Posted by Perry on March 18, 2005 at 11:59:37
In Reply to: Re: One question at a time posted by Monika Kosz on March 18, 2005 at 11:15:11:
Allow me to interject into this thread. First, you say in your previous post: "I can assure you that as a believer I have the right perspective on the things that the sect has done."
What do you mean by believer? If by that you mean you are a Christian, then your own belief system and biases may very well give you a very skewed perspective. And based on your different posts, I'm not convinced that you do have the "right perspective on the things that the sect has done."
You say you have read the various materials available on this and other sites, yet your continued questions reveal that you have little knowledge overall. For example, your latest questions are asking about "the structure" of the group. As the person who previously answered you pointed out, there is no simple answer to any of your questions, particularly that one. Changes in structure, and the terminology to describe that structure, was constant throughout the history of TF and that remains the case today. I was a member for 20 years, and I still can't keep track of it all. But the answers you seek, particularly for the period you are writing about are fairly easy to find if you just read more. Have you read Deborah Davis' book, for example, which is available on this site? She goes into a lot of that stuff.
I understand your academic need to interview people for your particular project, but (forgive me for saying so) your approach seems a little bit lazy to me. It's kind of like trying to get someone to do your homework for you. Perhaps if you, as a researcher, demonstrated more knowledge of the group based on the vast amount of information available on these websites (xfamily.org also has some very good materials), then perhaps your questions would be more focused on the types of details you seek, and you would have more people answering you.