It seems to me you are not being very consistant on this point counselor, or at least are not communicating that well. One minute you seem to say the teaching is not that bad, it is just that they are hypocrites, the next you say the teaching is a real problem too. Your last post at least heavily implied the teaching was not the most serious issue:

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One thing I have to take issue with you on is that you seem to be implying that we left Trinity Foundation because we didn't like the preaching. That is not true. The fact that Ole/Trinity aggressively preached the cross was not why we left. [b:35e514cc43]I sat under that teaching for 20+ years, and would have gladly continued for 20 more if the other issues has not surfaced. [/b:35e514cc43]Trinity's preaching of the cross is not what caused us to leave. Trinity's failure to live up to what they taught is what caused us to leave. Cultaware is exactly right when he says that simply knowing things is not salvific. "Knowledge puffeth up."

Yet here most recently you have said:

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I did not say the teachings at Trinity are not grounds for leaving--I think they are. I said that they were not the issues that caused me to leave. However, after I left and began, in retrospect, to re-examine my experience with Trinity, [b:35e514cc43]I came to understand just how much in error the teachings are. [/b:35e514cc43]

It seems very much that you try to separate the teaching from the conduct of Ole/TFI. Yet Wendy says the teaching was twisted in order that Ole would fulfill his own evil purposes. (And that is one of the major points where I find fault in the book) You seem to try and dodge me on this point.

Simply put, if Ole is preaching the true Gospel, and you say it is twisted, you are saying God's message is twisted. I would appreciate it if you could explain how Ole's message deviates from "the Gospel."

Nathan, it may indeed be that I am not doing a good job of communicating. It may also be that you are taking an excessively black and white approach to some things that have some shades of gray to them.

Some of what Ole teaches is right, and some of it is wrong. However, I think the doctrine is ultimately heretical because it is out of balance. It places too much emphasis on man’s depravity and too little on the on-going experience of God’s grace through the process and reality of sanctification. Ole likes to say that everything he knows about God he knew in one instant at the moment of his “Damascus Road” experience. His insistence on that point causes him to completely pooh-pooh the vital process of sanctification in the life of the believer. As a result, there is precious little evidence of sanctification in the membership at Trinity, and a sort of libertine spirit prevails.

At the time Wendy and I left the group I was not yet significantly questioning the doctrine. There is much to question about the doctrine; I just was not yet at the point in my life where I was ready to do that. The reasons for separating I had at the time had much more to do with how I felt Wendy and I had been treated, and the actions and practices of the group. The thorough examination of the doctrine came later, when we began to re-examine our experience in an effort to make sense of it all. The doctrine (as I came to see) is significantly flawed, I just did not yet see that when I left.

Where in any of this do you see a contradiction?

cultaware-

You're welcome. I think I've changed my mind on reading the book twice though. It's too painful. It brings back too many memories of the cult I was in. I still think it's great. ( It just amazes me that some in the counter-cult community can't bring themselves to admit that they've been duped for years by Ole'. A lot of it has to do with the fact that many of them are book-smart and people-dumb. That, and many of them really don't have any respect for us ex-cultists. We're just a source of info, unless of course that info embarrasses them.)
Ole' is nothing more that a serial spiritual rapist.
It's time for more of his victims - with God's help - to rise up, expose him further, and bring him down. Godspeed to that!
Mark

Amen, Mark. You said it well.

Actually, I think you are right that I can be pretty black and white sometimes. Ole's teaching is not all true or false. There is room for discrepancy in some places more than others. I realize too that I actually don't take everything Ole says seriously, sometimes I just take it as a challenge to our conventional ways of seeing things. I think that is how he intends it sometimes. Chances are that if you take Ole too seriously, he will probably offend you. I think what he says is worth considering though. I have considered it to benefit me as an outsider at least, to hear my selfishness challenged frequently.

I don't think there is any outright contradiction in what you are saying. It just sounded like you were saying that the teaching was not really the problem, but the hypocrisy. It seemed you had to more clearly explain your position when I mentioned Wendy's chapter, "twisted doctrine." I really question whether the doctrine is as twisted as she says it is.

I also think it is unfair to read Wendy's book and take sides too quickly without at least balancing it with a look at the group itself, as well as with differing views.

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I also think it is unfair to read Wendy's book and take sides too quickly without at least balancing it with a look at the group itself, as well as with differing views.

That's the thing, Nathan: you yourself have never actually met these people and know nothing of their behavior and true nature, you have never visited the block, and you have never met Ole. How can you tell others to explore TFI more closely before coming to a conclusion about Ole's condition when you yourself have never done so? What is it with you, Nathan? What would it take to satisfy you? Don't you get it? OLE SAYS ONE THING, AND DOES ANOTHER. HE IS A HYPOCRITE AND A
SOCIOPATH. TAKE IT FROM THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW HIM.

Glenna Whitley has posted another comment on the Dallas Observer blog. Here is what she has to say:

I got an e-mail from cult expert David Clark about last week’s item concerning his upcoming seminar on Ole Anthony and the Trinity Foundation. Clark says, ya know, thanks and all, but he also says I mischaracterized his explanation of his involvement with 60 Minutes and Diane Sawyer when I wrote that “he had worked for months with Sawyer for an expose on cults.”

Well, he’s right. In the interest of simplicity, I had condensed his involvement on that project. But my wording didn’t convey an accurate depiction of Sawyer’s piece or Clark’s contribution. With his permission, I quote from Clark’s letter after the jump.

[b:f386957c12]Clark's letter:[/b:f386957c12]
[i:f386957c12]I worked with (CBS News) 60 Minutes for months on a (feature) story about an heiress of the Dayton Hudson Corporation who had been a member of [a group called] The Bible Speaks. I was the professional cult intervention specialist that worked with Elizabeth Dovydenas when she decided to leave The Bible Speaks. The Bible Speaks filed suit and went to federal bankruptcy court against Elizabeth Dovydenas and lost that legal action for more than 6 million dollar judgment appealing all the way to United States Supreme Court.

Diane Sawyer was the 60 Minutes correspondent that featured the Elizabeth Dovydenas story and her legal battle with The Bible Speaks. She had spent months researching this group, years before her Prime Time Live broadcast with Ole Anthony. Although I was extensively involved in the 60 Minutes investigation of The Bible Speaks and Elizabeth Dovydenas, my contact was with 60 Minutes producer Susanne St. Pierre and I did not meet with Diane Sawyer due to another Bible Speaks intervention I was processing…

“I believed The Bible Speaks CBS/60 Minutes story was the first story of this kind that I remembered Diane Sawyer doing on this kind of group…The expose was about one group known as The Bible Speaks that included charges of brainwashing but not about numerous cults [though] cult allegations were levied. The cult charge was narrated by Diane Sawyer citing James Bjornstad, Academic Dean of Northeastern Bible College stating The Bible Speaks, “operates much like a cult.” One might infer cults in general where included, but I will let the individual reader determine that for themselves.[/i:f386957c12]

Since our initial item ran, Clark has formally asked the Trinity Foundation for a response to the book I Can’t Hear God Anymore by Wendy Duncan. He got a response from the elders, including Anthony, that they would have no public comments about the book or the Duncans.

“They prefer the Duncans pursue the Matthew:18 approach,” Clark says. That refers to the Matthew 18:15-18 passage in the Bible, where it says: “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

When I interviewed Anthony last fall, he told me he hadn’t even read the book and wasn’t inclined to. It seemed odd to me that a pastor or spiritual leader of whatever stripe wouldn’t feel an obligation to investigate further. It seems Anthony isn’t interested in the pain experienced by the Duncans and many other former followers, just his own.

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That's the thing, Nathan: you yourself have never actually met these people and know nothing of their behavior and true nature, you have never visited the block, and you have never met Ole. How can you tell others to explore TFI more closely before coming to a conclusion about Ole's condition when you yourself have never done so? What is it with you, Nathan? What would it take to satisfy you? Don't you get it?

I realize that I have never spent time at Trinity as you have Brian. There are others who have visited who do not feel the same way you do. Robert Darden, Jackie Anon, and John Bloom are a few respectable examples. Insofar as I am able I have considered differing views, including yours.

I mispelled one name I mentioned there, it is Jackie [b:fb36aa4bf0]Alnor[/b:fb36aa4bf0] not Jackie Anon.

Nathan, you a real piece of work. You have injected yourself into this situation and are acting as an apologist for a group of people you do not know, and are opining on a topic and offering support to them and the simple fact remains that you do not know what you are talking about. You just don't get it and you don't seem to want to get it. The following is a quote from another thread, from another person, that pretty much sums up what I want to communicate to you:

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Developing emotional maturity is never an easy process. We always look to others to hold our hand. We find human hands to be imperfect, so we look into the sky for a guiding hand that is flawless (the 68-year old hand of a sociopath in your case).

Instead of me concluding here with a statement of what emotional maturity is, how about you think about it and figure it out for yourself, because actually no one else can do it for you. Psychologists, counselors and religious leaders will try to give you that answer. But emotional maturity might be something different than looking to others for answers.

Seems to me, Nathan, that you have locked in on Ole as being the source of Truth. You need him, or somebody else, to tell you what to think, basically, since you are so bewildered and confused along your walk of faith.

This is from [www.batteredsheep.com]

Take it to heart. Do you recognize yourself here? Look closely at 1 through 5.

The eight signs of immature, carnal Christians are:
[b:a45fbc56bc]
1. Reliance on an extra-biblical standard of authority such as:

* A leader (author, guru, pastor, or infallible pope);
* An experience (feeling or alleged revelation)
* A sectarian group, movement, or organization (denomination);
* A tradition (selective, truncated fragment of church history);
* A document (confession of faith, or study-Bible footnotes);

2. Fear and avoidance of:

* Talking to certain Christians who may challenge you
* Preaching on certain Bible texts or topics
* Allowing certain questions to be asked
* Discussing certain biblical topics
* Reading certain theological articles or books.

3. Unquestioned, uncritical agreement and allegiance to a human leader.

4. Unteachable and unwilling to listen to others from an open Bible.

5. Inability to think for oneself and form conclusions independent from outside influences and patterns of thinking received from others.

6. Reading an inordinate percentage of books by one author or publisher.

7. Leaders micromanaging details of disciples' lives that are normally areas of Christian liberty.

8. Cloning personality traits that are normally areas of Christian liberty.
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