either ! Probally not worth the ink ! TWI sucks ! Excuse me .
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