For me, I had a desire to determine what the truth was. As a young man I decided that the bible was the truth, but hadn't been taught much detail about it. Followers of The Way were the first people to claim that it was even possible to read and understand the bible. "The class" seemed an easy way to check out their claims.
For several sessions, Wierwille hammers home the theme that the bible is "The Revealed Word and Will of God", "The Integrity of The Word", "The God Breathed Word", etc. He reads a lot of verses, but doesn't really say anything other than "God wrote the bible, so it's true" for hours upon hours.
Finally, he starts reading verses that contradict what the mainstream churches teach. "Wow", I thought, "how can the churches have missed this stuff? It's written plainly in black & white". He spends quite a while building his own credibility as someone who simply reads what's written, and the churches unreliability at the same. To me, it undermined any trust I may have had in the churches and built up Wierwille in my eyes.
So far, in my opinion, he's done little that's obviously wrong, he pretty much just reads (although he's already putting his own spin on II Timothy 3:16-17 and I Peter 1:20-21)
Then he starts hitting us with "the fireworks" - the "apparent contradictions". After convincing us that the bible cannot contradict itself, since it's "godbreathed", and tearing down the churches' credibility and building up his own, he starts throwing around definitions of greek words and concepts with little visible support. Reasonable posters can disagree about his doctrines, but my point is that, while being told that we could check things out for ourselves, we were being expected to accept his premises and definitions, from which his conclusions arose.
I knew very few people who had any concept of "working the Word" back when I took PFAL, so there really wasn't anyone to check this stuff out with. And he had done such a thorough job of discrediting churches that I probably wouldn't have listened anyway.
After getting my head filled with a bewildering array of doctrine, then we hit "the holy spirit field". Whatever one thinks of the doctrine, Wierwille was schooled in the art of preaching, and knew how to build up the excitement, culminating in the emotional speaking in tongues in session twelve.
Looking back with what I know now, a lot of what Wierwille had in his class was poorly done "research", unwarranted assumptions, and biblical pretzel baking.
Yet I accepted what he taught, I accepted him as an expert.
By the time I could 'work the Word" on my own, I was so thoroughly indoctrinated with Wierwille's assumptions, that it was difficult to view the bible without my Way-colored glasses.
Oakspear...very well said. That was about the way it was handled logically in my mind. Emotionally it was a different story. I needed somthing to belong to. I was a mess, suicidal and had no direction. Twig was the family I never had. Someone loved me for me and I was already abused by the Bible college I had attended. So PFAL made logical sence in comparison to the fundemental non-denomiational hellfire/brimstone garbage I had already experiance. PFAL was the answer to a life of desperation and shame.
Hmm, I had been raised a Baptist, and had seen their inconsistencies in doctrine. The way they abused each other and had learned to distrust 'Christians'.
Then I attended a Methodist church for a couple years (though I never join them like I had the Baptists), but I saw many of the same things going on.
When I was witnessed to, it came within a day after I prayed asking for G-d to lead me to someone somewhere who truly knew and operated G-d's Light and Power. She knocked on my barracks door and offered me the PFAL class. I went to a public Exhibition and paid my money. I waited 6 months for the next class to be run, checking in with them when I could.
I attended PFAL and thought it was great. I shared with friends, things I had learned and they thought it was great.
I read my collaterals. I got a 'Youngs' concordance and began doing Hebrew and Greek word-studies while underwater.
I really enjoyed that I did not need a degree in theology to study the Bible (of course back in 1979 that was before I got my MA in theology).
I thought the fellowships were great, and it was so wonderful how a ministry could run as a laity (without assigned clergy).
I continued going to the house where I had taken the class every other Saturday Evening when they held 'fellowships' (and when I was in port).
I got to share some of the word-studies that I had begun doing, it was great.
I even brought a few friends.
After a few months, someone asked me what twig I was 'in', but at that point I had never heard about 'Twig' and had never attended one. I eventually got assigned into a twig fellowship. Come to find out, where I had taken the class was a branch home (where WOWs had been living and it was coming to the end of their year so the WOW home was getting ready to dissolve).
I attended Twig, but the coordinator was also a submariner, so it got disrupted every time he was underwater. So different Twigs would pop up, and run in different homes, according to who was in port any given week.
Some friends needed to get married (Harrell and Fran), but they really did not want to go before a JP. They said that they had been going to see a guy for counseling (Steve Strezpec), but he was dragging it out and it looked like he was not going to do it, or at least he would not soon enough. The Harrell was being transferred and the only way to bring Fran was if they were married with a license. So since we were in a laity ministry, I filed for my 'ordination', got it, and a week later I performed a wedding for them.
The next Twig, the stuff hit the fan. Steve Strezpec showed up, apparently he was ordained and the leader of the state, and he told everyone that he had been leading Harrell and Fran along, but since they were not Way Corp, he had no real intention of marrying them. His true intentions were to convince them to go Way Corp. He made a big statement that I was born of a different spiritual Father, and he threw me 'out'.
At that time, I also had orders in hand, transferring me out of the area, so I went to Virginia. I got into a twig there.
Let me clarify the point of this thread, at least what I had in mind when I posted it.
There are those of us here for whom PFAL was originally and remains to this day everything that it claimed to be. Though I am not a PFAL fan, I'm glad you have something to "hang your hat on" spiritually. But although no one is checking your I.D. at the door, this thread really isn't for you, but for those who came to the conclusion that PFAL was deficient in some way, after initially believing what was taught there.
What methods or teaching styles, what inaccuracies or misrepresentations, or even misconceptions or misunderstandings, led you to "fall for" something that you now believe is error?
I suppose that pfal "caught me" at a vulnerable time in my life...I was a social misfit who scorned religion and sought truth from "unconventional" means...Wierwille's approach to teaching the bible was unique in my experience. When I think about my early experiences in twi, when I first took the class...and compare them to when lcm became prez...everything became legalistic, mechanical, and phoney. Twi had changed radically from 1975 to 1987...My heart for the truth had not changed. While observing lcm "running the show", I knew I had to leave. Whatever grifter Vic had conned me into, lcm destroyed. After I left, I began to look at the wrong teachings in pfal...I suppose that I attribute the firey personality and his disdain for churces that reeled me in...
...After he died, so did his charismatic personality...I began to look at things more honestly and from the perspective of a much older person...What I have learned in all these years is that, wanting something to be true and it REALLY being true, are 2 different things.
My senior year of college the job market was tight. All my good friends were heading out for teaching jobs in tiny towns throughout several western states. I myself was headed toward a half day kindergarten position ina small town in eastern Montana. I was dreading it, living in a small town full of country and western ranch folk, in a goldfish bowl where everyone knew what you were doing(no kidding--if you turned your house lights off early people asked you the next day if you were ill). And what would I do with all the time on my hands? I'd be done with work by one in the afternoon. I was depressed, looking at the future.
I was still pretty upset and angry at the break up with my long time boyfriend, who was off to law school in a big, fun city. My big joy in life was to be with my friends, we followed a local band around the area(Mission Mtn Woodband) on weekends, and now they were all going to be far away.
So I met these wows, all guys...they were very very sure about the class etc. Plus, um, it gave me something to do that summer after college, because I was pretty lonely by college graduation. No one else was pursuing me in any way, that was for sure, so it had to be a good thing, right. No one I knew was even left in town after graduation, most went home, but I had a job, an apartment, and I needed to move east a couple hundred miles in August and my home was clear across the state in the other direction.
In about a month or so I had a new religion, a new guy, new busy activities, the Rock was cool, it was all very different from St Teresa's Catholic Church...
I would say I was pretty vulnerable at that time. Also young. I wasn't really taking charge of my life, just flowing along. I wasn't looking at doctrinal superiority or anything like that. At that time I didn't care at all about doctrine, wasn't studying it, wasn't church shopping. I was really more into 'new age' stuff. There was bahai group in town, but the folks I met were rude...but the wows treated me likre their favoriet friend. TWI wasn't like a church and I sure liked being 'right' once I got through the class.
It was an emotional whirlwind, nothing thought through at all on my part. When I finally did start thinking, I was married with kids and living the hoop jump lifestyle.
POWER for ABUNDANT LIVING.....with a guarantee? Promised by God....to me? Hmmm, for only how much?
If I asked for bread from my Father would he give me a stone? a snake?
Who wouldn't want power for abundant living?
They could not have picked a more inticing name for it.
Well, I bought it and paid a frigging high price for it! I thought I was smarter than manipulations and loving coersions. I was not smarter than the average bear, hogie!
Recommended Posts
oldiesman
I'll pass on this thread...doesn't apply to me.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Oakspear
For me, I had a desire to determine what the truth was. As a young man I decided that the bible was the truth, but hadn't been taught much detail about it. Followers of The Way were the first people to claim that it was even possible to read and understand the bible. "The class" seemed an easy way to check out their claims.
For several sessions, Wierwille hammers home the theme that the bible is "The Revealed Word and Will of God", "The Integrity of The Word", "The God Breathed Word", etc. He reads a lot of verses, but doesn't really say anything other than "God wrote the bible, so it's true" for hours upon hours.
Finally, he starts reading verses that contradict what the mainstream churches teach. "Wow", I thought, "how can the churches have missed this stuff? It's written plainly in black & white". He spends quite a while building his own credibility as someone who simply reads what's written, and the churches unreliability at the same. To me, it undermined any trust I may have had in the churches and built up Wierwille in my eyes.
So far, in my opinion, he's done little that's obviously wrong, he pretty much just reads (although he's already putting his own spin on II Timothy 3:16-17 and I Peter 1:20-21)
Then he starts hitting us with "the fireworks" - the "apparent contradictions". After convincing us that the bible cannot contradict itself, since it's "godbreathed", and tearing down the churches' credibility and building up his own, he starts throwing around definitions of greek words and concepts with little visible support. Reasonable posters can disagree about his doctrines, but my point is that, while being told that we could check things out for ourselves, we were being expected to accept his premises and definitions, from which his conclusions arose.
I knew very few people who had any concept of "working the Word" back when I took PFAL, so there really wasn't anyone to check this stuff out with. And he had done such a thorough job of discrediting churches that I probably wouldn't have listened anyway.
After getting my head filled with a bewildering array of doctrine, then we hit "the holy spirit field". Whatever one thinks of the doctrine, Wierwille was schooled in the art of preaching, and knew how to build up the excitement, culminating in the emotional speaking in tongues in session twelve.
Looking back with what I know now, a lot of what Wierwille had in his class was poorly done "research", unwarranted assumptions, and biblical pretzel baking.
Yet I accepted what he taught, I accepted him as an expert.
By the time I could 'work the Word" on my own, I was so thoroughly indoctrinated with Wierwille's assumptions, that it was difficult to view the bible without my Way-colored glasses.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
lilbit
Oakspear...very well said. That was about the way it was handled logically in my mind. Emotionally it was a different story. I needed somthing to belong to. I was a mess, suicidal and had no direction. Twig was the family I never had. Someone loved me for me and I was already abused by the Bible college I had attended. So PFAL made logical sence in comparison to the fundemental non-denomiational hellfire/brimstone garbage I had already experiance. PFAL was the answer to a life of desperation and shame.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
templelady
Had absolutely nothing to do with the validity of TWI or it's teachings.Had to do with an abusive spouse and "keeping the peace"
Rules of battered spouses DO not make your spouse angry--- If what you are doing makes them angry-stop doing it.
Not going to TWI not taking "piffle" made him Angry --fear is a great motivator--but not a great assist in making thoughtful decisions
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Allan
Came into PFAL with eyes wide open, happily married, no former beliefs.
Loved it (and still do).
Greatest truths to 'come down the pike' ! I believe they still are.
Still using the keys for successful living outside of twi.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
ex70sHouston
Way back whenI took the class in 75 I was a young, impressionable, seeking person.
I found a group that believed in God and was really worshipping HIm. I grew up in a dead church.
I found a group where you were greeted with a kiss and loved.
I found a group where I met a lot of friends.
It took a while before the truths came out.
The friends are what made it hard to leave. Its one of the few times I have left all my friends and support group and moved on.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
dmiller
I wasn't *reeled in*. I walked in with eyes wide open.
Heheh -- I left the same way! :lol:
David
Edited by dmillerLink to comment
Share on other sites
Oakspear
Link to comment
Share on other sites
BikerBabe
The cute guys!!!
Link to comment
Share on other sites
def59
I stayed with TWI for the simple reason that I wanted/needed friends and this was the only place I was making them.
when that need was taken care of by outside sources, the rules and regs became useless.
Allan, you owe it to yourself to check other places for "truth." Make sure piffle is the right choice for you.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Allan
Oakspear..I was not a Christian nor any other type of believer. Work, family etc..
Def59..thanks for the advice..After leaving twi I went to 'numerous' other churches and denominations.
JWs', Mormons (had relatives that were)..etc..was 'christened' Church of England,brought up Catholic, etc..
I even went to a 'universalist' unitarian church !
Thanx anyway but I'm still more than 'wrapped' with pfiffle !!
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Oakspear
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Galen
Hmm, I had been raised a Baptist, and had seen their inconsistencies in doctrine. The way they abused each other and had learned to distrust 'Christians'.
Then I attended a Methodist church for a couple years (though I never join them like I had the Baptists), but I saw many of the same things going on.
When I was witnessed to, it came within a day after I prayed asking for G-d to lead me to someone somewhere who truly knew and operated G-d's Light and Power. She knocked on my barracks door and offered me the PFAL class. I went to a public Exhibition and paid my money. I waited 6 months for the next class to be run, checking in with them when I could.
I attended PFAL and thought it was great. I shared with friends, things I had learned and they thought it was great.
I read my collaterals. I got a 'Youngs' concordance and began doing Hebrew and Greek word-studies while underwater.
I really enjoyed that I did not need a degree in theology to study the Bible (of course back in 1979 that was before I got my MA in theology).
I thought the fellowships were great, and it was so wonderful how a ministry could run as a laity (without assigned clergy).
I continued going to the house where I had taken the class every other Saturday Evening when they held 'fellowships' (and when I was in port).
I got to share some of the word-studies that I had begun doing, it was great.
I even brought a few friends.
After a few months, someone asked me what twig I was 'in', but at that point I had never heard about 'Twig' and had never attended one. I eventually got assigned into a twig fellowship. Come to find out, where I had taken the class was a branch home (where WOWs had been living and it was coming to the end of their year so the WOW home was getting ready to dissolve).
I attended Twig, but the coordinator was also a submariner, so it got disrupted every time he was underwater. So different Twigs would pop up, and run in different homes, according to who was in port any given week.
Some friends needed to get married (Harrell and Fran), but they really did not want to go before a JP. They said that they had been going to see a guy for counseling (Steve Strezpec), but he was dragging it out and it looked like he was not going to do it, or at least he would not soon enough. The Harrell was being transferred and the only way to bring Fran was if they were married with a license. So since we were in a laity ministry, I filed for my 'ordination', got it, and a week later I performed a wedding for them.
The next Twig, the stuff hit the fan. Steve Strezpec showed up, apparently he was ordained and the leader of the state, and he told everyone that he had been leading Harrell and Fran along, but since they were not Way Corp, he had no real intention of marrying them. His true intentions were to convince them to go Way Corp. He made a big statement that I was born of a different spiritual Father, and he threw me 'out'.
At that time, I also had orders in hand, transferring me out of the area, so I went to Virginia. I got into a twig there.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Oakspear
Let me clarify the point of this thread, at least what I had in mind when I posted it.
There are those of us here for whom PFAL was originally and remains to this day everything that it claimed to be. Though I am not a PFAL fan, I'm glad you have something to "hang your hat on" spiritually. But although no one is checking your I.D. at the door, this thread really isn't for you, but for those who came to the conclusion that PFAL was deficient in some way, after initially believing what was taught there.
What methods or teaching styles, what inaccuracies or misrepresentations, or even misconceptions or misunderstandings, led you to "fall for" something that you now believe is error?
Link to comment
Share on other sites
GrouchoMarxJr
I suppose that pfal "caught me" at a vulnerable time in my life...I was a social misfit who scorned religion and sought truth from "unconventional" means...Wierwille's approach to teaching the bible was unique in my experience. When I think about my early experiences in twi, when I first took the class...and compare them to when lcm became prez...everything became legalistic, mechanical, and phoney. Twi had changed radically from 1975 to 1987...My heart for the truth had not changed. While observing lcm "running the show", I knew I had to leave. Whatever grifter Vic had conned me into, lcm destroyed. After I left, I began to look at the wrong teachings in pfal...I suppose that I attribute the firey personality and his disdain for churces that reeled me in...
...After he died, so did his charismatic personality...I began to look at things more honestly and from the perspective of a much older person...What I have learned in all these years is that, wanting something to be true and it REALLY being true, are 2 different things.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Bramble
My senior year of college the job market was tight. All my good friends were heading out for teaching jobs in tiny towns throughout several western states. I myself was headed toward a half day kindergarten position ina small town in eastern Montana. I was dreading it, living in a small town full of country and western ranch folk, in a goldfish bowl where everyone knew what you were doing(no kidding--if you turned your house lights off early people asked you the next day if you were ill). And what would I do with all the time on my hands? I'd be done with work by one in the afternoon. I was depressed, looking at the future.
I was still pretty upset and angry at the break up with my long time boyfriend, who was off to law school in a big, fun city. My big joy in life was to be with my friends, we followed a local band around the area(Mission Mtn Woodband) on weekends, and now they were all going to be far away.
So I met these wows, all guys...they were very very sure about the class etc. Plus, um, it gave me something to do that summer after college, because I was pretty lonely by college graduation. No one else was pursuing me in any way, that was for sure, so it had to be a good thing, right. No one I knew was even left in town after graduation, most went home, but I had a job, an apartment, and I needed to move east a couple hundred miles in August and my home was clear across the state in the other direction.
In about a month or so I had a new religion, a new guy, new busy activities, the Rock was cool, it was all very different from St Teresa's Catholic Church...
I would say I was pretty vulnerable at that time. Also young. I wasn't really taking charge of my life, just flowing along. I wasn't looking at doctrinal superiority or anything like that. At that time I didn't care at all about doctrine, wasn't studying it, wasn't church shopping. I was really more into 'new age' stuff. There was bahai group in town, but the folks I met were rude...but the wows treated me likre their favoriet friend. TWI wasn't like a church and I sure liked being 'right' once I got through the class.
It was an emotional whirlwind, nothing thought through at all on my part. When I finally did start thinking, I was married with kids and living the hoop jump lifestyle.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
MadeItThrough
"Power for Abundant Livng"
Power for ABUNDANT Living...
POWER for ABUNDANT LIVING.....with a guarantee? Promised by God....to me? Hmmm, for only how much?
If I asked for bread from my Father would he give me a stone? a snake?
Who wouldn't want power for abundant living?
They could not have picked a more inticing name for it.
Well, I bought it and paid a frigging high price for it! I thought I was smarter than manipulations and loving coersions. I was not smarter than the average bear, hogie!
:unsure:
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Ham
Well.. it promised me the WORLD, for a mere eight-five dollars, and ONLY thirty six hours of my time..
looked like a real bargain, at the time..
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.