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I just received Wendy Duncan's book, I Can't Hear God Anymore: Life in a Dallas Cult. It looks very interesting.
Zeus, I didn't think there was anything wrong with what you wrote. It didn't sound like gossip to me.
I think we need to be willing to speak out about corrupt things.
Just my opinion.

Ephesians 5:11 commands us to do so.

I'll tell you one thing that [i:f40df7ee88]is[/i:f40df7ee88] gossip. The [i:f40df7ee88]Charisma[/i:f40df7ee88] piece says that John Rutledge wrote a 20-page response to Wendy's book. Apparently he is giving it to reporters, but he has not bothered to share it with us. If he thinks we are wrong about something he should let us know directly. I would like to see that 20-page response. Showing something like that to reporters but not to us amounts to a "whisper campaign."

At least the things [i:f40df7ee88]we[/i:f40df7ee88] are saying we have the integrity to put out there in public.

Here's some more gossip: if TFI is doing so bad financially, then why doesn't Ole use some of the money in his bank account to help bail it out? Yeah, that's an idea!

Zeusor,
Should all the money for free medical care in the past 30 years or so should be reimbursed? Wasn't the settlement he recieved from the insurance company to go for his treatments? Did doctors who gave him free medical care all these years know he had money to pay for this care? What would he and his elders say if [u:b7f023376e]Robert Tilton [/u:b7f023376e]tried to pull something like that?
cultaware

What a sad situation. Ole has an easy gig, doesn't he? Why would he want to rock the boat and mess things up for himself by being honest? A little birdie told me that most of the time nowadays he is holed up in his room and won't have visitors. He knows he's been busted and made to look like a jerk. I am sure that somebody on the inside of the community has raised this question and/or wondered along those lines, finance-wise. Wonder what Ole's explanation is for this? Surely he's told them something.

I doubt that any of the members have raised any questions with Ole. One of the marks of a cult is information control. Questions are discouraged and if any are asked the individual is made to feel like he's not a true believer, has trust issues, or is simply stupid.

Seeking,
Dead on analysis. You will also hear sermons about not questioning anything or else it is evidence of not being in the rest, not picking up your cross, etc......... All discussion is shut down when Ole decides that the topic has been sufficiently covered. Any further discussion and that person can be derided unmercifully without recourse.
cultaware

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I doubt that any of the members have raised any questions with Ole. One of the marks of a cult is information control. Questions are discouraged and if any are asked the individual is made to feel like he's not a true believer, has trust issues, or is simply stupid.

Lately I've been rereading Wendy's book, but more carefully this time, taking notes. Page 99 of Wendy's book gives us what is, in my opinion, the most acute and impacting insight into how Ole has managed to maintain such a tight rein on such a small group of people for so many years. It's in the interview with "Mark", in which he descibes the legacy of the Hot Seats. I cannot begin to understand what that process of being mentally eviscerated in such a manner must have been like. But I can understand how it has kept them so well in line and adhering to a "code of silence" for all this time. The degree of social control that that has the potential to create. Incredible. Like he had the ability to send you to heaven or cast you into hell.
It further occured to me: another mark of a cultic organization is a built-in policy that says that it is acceptable, and sometimes even pleasing to God, to lie to or otherwise decieve outsiders in order to protect the organization and it's leaders from their "enemies". Is it possible that Ole's inner circle, the elders, know what Ole's been up to in terms of the management of his finances, that certain financial matters have been exaggerated and/or "covered up", and generally lying, deceiving the press, and such has been deliberately orchestrated in order to protect Ole? Like he's lying, and he KNOWS he's lying, and his inner few are in on this and lie too in order to help cover TFI and Ole's butts? Certain folks close to Ole would do anything for him.

Here is a link to a great short film on mind control and cults. Is this what TFI could have been like back in its heyday?

[www.youtube.com]

I just finished reading the Charisma article, "Critic of Televangelists Comes Under Fire" which is a short article on Wendy Duncan's book. I also recently finished reading her book, I Can't Hear God Anymore. I thought it was very interesting that the Vice-President of the Trinity Foundation, John Ruthledge, stated that "there is no theological error" (in Trinity Foundations' doctrine). Well, I consider it a huge theological error when their doctrine teaches that "God hates you," and "your mind is the antiChrist." This John Ruthledge, who works for a Baptist agency, must be the perfect example of someone who because of mind control no longer knows what correct doctrine is!!!!