“Life goes on…”
No word on whether jailed church leader Wayne Bent is still fasting today, but according to a copyrighted story in today’s Albuquerque Journal (subscription required), Bent’s followers are no longer fasting:
“They were looking for deliverance from God,” said Sarah Montoya, an attorney for the church’s leader, Wayne Bent. Montoya spoke with Bent’s son Jeff on Saturday. “They’re disappointed, but they understand that life goes on.”
What that means for the time being is that Bent’s 45 adult followers at the Strong City compound have ended a two-week fast, in which they had also stopped drinking water last weekend. The fast was launched in protest of criminal charges that Bent had illegal sexual contact with underage girls.” (Albuquerque Journal)
Mark –
Completely off the topic – but congrats on topping 100,000 hits to this blog!!!
It is not an understatement to say that there has been a huge sigh of relief with many former members and family members of residents still living at Strong City. I am closely looking at how Jeff Bent regroups and perhaps redirects the LOR church, as his father Wayne Bent has handed over the control of the embattled church to his son, a former law enforcement officer of the state of California. As the church receives nourishment and water, hopfully with their renewed strength will also come another vision and acceptance of reality for the present age. I pray Wayne will also end his fast, but somehow I fear that he will continue his protest and mistrust of the legal system, and will not cooperate with the jailers and health experts there in Clayton. They may have to forcefeed him and that will make things look ugly and difficult. But they have to do what they have to do.
As some of you know I have been sitting on a trial jury this past week here in Yuma, AZ. I have seen first hand how fair the legal system is for the defendants rights and well being. Tomorrow our jury here in Yuma resumes deliberations. The legal system does indeed work, and I have had so far a good experience serving on this jury and I have learned a lot. Wayne would receive a fair trial providing they find a qualified jury there in Taos. I believe they would be successful. Wayne should trust God and let this event play itself out naturally.
It’s wonderful to hear that they’re eating again.
EMC,
Thank you. And thanks to all of you who’ve visited this blog.
Sincerely,
Mark
It will be interesting to see where the group goes from here. This isn’t the first time they’ve been prepared and disapointed. But how many times does this need to happen before they realize that no one knows the day or time of the return of Christ? Not even a man who declares he’s the Messiah.
So as Bent says, “Life goes on.” Will they re-examine their beliefs? Will they disband and return to families that love them and miss them? Is it to late for that? Would they know how to return to life as most of the world knows it?
And now that Jeff has taken his fathers position, does that mean he has been willed the wives and witnesses? Will he have his wife back? Will the other women return to their husbands?
Is Wayne being held until his trial of Nov. 17th? If he gets convicted and is unable to return to his followers………. What then for these people? They must be feeling beaten down and confused.
My heart goes out to the LOR group, May God be with them all and open their eyes.
Looking for “Just Me:”
No, I am not Jeff Bent. I am just somebody who checks in here from time to time. I am always amazed at how much misinformation get disseminated, not just on this blog, but all across the internet. I had never posted before this week, but ‘ole Sam Redman finally yanked my chain. He just went on and on like some lawyer who knew what Bent’s lawyer was up to, or, as he was claiming, wasn’t up to, and I figured he was just another lawyer out there putting down someone he knew nothing about. Doesn’t matter now. I am now convinced he really knows nothing. Peace.
Reading the last statement of Jeff Bent (Wayne’s son) on their Strongcity website, before it closed (you can read it on the mirror site, which preserves the site for further study of the case), I found one very interesting comment.
Jeff said this:
“Last night my father, Wayne Bent, was taken to the new private prison in Clayton run by the Geo Group. I remember the promise, “For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption.” Ps. 16:10. The private prison industry represents everything that is hellish about this world today.”
I wonder if those words might reveal a sub-story to this drama. What prompted Jeff to say that? His explanation would be interesting. I did a bit of Googling about the “Geo group” and it is highly criticized. The following story by ABCnews (entitled “Private Prison Co. Again Accused of Human Rights Abuses”) was particularly fascinating:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5466166&page=1
I wonder if Jeff and some of the other Strongcity visitors have seen (or been told about) any mistreatment of Wayne? If so, those wrongful actions need to be publicized. Wayne (like any prisoner) should be ensured humane treatment. He shouldn’t be punished for a crime (he’s still innocent until proven guilty… you know), as he is yet unconvicted.
Maybe Jeff would grant an interview about his remark.
100,000 hits! That’s like a gold record in the blogging world!
Congrats, you do great work.
My math is really bad. I meant 10,000!
“Perhaps our supercilious disgust with existence is a cover for a secret disgust with ourselves; we have botched and bungled our lives, and we cast the blame upon the “environment” or the “world,” which have no tongues to utter a defense. The mature man accepts the natural limitations of life; he does not expect Providence to be prejudiced in his favor; he does not ask for loaded dice to play the game of life. He knows, with Carlyle, that there is no sense in vilifying the sun because it will not light our cigars. And perhaps, if we are clever enough to help it, the sun will even do that; and this vast neutral cosmos may turn out to be a pleasant place enough if we bring a little sunshine of our own to help it out. In truth, the world is neither with us or against us; it is but raw material in our hands, and can be heaven or hell according to what we are.”
I couldn’t respond after you, the blog ended., and I want to say that not just anyone could inventory themselves the way you did and I can see it was from the heart of a good man with a desire that all in the world be at least good or godly in the great way you view god our creator…,, the ills of our society are many and we as a people make mistakes for we are not perfect but is that any reason to stop our god mandate our assigned life and its no mistake, and lets just look at it all in another way for a minute and this is not to place blame or to say that you were involved in any wrongdoing, but its a necessary part of finding answers, its the why and how and direction finding tool that im certain god would have us use if he/she would be with us instructing right now, and maybe is here. Heavenly minded is a good start, I have children, and nieces and nephews and I thank the lord everyday for the great blessing that he has given me and us and only hope all have it, and I’m not speaking of money, I thank the lord for teaching me giving me and all the children in America at least a chance and the right to unlimited education, it is holy, as all is created, owned and given by god, right, is this not his creation and the bad in the world is his creation also and is allowed to deceive, work and move with god allowing it, how could we know what good bad holy unholy were without experiencing it, could we learn it from a book, when we read a book we do get an idea of what we read, but do we really know., when a child sees a stove eye for the first time and mom tells him its hot does he know what she means, isn’t the bad here by design , do we need to let this bad or evil flood and rule our entire life, isn’t that taking the mark, can others see in our soul by looking at the misery on our face, why allow our spirit to be taken over by all of the bad and mistakes of the world ,we do have choice don’t we, what if we turn to grace and look at all the good in the world and its here, the 20th century is unmatched in medical cures, vaccines and surgical procedures, in the 30’s to 40’s evil took shape in the German war machine and only 2 others joined them while the rest of the world jumped to the side of England and France which played major roles in keeping and spreading Christ’s word in the modern world , and yes the word is here, couldn’t it been just as easy thru history that it not be here,, did man understand what god wanted and see it thru and its still here, why….,did god keep the word here without mans help,he could,, even with all the senseless deaths
that Satan delivers our life expectancy is well over 75, we have electricity which keeps hundreds of millions of people from freezing in wintertime, god said be fruitful and multiply and without our technical advances which come from god millions would die each year from starvation, heat stroke, minor health complications, and our god given advances protect us thru early warning of hurricanes and floods, with lasers doctors can do necessary surgery that was only dreamed of 20 years ago, with ultrasound doctors can find abnormalities anywhere in the body with a simple office visit which can save lives, and its all god given and man received and that’s what its all about, how we receive and use this great gift that god has purposefully given, its no mistake,
I could go on speaking of all the great gifts god has given and intended for us to be a part of but why, the greatest gift of all is understanding and giving this understanding of gods greatness, grace,humanity,love and teaching to those that haven’t found it and Johnny your best years are to come as its not about yesterday anymore, but its about today and tomorrow , look at what you can do to help so many with your understanding, all you have to do is be the best you can in each day and tomorrow is taken care of by your best action of each day and start new with words of hope for all you come in contact with and thru the faith(knowledge,understanding,belief)that what Jesus told you was true. God bless you
The word is like a crossword puzzle no one piece makes a picture, it takes all the pieces
To Rick – I am surprised that you made no attibution for the initial quotation, which you were seemingly attempting to rebut.
That opening paragraph is a direct “cut and paste” quote (word for word) from the philosophical writer, Will Durant. You can read some of his articles here:
http://www.willdurant.com/articles.htm
This is the second year in a row that Wayne Bent’s predicted something would happen on Oct. 31–and nothing happened. (The first event was in the National Geographic documentary.) I’m rather wondering if the LOR people will now go through their own “Great Disappointment.” This is something that should be familiar to at least some of them, seeing as they came out of the SDA and the SDA was founded in the aftermath of the William Miller disappointments.
sam i just got back notice the quotation marks ?
i guess i spent too many years studying the arts obsorbing anal rhetoric but some have no idea its here and thanks for directing, i left the quotation marks to show that it was a quote , its seems as thou you missed that intention right?
Rick… quotation marks alone are not enough of an attribution. Didn’t you learn that in the 11th grade? You can use quote marks without attribution to set off your own previously made remarks (which you want separate from further current arguments). You can use quotes with no explanation to describe an “expression.” When quoting anyone as eminent as Will Durant, you don’t want to confuse a reader into thinking the remarks are your own (or deny them the joy of learning who actually wrote something or fail to give the real author their due). You can’t depend on everyone to recognize an obscure excerpt from the writings of Will Durant.
But, you knew all that… why not just do a “mea culpa,” instead of trying to excuse the error with a weak “it was in quotations” excuse?
You see now why I thought Sam Redman was a jerk? Pick, pick, pick. I guess he’s pure perfection
Hey Ron, your math was correct, it is 100,000 hits! Congratulations Mark!
Sam, WB has been at the newly opened Clayton jail for all of 4 days now. And since they are monitoring his health he is probably in a medical unit, therefore not exposed at this point to the general population of the prison. I seriously doubt there has been mistreatment in that short amount of time, more likely he’s being handled with kid gloves.
While not many of us would enjoy a prison as our home for the rest of our lives, in most cases we do have a choice (yes, I do realize that sometimes completely innocent people are incarcerated). The story you linked to was about a facility overseen by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and run by the GEO Group. The complaints in that particular story were about abuses towards immigrants and the only connection with where WB is housed at the moment and that story is that they are run by the GEO Group. While I’ll grant you that the GEO Group doesn’t have a good record, all prisons, public and private, are rife with abuse and corruption. That is a problem which must be addressed but not under this topic. Still, I think you would agree with me that prisons aren’t meant to be the Ritz with all the amenities and rights accorded to a free person.
That being said, WB made his choice. He was in jail for a few days in May, bailed out, money refunded. When his case was sent to district court he was released on an unsecured bond and nine conditions of release. He deliberately chose to violate “#6. The Defendant shall attend all future hearing in this matter”. The initial charges are NOT the reason he is in jail right now. He could have remained free, gone through the trial and perhaps even have been acquitted (which is still a possibility). Instead he chose not to cooperate, dragging his followers and their families through the mire in the process.
His “better than thou” attitude brought him to where he is now and I have no sympathy for him and his situation. My sympathy is reserved for his followers and their families who are trying to get on with their lives.
It seems I read where Wayne said he always keeps his promise. Didnt he promise the court he would comply?
Wouldnt that make Wayne a Liar?
Bingo!
im back, sorry red got other things to do well step away from the childish power struggle here as i know what my intention was and for you to say you know, oh well maybe you were practicing kants transcendental perspective and popped that in my mind, the condition of the other five, well ive been reading some of waynes writing and particulary waynes 7 virgin end world desires and how he circulated these ideas with the inner circle and asked what they thought or how they felt, and as he said they were all in approval and basicly wanted to see this thing thru, but said god told them to or they were a witness to this PLAN but still willing participants with the desire to see this thru, as recorded 5 virgins were taken 2 too go, end world translation of the followers, the 2 virgins to go, do we have a CONSPIRACY here, maybe the others of the immediate inner circle propped up wayne and began to assist in seeing this thru, i believe this could easily pass grand jury , thus the delivering of the above mentioned could be done together with wayne,, this might even appeal to you red
?