TheJewel Wrote:
> 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.

If that was the case the bulk of the proceeds of the sale of many of the churches would have never have been placed under the control of a few leaders. Have others do the 'voluntary' labor, and you reap the benefits! I'm pretty sure that was the intent of the founding fathers keeping church and state separate,

TheJewel said:
"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."

I think that would sum up the way I felt about all of the Living Word leadership. Even low level cult "leaders" like myself. I recall my first wife telling me "Apostle Dog, you have just enough revelation to be dangerous."

She was a very wise woman. I think that is the way I would classify all of the "sheperds" in that cult. I think the higher you climbed, the more insane you were, and the more ruthless you were, and the more dangerous you were.

I think Christianity in general has added more hierarchical position to the term “apostle” than was originally intended. In the Greek it simply means “one who is sent away" or “an emissary” – probably more along the lines of our word “missionary”. Jesus had his twelve disciples that he later sent out as apostles that were foundational to the church. This foundational role is further highlighted in Revelation 21:14 where they are called the twelve apostles of the Lamb. A startling omission in the foundational twelve mentioned in Revelations is the Apostle Paul - who much of Christianity has assigned more weight to his teaching than to Jesus or his twelve apostles. An equally startling inclusion in the list of apostles is Junias in Romans 16:7 – a woman, God forbid. The latter has created all sorts of trouble for translators trying to maintain male supremacy in the church, insisting the apostle is the top of the hierarchy and women are second class citizens – something Jesus never taught.

As has been mentioned numerous times on this site, Jesus completely reversed the human concept of hierarchy and taught that if you want to be the greatest in the Kingdom, be the servant of all. In contrast, you have the Nicolatians mentioned in Revelation whose name can be translated to mean “to rule over the laity”. (See [www.lightsource.com] for a further discussion.) The Nicolatians liked to dabble in the occult and change Jesus’ teachings so that God judged His people for their disobedience. Like Balaam knew, God’s people have an immunity, unless you can get them to disobey God, and then God will deal with them.

Much of what we called spiritual warfare in TLWF was nothing more than the consequences of dabbling in the occult and calling it the School of the Prophets, praying for others death or cursing them and having it circle back around – there’s a spiritual law behind loving your enemies, or advocating divorce as a pathway to the Kingdom and trashing lives, especially of the kids involved. The fruit has been horrendous – unless you bury your head in the sand and choose only to look at those who are still under the spell with you. After all, everyone else is evil and are only getting what they deserve for not submitting to Christ in the flesh. Loving your enemies is no longer valid if they leave your group and it will necessitate getting into small groups and screaming for their destruction - even if it doesn't work. :)

AD -

The only ones to whom I was close enough to form an opinion were RD Cronquist and Dave Cokas. As I said, the former scared the crap out of me and the latter, I had a lot of respect for. I See Dave is running what looks to be the old Casa D'Oro church (or at least something in the same area). Hope all is well there. I hung out with Dave before he was part of the Walk and I know that there was a great deal of passion for the lord and sincerity there.

LB --

Good perspective as always. As for the "Spiritual Warfare" that was one of the things that really drove me out at the end of it. We read in the Bible about the Joy, the Peace, the Love and I never really saw it. The greatest joy I felt was when I walked away from the damn thing and never looked back. I guess now I am taking a look back albeit from a totally different perspective.

As for the occult stuff, I have never seen it work (outside of a theatre). It's total BUNK as far as I am concerned. A lot of what these guys considered "spiritual warfare" would probably have been better treated by the victim popping a couple of Advil rather than all the yelling, jumping and fist pumping exerted by the "support team", IMO. Obviously, it didn't work. JRS is pushing up daises, Martha outlived him and TLW is trying to re-invent itself as mainstream.

The thing that is really funny to me is how people think there was a system of rank in the early church. They assume that just because apostles are mentioned first, they were way higher rank than teachers that are mentioned last. After all, in most churches that is all a lowly woman can be is a Sunday School teacher. But think about it, when apostles traveled somewhere to teach in one of the churches, I bet if the pastors of that church didn't like what he said they wouldn't let him talk to the people in the church that they were responsible for. I bet they didn't kiss ass like they do in church today. Ass kissing was not the way to get a higher POSITION. I know JRS said "no position, just commision" at least a half a million times, but that was all BS, IT WAS ALL position. All of it. There was more grabbing for position in that mess than in any real church I have ever seen. It was all about money, and power, and prestige. All of it.

The following are names that I thought were part of the Apostolic Company: Fred Bickhart, Bill Arnold, R.D. Cronquist, Vere Thomas, Howard Klein, JRS, Bill Mabey, Harold Williams and perhaps Mel Bailey.

Anyway, most are dead and although I loved several of them dearly I find no need to replace these icons from my youth. All that “Authority BS” went to the grave with them and it is actually quite liberating to get back to the original awe of the transcendence blowing in the wind. I think nearly all attempts to enclose that which is unenclosed has proven futile.

FCSLC Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The following are names that I thought were part
> of the Apostolic Company: Fred Bickhart, Bill
> Arnold, R.D. Cronquist, Vere Thomas, Howard Klein,
> JRS, Bill Mabey, Harold Williams and perhaps Mel
> Bailey.
>
That list seems right. I think Mel Bailey was one as well.

Does anyone know what happened to Billy Joe Arnold, Bill Arnold's son? I knew him for a bit when he was in San Diego.

Jewel

What about Marilyn and Gary? Were they designated as apostles? Are there any in the walk now? Or do they still give out titles?

I lived in the basement of the Honolulu Church when it was on Young Street on weekends in the early 1970’s. Bill Arnold senior was married to Mary Arnold (Stevens) – JRS’s sister. There were two sons and a daughter. Billy Joe, Rick and Ruth. If I remember correctly, Billy Joe had just graduated from high school and talked a lot about going into some sort of marine/ocean science field. He seemed to be very intelligent. That’s all I know.

FCSLC Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I lived in the basement of the Honolulu Church
> when it was on Young Street on weekends in the
> early 1970’s. Bill Arnold senior was married to
> Mary Arnold (Stevens) – JRS’s sister. There
> were two sons and a daughter. Billy Joe, Rick and
> Ruth. If I remember correctly, Billy Joe had just
> graduated from high school and talked a lot about
> going into some sort of marine/ocean science
> field. He seemed to be very intelligent.
> That’s all I know.

Yea, that's him. He ultimately did get a degree in Oceanographic Engineering (or something like that), not sure from which university. I got to know him because we both had Amateur Radio Licenses and we used to communicate with a guy named Collis in Shiloh using short wave radio. This was all part of the assumption what we were going to need some sort of communications for when the "Great Zombie Apocalypse / Tribulation" hit (if I remember correctly).

My wife grew up in the Nazarene church and around Point Loma College (where she went to school) They always talked about PK's (Pastor's Kids) and MK's (Missionaries Kids). I guess in TLW we have to add AK's (Apostle's Kids) :-)

Jewel