Posted by Farmer on January 31, 2011 at 04:18:09
In Reply to: Re: Long road since leaving in 1972 posted by Alias Hannah on January 28, 2011 at 00:19:37:
Hannah, I had to take my time over the weekend to recuperate (sore throat/cold).I prefer to miss worktime as little as possible...for the times I am badly sick...so thank God for that kind of social security...but I don't intend to abuse it...like some others.
I had lots in my mind to answer...so I hope it comes back...
First of...there are countless of denominations, churches etc who claim, that they follow the full Bible and take it as their base.I read that type of declaration in the town I live at two churches...one was at the window of a super charismatic one...I never went to...the other happens to be some free brethren gathering.I've been there less than five times...I think.
Now Berg came from a fairly well Word-based background/family.Later I think I remember him having said, that he had read the Bible enough!!!??? and that we should primarily read the Mo-letters..."His word for today"...I mean, that's very strong deception.
I can't quote you the letters, where you find that, neither do I have at the moment the willpower/time, to search for the exact quotes...nevertheless that's pretty much the gist of it.
I dare say, that TFI was the most successfull with people who weren't exposed to any normal church-teachings/Christian education.I had hardly a very Christian upbringing...as a teenager I had drifted off into esoteric stuff..Indian/Asian religion and philosophy.
When after joining I had my first Daniel 2 "class"...I was shocked to how much the Bible is a prophetic book...I threw away all my other books...at the same time "new wine" crept in...like one wife and flirty fishing.It must be my vulnerable point, that I allowed that in my life, thereby reinterpreting Paul and especially Jesus and the Gospel....
Pondering over it after I left, I thought a lot went wrong, because people/Berg/leaders claimed something to be they actually weren't...it was like a bad theatre-piece...heaven and probably hell watching.To prevent that, I thought you have to really reevaluate, what was taught to you by TFI and read the Bible anew...also with the help of others.It was at the end of the nineties, that I read my first books exposing the charismatic movements for things having gone haywire...they even mentioned Berg and the COG in it as a bad example.It took me though time to reevaluate the matter...as I was really fond of some of the specific tenants of the pentecostal/charismatic movement...which has also affiliations with the catholic church as I think you know.
I am not any more a fan of Luther as a whole...especially for his mad ramblings against the Jews (it must have irked him, to have been rejected by some rabbis he was communicating with)...but even then he had said something against the "swarm-spirits"...probably some spirit-movement I have not too many details about.Even Tertullian in his later life got "sucked in" by the Montanus-movement.
When I started to read up about the Gnosis (in comparison to TFI/besides the description in rev. 2. about thyatira)...I felt I had arrived...the similarities were amazing...with the more libertinistic branch of the Gnosis...some remarks in the church-fathers writings allow to conclude, that they also practised wife-swapping...if you google e.g. about the Carpocracians...nothing too new under the sun.
Berg reinvented that so to speak...(by the way similar evils are supposed to have happened in the Baptist movement in Münster in the 16th century I think so...fornication/adultery is apparently not far away in many a movement)
All that to say...many claimed throughout history, to really be it...following to the nth degree and then by their fruits proving rather the contrary.
The problem with TFI is, that some good basic teaching...let's call it fundamental..gets to be mixed with sooo much bad, that it has become a real reproach....another reason worth leaving TFI for...to minimise the reproach done to the cause of Christ.
Pride comes before fall...those who claim so loudly, that they are the real spearhead of Christianity etc. etc....will have some sad awakening sooner or later.
I simply base a lot of my turning away from the charismatic movements on the bad results and also scripture like Eph. 2:20...we're way past the early church prophets and apostles...the building...the church... is build on that foundation & I figure it can't be too far from being completed...may be in our lifetime???
So we don't need additional prophets to tell us what the score is.The Holy spirit will lead us into all the truth...crucial point is also obedience to what is revealed/understood truth.
Consider how Berg & Co. simply undermined a lot of teachings in the Word...if you know/recognise Paul to be Jesus anointed apostle...then Romans 13 must be true...therefore laws of nations where one resides...like Berg and his household did...must be taken very serious.I am not very learned in law, but I suppose, that a lot of nations they were living in had existing laws against pedophilia.
They kind of abolished that..by proclaiming to be a new nation...Berg as the law-giver...
It was justified by verses in the all things letter...to the pure all things are pure etc. etc.
Last not least...Berg had basically no command of the Greek language as evident in the letter faith...he explained the etymology of believing as to stemming from to drink in...would be nice...but so far I never found that to be true.According to his biography he once stormed out of one seminary...saying he only needed to know John 3:16 to minister to people.That is the basic truth, but if someone is as desiring of other people's mates/wives as he was...you need to know a bit more...otherwise you become a reproach to the love of God.
Berg totally confused the Greek agapae...God's perfect love with eros...you cannot read into (biblical)love any type of love you want to...that is the big drawback you have in the Germanic/English languages...you only have one word for love, whereas the Greek had at least 3 I know of.
@ 2000 I finally got @ reading Deborah's book...before in TFI you only got Berg's reinterpretation of it...few years ago I also read not without my sister...both are a must read I'd say.
As I was for very long single and mostly in TFI just on the street peddling letters/posters/tapes...I can't really say what happened or didn't happen in the dormitories of each little family in the homes.Personally I doubt, that any fondling/sexual abuse took place where I was (I do know of corporal punishment with the bare hands on the bottom, which at a few times I also applied)...though I can't be sure.
Some local leaders had some childcare helpers...and at times I also helped out...but frankly I never saw what was described later on at movingon or in not without my sister.The davidito-book wasn't my favourite book either...it wasn't by Berg and just was a lot about an issue I personally had less common with as others...as I didn't have children of my own....I must admit, that it didn't strike me as too weird then, that the childcare helpers seemed to have been nude/semi-nude most of the time (photos in the book)...nudity I likened to simplicity...holiness...before sin entered.Plus in the hot countries we lived in, clothes were less needed than elsewhere (Although it must have been lifestyle too.I was before going to India guest in a leftover/ remaining WS unit...closing down... near Winterthur/Switzerland...the female cooks preferred to cook semi naked with bare breasts...that in winter!...though it was warm in the house...frankly not my take of things then & now.)
Nude camps are fairly frequent in Germany and Scandinavia...so it wasn't per se something bad as from my upbringing...but not that I had frequented them...just societies view on it.
Berg had also proceeded to prepare TFI long before through his biography, saying that he got fondled by his mexican nanny as a child...and he had enjoyed that...here comes the delusion again...The "prophet" liked it...so in "love" (notice just one word in English etc.) performed...it can only be good...that is the trap and a lot of TFers especially in the upper circles practiced that...here enters in obedience to leaders, "godly ordained leaders"/group dynamics...Nobody is thus free of guilt, but it can explain a lot...I noticed, that in the heated debate over the decades of how a fairly civilised nation like Germany can degrade to the performance of the holocaust or turning a blind eye to deportations at least...has been explained more and more....even many of the bigger nazis were intellectuals...so a lack of brain was not the reason.
So by very cunning/evil deception...perpetrated by people, who rather not knew the real Word of God...hurt a lot of people...
Take also Mene...Berg's granddaughter .....she just spoke up saying some real truth...we didn't know of then through the TF-pipelines...not that I remember...and Berg couldn't handle that...not only he abused her sexually...but also with words and corporal punishment.She had voiced, how could Berg as a prophet need to drink that much wine to get over his bouts of discouragement...actually I did wonder about that a bit too then...we had later to obey the wine-quota...the "prophet" broke his own rules...
Then this weird exorcism with her started and it's a pretty crazy letter....at that time it was supposed to drive some fear into the flock, what could happen to people if they allow the devil in etc.
I might be wrong, but I think even Berg thought/taught, that there cannot be such thing as the devil and Jesus living in ones heart at the same time...but I do have a book of some charismatic...Lester Sumrall...somewhere in my personal library, where someone/he teaches the possibility to be possesed by the devil, though a born again believer.
This is a claim...dispensationalists...the Darby-brethren and others totally refute.Anyway, lots say you can be attacked from the outside without being possessed.Of course we can yield our mind/ears to the wrong voice...that's where someone has to be more grounded in the Word...but not the Word of Berg...like they did with Mene.
Such cruelty happens also in other denominations.My take: either the person yields to receiving Jesus as their personal Saviour or you can't do too much for them...regarding salvation in a spiritual sense...in a physical it's often/mostly possible.
I just finish here for now with the thought, that Berg also was happy to have retained from the catholic church at least the pyramidical leadership structure...even if they renamed them later...he didn't practice the priesthood of all believers...further he was wrong for claiming the tithe.TFI is "infamous" for mixing up the "dispensations"...when which Word of God was said to whom ...being valid for what & whom...it takes time/experience to learn to discern that Hebrews 4:12...shows how powerful the Word can be nevertheless
For me abuse takes place, when you take something of someone without having the full/mature consent of him/her and without having the ok from the Word of God...that means of HIM
Wish you and your family the blessing & protection of our Lord Jesus Christ.