genez:
Peer review is a term for something specific.
end gene

relax...peer review as i used it was a broad way of saying that thieme refused to interact with other clergy, theologians, his own "flock". he regarded no one as his peer. it was sheer hubris.

it reflected contempt for others and a profound anti-social tendency. those who are beyond question display a cultish tendency.

at work, i am a leader (small potatoes to be sure) but i always consult with my peers and those who work for me....i don't know it all. i need all the help i can get.

To the Forum:


<sub>gene: Now you owe me an apology...

Gene, is masculine gender. Jean, is feminine. In the United States, that is. If I were French, Jean could be masculine.
Now? Apologize for your ignorance, please. You were absolutely wrong on what you assumed. And? So I do not make the same mistake with you? Are you male? Female? Truthtesty is ambiguous. I really do not know what you are.
In Christ, GeneZ
(like in - Gene Kelly.. Gene Autry.. and, Gene Krupa)

Truthtesty:
Have you ever heard of Gene Tierney? The female American actress? [en.wikipedia.org]

(like in Gene Eliza Tierney)
Born November 19, 1920(1920-11-19)
Brooklyn, New York, U.S.

Who's ignorant? You can't even research your own name. Gene is also a female name, in the United States. Again it is you who is wrong. If you are so sensitive about your name, then you should "drop a hint" to everyone ahead of time.


gene: The fact that you thought I was female? That does not bother me.
What does.. Is that it reveals that you treat women very poorly.
In Christ, GeneZ</sub>

Truthtesty: The truth is the truth regardless of gender, when the issue is about Thieme, I let the truth be known regardless of gender. Your false statement is not motivated by logic, but by vindictive ill intent, because I have proven you and Thieme wrong. Again you are wrong and you jump to a illogical false premature conclusion.



Truthtesty

To moderator:


People who have been abused by Thieme's ministry are very reluctant to express themselves. I can't see how people who have been abused by Thieme's ministry would feel free to open up and share when a pro-thiemite like gene is constantly harassing and attacking any truthful statement that they make, which may reflect poorly on Thieme.

How long is gene allowed to personally attack people, disrupt and harass this forum, before he is at least given a warning that he will respect?


Truthtesty

Quote
Truthtesty
To moderator:


People who have been abused by Thieme's ministry are very reluctant to express themselves. I can't see how people who have been abused by Thieme's ministry would feel free to open up and share when a pro-thiemite like gene is constantly harassing and attacking any truthful statement that they make, which may reflect poorly on Thieme.

How long is gene allowed to personally attack people, disrupt and harass this forum, before he is at least given a warning that he will respect?


Truthtesty

Reluctant? Hardly. Abused by Thieme? By sitting and listening to lessons? Why did they continue going to hear him? I'll tell you why. Those who felt abused were the ones who's parents made them to attend this church. Otherwise, no one was forced to attend if they did not approve. You know that, but act like everyone was there against their will.

I am harassing?


It was you who followed me to a Christian forum and tried to poison my reputation as I was introducing myself. Don't remember? Back in May?


This is what the moderator said after you posted......

I split this topic and moved it here. I don't think this was appropriate to post in the "Welcome Genez" thread.


Now stop trying to harass me for not taking your guff.




In Christ, GeneZ

begin genez:
The fact that you thought I was female? That does not bother me.

What does.. Is that it reveals that you treat women very poorly.
end genez

you have a great sense of humor....in some ways i like you....not sure why but you have an interesting way of expressing yourself...(when you're not regurgitating thieme : ) )....

Quote
tonyatl
genez:
Peer review is a term for something specific.
end gene

relax...peer review as i used it was a broad way of saying that thieme refused to interact with other clergy, theologians, his own "flock". he regarded no one as his peer. it was sheer hubris.

it reflected contempt for others and a profound anti-social tendency. those who are beyond question display a cultish tendency.

at work, i am a leader (small potatoes to be sure) but i always consult with my peers and those who work for me....i don't know it all. i need all the help i can get.

He did interact with some clergy. Just, not all. Dr. Donald Barnhouse, and Dr. Vernon Mcgee were both theologians and friends of his. They were famous and teachers of very high quality. Thieme also used to hold pastors conferences at Berachah. Pastors from all over the nation would attend there. I have known and read clergy he used to fellowship with. Yes, he had little respect for fundamentalists preachers like we see on TV. He would have nothing to do with them. To me, that showed he had sense.


You may say that you need all the help you can get. Fine. But, don't raise yourself up as the standard for all others to follow.

A pastor who needs that kind of help from others under him has no right to be the spiritual authority in a church. It means he is incompetent if he does. He should be leading if he's truly gifted. That does not mean he did not have helpers for running the church. He did, and you should know that.

I can just picture anyone in authority going to those under him asking them what he should do about them. Resign. He has no right to be in authority. That does not mean he did not ask advice about church administration matters. He delegated authority and allowed for creative thinking of others to work there. In many churches the pastor is the highest authority. Thieme's strong personality accentuated that factor.


You have painted a monster for the moderators. Its not the real picture. He was a military type in how he ordered things around. Yet, he could joke and be very relaxed. Most of the congregation was pleased with his ways, and one can hear laughter quite often on the tapes. You may deny this. But, its true. Most in the congregation were happy and relaxed.

As for a past denial of what I said, anyone in the military would say his modus operandi was quite typical for a commanding officer. We used to pop to when someone like him entered the room. Those who hated authority despised it. Others, respected it.


The moderator thinks I am here with an agenda. If I have one? Its to expose the lies that some here spew out because they have personal hatred for Robert Thieme. Because their families made them attend church when they did not want to.


You listened to him for many years? How many? Was it 30??? What took you so long to figure out he was no good? If he was everything some are saying here? I would have been out of there as fast as I could.

Now? If my parents made me attend as a child, when I did not like him? I could learn to hate the man. That is what happened with those I see complaining here. Its not like some group seduced adult members into attending church, and then exercised mind control over them to make them afraid to leave. The adults that were there wanted to be there. And, they were always free to leave when they wanted. You know that to be true. Its the kids who could not stand him that have their problem with him today. And? Many other kids did like his teaching.


Moderator.... just order some messages. Please, don't let anyone recommend anything particular to you. Just get a sample for yourself and see what he was really like. Then you would not have to be guessing who is telling the truth here.

Its that simple. I could recommend messages that would make you see he was very relaxed and interesting. Some others here would recommend messages recorded at a time he was dealing with a problem in the church.


It would be very easy to do. You can get 30 lessons on CD (MP3) and not be charged a penny. No one will be contacting to for money. And, you could have it mailed to an alias if you want. It does not matter. They mind their own business.





This much I will tell you. If you want to hear his angry side? Order messages recorded during the Vietnam era and a little after when the liberal press was attacking President Reagan, especially when the hippies and campus unrest was going on. If you want to hear his regular teaching side? Order messages from years before, or after, that era.





In Christ, GeneZ

Quote
rrmoderator
GeneZ:

So you are saying that you had no direct experience with Thieme, you know him through his tapes?

Please stop attempting to attack people personally on this thread.

I have sat before Thieme at Bible conferences. But, mostly by tape. More people listened to him by tape than the number of people in his home base church. I also know people who did have direct contact. Even worked in the ministry and had some inside information not even known to the congregation.


Attack? If you want to. PM me and show me where I attacked someone, please.


In Christ, GeneZ

Quote
tonyatl
gene:
He controlled the protocol of how you were to behave while sitting in church. If you wanted to disrupt in a way that would distract another from listening? He would not tolerate such behavior. He took his teaching seriously.
end gene

come on man...is this really normal? i heard him abuse and humiliate people hour after hour who moved, needed to adjust position, get more comfortable, who leaned forward...did you ever go to college or high school? did you ever notice people in class have normal and natural body movements and that sitting perfectly still for an hour or longer is not natural unless you happen to be a manequin? for bob thieme such movements were crimes against humanity and his grand exalted view of his imperial self....

i'm sorry, it's not normal and not reasonable what he did.

Welp... I think its time you were told this. I was told this by someone who knows Katie. Yes, he did do that with some people at times. I thought it was out of place too. But (this is what you were not told) .....

The Colonel at times would pick an imaginary person sitting out back and chew them out. Why? He saw the people were getting sleepy and losing concentration. It would snap them out of it quickly.

I laughed when I heard that. It was his way of doing things. Since nobody would turn around to see who it was? It worked every time. He was a character.

That was the way he was.


And, again. I, too, did not like it when it seemed to go to an extreme.


I only heard that on messages given during a certain period. Not after. Not before. But, I agree. I did not like that aspect. Yet? Many respected this protocol because many wanted the teachings he provided. I disliked his personality at times, but I was not listening to him to be entertained. I wanted to learn something.


He was a sinner saved by grace, and he would be the first one to tell you that. He even once commented on me doing something once. But not during the message. After.


It was his hang up, I guess. I was after the teachings. So, I just let that sort of thing slide.


In Christ, GeneZ

Quote
Truthtesty
To gene:


Have you ever seen or heard Thieme teach anything that was wrong? If so, will you provide the evidence. Also, can you tell us 3 things that you just simply don't like about Thieme?


Truthtesty

I can tell you more than three things. But, I am concerned that you would be the wrong person to feed such information to. From what I have seen so far? You would use it against him, like everything else you can find.


But, I will tell you this. The things I saw error in? I could have never thought about on my own. For Thieme went into areas of teaching that are usually only reserved for the halls of seminaries, if they were to be taught at all. Let alone, a church pulpit. He opened up venues for Biblical ideas that most pulpits never even enter into.


Because he taught so throughly? He made me capable of correcting the errors that I saw in ways he never saw. Now, that's being a good teacher. Giving the student the information he needs to disagree constructively. Making another capable to finding a solution by what you teach, rather than simply leaving them to being critical and nothing else.


In Christ, GeneZ

thanks to all who have contributed to this forum.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

May 2006,


Hi-- Sorry it’s taken me so long to reply. You are right in that Berachah is a cult. It meets all the criteria of Lifton’s 8 tenets of mind control. [which are in some of the books that you mentioned] It sounds like you have done a thorough study of the matter.

Bob Thieme is a pathological narcissist who was not terrible as a pastor until ********************** ************ sometime in the late 60’s or early 70’s. After beginning **********************, the church went down like a rock. He became known then as The Colonel. As you may know his own son has taken over the church in the past few years as Bob has Alzheimers and is pretty much incapacitated. The knowledge I have about him comes from **********, and a *****************. Most of the church knew that Bob ****************** was obvious.

********************** After I left this cult and ***************** I was a “reversionist” and ***************! Pretty sick. The happy ending to this is that my ************ have all escaped pretty much from Berachah, ********************** is just beginning to addresss the abuse at Berachah now with ***********.

Your contact is interesting to me for more personal reasons. I have spent ******** away from there and do not now *****************************************. My children are on pretty solid ground and I have ********************** **************** and am glad to help. I can tell you that that form of mind contol is a very powerful thing, but not more powerful than God. Your resources are good and I would be glad to answer any specific questions that you have at any time.

******************** with Margaret Singer, as she ************************************. The church to my knowledge has had several suits brought against it; none that I know of that have gotten anywhere. It is my belief that some sort of ritual abuse went on there as well. ********************* mentioned being taken to **************, ************** and various others from the church. *******************. I can’t prove this but it would not surprise me in the least *****************************.

I don’t have any specific advice but again would be glad to correspond with you and help in any way that I can. Also, given that **************************** I might at some point like to see if I could get some of your resources that you have collected. *************** several kids from classes there who are also in *****************. Please feel free to email me with any specific questions you may have.


Sincerely,

*************

follow up....

Bobby (Bob’s son) ****************. He had a lot going for him, he was a smart guy, but he would never do anything outside what his father wanted. In some ways he was always angry because he was not allowed to be his true self, he had to be what Bob wanted him to be.

Bob Thieme, just in person was mean, but he could be soft also. He was very authoritarian. Bobby is probably a softer version -he’s not such a dogmatic type- but he is not teaching anything different than his father is. He couldn’t, he was raised in that atmosphere, and until anyone really de-programmes from there, you really can’t think any differently. So my guess from ********************* a tape several years ago, is it was terribly boring, kind of same old, same old.

Bob Thieme could be very likeable, he was a good speaker, very personable.

Bob’s wife would come to church every night. ******** *************************. Bobby himself -the son- ******************* he knew when ********* **************************, not publicly, but every night after bible class Mrs Thieme would get in the car and go home, ******************************************Anybody who was not in a coma would know that there was something going on. Nobody would dare confront him (Bob) on anything as that is not a consideration. They were on eggshells all the time. Whatever Bob says goes. He teaches a doctrine called triple compound discipline, and if you malign the pastor, then God will beat the crap out of you, so nobody is going to dare question him. It simply is not done there. In fact if it would be, then those people would be ex-communicated immediately.

********************************************************* always the ‘yes’ men. There really wouldn’t be anybody that would say, “Bob, why are you doing this or that?”. Bob would always pick ‘yes’ men.

In regard to Margaret Singer, ************************************ Margaret was working on a case with *********************** who was suing the church because *********************. The **************************** hired Margaret Singer to do some evaluations into different people as Margaret was a cult expert, and they hired ************* to give them some **************************** somebody who had actually been there. *******************************.

I remember the first time I talked with Margaret, that her opening comment regarding Bob was, “Oh yes, dear old Bob Thieme.” Which led me to note that Margaret had known that Berachah was a cult for many years. She was very clear about that.

The group definately does fall into each category of Robert Lifton’s eight tenets of mind control, though it is very subtle. A lot of people here in Houston would not necessarily think that the church was a cult if they hadn’t been there, so it’s much more subtle.

I think that Bob started out just as a fundamentalist bible church. ***************************, and what people tell me is that before he **************************, that things were kind of like just like any other bible church might be, but after he ******************************* things radically changed. He started calling himself Colonel.

Some of the things that **************************************************the pictures for the bulletins on Sunday, and there is no question that there would be a picture of Christ on the cross. It would be Bob Thieme’s face and Bob Thieme’s physique, and we always said that it was Bob Thieme on the cross. He would call himself the “Spiritual Atlas of this generation”; grandiose things like that. You can read about narcissism *************************** The narcissist thinks that he/she can only be understood by very special people, and that was totally true because Bob would always say, “My friend, who is very famous for this, and very famous for that.” ********************************** and Bob would go to great lengths to say that *********************************. This was glaring all the time. And the part about having no empathy. He has no empathy for anybody, he is just as cold as can be.

If you do have normal emotions, he would tell you that you have emotional revolt of the soul. That is the doctrine. So all the children who would be attending prep-school learned that if you are in fear or in anger or sad, that this is a sin, so it’s just horrific.

What your family in the group will be thinking is that you cannot possibly understand all this high revelation that is coming from somebody like Bob Thieme. Berachah and only those people know the real truth from God, and no one else really gets it. That is the thinking.

They keep people hooked in through fear and guilt.

For me, the way the thing began to break down ***************************** Bob and ******* and the different people there. For a while I began to see, how Bob was talking about integrity, but if he is ****************************, how can Bob possibly have any? Then I began to think, what else has Bob told me that is not correct. That’s the way things really began to break down. I know the message, but who is the messenger? God began to show me how crazy it really was.

************************************************My *************** has totally come out as well. My **************** is doing well. One time *************** called me on the phone and said, “***********, turn on that TV show about David Koresh. It’s just like it was at Berachah.” He could see it. But *************** isn’t doing all that well, but ***************** with a christian guy who does understand post-traumatic stress and who does understand cults, *******************.

When I left *************************** I was of course a reversionist, as you have probably read. A reversionist is someone who has backslidden, doesn’t see the light anymore, and so there is all this fear built into them that, if you leave, all these terrible things are going to happen to you. Alot of this is unconsious, people just don’t even know that they think that.

Just in the natural, you cannot reason with them. That’s why I say, ******************** a divine intervention. I would not have sat down and reasoned with them. But God had been working on me for some time.