Doug, you must know friend of TFI and Door editior John Bloom(aka Billy Joe Briggs)? He has written some interesting things about Ole. He does not seem to water things down in his descriptions of TFI. Here is a very interesting quote from Bloom's article, "The God Thing" :

[b:cbc200a5e9]Miraculously, most of the people who once wanted to murder Ole – or at least rough him up a little – remain members of Trinity Foundation today, and for the most part are peaceable non-weapons-bearing elders. One guy, who was convinced Trinity was a cult, would come to every Bible study armed with questions supplied by Cult Watch, a watchdog group that helps parents deprogram children that are taken away from their families by fanatic religious groups. That same guy is one of the principal leaders of Trinity today.

"I'm not sure you're NOT a cult," I said to Ole one night. Sometimes I meant this stuff, sometimes I didn't. It was the reporter in me. But I wanted to hear what he would say.

"A cult tries to coerce people to stay in the group," Ole said. "I want ALL these people to leave. I'm trying to get them to GO. I tried to leave myself one night, and then I realized that I didn't own the car I was driving. I had stolen a car. I drove back and ate crow."


It pretty much settled the issue for me – that, and over a twenty-year period, never hearing him once tell a person what to do. The Baptist teachers of my youth, on the other hand, told me exactly what to do, and re-enforced it with warnings that improper behavior would be rewarded with immense suffering in the afterlife. [/b:cbc200a5e9]

This quote is from the article, "The God Thing" and was in the Door in December of 1999.

And since were on the subject of the Dallas Project for the Homeless, here is a quote from Burkhard Bilger's New Yorker article, "God Doesn't Need Ole Anthony" Dec. 6, 2004:

[b:cbc200a5e9]The Dallas Project, as Anthony's brainstorm came to be called, was the flip side of Trinity's televangelist work: it was a gesture of faith in organized religion. Anthony launched the project at a press conference in 1988, then went around Dallas with other Trinity members pitching it to churches. In each congregation, they suggested, a core group of ten to twenty members should form a kind of extended family for one homeless person, housing, feeding, and taking care of him with the church's support.

The project received admiring notices in the local press and eventually prompted a letter from the White House. "Word has reached me of your outstanding record of community service," President George H. W. Bush wrote. "Barbara joins me in wishing you every success as you continue to set a fine example for your friends and neighbors."

The friends and neighbors in question, however, hadn't quite got the message: instead of housing the homeless themselves, most local churches simply sent them to Trinity. "I'd be over there visiting," John Bloom recalls, "and three more of them would show up from the First Baptist Church. I'd be, like, 'The First Baptist Church! That's the biggest church in Texas!' And Ole would say, 'Well, they say they don't have any room for them.' "[/b:cbc200a5e9]

Comments? What do you think of Ole's defense that TFI is not a cult because he doesn't tell people what to do or coerce them to stay?

First of all Nathan, his name is JOE BOB Briggs. I am from Big D and remember when he worked for the [i:588f0aa8af]Times-Herald.[/i:588f0aa8af] Once again, do your homework before you come to the table, [i:588f0aa8af]please[/i:588f0aa8af].
Second, he and Ole are best friends and he (Bloom) played an instrumental part in forming TFI culture into what it is today. This man is a public figure, a respected journalist, and has had small parts in many movies over the last several years. Do you think Ole's best friend would print something unfavorable about him? Do ya think maybe he's kinda biased? These two have been friends since the seventies. Though the exact nature of his involvement with TFI has always been somewheat ambiguous to me...he's not actually a member, but he is a patron, and whenever he's in Dallas he always sleeps on the Block.
As far as Ole constantly telling people he wants them to leave: it's a control thing, a kind of reverse psychology in which he constantly tells somebody he wants them to leave, or threatens to leave himself, in order to increase his followers' dependance on him and to increase his control over them. To develop and maintain a co-dependant relationship between himself and his disciples. A good way to get somebody to do what you want them to do is to tell them NOT to do it. It's the same control-grabbing behavior that prompted him to once put a knife to his throat and threaten to kill himself right then and there unless the girl on the Hot Seat broke. You'll read about that in the book. The common denominator with cult leaders like Ole is CONTROL, the same as the common denominator with people like Hinn or the Crouches is MONEY. Ole doesn't give a damn about getting rich, his main thing is [i:588f0aa8af]maintaining control,[/i:588f0aa8af] making sure that everybody knows he's in charge.
Ole does indeed tell people what to do and he sure as hell coerces them to stay, Nathan, it's just that he's smart enough to operate in a highly passive-aggressive manner and makes people think that their decision-making abilities are in their own hands. The implied message is that there is no real relationship with God outside of the TFI Body, but hey, if you want to roll the dice with your own salvation then [i:588f0aa8af]it's up to you.[/i:588f0aa8af] See?

Bloom is Ole's best friend and has been for thirty-odd years. He was one of the key players in TFI's early days. Do you think he'd write something negative or critical?

What it boils down to, Nathan, is that the effect of Ole's teaching in this respect undermines your capacity to think or judge for yourself, and if you hear it often enough, what the subtle message is is that the only mind you can trust is Ole's and the only judgements that are sound are Ole's. OLE IS NOT JESUS, so it's not valid reasoning to justify what Ole does by comparing it to what Jesus taught. Jesus did most certainly NOT put his disciples on the Hot Seat. If you really believe that you are more decieved than I thought. You seem to think that Ole is somehow on the same level as Jesus.
What he is teaching, in other words, is "I'm smarter than the rest of you, and I know things about the mysteries of God that you can't know. If you don't see it my way, you have the mind of a brute beast and don't have repentance. Hear me and go to heaven, or don't and go to hell." He believes that he has been shown things in the Spirit that have been lost to the Church for the last 2000 years and that he's here to guide is back into the true expression of the Gospel. DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THAT THE REST OF THE CHURCH HAS MISSED WHAT OLE SUPPOSEDLY SEES?
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Once Ole has you convinced that there is nothing true in the world other than what proceeds out of his mouth, once he has you convinced that you cannot trust your own mind or senses, and then threatens to leave, or tries to tell you to leave, then that is the equivalent to the only guy in the cave with a flashlight suddely turning it off. The cave is again filled with darkness, and everybody in it is lost, dependant on the guy with the flashlight. The world is one big cave to these people, and Ole has the only flashlight. He can lead them wherever he wants to. They are at his mercy. Get it?[/b:ef077dad57]

...if you're reading this: recommending Ole Anthony to somebody who's been harmed by shifty spiritual leaders would be like recommending Hannibal Lecter to somebody in need of a good psychiatrist. In other owrds, this man is not who he seems to be, and his motives are not what they seems to be.

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Doug, you must know friend of TFI and Door editior John Bloom

Of course.

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Miraculously, most of the people who once wanted to murder Ole – or at least rough him up a little – remain members of Trinity Foundation today, and for the most part are peaceable non-weapons-bearing elders. One guy, who was convinced Trinity was a cult, would come to every Bible study armed with questions supplied by Cult Watch, a watchdog group that helps parents deprogram children that are taken away from their families by fanatic religious groups. That same guy is one of the principal leaders of Trinity today.

That was me that this piece is referring to, but Bloom got some of the facts wrong. I never came to Trinity in the early days armed with questions from Cult Watch—or any other ministry or group. I did come with Scriptures I had questions about. I was indeed one of the principal leaders of the group at the time that piece was written.

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"A cult tries to coerce people to stay in the group," Ole said. "I want ALL these people to leave. I'm trying to get them to GO. I tried to leave myself one night, and then I realized that I didn't own the car I was driving. I had stolen a car. I drove back and ate crow."

Ole is being glib when he says he tries to get people to go. He hates it when people leave—especially people who are part of the core group of committed people. The example I can come up with to explain this to you is that it is like when someone says to a cherished relative, “You’re not worth a nickel.” This is not something that is meant to be taken literally, and, in fact, the person saying it means almost the opposite.

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It pretty much settled the issue for me – that, and over a twenty-year period, never hearing him once tell a person what to do. The Baptist teachers of my youth, on the other hand, told me exactly what to do, and re-enforced it with warnings that improper behavior would be rewarded with immense suffering in the afterlife.

Bloom has never been involved directly in the Bible studies in any significant way, except for when he taught his own group. He does not have much direct experience of how Ole treats people except through what Ole tells him.

Ole is kind of subtle in how he manages people, and he does make an effort to maintain plausible deniability on issues of control. When I wanted to marry Wendy, for example, he did not say, “No, Doug, you cannot marry Wendy.” That would have been too blatant. However, he did say, “If you marry Wendy right now, it would be a disaster.” Coming from someone whom I saw as my spiritual leader and mentor, that was pretty heavy.

So what exactly was the nature of Joe Bob's involvement in TFI's formative years? Didn't he have a role in the development of certain TFI doctrines, the High Place Identities (I never once heard the term "High Place Identity" while I was around, BTW) in developing a rational for why the Hot Seats were necessary, etc.?

From [www.crisiscounseling.com]
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A psychopath is usually a subtle manipulator. They do this by playing to the emotions of others. They typically have high verbal intelligence, but they lack what is commonly referred to as "emotional intelligence". There is always a shallow quality to the emotional aspect of their stories. In particular they have difficulty describing how they felt, why they felt that way, or how others may feel and why. In many cases you almost have to explain it to them. Close friends and parents will often end up explaining to the psychopath how they feel and how others feel who have been hurt by him or her. They can do this over and over with no significant change in the person's choices and behavior. They don't understand or appreciate the impact that their behavior has on others. They do appreciate what it means when they are caught breaking rules or the law even though they seem to end up in trouble again. They desperately avoid incarceration and loss of freedom but continue to act as if they can get away with breaking the rules. They don't learn from these consequences. They seem to react with feelings and regret when they are caught. But their regret is not so much for other people as it is for the consequences that their behavior has had on them, their freedom, their resources and their so called "friends." They can be very sad for their self. A psychopath is always in it for their self even when it seems like they are caring for and helping others. The definition of their "friends" are people who support the psychopath and protect them from the consequence of their own antisocial behavior. Shallow friendships, low emotional intelligence, using people, antisocial attitudes and failure to learn from the repeated consequences of their choices and actions help identify the psychopath.[/b:844474cb88]

Sound like somebody we know???

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zeuszor
So what exactly was the nature of Joe Bob's involvement in TFI's formative years? Didn't he have a role in the development of certain TFI doctrines, the High Place Identities (I never once heard the term "High Place Identity" while I was around, BTW) in developing a rational for why the Hot Seats were necessary, etc.?

Bloom was Ole's friend whom Ole managed to convert. However, because of the fact that they were friends Bloom was never able to really be a part of the Bible studies in the way the other members were. I think he and Ole saw each other as peers, which was different than the relationship Ole had with his other disciples.

Bloom really had little to do with the development of the doctrine, as far as I know. I have the impression that it was pretty much all Ole. In fact, I think Ole had most of the basics put together before Bloom even came along.

[b:cc78f0e889]Trinity theology was being shaped by a concept introduced to the group by Anthony and John Bloom, who was also teaching a Bible study. The writer and Anthony had met in the '70s. Bloom's office at Texas Monthly was next door to Trinity's. But they became estranged after a bizarre trip to Europe and the Middle East in 1980 while Bloom was pursuing a story about the Mafia selling stolen art to rich Texans. Anthony--"experienced in military intelligence"--was on board as the writer's "control." When Anthony inadvertently blew their cover, the writer had to flee for his life. Anthony was held hostage in a Lebanon hotel for eight hours. When he was rescued, he had a mental meltdown. Bloom couldn't believe the super-spook who preached that the fearful wouldn't inherit the kingdom had rolled over like a Chihuahua when tested. (See "The Italian Connection," Texas Monthly, November 1980.)

The men wouldn't speak for four years. Then their friendship took up where it had left off, reinforced by their common interest in the Bible, history, Jewish mysticism, mythology and the occult. Now they brought to their respective Bible studies a new wrinkle: the concept of "high place identities." [/b:cc78f0e889]