I've been working a bunch of responses on my word processor and I think I will address that soon.
I did, however, cover part of it in my long post on the previous page. I’ll repeat 3 paragraphs from that post for you here:
“Has anyone here ever thought about the hurts that happened to men in TWI’s sex system? Men are not prone to complain about these things, because when they do they are ridiculed. Although I tried to stimulate a few thoughts along these lines with a few sparse lines here and there, no on has picked up on them.
“It is only with the greatest persuasion of my heavenly Father that I am able to support PFAL. I feel the tug to hate Dr more than most of you, but I also have God’s vote to consider. Most of you never were hurt at all, and now you get your self esteem thrills at taking up the cause of someone else’s hurts. I was hurt, damn it!”
“I have been persuaded, against my deepest conscience, against my emotional habit patterns, that God did bring forth His Word in written form in modern English in PFAL.”
Just to give you a quick answer, if I was physically hurt I’d have an even more difficult time promoting PFAL, but I’d still do it because I am convinced God is in it regardless of all these hurts.
In re-reading your post I see now the last lines and can appreciate them in a guarded way.
However, I don’t think my moral fiber to be superior, just different. I see many flaws in it, as I briefly alluded to.
As to your hashing cynicism, I’d have appreciated it more if you had just read my post for the heart, not for the point-by-point debate. In that analysis I think you missed my heart. Maybe you could do some re-reading too.
In re-reading you post I see now the last lines and can appreciate them in a guarded way.
However, I don’t think my moral fiber to be superior, just different. I see many flaws in it, as I briefly alluded to.
As to your hashing cynicism, I’d have appreciated it more if you had just read my post for the heart, not for the point-by-point debate. In that analysis I think you missed my heart. Maybe you should do some re-reading too.
I think I got the basis of the heart of it. If I hadn't, I would
have been a LOT more cynical. I DO plan on rereading it later.
I do that with posts that I think warrant rereads for any of a
number of reasons.
*reads the next post*
I also thought you meant me in the "cruel" reference. Glad we
cleared that little detail.
On another note,
I think several of the past few posters have made points you
would do well to reread as well (Rascal, Raf, myself.)
quote:“It is only with the greatest persuasion of my heavenly Father that I am able to support PFAL.
Mike, have you ever considered that the Holy Spirit is trying to tell you that PFAL is not what He wants you to revere and base your life on?
And I don't ask this lightly--if it's with "the greatest persuasion" for you to support it, then maybe you are blocking or drowning out the comforter and counselor who talks to all of us and was sent by Jesus to help us understand spiritual things, the Holy Spirit.
Please remember that the things of God are "easy to be entreated" and you wouldn't be the first person to block His voice. Yes, I believe God sent me to twi too, but He also told me when to leave. So maybe He's speaking to you too and letting you know that there are many wonderful Christian teachers out there today to build up the Body of Christ.
Heck, if you don't want to listen to any of them, why not try just reading the Bible for yourself and ask the H.S. to TEACH YOU HIMSELF.
Believe me, He will and you'll never go back to going by what just one man said ever again.
You wrote concerning my Roman Catholic captivity: “Mike, I'm sorry to hear that. __ So just about anything would have been better than that.”
That’s a fact! However, it’s not the case that just about anything else could have wrested me from the grip of that puritanical religion. It took many years of PFAL to get over the hump (no pun intended), and still some remnants flare up even today. The Protestants in the Reformation couldn’t shake it off, and I see many on this board who have not been able to shake it off either.
You wrote: “PFAL was retired, sold at a discounted price and replaced with "The Present Truth" and syllabus study. Corps were instructed to teach what they were taught on Corps Nights. Just because PFAL books were printed, doesn't mean it was being taught.”
I agree. The upper leadership started getting bored with it in the late 70’s.
You wrote: “Also, PFAL covers John the Baptist "leaping for joy" at the hearing of Mary's voice, but that doesn't mean that a fetus reaction to a voice, or a fetus having "joy" was fit into a teaching on when life started. That section of PFAL was not included in the discussion on soul life, interestingly enough.”
To this day I have no idea how John the Baptist operated, especially that womb incident. I’d have to see the pages you are referring to in order to follow your comments on PFAL and this situation.
The next lines you wrote were not clear to me. I’ve boldfonted the parts I don’t understand.: “So just because something is taught in PFAL doesn't mean it was fully studied or uses enough "data' to insure a fully populated field. __ PFAL had many "sample" data sets in its research process.
You wrote: “PFAL is flawed in that it gives many the false impression that they have the "whole truth" and the "keys" to Biblical Research simply by knowing a few rules.”
It’s not PFAL’s fault that it’s students didn’t seriously study it’s contents. Many did get a false impression that they got it all when they hadn’t. They (we, including me) didn’t listen to Dr’s many exhortations to master the material, and we all just winged it into oblivion.
You wrote in paraphrasing me: “…all those women gave him hundreds of daily opportunities for action…” however I didn’t use the phrase “all those women.” I omitted such mention on purpose to make it more general. It was the adversary who gave him hundreds (figure of speech) of daily opportunities for action, or at least much more than many men. I purposely wanted to avoid the debacle of blaming any women.
For someone who didn’t see the sex abuses you write as if you were a first hand witness. Are you a frustrated lawyer, taking up someone else’s cause? Do you think light can result from your fighting against the bad guys? Just to conduct such a fight you need to have spiritual light to shine on, yet that light is not forthcoming. Exposing and focusing on dark deeds of others may make some FEEL more righteous, but that feeling is illusory, and wont help a bit in a face down with the devil.
I hear talk escalating these past two years about drug use. It started off with a remote maybe one time and now you write as if it was commonplace. Are his sins getting bigger 20 years after his death, or is it just the stories that are growing? Do you have any idea how many times I heard my college “chums” discussing their many strategies for bedding babes? Alcohol and drugs were just a part of it, and this was decades before date-rape drugs came out. I wonder how many male posters here tried a few such strategies, and now conveniently forget it or excuse it as commonplace (which it is), or that it’s ok because they weren’t the pastor. Sure it’s despicable, but so are a lot of things. Religions of condemnation are more so in my book.
***
You wrote: “…he could have, he should have said no.”
So should have David! So should YOU say “No!” to the constant talk and focus on darkness.
God is the ONLY one who knows how well Dr did in temptation, yet you and many others act as if YOU know too. You don’t! You should ask God how many times Dr DID say no to temptation, but as long as you are out of fellowship with Him and focusing on other men’s sins instead of Him and His Word and Son I doubt you could hear Him answer.
I keep on having to remind people here that God is different than our religious selves. God tolerated David, even in murder. So far none of the stories about Dr have grown that big, but it wont surprise me when the do.
David’s reported sin cost him dearly, but God knew it was going to happen and planned accordingly. God and David were able to get some work done when David was in fellowship. When he was out of fellowship God had to wait. We only know of one cycle in this process for David, because that’s all that’s written. However, I know that David had to jade himself into a lot before getting to murdering Uriah with many other cycles prior to that occasion. No one trips up as bad as David did without lots of practice. And no one cleans up such a habit pattern immediately and completely, so I know he must have blown it one big way or another even after Nathan successfully confronted him.
I think what David did was despicable, even just the one cycle with Uriah. If I had been God then I’d have fired David. If I had been in Dr’s presence {…rascal, here’s some more of your answer…} and he did half of what he is reported of doing I’d probably fired him in my mind and not be here typing this. It would have probably blown me out of the water, and I’d never had had a chance to see over it and see the treasures God put into PFAL that I do now.
Still today, after all the hidden treasures I’ve seen in PFAL, I do STILL have great difficulties with the whole affair. But I am learning to forgive more every day, and I pray for your learning too, as well as other posters here, and many others too.
I’m very grateful for Dr’s accomplishments, but like David, I’m sure he COULD have done more. Then again, maybe that’s why WE got to hear PFAL, so WE could go the distance Dr wished he could cover. We’ll never do that with a focus on darkness, though.
We’ll never be able to thoroughly examine the good deeds and bad of Dr’s. No one’s memory can contain the complete context of those events. There are all sorts of subtleties that are lost forever in every first hand witness’ mind.
***
Take out your Bibles and turn to I John. Let’s look at Chapter 1 verse 9, and we read:
“If we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
The word “confess” is homologeo, and it means to say the same thing, or to agree, or to admit.
In Living Victoriously Dr talks about this very easy way to re-establish fellowship. It’s easy because of the verse 7:
“…the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
In one of those LV teachings he describes how he had a disturbing phone call that got him anxious. Anxiety is not walking in the light and is not walking in fellowship. He recognized, admitted to, agreed to, confessed this broken fellowship, and BOOM, back in the light.
We can train our minds to do this. The faster we get back in fellowship the better. The quicker we can get to that admission, the quicker we can get into the light. Religion teaches us otherwise. Religion teaches us that a long painful recognition is necessary, followed by a successful plan to never repeat the sin. THEN these religions think it’s just, right to think full forgiveness has happened and fellowship restored.
In another LV teaching, he talks about how this admission, this confessing of sin has to be sincere. It can’t be a simple ploy to go out and sin again. I posted these paragraphs here somewhere.
We were taught that restoration is quick and easy, that God is faithful as the verse says. Peter thought he was being magnanimous in asking Jesus if he should forgive 7 times. Jesus told him to start thinking 70 times 7. People weary of repeated confessions and are not faithful to forgive, but God is faithful. Aren’t you glad!!? God is more ready to forgive than people are. We can be blessed if we learn to forgive like God does.
I didn’t say stupid, though. If we are assigning responsibilities to someone who has blown it sinfully and repeatedly, we may want to wait out some period of time and look for evidence that that person has successfully changed their habit patterns. This is because we don’t have access to their heart and can’t see the future. It’s a practical measure we must take, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still learn to forgive quickly and faithfully like God does. When assigning responsibilities we have to be as practical as possible.
Now remember, Dr. Wierwille is dead, and has been for almost 20 years, so no one is going to ask you to allow him to escort you teenage daughters on an long trip staying overnight at a Motel 6, like Rush Limbaugh often bragged you could do with him.
God is faithful and just to forgive. It’s right for Him to forgive that way. It’s just, and we are unjust when we harbor grudges and refuse to forgive. We are not walking with God when that anxiety rules our mind.
You wrote: “dude what are you smoking ? not kool shorties __ i'll take the bless-ed mother any day over the man of god of our day and time”
When I talk of Mary worship I’m not talking about the very blessed mother of Jesus. The Catholic Mary is a counterfeit, and not the same person at all. I know, I used to pray to her, and even had a vision or two or three of her when I was in Jr. High. I was a very committed Catholic, and after reading the Bible I see the two Mary’s are vastly different.
You wrote: “Your position that PFAL is God's Word reissued hardly gives you credentials as a rational participant in this discussion. To you it's a question of master vs. don't master, assuming all along that it's right. You accept that Wierwille was sinful in many of his actions but rationalize them with "everybody is tempted" and deny the possibility that the actions could have affected his ability to teach the truth.”
Actually, I’m sure that like David, Dr was hindered in his ability to teach by his flesh. We all are. Yet it does not hinder God. He knows it will take place before it takes place, and He acts accordingly.
Yes, I do now think it is a crucial thing to master PFAL, but I didn’t think this “all along” as you wrote. Yes, all along in my posting history, but it was only 6 years ago that I adopted this position, and I remember lots of the processes that led me to this. I think these considerations can give me something rational to say here.
Here’s what you wrote in the first post of this thread: “I believe that tearing down the whole edifice and building anew is a better way to go. Start from scratch and learn what truth is independent of anything Wierwille said.”
I believe something close to this. I advocate tearing down the whole edifice that’s in our minds, the TVT in there that is, and building anew from the neglected written record.
It’s the next part of your post I’d take some exception to. For thousands of years people have been doing the truth search thing. I think they’ve all failed to reach the endpoint, because no one has learned to do all the things Jesus Christ did. God stepped in to give us a chance of really finding the truth in the written PFAL.
What he said and what he wrote can be miles apart.
After quoting a paragraph of mine you wrote: “Mike, you are a sick man. You know that don't you? Why would you choose either one? Oh, yes of course. Because your hero and idol partook in the licentiousness.”
Mark, you didn’t quite read all of the quote of mine you posted. I even bold fonted the answer to your question, but you didn’t reproduce that in your quote.
In that quote I said this in bold fonts: “If I had to choose between…” and then I listed only two choices. It was a hypothetical setup for discussion purposes. You act as if I wanted to choose between the two. Please read my long post on page 4 and you’ll see much more on this. I think I made a pretty convincing case of displaying my leaning AWAY FROM licentiousness. In that post I reveal that I made my hypothetical choice, and my actual choices, IN SPITE of my feelings on this.
Before calling someone sick, why don’t you try to gather the whole story?
***
You wrote: “Read Bullinger's "How to enjoy the bible"...it's where wierwille stole his material from for the first 8 sessions of his "class".”
If he stole it, why did he sell it in the bookstore, and frequently discuss it? I just got done listening to a Summer School class titled “How to Enjoy the Bible” that he did in 1965. He was right up front with us on that book. He changed several things in the class from what Bullinger wrote, too.
You wrote: “Mike, I have seen people talk about something a LOT more serious, IMO, than "a few unwanted advances". Finding out more about just what DID happen seems to be another matter. But with this phrase, you seem to brush it aside with an attitude of...even if it did happen, it wasnt that big a deal. So, I ask you, and very seriously, were there only a few unwanted advances involved? Because I have seem people here talking about a lot worse, at least in terms of how you seem to downgrade the phrase. If you have reason to believe there WASN'T any worse, then I would genuinely like to hear about it.”
I used that phrase because if people are ever going to forgive, forget, and move on a literary playing down is useful to calming down the mind. Of course, the opposite happens if people don’t want to calm down. Some here want to hype it up, thinking that will lead to healing or something. I offer the opposite: let’s hype it down IN WRITING about it in public. Love covers a multitude of errors. It should be covered and not hyped up in a mob setting.
If I were in a one-on-one counseling situation I would not even think of such a thing, at least not in the initial stages. Having many hurts of my own in this area, I think I can lend a very sympathetic ear to someone who wants to grow away from the pain. I would not downplay it when they need to know I'm there for them.
I think that compared to murder, whatever happened was a lot less damaging than murder.
As far as ever finding out exactly what happened, the approach taken here is very much the opposite of what has evolved in our legal system and in science. To do proper detective work on something like this, if it were worth trying, would be a daunting task. A good detective would have to cut through all the rhetoric, all the emotion, all the hyperbole, all the exaggeration, all the distorted memory, and even the lies. To think these things are absent in the approach taken here is ludicrous. Only God can sort through all of this.
I see a tremendous lack of confidence in God’s ability to even the score on these things. There’s a reason why He says “Vengeance is mine.” It’s because human beings cannot sort through all this stuff. We’re told to think and focus on the good, not the bad.
Your last line was: “If you have reason to believe there WASN'T any worse, then I would genuinely like to hear about it.”
I have reason to believe it wasn’t any worse than murder, and I see the precedent set in the OT that even murder does not thwart God’s ability to teach and give revelation and get a job done even with a very flawed human being like David.
In the long run, all sin will be forgotten, not just by God but by all. Whatever actually happened will be forgotten and fade into nothingness. But if I’m right, and God really did re-issue His Word in what we would call a highly unorthodox fashion, then those who oppose it will suffer great loss, feel great shame (I John 2:28), and that loss lasts an eternity.
When it comes to what really happened, it’s much more important for us to look more closely and more accurately in what happened in the formulation of the PFAL writings.
You wrote: “…a theological debate over wierwille's teachings.”
And: “…the doctrine of wierwille.”
And: “…the fruit produced by wierwille's teachings…”
And: “…adhering to wierwille teachings…”
And: “…Wierwille taught…”
And: “…wierwille taught…”
In all of your post you brought out items from TVT, that is the Twi Verbal Tradition, of what this doctrine and these teachings supposedly contained. You just pulled up these things from memory, and I’m saying that it’s a faulty memory. You forgot some, some slipped by you, and you fully embraced the TVT.
I don’t dispute that the absent Christ AS PRESENTED in the TVT was devilish. I’m not disputing that we did indeed make VPW the head of the body in our minds. I’m not disputing that many were led away from a healthy relationship with Christ.
What I’m saying is that these errors are not present in the written record that we were repeatedly told to master, yet continually refused to do. If we had taken our doctrine from what Dr really did teach, especially in written form, then all these devilish situations could have been averted.
Have you gone back to the record to see if your memory jives correctly with what is actually in there? My challenge to you is just that. Let’s examine the record on all the points you brought up. Of course you don’t have to accept, but if you do I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. You’ll find out that there was much more good in what happened to us in The Way, and that much more good can come of it.
Because I returned to the written form of PFAL I have found that relationship with Christ I craved, and it’s surprisingly better than anything I could have imagined.
I guess we just bounced from a honest question to a pfal sales call. And oh how he was so wonderful. Mike he sid it himself I wish I was the man I knew to be.
Yes he did say that. In fact he said it on tape, in writing, and even had it chiseled in stone.
“I wish I were the man I know to be.”
I referred to it above in my retro-post to shazdancer thusly: “I’m very grateful for Dr’s accomplishments, but like David, I’m sure he COULD have done more. Then again, maybe that’s why WE got to hear PFAL, so WE could go the distance Dr wished he could cover.”
Because I have referred to this line so often in previous posts, I decided to paraphrase it in this most recent post.
So it was "obvious" that some things were wrong and others weren't. What made it obvious? It couldn't have been whether it conformed to mainstream Christianity or not, because you retained some things that are at odds with most churches.
Was it that your experience with things like tithing and the law of believing didn't line up what was taught? Sounds like it. That makes sense. If following the plan doesn't bring the advertised results, there's something wrong.
And understand this: when I talk about "tearing down", I don't necessarily mean making a decision one way or another. What I'm talking about is going back to the baseline, the starting line, and getting re-convinced of what I believe. Some things I will end up believing the same things as before, others I will reject. In the context of what I'm discussing, "tearing down the edifice" does not mean condemning, but questioning everything.
From what you've described you rejected things where you saw a clear contradiction between what was taught and what you experienced: tithing didn't make you prosperous, believing didn't equal receiving, etc. Everything else that didn't jar your senses in some way, you kept.
That's what I get from your words.
And actually, yes, I am asking you to question Christianity, in the sense that your view of Christianity is shaped in large part by what Wierwille taught. Of all the Wierwille teachings that are common to Christianity, you say that you didn't know them before encountering TWI. Your view of "the truth" is shaped by TWI; you still largely define truth as what you were taught in TWI.
I think most of us would agree that no evil behavior on the part of Wierwille or his lieutenants would necessarily invalidate any truth contained in the teachings.
Okay! No more making the argument about rejecting Wierwille's teachings because he was evil:D-->
But if Wierwille was the adulterous, plagiarizing, scam artist that he appears to have been, why would anyone take anything he said at face value? If his standard practice was to lie and cheat, if he his way of life was to use people, why would any of his teachings be kept and revered as truth?
I guess if you don't believe any of the bad stuff that's printed about him, that's another story
It seems to me that Wierwille's way of life would cause anyone who followed him or his "ministry" to question every one of his assumptions.
In other words, check it out for yourself
Many ex-Way people are afraid of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I believe that that is a seriously flawed analogy. A baby is irreplaceable. Any "truths" that lie at the heart of all the muck of Wierwille's teachings and the evil application of them can be replaced, i.e. arrived at by methods other than PFAL...if they are truths.
What? Anyone here think that the truths that are embedded in Wierwillism are lost to us if we don't unquestioningly accept PFAL?
What many people do is keep the basic structure of Wierwille doctrine and compare them to the bible, or their opinion of what the bible says.
I believe that tearing down the whole edifice and building anew is a better way to go. Start from scratch and learn what truth is independent of anything Wierwille said.
That's WORK, but if the TRUTH isn't worth a little work...
too bad we can't be in the same room in real person
Perhaps if you cut & pasted the sections you don't understand, then someone could explain it to you.
You don't understand that veepee and his trstworthiness to teach is the subject here?
You don't understand that sex is part of the "evil" perpetrated by Wierwille and therefore relevant to the discussion?
Okay, the Mary thing I see why you wouldn't get it. Mike somehow equated the sexual attitudes of some churches to Mary worship. I lost track myself. Maybe Mike will explain it to us. :D-->
I am not going to reply to the post you addressed to me, except to say that it is ridiculously off the mark. Rather, I would like to speak to your post of 2 pages ago that has brought up a lot of interesting responses.
quote:I had grown up with a conscience that would not allow casual sex. This has never changed, but I do recognize it as a mere habit pattern.
Mike you think that disliking casual sex is a mere habit pattern?
quote:I was (and still am) VERY much leaning away from the licentious end of the spectrum, and quite definitely towards the traditional “puritanical” end.
Good, but sure sounds like the antithesis of what you wrote before. Would you care to elucidate?
quote:When I often say that I hurt for all those grads who were hurt in this capacity, I seriously downplay the intensity of that empathy pain I have. I do this to protect me...
Whoa, whoa, back up a minute! ( ;)--> ) What are you protecting yourself from, by downplaying your empathy? from feeling too intensely? from losing control? Mike, dude, if there's one thing I've learned, empathy is what Christianity is all about! It's what CHRIST is all about! He died because he cared so much. You like word studies. I assume you still have a good Greek concordance. Take a look at the word splagchna and its derivatives.
quote:Has anyone here ever thought about the hurts that happened to men in TWI’s sex system? Men are not prone to complain about these things, because when they do they are ridiculed. Although I tried to stimulate a few thoughts along these lines with a few sparse lines here and there, no on has picked up on them.
You spoke before on another thread about not being popular with the ladies. Hey, meet another nerd. :D--> You and I both grew up in an area where there were a LOT of good-looking kids on the fast track to getting their trust funds. I was not one of them. But as I came to like myself, quirks and all, I found a social life to my liking. (Puberty was a b**ch though, ya know?)
I have not thought much about what TWI's sex practices did to the men who weren't participants, or even to those who were. Wow, young men coming into their adulthood, having their maleness (and relations with females) redefined in some pretty unsavory ways. I think it would make an interesting thread.
quote:I feel the tug to hate Dr more than most of you, but I also have God’s vote to consider. Most of you never were hurt at all, and now you get your self esteem thrills at taking up the cause of someone else’s hurts. I was hurt, damn it!
From what I have read from you, Mike, there were two things that hurt you: being left out of the "inner circle" of "cool" Wayfers who had love lives or sex lives; and Wierwille chewing you out. They both suck. They shouldn't have happened, certainly not among people who professed to stand for the love of God. Some of us were the perpetrators of such behavior, and some of us stood by and didn't speak up.
I also am coming from a place of having been hurt by Wierwille, though not sexually. I have no trouble recognizing that he taught some good things, and did some good things, but that is a long way from believing that his PFAL writings are God-breathed, as you believe. And part of the point of this thread is to point that out. To me, the very fact that he was a sexual predator at the time of the writings precludes him from being a writer of God's Word, according to the scriptures themselves.
We "take up the cause of someone else's hurts" because we care. The survival of sexual abuse is especially complicated, because people don't understand how profound the abuse is, and how much it robs from the victim. I have "taken up" a few causes lately: ex-Way, abuse, and Lyme disease. I got involved in them because I cared, and hope that by having a little knowledge in those areas I might contribute something helpful. BTW, Mike, I am a survivor of sexual assault.
quote:I do not downplay any hurt that happened. My own personal hurt continues to this day. But I’ve learned to compartmentalize these things.
So do we all, when the hurt might interfere with our ability to accomplish things. But we should not deny the hurt all the time, or it will only pop up someplace else -- as depression, for instance, or distrust, or a short fuse. I could bet money that if we could look into Wierwille's childhood years, we would see profound abuse. Perhaps some of your talks with people who knew him then turned some of that up, Mike. I pity him for that, but now it is his victims that need comforting.
quote: I compare the relative values of things unemotionally.
I would suggest that your "relative values" are a bit skewed. People matter. More than the book, which was written for the people! And I would also suggest that you not become devoid of emotion when it comes to weighing the value of a human being.
quote:When there is a desperate war going on, people learn to shelve emotion when it hurts the cause. Grieving is saved until after the war, because the war effort for the many is more important than the relatively few lost lives.
Yes, but the only war is a spiritual one. When it comes to dealing with people, we are to keep our ability to empathize intact. We are to be like Jesus Christ, the man who loved, whose very insides churned in his caring for them.
quote:I did NOT say that the few were unimportant, I said there was something EVEN MORE important.
I understood you, I just disagree. Getting PFAL into print was not more important than the lives that were critically wounded by Wierwille and his lackeys.
Mike, you have spent over a year here trying to convince us to give PFAL a second look. I would invite you, instead, to open your heart for awhile, instead of your mind. Intellect, schmintellect. Data, schmata. God could care less about how smart we are. He looks on the heart. He gave power in the first century to people who couldn't even read, and who didn't have a Bible. But it wasn't power over others that He gave, nor power to gain admirers. It was power to help, because they cared, and He cared.
Mike...I still have all my original pfal books and many other books that wierwille "authored". I am aware of the fact that twi did not function in a way that was compatible with wierwilles written books...that's true, I will concede that point to you. I believe the "waytree" doctrine was introduced into the mainstream of the "ministry" sometime in the early 70's by J.T. and his unbelievably boring seminar..."The way tree"...Of course this was masterminded by wierwille...nothing like this could have happened without his close scrutiny. I believe that when wierwille came up with his waytree scheme, he compromised greatly on what he had written in his earlier books...just like he compromised on his earlier teachings against tithing...when he saw the growth begin...he changed his teaching to "Christians should be prosperous"...a scurrilous little pamphlet that laid the foundation for twi's financial empire. (it was always the FIRST assignment in pfal...get it?).
Wierwille actually stole some halfway decent material from some fairly decent Christian writers and thinkers. The problem was wierwille lack of charecter...He would twist the scriptures to suit his own ends. I mean, I actually think that the works of E.W. Bullinger are valid...I just don't like the "spin" that Veepee put on a lot of the things that he stole from him as well as others. Wierwille's obvious lack of originality was apparent when comparing his works against those he stole them from...much is reproduced verbatim. He even stole the names "Maggie Muggins and Henry Baloko"... Whenever wierwille would venture into the realm of "something on his own", he invariably looked a buffoon. His over simplified approach was both naive and sophmoric. When critiquing his "works" from a scholarly perspective, he falls far short of having even a modicum of any depth in his writings.
I maintain that if wierwille's doctrine is of interest to anyone, they would fare much better by going to the several serious writers that wierwille copied from. Why? Because wierwille's "packaging" of these other men's work was seriously flawed in a number of ways. First of all was wierwille's tendency to oversimplify...his inability to comprehend much of the material that he was stealing becomes painfully apparent when making comparisons of wierwille versus those he stole from. His understanding of certain aspects is often flawed or skewed.
Wierwille included many WRONG doctrines when he put his "class" together and wrote his original pfal books. Believing does not equal receiving...etc., etc. Wierwille's selfish way of thinking led him into a spiritual cul de sac. He was void of proper judgement in determining biblical interpretations and he lost his credibility as a Christian leader. Charecter flaws and spiritual perception are not independant of each other. The man cannot and should not be trusted...and that means his "works" should not be trusted either.
Wierwille should never be compared to any of the 1st century apostles, or to any of the serious Christian theologians, or to even a legitimate Christian minister. He was none of those things...he was a grifter. He was defrocked from his own church for having sex with one of his flock and he never stopped this behavior.
Mike...do you honestly think that God would give this great "revelation" to a man of such low charecter? You cannot ignore the grievious sins of the man and simply point to his books...life doesn't work that way. The man and his books are interconnected...the writings in his books are an extension of his mind...a mind that is contaminated by dishonesty, greed and lust...and therefore CANNOT be trusted.
If there is any value in wierwille's writings, it's because of those he stole from. The easiest way I know to seperate the truth from the error in wierwille's teachings, is to simply take wierwille out of the equation. Go back to those he stole from and examine their works...whatever is missing of twi's doctrine in THEIR writings was probably the error that wierwille added.
I know you worship veepee and piffle, but in my opinion, wierwilles's written works are a cheap, inferior, knock off of something that was done by someone else...much better. So Mike, if you want to keep watching for snow on the gas pumps, that's you're priviledge.
quote:When there is a desperate war going on, people learn to shelve emotion when it hurts the cause. Grieving is saved until after the war, because the war effort for the many is more important than the relatively few lost lives.
Quack.
"Jim, I'm a doctor, not a mathematician! I can't fix a Vulcan's brain patterns!"
The worst thing about that belief Mike, is that those who hold to it are usually more than willing to step up and fall on their sword for the cause if it will move it forward. Which makes a good case for evolutionary forces working to eliminate the weaker animals out of the pack but little for the cause of deliverance in Christ. You can pull that pin if you want, just stand waaaaay over there when you do because we're bringin' 'em back alive in the sock drawer.
You spoke before on another thread about not being popular with the ladies. Hey, meet another nerd. :D--> You and I both grew up in an area where there were a LOT of good-looking kids on the fast track to getting their trust funds. I was not one of them. But as I came to like myself, quirks and all, I found a social life to my liking. (Puberty was a b**ch though, ya know?)
(lol)Another "nerd" here.
I think Way nerds may have even been below "Trekkies" in the food chain...
You wrote: “I am aware of the fact that twi did not function in a way that was compatible with wierwilles written books...that's true, I will concede that point to you.”
Thank you. Can you concede that your memory of the contents of those books is not compatible with what is actually written in them? If you think about it, such a concession is pretty hard to make without actually going to said books and spending some substantial time with them. Memory likes to think it’s true. It’s very disconcerting to have an old memory of something, like a book or a movie, and then going back to see that the original is different. Memory will rebel at first and try to think that someone has changed the original. It’s quite humbling.
***
You wrote: “I believe that when wierwille came up with his waytree scheme, he compromised greatly on what he had written in his earlier books...”
I have a 1972 tape where he somewhat agrees with you. He says that the ministry leadership, especially on the field, was spiritually immature and needed some 5-senses guidelines to keep things straight. Moses' father-in-law came up with a very similar plan for the spiritually imature nation of Israel to operate. Moses accepted this "scheme" because it was from God.
On that tape he says that things like the centralized abs should be only temporary. Unfortunately, as the decade wore on, the upper leadership started regressing instead of growing. He offered solutions, but they were declined. HQ went down fast, but the field held things up for a while longer. It too went down. By 1982 no one in upper leadership was paying any attention to Dr. There is lots of tape and magazine article evidence of these things. I’ve posted reams of it.
It’s one thing to formulate a theory of what happened. But the next step is to test that theory against the evidence. You can’t dredge that evidence up from memory. It must be recorded evidence in tape or print.
***
You wrote that “Christians Should Be Prosperous” “…was always the FIRST assignment in pfal...get it?”
Yes, I get it. People put money first in their lives, and need to be taught to not do that.
***
You wrote: “His over simplified approach was both naive and sophmoric. When critiquing his "works" from a scholarly perspective, he falls far short of having even a modicum of any depth in his writings.”
Since PFAL is revelation from God it should not be surprising that God made it readable by the many, instead of catering to the elite. You see brother, how not many mighty, not many noble according to the flesh are called. I’m paraphrasing Paul.
It also should not be surprising that God would chose the weak to confound the mighty. If a mighty scholar is meek, he’ll have a field day seeing all the depth God put in there behind that simplistic fa?e.
***
You wrote: “I maintain that if wierwille's doctrine is of interest to anyone, they would fare much better by going to the several serious writers that wierwille copied from.”
He didn’t copy wholesale, he corrected, and that was by revelation. What he did copy he attributed to God giving THEM revelation in those instances. I posted a transcript of a 1965 tape called “Light Began to Dawn” where he says this.
***
You wrote: “His understanding of certain aspects is often flawed or skewed.”
Yes, I thought that too, and for years, and it was growing in intensity. When I cracked the books again I found out it was ME Oh Lord, who was flawed. I had only accurately absorbed a fraction of what is written.
***
You wrote: “Wierwille should never be compared to any of the 1st century apostles, or to any of the serious Christian theologians…”
The theologians I can’t get at all excited over. I have no spiritual respect for them as a whole. I see them as refined Pharisees.
I don’t compare Dr to the apostles. I do see a lot of similarities between the revelation God gave Him and the revelation He gave the apostles. God is able to give revelation to anyone who is willing to absorb it. He worked with David, Balaam, Solomon too. If you or I were God, we’d not be so magnanimous, but He is.
Is your spirituality based in truth or on a dead man’s presentation containing some truth? If you remove the VPW factor from your foundation will your beliefs stand or fall? Remember the challenge of getting back to where you can say “Thus sayeth the Lord”, can you honestly do that or do you have to quote a man buried almost two decades ago?
Is your God so small that His truth only fits in a few hours in a few classes? What really was the primary purpose of PFAL? Truths were presented, but how much did recruitment play into this? If recruitment to a certain organization wasn’t foundational to the foundation why did it become a 3 class series?
On the other hand, is a dead man’s influence so big in your life you base your beliefs on rejecting a dead man? Because he taught it you have to junk it?
Oakspear has presented a solid argument for the value of checking where your beliefs are resting. Catcup has presented a great truth! Look if the baby you have is truth, it is to big to go down the drain!
To much of our time and energy seems to go to defending a deadman or debunking him! We won’t stand before VPW to give an account, we won’t be judged by PFAL, it will be each of us according to God’s standard! Have you so limited God that you really think He fits into a set of classes packaged to recruit new members to a man’s organization?
There are so many points you made that are far off the mark that I don’t want to get into it all. I can’t blame you on many of these not-so-near misses because I did shut down my disclosures at many points. I’m just not at all willing to discuss some private things in public. Maybe by e-mail or phone, but not here. When the threads get this deep into the sexual stuff I shut down. I feel a need to get away from this topic. I’ve said enough.
Please allow me to point out two items though. The first is easy. You have the wrong take on that incident I reported about getting chewed out by Dr. I think I corrected this misunderstanding before, probably with someone else. That incident does not bother me at all now nor then. It puzzled me at first, but I’ve come to an understanding. I forget why I posted it, but is wasn’t to say I was horribly hurt. Sure it stung, but I’ve had much worse pain in common situations outside the ministry and lived through them quite well.
The other point is you objection to Dr getting revelation at a time when you think he shouldn’t have. One of the reasons I posted that mini teaching on I John and confessing broken fellowship is to remind you and others that God made it very easy and quick to get back into fellowship, and that He does not put all the constraints on this restoration that people would. God is bigger than you think on this issue. Several times I’ve posted that I had to apply that I John verse a hundred times in one day. This figure is not a figure of speech. I’m not exaggerating. There are times when various kinds of temptations and sin can be raging in a battle royal with my desire to maintain fellowship. I’m gl;ad those kinds of days are relatively rare, but then again, I’ve not been placed in a very highly targeted hotseat very much like Dr was. Because of his mission he was under an enormous variety of constant attacks. I can easily see him quickly getting back into fellowship and functioning very well in God’s plan.
Another challenge to your objection to both Gods working with and on him in the same day and time is the story of Balaam. He was right in the act of professionally cursing God’s people and he comes out with a most beautiful prophesy of God blessing Israel with his Son. It blew his employer’s mind that his mind could switch so quickly to the truth from error. Because of this account, it should NOT blow our minds that Dr could get revelation. Think of this too: we can get it too, even when we think we don’t deserve it.
***
I’m sorry about backing off on so many of the other things you posted. I can only take so much of the sex stuff and my mind shuts down. Maybe some other time.
I am grateful that you and excathedra (Thanks Exy) acknowledged that men can be hurt in these areas too. It’s just in different ways, and our culture pretty well forbids discussion of it by the victims.
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Mike
rascal,
I've been working a bunch of responses on my word processor and I think I will address that soon.
I did, however, cover part of it in my long post on the previous page. I’ll repeat 3 paragraphs from that post for you here:
“Has anyone here ever thought about the hurts that happened to men in TWI’s sex system? Men are not prone to complain about these things, because when they do they are ridiculed. Although I tried to stimulate a few thoughts along these lines with a few sparse lines here and there, no on has picked up on them.
“It is only with the greatest persuasion of my heavenly Father that I am able to support PFAL. I feel the tug to hate Dr more than most of you, but I also have God’s vote to consider. Most of you never were hurt at all, and now you get your self esteem thrills at taking up the cause of someone else’s hurts. I was hurt, damn it!”
“I have been persuaded, against my deepest conscience, against my emotional habit patterns, that God did bring forth His Word in written form in modern English in PFAL.”
Just to give you a quick answer, if I was physically hurt I’d have an even more difficult time promoting PFAL, but I’d still do it because I am convinced God is in it regardless of all these hurts.
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Mike
WordWolf,
I didn’t say you said it was a mistake.
In re-reading your post I see now the last lines and can appreciate them in a guarded way.
However, I don’t think my moral fiber to be superior, just different. I see many flaws in it, as I briefly alluded to.
As to your hashing cynicism, I’d have appreciated it more if you had just read my post for the heart, not for the point-by-point debate. In that analysis I think you missed my heart. Maybe you could do some re-reading too.
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Mike
Rafael,
In all this re-reading I noticed an unfortunate thing happened.
It was neither you nor WordWolf that I had in mind when I referred to the cruelest posters here.
I apologize to you both that our subsequent posting may have built that illusion.
You both can be pretty rough, but I don’t think you as cruel.
Like with WW, I'd like it if you'd re-read it. Your very quick response gives me the feeling you didn't consider the heart I was trying to convey.
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WordWolf
I think I got the basis of the heart of it. If I hadn't, I would
have been a LOT more cynical. I DO plan on rereading it later.
I do that with posts that I think warrant rereads for any of a
number of reasons.
*reads the next post*
I also thought you meant me in the "cruel" reference. Glad we
cleared that little detail.
On another note,
I think several of the past few posters have made points you
would do well to reread as well (Rascal, Raf, myself.)
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waterbuffalo
Mike said:
Mike, have you ever considered that the Holy Spirit is trying to tell you that PFAL is not what He wants you to revere and base your life on?
And I don't ask this lightly--if it's with "the greatest persuasion" for you to support it, then maybe you are blocking or drowning out the comforter and counselor who talks to all of us and was sent by Jesus to help us understand spiritual things, the Holy Spirit.
Please remember that the things of God are "easy to be entreated" and you wouldn't be the first person to block His voice. Yes, I believe God sent me to twi too, but He also told me when to leave. So maybe He's speaking to you too and letting you know that there are many wonderful Christian teachers out there today to build up the Body of Christ.
Heck, if you don't want to listen to any of them, why not try just reading the Bible for yourself and ask the H.S. to TEACH YOU HIMSELF.
Believe me, He will and you'll never go back to going by what just one man said ever again.
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Mike
waterbuffalo,
Yes I deeply considered that very thing, and often, before taking up this stand.
Plus, I did the same thing in the 70’s, and very deeply. I went very slow in accepting things because I know how subtle the deception can be.
I’m sorry, but all my consideration of these things has cause me to reject traditional Christianity on many counts.
For God to use the services of one man to issue His Word is not at all unusual. It’s the norm, in fact.
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Mike
The following are a taking a step back a bit, and are retro-responses to pages from yesterday and early this morning. Please forgive the delay.
****************************************************************
Don'tFenceMeIn,
You wrote concerning my Roman Catholic captivity: “Mike, I'm sorry to hear that. __ So just about anything would have been better than that.”
That’s a fact! However, it’s not the case that just about anything else could have wrested me from the grip of that puritanical religion. It took many years of PFAL to get over the hump (no pun intended), and still some remnants flare up even today. The Protestants in the Reformation couldn’t shake it off, and I see many on this board who have not been able to shake it off either.
****************************************************************
Tumbleweed Kid,
You wrote: “PFAL was retired, sold at a discounted price and replaced with "The Present Truth" and syllabus study. Corps were instructed to teach what they were taught on Corps Nights. Just because PFAL books were printed, doesn't mean it was being taught.”
I agree. The upper leadership started getting bored with it in the late 70’s.
You wrote: “Also, PFAL covers John the Baptist "leaping for joy" at the hearing of Mary's voice, but that doesn't mean that a fetus reaction to a voice, or a fetus having "joy" was fit into a teaching on when life started. That section of PFAL was not included in the discussion on soul life, interestingly enough.”
To this day I have no idea how John the Baptist operated, especially that womb incident. I’d have to see the pages you are referring to in order to follow your comments on PFAL and this situation.
The next lines you wrote were not clear to me. I’ve boldfonted the parts I don’t understand.: “So just because something is taught in PFAL doesn't mean it was fully studied or uses enough "data' to insure a fully populated field. __ PFAL had many "sample" data sets in its research process.
You wrote: “PFAL is flawed in that it gives many the false impression that they have the "whole truth" and the "keys" to Biblical Research simply by knowing a few rules.”
It’s not PFAL’s fault that it’s students didn’t seriously study it’s contents. Many did get a false impression that they got it all when they hadn’t. They (we, including me) didn’t listen to Dr’s many exhortations to master the material, and we all just winged it into oblivion.
****************************************************************
shazdancer,
You wrote in paraphrasing me: “…all those women gave him hundreds of daily opportunities for action…” however I didn’t use the phrase “all those women.” I omitted such mention on purpose to make it more general. It was the adversary who gave him hundreds (figure of speech) of daily opportunities for action, or at least much more than many men. I purposely wanted to avoid the debacle of blaming any women.
For someone who didn’t see the sex abuses you write as if you were a first hand witness. Are you a frustrated lawyer, taking up someone else’s cause? Do you think light can result from your fighting against the bad guys? Just to conduct such a fight you need to have spiritual light to shine on, yet that light is not forthcoming. Exposing and focusing on dark deeds of others may make some FEEL more righteous, but that feeling is illusory, and wont help a bit in a face down with the devil.
I hear talk escalating these past two years about drug use. It started off with a remote maybe one time and now you write as if it was commonplace. Are his sins getting bigger 20 years after his death, or is it just the stories that are growing? Do you have any idea how many times I heard my college “chums” discussing their many strategies for bedding babes? Alcohol and drugs were just a part of it, and this was decades before date-rape drugs came out. I wonder how many male posters here tried a few such strategies, and now conveniently forget it or excuse it as commonplace (which it is), or that it’s ok because they weren’t the pastor. Sure it’s despicable, but so are a lot of things. Religions of condemnation are more so in my book.
***
You wrote: “…he could have, he should have said no.”
So should have David! So should YOU say “No!” to the constant talk and focus on darkness.
God is the ONLY one who knows how well Dr did in temptation, yet you and many others act as if YOU know too. You don’t! You should ask God how many times Dr DID say no to temptation, but as long as you are out of fellowship with Him and focusing on other men’s sins instead of Him and His Word and Son I doubt you could hear Him answer.
I keep on having to remind people here that God is different than our religious selves. God tolerated David, even in murder. So far none of the stories about Dr have grown that big, but it wont surprise me when the do.
David’s reported sin cost him dearly, but God knew it was going to happen and planned accordingly. God and David were able to get some work done when David was in fellowship. When he was out of fellowship God had to wait. We only know of one cycle in this process for David, because that’s all that’s written. However, I know that David had to jade himself into a lot before getting to murdering Uriah with many other cycles prior to that occasion. No one trips up as bad as David did without lots of practice. And no one cleans up such a habit pattern immediately and completely, so I know he must have blown it one big way or another even after Nathan successfully confronted him.
I think what David did was despicable, even just the one cycle with Uriah. If I had been God then I’d have fired David. If I had been in Dr’s presence {…rascal, here’s some more of your answer…} and he did half of what he is reported of doing I’d probably fired him in my mind and not be here typing this. It would have probably blown me out of the water, and I’d never had had a chance to see over it and see the treasures God put into PFAL that I do now.
Still today, after all the hidden treasures I’ve seen in PFAL, I do STILL have great difficulties with the whole affair. But I am learning to forgive more every day, and I pray for your learning too, as well as other posters here, and many others too.
I’m very grateful for Dr’s accomplishments, but like David, I’m sure he COULD have done more. Then again, maybe that’s why WE got to hear PFAL, so WE could go the distance Dr wished he could cover. We’ll never do that with a focus on darkness, though.
We’ll never be able to thoroughly examine the good deeds and bad of Dr’s. No one’s memory can contain the complete context of those events. There are all sorts of subtleties that are lost forever in every first hand witness’ mind.
***
Take out your Bibles and turn to I John. Let’s look at Chapter 1 verse 9, and we read:
“If we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
The word “confess” is homologeo, and it means to say the same thing, or to agree, or to admit.
In Living Victoriously Dr talks about this very easy way to re-establish fellowship. It’s easy because of the verse 7:
“…the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
In one of those LV teachings he describes how he had a disturbing phone call that got him anxious. Anxiety is not walking in the light and is not walking in fellowship. He recognized, admitted to, agreed to, confessed this broken fellowship, and BOOM, back in the light.
We can train our minds to do this. The faster we get back in fellowship the better. The quicker we can get to that admission, the quicker we can get into the light. Religion teaches us otherwise. Religion teaches us that a long painful recognition is necessary, followed by a successful plan to never repeat the sin. THEN these religions think it’s just, right to think full forgiveness has happened and fellowship restored.
In another LV teaching, he talks about how this admission, this confessing of sin has to be sincere. It can’t be a simple ploy to go out and sin again. I posted these paragraphs here somewhere.
We were taught that restoration is quick and easy, that God is faithful as the verse says. Peter thought he was being magnanimous in asking Jesus if he should forgive 7 times. Jesus told him to start thinking 70 times 7. People weary of repeated confessions and are not faithful to forgive, but God is faithful. Aren’t you glad!!? God is more ready to forgive than people are. We can be blessed if we learn to forgive like God does.
I didn’t say stupid, though. If we are assigning responsibilities to someone who has blown it sinfully and repeatedly, we may want to wait out some period of time and look for evidence that that person has successfully changed their habit patterns. This is because we don’t have access to their heart and can’t see the future. It’s a practical measure we must take, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still learn to forgive quickly and faithfully like God does. When assigning responsibilities we have to be as practical as possible.
Now remember, Dr. Wierwille is dead, and has been for almost 20 years, so no one is going to ask you to allow him to escort you teenage daughters on an long trip staying overnight at a Motel 6, like Rush Limbaugh often bragged you could do with him.
God is faithful and just to forgive. It’s right for Him to forgive that way. It’s just, and we are unjust when we harbor grudges and refuse to forgive. We are not walking with God when that anxiety rules our mind.
****************************************************************
excathedra,
You wrote: “dude what are you smoking ? not kool shorties __ i'll take the bless-ed mother any day over the man of god of our day and time”
When I talk of Mary worship I’m not talking about the very blessed mother of Jesus. The Catholic Mary is a counterfeit, and not the same person at all. I know, I used to pray to her, and even had a vision or two or three of her when I was in Jr. High. I was a very committed Catholic, and after reading the Bible I see the two Mary’s are vastly different.
****************************************************************
Oakspear,
You wrote: “Your position that PFAL is God's Word reissued hardly gives you credentials as a rational participant in this discussion. To you it's a question of master vs. don't master, assuming all along that it's right. You accept that Wierwille was sinful in many of his actions but rationalize them with "everybody is tempted" and deny the possibility that the actions could have affected his ability to teach the truth.”
Actually, I’m sure that like David, Dr was hindered in his ability to teach by his flesh. We all are. Yet it does not hinder God. He knows it will take place before it takes place, and He acts accordingly.
Yes, I do now think it is a crucial thing to master PFAL, but I didn’t think this “all along” as you wrote. Yes, all along in my posting history, but it was only 6 years ago that I adopted this position, and I remember lots of the processes that led me to this. I think these considerations can give me something rational to say here.
Here’s what you wrote in the first post of this thread: “I believe that tearing down the whole edifice and building anew is a better way to go. Start from scratch and learn what truth is independent of anything Wierwille said.”
I believe something close to this. I advocate tearing down the whole edifice that’s in our minds, the TVT in there that is, and building anew from the neglected written record.
It’s the next part of your post I’d take some exception to. For thousands of years people have been doing the truth search thing. I think they’ve all failed to reach the endpoint, because no one has learned to do all the things Jesus Christ did. God stepped in to give us a chance of really finding the truth in the written PFAL.
What he said and what he wrote can be miles apart.
****************************************************************
Mark Sanguinetti,
After quoting a paragraph of mine you wrote: “Mike, you are a sick man. You know that don't you? Why would you choose either one? Oh, yes of course. Because your hero and idol partook in the licentiousness.”
Mark, you didn’t quite read all of the quote of mine you posted. I even bold fonted the answer to your question, but you didn’t reproduce that in your quote.
In that quote I said this in bold fonts: “If I had to choose between…” and then I listed only two choices. It was a hypothetical setup for discussion purposes. You act as if I wanted to choose between the two. Please read my long post on page 4 and you’ll see much more on this. I think I made a pretty convincing case of displaying my leaning AWAY FROM licentiousness. In that post I reveal that I made my hypothetical choice, and my actual choices, IN SPITE of my feelings on this.
Before calling someone sick, why don’t you try to gather the whole story?
***
You wrote: “Read Bullinger's "How to enjoy the bible"...it's where wierwille stole his material from for the first 8 sessions of his "class".”
If he stole it, why did he sell it in the bookstore, and frequently discuss it? I just got done listening to a Summer School class titled “How to Enjoy the Bible” that he did in 1965. He was right up front with us on that book. He changed several things in the class from what Bullinger wrote, too.
Again, why not get the whole story?
****************************************************************
Lifted Up,
You wrote: “Mike, I have seen people talk about something a LOT more serious, IMO, than "a few unwanted advances". Finding out more about just what DID happen seems to be another matter. But with this phrase, you seem to brush it aside with an attitude of...even if it did happen, it wasnt that big a deal. So, I ask you, and very seriously, were there only a few unwanted advances involved? Because I have seem people here talking about a lot worse, at least in terms of how you seem to downgrade the phrase. If you have reason to believe there WASN'T any worse, then I would genuinely like to hear about it.”
I used that phrase because if people are ever going to forgive, forget, and move on a literary playing down is useful to calming down the mind. Of course, the opposite happens if people don’t want to calm down. Some here want to hype it up, thinking that will lead to healing or something. I offer the opposite: let’s hype it down IN WRITING about it in public. Love covers a multitude of errors. It should be covered and not hyped up in a mob setting.
If I were in a one-on-one counseling situation I would not even think of such a thing, at least not in the initial stages. Having many hurts of my own in this area, I think I can lend a very sympathetic ear to someone who wants to grow away from the pain. I would not downplay it when they need to know I'm there for them.
I think that compared to murder, whatever happened was a lot less damaging than murder.
As far as ever finding out exactly what happened, the approach taken here is very much the opposite of what has evolved in our legal system and in science. To do proper detective work on something like this, if it were worth trying, would be a daunting task. A good detective would have to cut through all the rhetoric, all the emotion, all the hyperbole, all the exaggeration, all the distorted memory, and even the lies. To think these things are absent in the approach taken here is ludicrous. Only God can sort through all of this.
I see a tremendous lack of confidence in God’s ability to even the score on these things. There’s a reason why He says “Vengeance is mine.” It’s because human beings cannot sort through all this stuff. We’re told to think and focus on the good, not the bad.
Your last line was: “If you have reason to believe there WASN'T any worse, then I would genuinely like to hear about it.”
I have reason to believe it wasn’t any worse than murder, and I see the precedent set in the OT that even murder does not thwart God’s ability to teach and give revelation and get a job done even with a very flawed human being like David.
In the long run, all sin will be forgotten, not just by God but by all. Whatever actually happened will be forgotten and fade into nothingness. But if I’m right, and God really did re-issue His Word in what we would call a highly unorthodox fashion, then those who oppose it will suffer great loss, feel great shame (I John 2:28), and that loss lasts an eternity.
When it comes to what really happened, it’s much more important for us to look more closely and more accurately in what happened in the formulation of the PFAL writings.
****************************************************************
UncleHairy,
You wrote: “…a theological debate over wierwille's teachings.”
And: “…the doctrine of wierwille.”
And: “…the fruit produced by wierwille's teachings…”
And: “…adhering to wierwille teachings…”
And: “…Wierwille taught…”
And: “…wierwille taught…”
In all of your post you brought out items from TVT, that is the Twi Verbal Tradition, of what this doctrine and these teachings supposedly contained. You just pulled up these things from memory, and I’m saying that it’s a faulty memory. You forgot some, some slipped by you, and you fully embraced the TVT.
I don’t dispute that the absent Christ AS PRESENTED in the TVT was devilish. I’m not disputing that we did indeed make VPW the head of the body in our minds. I’m not disputing that many were led away from a healthy relationship with Christ.
What I’m saying is that these errors are not present in the written record that we were repeatedly told to master, yet continually refused to do. If we had taken our doctrine from what Dr really did teach, especially in written form, then all these devilish situations could have been averted.
Have you gone back to the record to see if your memory jives correctly with what is actually in there? My challenge to you is just that. Let’s examine the record on all the points you brought up. Of course you don’t have to accept, but if you do I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. You’ll find out that there was much more good in what happened to us in The Way, and that much more good can come of it.
Because I returned to the written form of PFAL I have found that relationship with Christ I craved, and it’s surprisingly better than anything I could have imagined.
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Danny
I guess we just bounced from a honest question to a pfal sales call. And oh how he was so wonderful. Mike he sid it himself I wish I was the man I knew to be.
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Mike
Danny,
Yes he did say that. In fact he said it on tape, in writing, and even had it chiseled in stone.
“I wish I were the man I know to be.”
I referred to it above in my retro-post to shazdancer thusly: “I’m very grateful for Dr’s accomplishments, but like David, I’m sure he COULD have done more. Then again, maybe that’s why WE got to hear PFAL, so WE could go the distance Dr wished he could cover.”
Because I have referred to this line so often in previous posts, I decided to paraphrase it in this most recent post.
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TheSongRemainsTheSame
Nice one Mike. I suppose LCM was martyr to that type o think
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Oakspear
Oldies:
So it was "obvious" that some things were wrong and others weren't. What made it obvious? It couldn't have been whether it conformed to mainstream Christianity or not, because you retained some things that are at odds with most churches.
Was it that your experience with things like tithing and the law of believing didn't line up what was taught? Sounds like it. That makes sense. If following the plan doesn't bring the advertised results, there's something wrong.
And understand this: when I talk about "tearing down", I don't necessarily mean making a decision one way or another. What I'm talking about is going back to the baseline, the starting line, and getting re-convinced of what I believe. Some things I will end up believing the same things as before, others I will reject. In the context of what I'm discussing, "tearing down the edifice" does not mean condemning, but questioning everything.
From what you've described you rejected things where you saw a clear contradiction between what was taught and what you experienced: tithing didn't make you prosperous, believing didn't equal receiving, etc. Everything else that didn't jar your senses in some way, you kept.
That's what I get from your words.
And actually, yes, I am asking you to question Christianity, in the sense that your view of Christianity is shaped in large part by what Wierwille taught. Of all the Wierwille teachings that are common to Christianity, you say that you didn't know them before encountering TWI. Your view of "the truth" is shaped by TWI; you still largely define truth as what you were taught in TWI.
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excathedra
you guys are flipping me out
what exactly are we talking about ?
mary. veepee. sex. i don't get it.
too bad we can't be in the same room in real person
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Oakspear
From the original post:
I think most of us would agree that no evil behavior on the part of Wierwille or his lieutenants would necessarily invalidate any truth contained in the teachings.
Okay! No more making the argument about rejecting Wierwille's teachings because he was evil
:D-->
But if Wierwille was the adulterous, plagiarizing, scam artist that he appears to have been, why would anyone take anything he said at face value? If his standard practice was to lie and cheat, if he his way of life was to use people, why would any of his teachings be kept and revered as truth?
I guess if you don't believe any of the bad stuff that's printed about him, that's another story
It seems to me that Wierwille's way of life would cause anyone who followed him or his "ministry" to question every one of his assumptions.
In other words, check it out for yourself
Many ex-Way people are afraid of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I believe that that is a seriously flawed analogy. A baby is irreplaceable. Any "truths" that lie at the heart of all the muck of Wierwille's teachings and the evil application of them can be replaced, i.e. arrived at by methods other than PFAL...if they are truths.
What? Anyone here think that the truths that are embedded in Wierwillism are lost to us if we don't unquestioningly accept PFAL?
What many people do is keep the basic structure of Wierwille doctrine and compare them to the bible, or their opinion of what the bible says.
I believe that tearing down the whole edifice and building anew is a better way to go. Start from scratch and learn what truth is independent of anything Wierwille said.
That's WORK, but if the TRUTH isn't worth a little work...
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Oakspear
You don't understand that veepee and his trstworthiness to teach is the subject here?
You don't understand that sex is part of the "evil" perpetrated by Wierwille and therefore relevant to the discussion?
Okay, the Mary thing I see why you wouldn't get it. Mike somehow equated the sexual attitudes of some churches to Mary worship. I lost track myself. Maybe Mike will explain it to us.
:D-->
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excathedra
well thank you oakspear
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excathedra
oldies
not to offend but it was twi that really screwed me over when i really didn't need it
soooo....... what's godly ?
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shazdancer
Mike,
I am not going to reply to the post you addressed to me, except to say that it is ridiculously off the mark. Rather, I would like to speak to your post of 2 pages ago that has brought up a lot of interesting responses.
Mike you think that disliking casual sex is a mere habit pattern?Good, but sure sounds like the antithesis of what you wrote before. Would you care to elucidate? Whoa, whoa, back up a minute! (I have not thought much about what TWI's sex practices did to the men who weren't participants, or even to those who were. Wow, young men coming into their adulthood, having their maleness (and relations with females) redefined in some pretty unsavory ways. I think it would make an interesting thread.
From what I have read from you, Mike, there were two things that hurt you: being left out of the "inner circle" of "cool" Wayfers who had love lives or sex lives; and Wierwille chewing you out. They both suck. They shouldn't have happened, certainly not among people who professed to stand for the love of God. Some of us were the perpetrators of such behavior, and some of us stood by and didn't speak up.I also am coming from a place of having been hurt by Wierwille, though not sexually. I have no trouble recognizing that he taught some good things, and did some good things, but that is a long way from believing that his PFAL writings are God-breathed, as you believe. And part of the point of this thread is to point that out. To me, the very fact that he was a sexual predator at the time of the writings precludes him from being a writer of God's Word, according to the scriptures themselves.
We "take up the cause of someone else's hurts" because we care. The survival of sexual abuse is especially complicated, because people don't understand how profound the abuse is, and how much it robs from the victim. I have "taken up" a few causes lately: ex-Way, abuse, and Lyme disease. I got involved in them because I cared, and hope that by having a little knowledge in those areas I might contribute something helpful. BTW, Mike, I am a survivor of sexual assault.
So do we all, when the hurt might interfere with our ability to accomplish things. But we should not deny the hurt all the time, or it will only pop up someplace else -- as depression, for instance, or distrust, or a short fuse. I could bet money that if we could look into Wierwille's childhood years, we would see profound abuse. Perhaps some of your talks with people who knew him then turned some of that up, Mike. I pity him for that, but now it is his victims that need comforting.I would suggest that your "relative values" are a bit skewed. People matter. More than the book, which was written for the people! And I would also suggest that you not become devoid of emotion when it comes to weighing the value of a human being. Yes, but the only war is a spiritual one. When it comes to dealing with people, we are to keep our ability to empathize intact. We are to be like Jesus Christ, the man who loved, whose very insides churned in his caring for them.I understood you, I just disagree. Getting PFAL into print was not more important than the lives that were critically wounded by Wierwille and his lackeys.Mike, you have spent over a year here trying to convince us to give PFAL a second look. I would invite you, instead, to open your heart for awhile, instead of your mind. Intellect, schmintellect. Data, schmata. God could care less about how smart we are. He looks on the heart. He gave power in the first century to people who couldn't even read, and who didn't have a Bible. But it wasn't power over others that He gave, nor power to gain admirers. It was power to help, because they cared, and He cared.
Regards,
Shaz
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excathedra
thank you shaz since i find it really difficult to read long posts so i didn't see
you know, i haven't thought a lot about it, mike, and i'm sorrythere's been only ONE person who really opened my eyes about this and he doesn't post here anymore
thank you for reminding me
i'm sorry
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GrouchoMarxJr
Mike...I still have all my original pfal books and many other books that wierwille "authored". I am aware of the fact that twi did not function in a way that was compatible with wierwilles written books...that's true, I will concede that point to you. I believe the "waytree" doctrine was introduced into the mainstream of the "ministry" sometime in the early 70's by J.T. and his unbelievably boring seminar..."The way tree"...Of course this was masterminded by wierwille...nothing like this could have happened without his close scrutiny. I believe that when wierwille came up with his waytree scheme, he compromised greatly on what he had written in his earlier books...just like he compromised on his earlier teachings against tithing...when he saw the growth begin...he changed his teaching to "Christians should be prosperous"...a scurrilous little pamphlet that laid the foundation for twi's financial empire. (it was always the FIRST assignment in pfal...get it?).
Wierwille actually stole some halfway decent material from some fairly decent Christian writers and thinkers. The problem was wierwille lack of charecter...He would twist the scriptures to suit his own ends. I mean, I actually think that the works of E.W. Bullinger are valid...I just don't like the "spin" that Veepee put on a lot of the things that he stole from him as well as others. Wierwille's obvious lack of originality was apparent when comparing his works against those he stole them from...much is reproduced verbatim. He even stole the names "Maggie Muggins and Henry Baloko"...
Whenever wierwille would venture into the realm of "something on his own", he invariably looked a buffoon. His over simplified approach was both naive and sophmoric. When critiquing his "works" from a scholarly perspective, he falls far short of having even a modicum of any depth in his writings.
I maintain that if wierwille's doctrine is of interest to anyone, they would fare much better by going to the several serious writers that wierwille copied from. Why? Because wierwille's "packaging" of these other men's work was seriously flawed in a number of ways. First of all was wierwille's tendency to oversimplify...his inability to comprehend much of the material that he was stealing becomes painfully apparent when making comparisons of wierwille versus those he stole from. His understanding of certain aspects is often flawed or skewed.
Wierwille included many WRONG doctrines when he put his "class" together and wrote his original pfal books. Believing does not equal receiving...etc., etc. Wierwille's selfish way of thinking led him into a spiritual cul de sac. He was void of proper judgement in determining biblical interpretations and he lost his credibility as a Christian leader. Charecter flaws and spiritual perception are not independant of each other. The man cannot and should not be trusted...and that means his "works" should not be trusted either.
Wierwille should never be compared to any of the 1st century apostles, or to any of the serious Christian theologians, or to even a legitimate Christian minister. He was none of those things...he was a grifter. He was defrocked from his own church for having sex with one of his flock and he never stopped this behavior.
Mike...do you honestly think that God would give this great "revelation" to a man of such low charecter? You cannot ignore the grievious sins of the man and simply point to his books...life doesn't work that way. The man and his books are interconnected...the writings in his books are an extension of his mind...a mind that is contaminated by dishonesty, greed and lust...and therefore CANNOT be trusted.
If there is any value in wierwille's writings, it's because of those he stole from. The easiest way I know to seperate the truth from the error in wierwille's teachings, is to simply take wierwille out of the equation. Go back to those he stole from and examine their works...whatever is missing of twi's doctrine in THEIR writings was probably the error that wierwille added.
I know you worship veepee and piffle, but in my opinion, wierwilles's written works are a cheap, inferior, knock off of something that was done by someone else...much better. So Mike, if you want to keep watching for snow on the gas pumps, that's you're priviledge.
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socks
Quack.
"Jim, I'm a doctor, not a mathematician! I can't fix a Vulcan's brain patterns!"
The worst thing about that belief Mike, is that those who hold to it are usually more than willing to step up and fall on their sword for the cause if it will move it forward. Which makes a good case for evolutionary forces working to eliminate the weaker animals out of the pack but little for the cause of deliverance in Christ. You can pull that pin if you want, just stand waaaaay over there when you do because we're bringin' 'em back alive in the sock drawer.
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TheInvisibleDan
(lol)Another "nerd" here.
I think Way nerds may have even been below "Trekkies" in the food chain...
Good posts.
Danny
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Mike
Uncle Hairy,
You wrote: “I am aware of the fact that twi did not function in a way that was compatible with wierwilles written books...that's true, I will concede that point to you.”
Thank you. Can you concede that your memory of the contents of those books is not compatible with what is actually written in them? If you think about it, such a concession is pretty hard to make without actually going to said books and spending some substantial time with them. Memory likes to think it’s true. It’s very disconcerting to have an old memory of something, like a book or a movie, and then going back to see that the original is different. Memory will rebel at first and try to think that someone has changed the original. It’s quite humbling.
***
You wrote: “I believe that when wierwille came up with his waytree scheme, he compromised greatly on what he had written in his earlier books...”
I have a 1972 tape where he somewhat agrees with you. He says that the ministry leadership, especially on the field, was spiritually immature and needed some 5-senses guidelines to keep things straight. Moses' father-in-law came up with a very similar plan for the spiritually imature nation of Israel to operate. Moses accepted this "scheme" because it was from God.
On that tape he says that things like the centralized abs should be only temporary. Unfortunately, as the decade wore on, the upper leadership started regressing instead of growing. He offered solutions, but they were declined. HQ went down fast, but the field held things up for a while longer. It too went down. By 1982 no one in upper leadership was paying any attention to Dr. There is lots of tape and magazine article evidence of these things. I’ve posted reams of it.
It’s one thing to formulate a theory of what happened. But the next step is to test that theory against the evidence. You can’t dredge that evidence up from memory. It must be recorded evidence in tape or print.
***
You wrote that “Christians Should Be Prosperous” “…was always the FIRST assignment in pfal...get it?”
Yes, I get it. People put money first in their lives, and need to be taught to not do that.
***
You wrote: “His over simplified approach was both naive and sophmoric. When critiquing his "works" from a scholarly perspective, he falls far short of having even a modicum of any depth in his writings.”
Since PFAL is revelation from God it should not be surprising that God made it readable by the many, instead of catering to the elite. You see brother, how not many mighty, not many noble according to the flesh are called. I’m paraphrasing Paul.
It also should not be surprising that God would chose the weak to confound the mighty. If a mighty scholar is meek, he’ll have a field day seeing all the depth God put in there behind that simplistic fa?e.
***
You wrote: “I maintain that if wierwille's doctrine is of interest to anyone, they would fare much better by going to the several serious writers that wierwille copied from.”
He didn’t copy wholesale, he corrected, and that was by revelation. What he did copy he attributed to God giving THEM revelation in those instances. I posted a transcript of a 1965 tape called “Light Began to Dawn” where he says this.
***
You wrote: “His understanding of certain aspects is often flawed or skewed.”
Yes, I thought that too, and for years, and it was growing in intensity. When I cracked the books again I found out it was ME Oh Lord, who was flawed. I had only accurately absorbed a fraction of what is written.
***
You wrote: “Wierwille should never be compared to any of the 1st century apostles, or to any of the serious Christian theologians…”
The theologians I can’t get at all excited over. I have no spiritual respect for them as a whole. I see them as refined Pharisees.
I don’t compare Dr to the apostles. I do see a lot of similarities between the revelation God gave Him and the revelation He gave the apostles. God is able to give revelation to anyone who is willing to absorb it. He worked with David, Balaam, Solomon too. If you or I were God, we’d not be so magnanimous, but He is.
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Grizzy
Is your spirituality based in truth or on a dead man’s presentation containing some truth? If you remove the VPW factor from your foundation will your beliefs stand or fall? Remember the challenge of getting back to where you can say “Thus sayeth the Lord”, can you honestly do that or do you have to quote a man buried almost two decades ago?
Is your God so small that His truth only fits in a few hours in a few classes? What really was the primary purpose of PFAL? Truths were presented, but how much did recruitment play into this? If recruitment to a certain organization wasn’t foundational to the foundation why did it become a 3 class series?
On the other hand, is a dead man’s influence so big in your life you base your beliefs on rejecting a dead man? Because he taught it you have to junk it?
Oakspear has presented a solid argument for the value of checking where your beliefs are resting. Catcup has presented a great truth! Look if the baby you have is truth, it is to big to go down the drain!
To much of our time and energy seems to go to defending a deadman or debunking him! We won’t stand before VPW to give an account, we won’t be judged by PFAL, it will be each of us according to God’s standard! Have you so limited God that you really think He fits into a set of classes packaged to recruit new members to a man’s organization?
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Mike
Shaz,
There are so many points you made that are far off the mark that I don’t want to get into it all. I can’t blame you on many of these not-so-near misses because I did shut down my disclosures at many points. I’m just not at all willing to discuss some private things in public. Maybe by e-mail or phone, but not here. When the threads get this deep into the sexual stuff I shut down. I feel a need to get away from this topic. I’ve said enough.
Please allow me to point out two items though. The first is easy. You have the wrong take on that incident I reported about getting chewed out by Dr. I think I corrected this misunderstanding before, probably with someone else. That incident does not bother me at all now nor then. It puzzled me at first, but I’ve come to an understanding. I forget why I posted it, but is wasn’t to say I was horribly hurt. Sure it stung, but I’ve had much worse pain in common situations outside the ministry and lived through them quite well.
The other point is you objection to Dr getting revelation at a time when you think he shouldn’t have. One of the reasons I posted that mini teaching on I John and confessing broken fellowship is to remind you and others that God made it very easy and quick to get back into fellowship, and that He does not put all the constraints on this restoration that people would. God is bigger than you think on this issue. Several times I’ve posted that I had to apply that I John verse a hundred times in one day. This figure is not a figure of speech. I’m not exaggerating. There are times when various kinds of temptations and sin can be raging in a battle royal with my desire to maintain fellowship. I’m gl;ad those kinds of days are relatively rare, but then again, I’ve not been placed in a very highly targeted hotseat very much like Dr was. Because of his mission he was under an enormous variety of constant attacks. I can easily see him quickly getting back into fellowship and functioning very well in God’s plan.
Another challenge to your objection to both Gods working with and on him in the same day and time is the story of Balaam. He was right in the act of professionally cursing God’s people and he comes out with a most beautiful prophesy of God blessing Israel with his Son. It blew his employer’s mind that his mind could switch so quickly to the truth from error. Because of this account, it should NOT blow our minds that Dr could get revelation. Think of this too: we can get it too, even when we think we don’t deserve it.
***
I’m sorry about backing off on so many of the other things you posted. I can only take so much of the sex stuff and my mind shuts down. Maybe some other time.
I am grateful that you and excathedra (Thanks Exy) acknowledged that men can be hurt in these areas too. It’s just in different ways, and our culture pretty well forbids discussion of it by the victims.
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