Death in the Promised Land

Martindale's lunchtime "Life and Morality" lecture comments to the TWI HQ staff and children concerning the deaths of Steve Tully and Fred Brown.

Shortly after The Way announced that it had "crossed the bridge" and entered into the "Promised Land of the Prevailing Word", Craig Martindale had to handle the issue of an inordinate number of deaths that were taking place in the Way Corps household.

Among those to die were Steve Tully (died in a work accident), Fred Brown (died in car crash), June Marie Casey (died in car crash), Donny Fugit (failing health) and James Howard, a Corps alumnus man from Tennessee (died in car crash on Feb. 1, 1999). 

Explanations for these untimely deaths were needed as it was not looking like Martindale's pure, clean, Way household was doing too well. In fact it was beginning to look like something was rotten in New Knoxville. Martindale felt that some people might be asking - If we're all cleaned out now, if we'd purged the rot from the Way, how is the door still open to these attacks from the adversary? Why does it look as if those who are within the household are just as susceptible to attacks as those on the outside? Isn't God supposed to provide shelter and refuge and safety within the walls of Zion? Isn't it only the "cop-outs" who are supposed to be susceptible to the attacks of the devil spirits who wait without the walls?

Martindale took on the subject at a staff lunch in the O.S.C. dining room. He warned the staff about not looking for an "Achan in the camp" (a reference to the man that Joshua had found hiding an idol stolen from the booty of Jericho, and who because of his disobedience to God's command, was responsible for the deaths of about 30 of Joshua's men in the failed attack on the city of Ai).

Martindale said that he had thought long and hard about the "Achan" scenario and was convinced that sin in the camp was simply not the reason for these tragedies. He said it might be easy to consider that as the answer, but cautioned those listening not to go there in our minds. He said it wasn't the household or sin in the household that was to blame, it was those individuals themselves, and their breakdown (mentally) that allowed the adversary to steal their lives from them.

Martindale was particularly focusing on the deaths of Steve Tully and Fred Brown in this "Life and Morality" dining room lecture. Donny Fugit had already been buried with all TWI honors (largely because of the special place that he held in TWI history as the one that Martindale first heard teach the Word). Nothing negative had been said of him.

Steve Tully
In the case of Steve, the staff were told by Martindale that Steve died as a result of head injuries sustained from falling from a ladder while on the job at Home Depot.

In discussing this incident and that of 14th Way Corps graduate, Fred Brown (who died in a car crash that same month) Martindale re-told some of the events of the past few years of Steve's life.

Martindale extracted and held high for all to see, any negatives that he could find on Steve in order to demonstrate that Tully's life was messed up and that he was a walking disaster, waiting for a tragedy to take place. Martindale didn't bother to tell all the positives about Tully and the major contributions that he had made in TWI for decades.

Martindale told of Steve's re-enrolment in the Way Corps training in 1994 (due to having been dropped from active Corps as a result of his spouse not having done the training herself). Martindale told how Steve's wife "bailed out" on the Corps training and "escaped" from HQ and the Corps training.

Martindale blamed this episode on Tully and on his unwillingness to stand up to his wife and get her to obey the Word. As a result of this episode, the Tully's were dropped from the 23rd Way Corps. Steve, heeding some advice received, subsequently divorced his wife and re-applied to go back in residence. He was told to work on staff at HQ for a year beforehand. He worked construction and sang in the Chorus Choir during this "apprentice" year.

Martindale went on to talk about Tully's eventual re-entry into the 27th Corps and then his subsequent dismissal from that Corps with a string of disasters and a "wake" left in his path (I think that LCM might have been referring to some woman that Tully may have been involved with). Martindale was basically saying that Tully was undisciplined and unfaithful to the Word.

Martindale then went on to say that Tully (upon being dropped from the 27th Corps) went to work in the dark and devilish place - Home Depot of Syracuse, NY. Tully wasn't working with another believer in the TWI prescribed 2 x 2 mode that LCM had been aggressively propounding, but instead choose to work in a devilish environment without the safety and protection of another like-minded believer nearby. What did he expect, Martindale asked? With the history of lack of discipline in Steve's life (according to Martindale) his death was inevitable. Steve, by his failure to discipline his life according to the Word that TWI had been teaching, had been courting devil spirits and had been playing with fire.

Martindale laid the blame for Steve's death squarely at Steve's own feet. Martindale, acted as if he were greatly dismayed, but in reality all he was doing was shifting the blame away from TWI (and the contradiction between the Prevailing Word in the Promised Land teachings and the real life happenings in the Way household) onto a man who could no longer speak for himself.

How could such tragedies happen in the Promised Land of the Prevailing Word? They can't (according to LCM), unless the person involved opens the doors to devil spirits through their own personal lack of discipline.

Fred Brown
Fred Brown died in a head on car collision. He was survived by his then eight months pregnant wife Elaine.

Concerning Fred, Martindale said that Fred had been at a Way meeting in his area and on leaving, indicated to those at the meeting, that he was heading home as he was tired. Fred instead decided to go to the farm of a friend to scope out a new hunting location.

On his journey home from this location, Fred was involved in a head on collision and died instantly.

Martindale directly blamed this accident on Fred's disobedience and weakness of character. He said that Fred had violated his pre-submitted schedule (the one he turned in to his Limb coordinator the week before) by going to this hunting area before returning home.

Martindale said that this was an evidence of where Fred's mind was at concerning the Word and his obedience and discipline to it.

To further demonstrate that Fred (who up till this time had been regarded as a valued Way Corps member) had a pattern of disobedience and rebellion, Martindale produced Fred's L.E.A.D. evaluation.

To those of you who were never in the Corps, The L.E.A.D. evaluation is your overall performance evaluation for the 10 day intense outdoor L.E.A.D. program. The evaluation is never seen by any other than the person involved and the LEAD coordinator and Way Corps director. Most Way Corps will know that the L.E.A.D. evaluation is a highly personal and confidential thing. Not something that gets discussed openly in front of 500 people - Corps and non Corps alike

Martindale read aloud to all present (Corps, staff and children) portions of Fred's evaluation and took time to especially focus on a part of the evaluation that indicated that Fred (at the time of his LEAD experience) had a problem following certain leadership directives.

Martindale claimed that this evaluation proved that Fred had this "problem" back then and still had it up till the time of his death.

Martindale went on to say that it was Fred's disobedience to his leadership and particularly his breaking of his schedule that caused him to lose his life.

Martindale went on to use this tragedy as a launching platform to further instill fear of the outside world and to further promote his 2x2 travel policy at HQ.

Staff traveling only as far as St. Mary's were strongly encouraged to travel in pair, but for staff traveling beyond that - to Sidney or Lima and beyond for example, it became MANDATORY that travel was done in pairs. The logic was that with two together, the adversary would be kept out.

Martindale "sacrificed" the good names and fond memories of Steve Tully and Fred Brown to protect his elitist, fear inducing teachings.

In one short half hour "lecture," Craig Martindale effectively erased all positive memories of Steve Tully and Fred Brown from the minds of most of those present.

An audio tape of this despicable lecture was sent to all Way Corps on the field and I believe that this same basic message was presented to all the rank and file believers that had know Steve and Fred.

I suspect that to this day, Elaine Brown (still standing Way Corps) has never heard this audio tape where Martindale shredded her husband's life. 

Martindale destroyed two men's reputations that day. He sacrificed their names just so that he could have an answer to The Way's "Prevailing in the Promised Land" contradiction.

Steve, Fred, June Marie, Donny and James are all missed dearly by many.

This "lecture" from Martindale took place somewhere in late 1998/early 1999. I haven't been able to precisely pin down the date yet.