BTW, I never experienced God in the Sky threatening me, only God in the Flesh. John lived on a spiritual plane I never got close to reaching.

I just am not all that sure that John lived on such a high spiritual plane after all.

Perhaps it was a delusion of his imagination, or, his conscience catching up to him.

I have heard just a few of the messages by JRS lately, and they are pretty easy in hind site to pick out how he crafted the messages to prove a pre-conceived idea that he had about himself. I think he skillfully wove the illusion, perhaps not to deceive us, but to deceive himself. It really didn't take much to mislead a bunch of misfits that thought they knew everything.

I was reading about the old requirement for being an apostle. I remember that, early on, one of the requirements was that a person had to have “seen” the Lord in order for the calling to be truly apostolic. With the original church, it was men who had walked and talked with Jesus. Then, in the case of Paul, it was a person who had experienced a visitation. In the early days of JRS, it was a visitation (so we were told) by God that created JRS’s calling to be an apostle. As the Walk evolved, others had visitations (sort of). But eventually, the requirement was modified so that a person could be an apostle if they had a revelation (and seen) “Christ in the Flesh”. Those that gave themselves to G&M became candidates for the apostolic company. Now that Marilyn is gone, is there a new revelation target? Like if you recognize “Christ in the Flesh” in Silas or Rick, does that count?

Who are the LW apostles these days? I’ve noticed that the whole title of “apostle” has been down-played in recent LW web pages. Maybe that was part of their sanitizing campaign.

As Paul accidently let slip out, apostles were in the eye of the beholder.

It is a safe bet that Jesus had no intention of starting the monstrosity known as Christianity. In fact, he would probably be it’s harshest critic, and the object of much persecution by Christians for it. Everything he attempted to convey was aimed right at the hierarchical structure that was already lording it over the people.

It is also of note that the qualifications for apostleship were established after his transition, and had nothing to do with anything he taught. Society loves structure, both in and out of religion, so it is no surprise that certain resume standards were necessary to sift out the genuine from the counterfeit.

The great disservice the Holy Jim Canyon ‘revelation’ did was establish a culture of fear that was used as leverage to keep the troops in line. Whoa unto those that strayed afar off, because imminent destruction would be their reward. That is something the GOSPEL of LOVE apparently left out.

Related to qualifications for apostles are the qualifications for church membership.

If God doesn’t appear to you personally and coerce you into joining a church, then DON’T DO IT.

"It really didn't take much to mislead a bunch of misfits that thought they knew everything." Apostle Dog--sometimes you just nail it, and this is one of those times.

"Who are the LW apostles these days?" paleface--I am also curious. In addition to "these days," can anyone offer up a list of all apostles spawned in the walk from day one? Stevens was one, I think Cronquist was. Who else? And do you think Cronquist was offered apostleship as an incentive to stay in the walk after the mine debacle?

LampShmamp Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------


>
> "Who are the LW apostles these days?" paleface--I
> am also curious. In addition to "these days," can
> anyone offer up a list of all apostles spawned in
> the walk from day one? Stevens was one, I think
> Cronquist was. Who else? And do you think
> Cronquist was offered apostleship as an incentive
> to stay in the walk after the mine debacle?

That is a good quesiton. Perhaps Mike Shimmerhorn? Bill Maybe? Brent Finney? names that came up a lot I recall. I called Mike Shimmerhorn a lot,

I am pretty sure that I heard RD Cronquist refer to himself as an Apostle at one time or another. Not sure what the qualifications are for that designation (In Walk parlance anyway). He ultimately pulled out of the group at some point in the late 70's. He tried to hang onto the physical plant at Coniah (locked us all out of the building, changed the locks, etc. at one point).

The property was all in his name and we and to go to court to get it back. I was there at that time. It was never clear what his beef was with JRS that caused it. Maybe he wanted to be the supreme grand wazoo instead of JRS.

After reading everything here and in the Nichols paper, I am wondering if perhaps his beef was legit. I remember the people feeling that the property was not really his to own since we had all put our own labor and money into it. It seemed that the courts agreed.

All in all I was happy because RD scared the crap out of me. I always thought he was a few cards short of a full deck anyway.