Silas wrote:
Hargrave and Esteves were interviewed for Catholic radio and television, reaching out to over ten million believers in all of Brazil and the world, before being escorted to hold a private audience with Cardinal Dom Orani.

Incredible



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/05/2021 09:53PM by changedagain.

changedagain Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Silas wrote:
> Hargrave and Esteves were interviewed for
> Catholic radio and television, reaching out to
> over ten million believers in all of Brazil and
> the world, before being escorted to hold a private
> audience with Cardinal Dom Orani.
>
> Incredible


I believe that JRS is rolling in his grave. After all, he talked about the Catholic church being mystery Babylon. Not that I necessarily agree. It's all baloney if you ask me. Just sayin'.

Reep wrote:
I believe that JRS is rolling in his grave. After all, he talked about the Catholic church being mystery Babylon.

Posted by: puddington
Date: April 18, 2017 02:51PM

If you have an old copy of the First Principles, there is a lesson about Babylon in there. I recall that it read exactly like the book "Babylon Mystery Religion", which claimed that Babylon was the Roman Catholic church.

However, sometime in the 90's the LW reissued a new edition of the First Principles, and most of this lesson had been sanitized to soften the anti-RC teaching. I never saw this new edition, so I can't comment on how much got removed. I discarded my LW literature years ago.

Posted by: TheSarge
Date: February 28, 2016 12:44PM

I've missed the antecedent to this Catholic phase of The Walk v.3. Has that chapter on Catholicism been removed from The First Principles or edited? After all the other segues over the last couple of decades, what is the fascination? Yeah, yeah, same Father, One Universal Church, yada yada. But why now? I am truly flummoxed.

Posted by: paleface
Date: November 08, 2013 02:48PM

If you have ever read the book "Babylon, Mystery Religion" you will notice that it is nearly identical to the First Principles lesson on Babylon. I am now of the opinion that John lifted that whole teaching from that book or other similar sources for that particular chapter. G & M have been trying to sanitize the FP for years to make it suitable for a wider audience.

I happen to have an old First Principles and a new one from the most recent edition printed in 1999. They polished up the whole thing, but I was especially looking at Lesson 39: Babylon. It was changed considerably and sanitized of many of the references to Mary the mother of Jesus being compared to Semiramus, queen of heaven. For example, roman numeral III went from "Let us further examine Babylonian teachings" to "The Early Church". Quite a big difference. I'd say that they were definitely trying to make it more palatable for more people, and especially for Catholics. All that work, and now it's out of print. And as has been pointed out above, it is likely that the original First Principles was not totally the work of John Robert Stevens anyway.

Thank you for sharing this, Reep. You may have motivated me to dig through the clutter in my garage and see, if indeed, I decided to retain the book "The Shape of Things to Come," containing John's "vision"...not because I believed any of it, but because I found it so ludicrous and laughable (after I left), that I thought I should keep it as a reminder of what I was once a part of. Not that I will ever need to be reminded :) Anyway, I'm pretty sure I dumped every other scrap of TLW material I possessed.

For example, roman numeral III went from "Let us further examine Babylonian teachings" to "The Early Church". Quite a big difference. I'd say that they were definitely trying to make it more palatable for more people, and especially for Catholics.

Yes



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/10/2021 09:15AM by changedagain.

Reep wrote:
I was especially looking at Lesson 39: Babylon. It was changed considerably and sanitized of many of the references to Mary the mother of Jesus being compared to Semiramus, queen of heaven.

Interesting how many years after John plagiarized, I mean wrote the First Principles, some churches would worship his second wife...now married to another man. That doesn't seem scriptural...but God's ways are mysterious!
/s

Posted by: larry bobo
Date: May 16, 2019 02:55AM

At the time of John’s death, the upward flow had already started. As Gary and Marilyn took control of the organization, the level of control and focus on them increased dramatically. There were a few members of the third generation that had referred to John as “Christ in the Flesh”, but to most, he was the “Door Opener Apostle” and Marilyn was "The Lamp of Israel". I believe in most local churches, Marilyn’s name was substituted for God’s in worship songs – while Gary was married to her. Many remember the service where leaders were asked to pledge their allegiance to and spiritually marry Marilyn - quite weird! You can’t have a higher position than to want to be worshiped as God. For Gary to try and distance himself from the hierarchy is ludicrous. He controls everything and yet seems to not want to take responsibility for anything.

Anyone who has ever served on a church corporation knows you served only as a figurehead. Gary and Marilyn made all the decisions. The last corporation I served on in Palmer Lake had in its Bylaws that if there was disagreement among the Board, the Apostolic Fathering Ministry – Gary and Marilyn – had the final say. You were basically on the corporation to do the legwork, but really had no say in anything of significance. The local church leadership reported to Apco weekly, and they in turn reported to Gary and Marilyn. I was removed several times from positions in the church for questioning things that have now come out in the open and everyone can see they needed to be questioned – e.g. the kingdom dawning in 1979, shepherding and designated relationships, false words from God, failed prophesies, and the cover up of sexual relationships between pastors and congregants – including John.

A post by GSchaeff from June of 2018:

Posted by: GSchaeff
Date: June 30, 2018 01:28AM

This was a PM I was given permission to share:

I was attending YASP around 2004 when a young boy from DC remarked that Gary would always starts summer camp with a word on repentance. "It's just a formula," the boy said, "[Gary] starts with a one or two words (sermons) on repentance so that we all feel guilty, and then he brings one on salvation, so that we feel in sorry. Next he brings one on obedience so that we listen, and then after that one on grace so we feel good when we go home. Don't you guys see that it's always the same thing?" He'd written it all down in his notebook, which we promptly confiscated and handed over to the authorities.

YASP leadership gave the boy a stern talking to about his rebellious nature, and how it was a privilege to sit in the front of the sanctuary. The boy was told that he was being selfish because 'doodling' or otherwise not paying attention distracted Gary, and Gary needed all the support we could give him. I remember seeing the boy cry in the next service that evening. He was in good company. Many people cried that night because the theme of that service was Gary's take on salvation. Tears were encouraged as we collectively realized how much owed to Christ for dying on the cross just so he could return to us as the living word through Gary. Ten bucks if you can guess what the next word (sermon) was about: obedience. Looking back, I'm impressed by how lucid that kid was.

One of the earliest comments in this forum, back in 2006. It's a description of one young adult's experience at Shiloh summer camp. In a subsequent post, this person says the year was 1992.

Posted by: recoveredfinally
Date: October 07, 2006 10:46AM

Shiloh really was a slave camp. I was forced to work all day long in the blazing heat cutting rose bushes one summer. I fainted from exhaustion. Most summers were spent like this: wake up at 6am, take a 5 minute shower that is timed, go to breakfast, go "wait on the Lord" for an hour, go discuss waiting on the Lord, get your personal list of chores, do your chores from about 10am - 6pm. Eat dinner, go to church, sleep, wake up again. Some of the chores included:
1) weeding outdoors on the side of a pebble road that lead into the entrance of the church - and it was at least 90 + degrees -- or the humidity made it feel that way
2) weeding in the man-made lagoon where one year I was attacked by leeches when I sat in the sand
3) serving on the kitchen staff - the dish washing room was horrible because the dining room was already hot, but combined with the steam of the dish machine - it was 10 x worse!
4) scrubbing toilets and showers with a toothbrush
AND so forth....


It was misery. I can vouche for that! :(

The above stories reported regarding YASP in Shiloh are very much in keeping with what I know to be true. I know for a fact that young people in the program fainted, had heat exhaustion, and suffered other serious ailments from doing hours of hard manual labor in the Iowa heat and humidity. I became ill once while guarding the front gate, and I wasn't doing hard labor in the blazing sun...just got dehydrated from not drinking enough water.

And now that information about the sexual abuse of minors has been made public, I'm glad that Shiloh is gone. The vast majority of people involved had no clue what the leaders were doing behind the scenes. They kept us so busy trying to please god (them) and following all the nitpicky rules and ridiculously detailed instructions for nearly everything. We couldn't possibly notice their bizarre and criminal behavior behind the scenes where we were never invited. But I still hate myself for not figuring it out.

All the teachings about the necessity of not coming to conclusions based on the reasoning of the mind, but instead looking for a "revelation"...which conveniently only came through the route of obedience...made us easy to control. Attending five services a week (or so) over many years, coupled with a constant emphasis on providing 'volunteer' labor on behalf of church authorities (upward flow), wore down our natural and healthy defenses. In retrospect, all of us would have benefitted had we been defensive, 'putting up walls' to those demanding unquestioned service, often employing cherry-picked scriptures to back it up. It certainly would have led us to an earlier departure from the cult, but with no guarantee our families or friendships would remain intact.

Reep wrote:
We couldn't possibly notice their bizarre and criminal behavior behind the scenes where we were never invited. But I still hate myself for not figuring it out.