The reason it was called that was because we imagined the whole ministry all over the world as one big tree. My family transitioned to a splinter group in the mid 90s, and later when I was a teenager I moved into a "Way Home" which is like a group home for the cult. (New Knoxville, OH: American Christian Press, 1972), 209, 174, for Wierwilles claim that his book is the most original coverage of the subject, and p. 178 for his claim that God audibly promised to teach him directly and personally. The Way began to grow significantly only when Wierwille traveled to California and recruited followers from the Jesus movement.16 Like Eve and the Corinthians, these young believers (and many since the 1960s) were virgins with simple devotion to Christ, but were not grounded in Scripture and thus were easily led astray. Nonetheless, hundreds of Way refugees are resisting the new groups' pleas to "join up.". I went to a couple fellowship meetings shortly after they took the "foundational class" and wouldn't shut up about it. An alarming statement from her the week prior to committing suicide and a recent appearance/presence on social media a few months prior is also what has really shaken everyone. Wierwille exercised very little discernment in learning from others, readily accepting teachings from itinerant mystics, Christian Scientists, and spiritists. The immediate cause was metastatic melanoma of the liver, which means that the cancer spread from the eye to the liver. Bill Green, who handles some public relations for The Ways New Knoxville, Ohio headquarters, declined to be interviewed about the classes and related developments. Tired from excessive bible study, didnt share and/or complain about any of her home life and doodled a lot which always made me ponder what she was thinking about?. My father also advised the members of our fellowship to beat their children. The Ways decisions to terminate the WOWs and PFAL classes are partly due to the damaging influence of Way splinter groups. The Way International fits the criteria outlined to a T. One thing I didn't see mentioned much in the thread is how incredibly patriarchal and misogynistic the Ministry was, and I am sure that has not changed. I was isolated from my family physically because they didn't live close, and during private conversations about leadership I was told that my family didn't love me and that they could understand why because I was so horrible, but at least I had them. Out of the Way: The Offshoots - GreaseSpot Cafe Meli Vinpearl Phu Ly. About The Way International in English, I was well traveled as an Army wife, and never dreamed I would be embarking on events that would change my life forever. In short, the Way (though it started much earlier) at its highest participation rates was essentially home fellowships with hippies talking about Jesus. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. 60, Bien Hoa Street, Minh Khai Ward, Phu Ly City, Ha Nam Province,, Minh Khai, Phu Ly (Ha Nam), Vietnam, 400000 - See map. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. These people are capable of anything. Her recent suicide however was as a member in leadership. They use Wierwilles teachings, jargon, and writings, and have drawn off many of The Ways followers by accusing International of authoritarianism, misuse of power, adultery, misuse of funds, spiritual corruption, departure from the Word of God, and denominationalism. Until then I was personally fighting acceptance because I wasnt able to understand and someone else had not articulated a realistic and plausible answer. For example, Geer describes Wierwille as one who was very hard to live with, often lashing out at those closest to him and hurting them.5 It includes a reproduction of handwritten notes in which the three trustees admit that the accusations against them are true. John Lynn claims that Wierwille and at least four other trustees had sex with literally hundreds of women, many of whom Lynn and other ex-leaders have counseled personally.9 They also claim the Trustees fired long-time researcher John Schonheit for writing a brief paper summarizing the Bibles teaching against adultery. You were expected to advance through them, and you typically developed bonds with your cohort in the Foundational, Intermediate and Advanced classes. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. This video covers some of the deaths and suicides of former members. My story might be pretty different compared to those of you who grew up in the 80's/90's. But I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. Juedes is a Lutheran paster who has written extensively on the Way. The Cults podcast on Stitcher has a 2-part special on The Way and River Road Fellowship, which was one of the splinter groups. But they are open to friendships and the Bible, and are reevaluating many teachings and practices. 4v$gi Making you afraid of other people and afraid of having attention withheld are other classic manipulation tactics. Oh, so when I say curveballs I mean it in the figurative sense. We are spiritual beings in a material world, my mom would sometimes say. After all, it is their friends who have left and made accusations of severe error against The Way leadership. They believed that God heals and if you believe enough he can heal anything. 5 Lamsa considered himself an apostle and believed in clairvoyance and universalism. nase ahora para acceder a este contenido exclusivo para suscriptores de Journal, http://www.equip.org/christian-research-journal/, To the Cancel Culture: We Respectfully Decline When Believers are Told What We May or May Not Say, Polite Refusal is Called For, Christ or Lucretius: Nature and Natures God in the poems of Mary Oliver. Wierwille was not the only former minister to draw away young disciples David Berg was one of several others. Every splinter group or offshoot of the Worldwide Church of God claims Splintering of the group since 1985 has greatly reduced its active membership, from a peak of about . Wierwilles writings on the topics of interpreting the Bible, soul sleep, the distinction of impersonal holy spirit from the Holy Spirit, ultradispensationalism, gospel harmony, and the mystery are all drawn from Bullinger. Press J to jump to the feed. Instead of it being an isolated incident that sucks from time to time in life, its framed as The Adversary (the devil) is making your life difficult, and as athletes of the spirit we can outmaneuver him. This article first appeared in the in the Ask Hank column of the Christian Research Journal, Feb 20, 2023 | Christian Articles, en Espanol, Feb 13, 2023 | Christian Articles, en Espanol. Moving on: I know a lot of people who grew up in strict religious contexts, but the thing that I always found kind of culty about the Way was how we were always supposed to prioritize people in the ministry to the exclusion of others. Unless you have endless funds to fight in Court for an extended period of time, I fear that battle would only add to the pain you have already experienced. We could go into particulars like the Holocaust denying, the speaking in tongues, how women are supposed to be subservient to men, the homophobia but I just wanted to provide you with some context. Since then, The Way has sought to purge (that is, totally shun) all who do not tithe or who question Martindale on any issue. Not that a college degree is by any means the only metric of intelligence, but there arent a lot of college degrees in the faith. as I got older I was terrified of doing something that would have me cast out because my whole life THESE were the people I knew and had history with, and it made me deeply sad to imagine suddenly being cut off from that. 13 Address: Pacific West Fellowship, P.O. Think of the creed is their unwritten Bible. Atheism. The group says that it will hold classes and smaller conferences instead, including a weeklong gathering of 2,000 at The Ways auditorium in New Knoxville, July 20-27. Here's a copy of. As a result, many Wayers view Geer as being the true spiritual heir to Wierwille. Geer is damaging to The Way because of his previous close ties to Wierwille. Leonard. It was founded by Victor Paul Wierwille in 1942 as a radio program, subsequently becoming The Chimes Hour Youth Caravan in 1947, and The Way, Inc., in 1955. With the more aggressive and cultic mindset of current Way leadership, followers can expect more years of turbulence and change. Started in the early 1950s by the late Victor Paul Wierwille (1916-1985), the original organization was called the Way Incorporated. Last year, The Way Magazine lauded the organizations success at quickly beginning new PFAL classes through street witnessing; but now fewer classes are likely to be held since many recruits drop out of the twigs before attending a full year. UPDATE: Victor Barnard convicted of rape. - Charlene L. Edge Splintering of the group since 1985 has greatly reduced its active membership, from a peak of about 35,000 to less than 10,000.1. The Way sent out 138 Disciples to 15 cities during the Rock of Ages 1995 conference, far below a peak of 3,100 WOW Ambassadors it claimed to have sent in 1982. In response, he defends such Way teachings as that on interpretation of tongues.14 Ralph Dubofsky told the May 1988 CES meeting that the reason they like so much of E.W. But thats the thing: the adversary throws you curve balls, and its our job as athletes of the spirit to make smart moves. These were known as splinter groups and were always talked about as deceptive as if they were scheming their followers. It is fundamentalist due to many non-negotiable beliefs, most notably the inerrancy of the Scriptures, and it is a cult, a high-control group, due to its social . Jun 10, 2009. When I arrived back home my entire bedroom and all my belongings had been searched for anything ungodly. I'm a robot. Mostly shame, guilt, separation from anyone but the group, brainwashing. This practice was common back in the 70s-80s as well as taking people's medications away so they could "prove God." Long story long. Three editorials which answer misconceptions common among followers and ex-followers of The Way such as distrust of Christians outside The Way and the forming of Way splinter groups. Needless to say, growing up in a large communal living situation for 2 years of my childhood had unique benefits and DEFINITE drawbacks. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. She probably could have just gone and not told anyone because its not like anyone checked your bank account, but her guilt consumed her and a couple days before, she called our fellowship coordinator over and confessed to him that she had debt. Experiences, questions, observations about offshoots who trace their roots to The Way International, Off-shoot of The Way (formerly Christian Educational Services), Accused sex predator Victor Barnard a victim's story. Word And because we were Family Corp, children were added into the mix as well. Martindale told his followers at the 1995 Rock of Ages conference that new classes were needed because The Ways opponents had attended PFAL classes and learned how to use this material against The Way. Second, give ex-Wayers space to vent their emotions and hurts, and pray for them and their healing. They have been active and effective at exposing problems in The Way through personal influence and meetings of Wayers around the nation. Boop. Gotta run! 9 In an April 30, 1996 press release The Way announced it would not hold a Rock of Ages festival in 1996. John P. Juedes is the pastor of Messiah Lutheran Church in Highland, California, and has written extensively on The Way International. In that same breathe, her sister/siblings believed she was waking up and coming to her own conclusion about her situation and the life she had created with the expectation that she would removing herself as they did during that similar age period of their lives. Off-shoot of The Way (formerly Christian Educational Services) 6.3k posts. One ex-member said the Corps residence training was sometimes like a bordello, with promiscuity, adultery, orgies, wife swapping, and even gang-rape.4. That exes from his life are all crazy.. Although Wayers project a curt and indifferent attitude toward the many who have left the group, they have undoubtedly been hurt deeply in recent years. Christian can also help (ex-) Wayers through four basic steps of reorientation: 1) expose, 2) emotional reaction, 3) relearning, and 4) reconstruction. Any time I needed to see a doctor (I've had chronic health issues) I had to do it in secret and lie about where I was going, and have the bills sent to fake addresses so no one would find out. As Wayers recognize false teachings, they further see the inaccurate scholarship Wierwille used to defend his teachings.11 Therefore, they also criticize Wierwilles skill as a Bible researcher and teacher and call into question everything they learned from him. It's 2am and so I decided to reminisce in Google-land by doing a search on the The Way International; a group I was once affiliated with . It is apparent that almost all Wierwille taught he acquired from other men, not from original study of Gods word. 2013-08-09T12:10:58-05:00 The level to which people beat themselves up for falling short, though, is intense. European Christian Press (which Geer controls) then published it a few years after Wierwilles death. 8 Ibid., 67, 68. My mom thought God helped her get a good parking space once (Im not kidding). By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. Several thousand followers have severed ties with The Way International as a result of the allegations and evidence they have seen, including the entire state (Limb) of South Carolina in April 1988 and about 80 percent of the Washington, D.C., Limb. Wierwille always told them that they could only go as far as they had been taught, and the new groups demonstrate this principle by organizing themselves in the same ways, and on the same assumptions, which Wierwille used in building The Way Tree. The most important change involves the new The Way of Abundance and Power classes by Way president, L. Craig Martindale. Martindale openly and vulgarly expressed his contempt for the splinter groups during his Rock of Ages 95 sermons. Many former Way members are flocking to break-off organizations some of which are led by well-known and respected ex-leaders. 9 John Lynn, Overview of Events, two-cassette series, 1987. This article only sketches the most prominent and publishable charges. This article first appeared in the Christian Research Journal, volume 44, number 2 (2021). I was born in Sidney, Ohio in 2001 and lived at the Way Headquarters in New Knoxville. In spite of its name, however, The Way . 2 John P. Juedes and Jay Valusek, Will the Real Author Please Stand Up? And we have to consider the times: inspired by peace movements and anti-war efforts. 3 Victor Paul Wierwille, Power for Abundant Living (New Knoxville, OH: American Christian Press, 1971), 119-20.4 Victor Paul Wierwille, Receiving the Holy Spirit Today, 6th ed. I just wanted to paint a picture here of the laid back approach to Christian faith that makes the Way appealing to people. It has shrunk in size and, as often is the case in cults when the original leader dies, splintered into various rival movements. He would beat me for nearly any infraction. This is to say, you can be you with all your quirks and eccentricities because we are all unique people and can come to have unique relationships with God through his Word. The most prominent of these groups are John Lynns Christian Educational Services (CES) and Chris Geers The Way of Great Britain. The Way is marketed as a biblical research, teaching, and fellowship ministry. A good example of this is John Lynns 12-session class Keys to Victorious Living. The Class is nearly an exact duplicate of Wierwilles Power for Abundant Living class, teaching over two dozen of the same specific doctrines and using the same proof texts Wierwille used (though Lynn corrects some of Wierwilles most glaring misinterpretations). But apparently, he doesn't want people to know what he did in the 1970s and 1980s. Allen wrote, I read it and all is true.So I will change to do my best for the man I helped kill.7 They apparently could not reconcile the death of the man of God with their teaching of the law of believing. Since they considered Wierwille the epitome of believing, he should easily have been able to will himself to health simply by believing he was well and free of cancer. Many have realized that they have also been falsely taught on Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, and have turned to evangelical beliefs instead. I mention this because in the athletes analogy, theres always an adversary. The figure other Christians might call the Devil the Way often calls the Adversary (lol it looks weird to write it out). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2dshceGGvY&ab_channel=TheEyewitnesses. This is very hard. How about a little more candor, Vince? I want to be clear that if you think something nefarious has happened here, go with your gut. They include the Foundational Class (Receive with Meekness), the Intermediate Class (Retain with Conviction), and the Advanced Class (Release with Boldness). Like the new classes and the Disciples, this is a sign that The Way is striving to further restrict access to its activities, purge anyone who questions current Way leadership, increase control, and consolidate. I had been a professional lead singer and performer since I was 16, and although I . At that time I had recently come out as bisexual to my mom, which went as well as you'd expect. Almost every one of Wierwilles teachings can be traced to other sources (see sidebar for descriptions of some of Wierwilles teachings). The largest group seems to be Christian Educational Services, Inc. (CES), which incorporated this fall in Indianapolis. At first I was told how loved and adored I was but quickly that facade died and it was clear I was not loved. Growing up, I remember hearing stories about people who had drifted from the Way, and they were always spoken of as dangerous people. Many people follow Wierwille in part because they were impressed by his claim that he took over 3,000 books on theology to the city dump3 and resolved to study the Bible alone without mens teachings.4 Although Wierwille sometimes said he learned from others, he often explicitly claimed originality. Each fellowship was just one small twig connected to a branch, then a limb, then a trunk and so on. In my research since leaving in 2013 I have found a number of people who reported that their loved ones died in the way dating back to the 70s. My eating habits were monitored and I would get made fun of by leadership for things i liked or how much I ate. Oral Robertss The Red Thread in his Lifestyle of Gods Word. I can remember being a teenager and being intellectually curious and asking a lot of questions. To be honest, it sounds nice on paper in many ways. Good call. At the time, Schoenheit was on The Ways research team. The past two years have been a very unsettling time for Wayers. 11 Morton and Juedes, Integrity and Accuracy, reveals many of Wierwilles errors in scholarship and Bible interpretation. The false apostles disguises are being pulled from their faces, and the virgins who were led astray are returning to the one true Jesus, Spirit, and gospel, and the church of Jesus Christ. 2.) I am also former TWI. International b275 tractor bonnet - gqqa.wikinger-turnier.de He told Corps grads that the Ambassadors had accomplished their mission of getting Gods Word over the world. He called it WOW redefined, but he never explained how reaching only a fraction of a percent of residents of the United States (much less of the world) constitutes completing the mission. This conflict has increased as ex-Wayers have persuaded many of their friends to leave Martindales group. We were taught that debt was inherently evil and that it made you a slave to the lender. Este artculo es una exclusiva en lnea de Christian Research Journal. This present controversy is serving to alert pure believers that Wierwille and his successors are false apostles after all. These classes replace the Power for Abundant Living (PFAL) classes by Way founder, Victor Paul Wierwille, who died of cancer in 1985 after losing an eye to the disease and suffering strokes. Wierwille was always more effective at turning people away from the church of Jesus Christ than he was at turning people toward the Bible or The Way International. Brainwashing is in part convincing you that the world is evil and filled with devil spirits that are everywhere and you must be vigilant, and part CONSTANT information about the bible. The Way International introduced sweeping changes at the annual Rock of Ages gathering last year. If the person refuses to read or hear material which exposes such errors, then take the time to obtain the primary sources which demonstrate them and ask his or her opinion of them. He never credited his sources, in effect lying to his readers by leading them to believe that he originated his teachings under Gods direct tutelage. Some retain great respect for Wierwille, while a few joke about him. The crowd of 11,000 applauded the changes, hoping that this would help remedy the severe decline and turbulence of the past 10 years. The Way International - Wikipedia In the meantime, I want to share about her thread with you. Lynn summarized this when he assured listeners that many stories would curl your hair.12. I dont know if any of this is helpful to you. No one is going to beat you. Wierwilles stance that the whole Bible was authored in Aramaic, that parts of Scripture have been lost, that many Bible passages in popular translations were deviously inserted by pagans, and his Nestorian-like view of Jesus Christ (which drives a wedge between the human Jesus and the divine Christ) all trace to mystic George Lamsa. Many of us were had gotten the impression that she was back. terrified of seeing/interacting with a marked and avoided person because I thought their adversarial ways would rub off on me. This article first appeared in the in the Ask Hank column of the Christian Research Journal, Feb 20, 2023 | Christian Articles, en Espanol, Feb 13, 2023 | Christian Articles, en Espanol. Sann also circulates periodic newsletters and regularly publishes teaching tapes. At the time Martindale saw the suspension of WOW as the response to an attack by evil devil spirits, but by the summer of 1995 he recast the suspension as a Way victory. Many ex-Wayers continue to read Bullinger, as they did while in The Way. In 2000, the president of The Way, Craig Martindale, resigned following . The Way International (TWI) has been on cult watchers' radar screens for decades. See also Elena Whiteside, The Way Living with Love, 2d ed. Some people were asked to leave the ministry for some big transgression (maybe they were gay, maybe they bucked chain of command in some big way), and they were considered marked and avoided (I think stemming from the Cain and Abel story in Genesis). Wierwille as father, friend, and teacher, but both the Scriptures and the empirical evidence demand it. Homey, reported that 163 sodomiteshad been purged, marked and avoided by January l995.3. First, the assumptions and structure of the new groups are like The Way International. About The Way International Oh! Show love and patience throughout this trying time of change. I tried explaining to the family member that "reverend" Martindale just advocated for mass murder. Our dear and sweet beloved friend. It begins to be the only thing you can do and the only people you can see. The Way president is accustomed to using crude speech and profanity, even in public settings. Okay. And Im not sure I can completely answer your question about stepping out of line and facing consequences. Splinter Cults are WORSE..not better - Out of the Way: The My splinter group was one of them. Youre a survivor. It's another thing entirely when the leader of a "Biblical Research and Fellowship Ministry" delivers a fire and brimstone sermon threatening to chain gays to the back bumper of an RV and go for a little drive.