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penworks

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    Actual Errors in PFAL

    in About The Way

    Posted

    Something I learned after leaving TWI is that fundamentalists who cling to the non-negotiable notion that the gospels should not contradict each other (which comes from the belief in inerrancy) will come up with ludicrous interpretations like four crucified.

    They disregard the fact that each gospel stands on its own.

    And in case you don't know, each gospel was written loooong after the events it describes. And the gospels were written long after Paul wrote his letters, too.

    Sometimes I wonder how people woud view the N.T. if the order of the books were put in order of when they were written. That would result in the gospels coming AFTER Paul's epistles. 

    If you're super interested in this topic, check out Fundamentalism by James Barr. And excellent books on the history of the N.T. texts are available by Bart Ehrman. They are easy to read, too!

     

    • Like 1

    VPW's Motorcycle that we "gifted' to him

    in About The Way

    Posted · Edited by penworks

    The cover of The Toldeo Blade Sunday magazine, March 26, 1972.

    BEYOND YUK!

    Just FYI: I also have a PDF of that LIFE Magazine article, but it's too large to post here. The date of it is May 14, 1971. The cover has a photo of Carol Burnett on it. The article inside on The Way is titled, "The Groovey Christians of Rye, N.Y." by Jane Howard. With that article is a photo of VPW on his motorcycle, but it's a bit different than this one. Next to the photo is this:

    "My vision," Way founder Dr. Victor Paul Wierwille likes to say, "is for the world! We're growing faster than we know how to handle." He made his first triumphal trip to Rye, from Ohio, on a motorcycle."

     

    The Blade 3-26-72 VPW_small.jpg

    Undertow - Escaping from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International

    in About The Way

    Posted · Edited by penworks

    Hello, Greasespotters. Just letting you know that another significant review of Undertow was just published by the International Cultic Studies Association, Inc. 

    By permission, I've republished it here:

    Book Review of "Undertow," Published by ICSA, Written by Bart Stewart (charleneedge.blogspot.com)

    Remember, no author vets reviewers. ICSA put out the word about Undertow and this reviewer chose it. Their review is their response to the book, their opinions, their interpretations. Also, keep in mind this reviewer used other sources about The Way besides Undertow in his review.

    Enjoy!

    Charlene Edge

    • Like 2
    • Upvote 1

    Undertow - Escaping from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International

    in About The Way

    Posted · Edited by penworks

    Hi Greasespotters!

    Breaking news: Besides my own website, I have a second home where I speak about The Way International. Where is it? On Blogspot.

    A Blogspot Valentine

    If sharing = love, then I consider my effort to share what I know about The Way as a loving gift. And since it's Valentine's Day today, consider this as one big heart-shaped offering.

    Keep reading for instructions on how to find my articles on Blogspot. But first: on my Blogspot account, you'll also find links to two travel blogs about trips my husband, Hoyt, and I took together: one to Turkey and the other to the Amazon in Peru.

    Why Blogspot?

    Before I had my own website and wrote blog posts like this one to send subscribers, I used Blogspot for those two travel stories. They are still there for anyone to read.

    Blogspot is easy-to-use, and it's free. But Google owns it, so there's that. Anyway, a couple of months ago, I decided to republished some of my content about cults, fundamentalism, and The Way International over on Blogspot hoping to reach more readers. There are many, many, many people who have left The Way and many others who have left some offshoots of The Way. Those folks and others are seeking information to shed light on their experiences and get some history of The Way.

    Because I was part of The Way for 17 years: a member of The Way Corps leadership and a Biblical researcher trained by the founding president of The Way, Victor Paul Wierwille, I offer insights on that group and on organizations derived from it.

    Finding Charlene's posts about The Way International on Blogspot

    Click this link:

    Charlene Lamy Edge Speaks about The Way International (charleneedge.blogspot.com)

    After you click the above link, this is what you should see:

    CLE-blogspot-300x169.png

    Scroll down that page to find more posts. These posts are in chronological order going backwards. The first one is "Speaking of Way Stories," dated December 9, 2023.

    Finding the travel stories

    On the left side of the page that's in this photo, you would click my name, which is in black letters at the top underneath the circular photo. Doing that takes you to my account page. You'll see links to the travel posts there.

    NOTE: Unfortunately, the photos of the Turkey trip did not transfer when Blogspot updated their system. However, the photos of the Amazon trip are all there!

    Let me know if you have any questions.

    Thanks for reading!

    Charlene

     

    They're brining back "the rock" but only for young people...

    in About The Way

    Posted · Edited by penworks

     

    Socks said: The original RoA was a night during the Winter Advance of 1971 that was called Rock of Ages. That summer of 1971 was the first R of A gathering. Over the next few years the event went from local fairgrounds to the Way's property in New Knoxville, "the farm". 
     

    Yes, and I was there at all of them, Socks, just like you. Great to meet you then and hear from you now! You were/are one of the "real" ones.

    The photo below appeared in The Toledo Blade newspaper. It captures the stage dynamic from ROA August, 1971, at The Way HQ near the pond. 

    On a personal note, I happened to be the Corps applicant who painted the banner at the back of the stage "The Word Over the World." I used orange paint, who knows why? And I remember making the banner out of oiled canvas up in the barn under dangling light bullbs (from the rafters) on a makeshift table made of plywood held up by wooden "horses," like the ones they use to stop traffic.

    I think that autobiographical detail is relayed in Undertow. Anyway, I hear that the WOW phrase is trademarked now. Lemme go back and paint a superscript TM on that banner, okay?

    To any staff member at HQ who is reading these posts here at Greasespot Cafe, I can't imagine any young people today would jump at the chance to re-enact such hippiedom-yoked to-Bible-thumping. But maybe I'm wrong. Stranger things have happened.

    image.jpeg

    • Upvote 1

    Cults S3

    in About The Way

    Posted · Edited by penworks

    I noticed this Bickle group likes using catchy phrases, like the 24/7 Prayer Room. 

    In 2017, I presented a paper at an International Cultic Studies Association conference about breaking the power of cult symbols (and catchy phrases), using TWI as an example.

    Attached is the PDF of that paper for your enjoyment.

    Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, etc. and Happy New Year!

    Charlene

     

    Breaking the Power of Cult Symbols.pdf

    • Like 1

    Are you writing a story of your experiences in The Way?

    in About The Way

    Posted

    There's been talk on other threads here on GSC about writing your Way story, whether on social media platforms or in articles or books.

    If the target audience for your story are folks who know little or nothing about The Way, I offer a checklist of things outsiders need to understand when reading a Way story in this blog post from my own website. Maybe it'll help you as a writer.

    Speaking of "Way" Stories ... | Charlene L. Edge (charleneedge.com)

    If you do move forward with publically telling your Way story, there are lots of books about writing memoir. One I like is Your Life as Story by Tristine Rainer.

    A list of other books that helped me write Undertow are in From the Porch to the Page: A Guidebook for the Writing Life | Charlene L. Edge (charleneedge.com).

    One of my favorite quotes:

    "Writing is not a performance but a generosity." ~ Brenda Ueland in her book, If You Want to Write

    • Like 1

    The Abortion Doctrine

    in About The Way

    Posted

    12 hours ago, Nathan_Jr said:

    It has been said that birth control was discouraged or forbidden for women involved in The Way, Inc, but abortion was approved, even encouraged and mandated, effectively making abortion a form of birth control.

    Does anyone remember how or why the prohibition of birth control was doctrinally justified?

    During my time in TWI (1970-1987) I never heard anyone say birth control was forbidden. But I was in the 2nd Way Corps, so evidently this rule came later. Don't know who is responsible for it.

    This is another example of inconsistent, scattered changes instituted throughout a cult as years go by depending on which leaders say what.

    In my day, VPW told us married people to use birth control and wait for a couple of years to have kids so we could have those years to establish our marriages. 

    In my recent blog post, I point out reasons why Way stories can vary so much. 

    https://charleneedge.com/speaking-of-way-stories/

     

     

    The Abortion Doctrine

    in About The Way

    Posted

    Just for the record, from my files:

    Wierwille's contradictory teachings on "soul life" 

    1971:

    Wierwille's Power for Abundant Living book, Pg. 237

    “The soul life is in the blood and is passed on when the sperm impregnates the egg at the time of fertilization.” 

    1977: 

    Christian Family and Sex class, 1977 syllabus, Pg. 12

    “The most dramatic part of the birth is the crowning because this is when the baby takes its first breath of life and becomes a living soul.”

    1979:

    Advanced Class on Power for Abundant Living, Segment 9 (on tape which I no longer have):

    “The first breath of a child is soul life, until that time, there’s no soul life.”

    • Like 1

    Undertow - Escaping from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International

    in About The Way

    Posted

    Just a note to say thank you, Greasespotters, for your support of Undertow over the years. It's out there doing a good job waking people up to the problems with high-control groups. 

    To celebrate YOU, I thought I'd re-publish part of a post I wrote back in 2016 on my website. This came out before Undertow was published.

    Cheers!

    Good People I Met At The Way

    Greetings, subscribers and other readers who stumble across this website. By now, you have probably noticed I have a book in the making. It’s my very personal story of seventeen years in The Way International, a biblical research, teaching, and fellowship ministry that became one of the largest fundamentalist cults in America in its heyday of the 80s. I met many good people at The Way and you’ll meet some of them in my book soon.

    Ever since I launched this website in March 2015, I’ve written many posts about cults and fundamentalism. Today, I just want to make some points clear for those of you who have never come in contact with any Way people before.

    Good people in The Way

    First, not all Way followers treated outsiders or insiders badly, at least while I was in the group. Most people who left, however, were considered influenced by the Devil. Not all Way people tricked recruits into joining just to get their money, either. Most of us really believed The Way had the methods of getting the right interpretation of the Bible (termed “the accuracy of the Word”) and offered great fellowship with loving believers, so we genuinely recruited others from a good place in our hearts. The most loyal of us believed we followed “the man of God for our day and time,” Victor Paul Wierwille. He died in 1985.

    Most Way folks had good intentions about helping people, many desired to serve God in every way, and others sought a godly cause to live for. However, I now consider even the most sincere of Way followers (then and now) as misguided, deceived, and in some cases … gulp … brainwashed. Myself included. Thankfully, with help from many folks, I’ve learned to sort the good from the bad over the years, and am still doing it. My book, Undertow, tells a lot of my story. But the sorting and learning will never be over, even after Undertow is published, which will be soon after the elections next week.

    In my book, Undertow, you will meet many good people I knew at The Way. Some who have left are still my friends.

    Believe me, I’m more than grateful for this chance to tell my story (many others cannot or will not or just don’t know how to do it). I’m also unimaginably thankful I chose to publish it myself (that’s another story!) with the help of talented experts.

    Question: What is one major problem that caused me to leave The Way and that persists to this day, since The Way is still around?

    Here’s my answer: The Way insists that the only way to know God, at least their notion of who or what God is, is through knowledge of the Bible. Therefore, the more Bible knowledge you have, the better you know God.

    Problems with that answer involve issues like, what are we really referring to when we say the word God? Which version of the Bible are you talking about? What do we know about the material in the Bible and who wrote it? Isn’t the Bible written by and for people who lived long ago? Is the Bible true? What is truth? Does the Bible really have to be “perfect?” like Victor Paul Wierwille, founder of The Way, said? What parts of the Bible are still good-to-go, if you’ll pardon the expression?

    I do not know the answers to all of those questions, but I think they are worth asking. They were part of my journey out of The Way. Undertow not only tells my personal story, it sheds some light on those issues, especially in the last part of the book.

    END

    The above content is from this post: Good People I Met At The Way | Charlene L. Edge (charleneedge.com)

    • Like 1

    Undertow - Escaping from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International

    in About The Way

    Posted

    Last update:

    Greetings, readers. You may know this month is Undertow's 7th birthday. On Nov. 1st, I began giving away seven (7) FREE copies. UPDATE: As of this morning, Nov. 4th, there are only two (2) FREE copies left. Keep reading for details. But first, what's a memoir?

    A memoir is a true slice-of-life story

    Undertow: My Escape from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International is a memoir, a true story of my years spent in a Bible cult. One thing I like about memoir is that it usually (not always) focuses on one major event in your life. It's not your whole life story (that's autobiography). In memoir, you include only parts of your experience that relate to the overall theme or lesson you learned during that time in your life. And then, one way or another, you let the reader know how you feel about that now as you look back on it.

    In Undertow, I stated its theme in the first chapter: "In the beginning, I only wanted to know, love, and serve God and understand the Bible. What harm could that possibly bring?" Right away you know what the book is about. You know what's motivating me. Will I get what I wanted? How did that quest turn out? Did I change in some way by the end of the book?

    Writing a memoir

    Writing this memoir taught me many things: perseverance, for one, courage, for another. There were times I thought I might not finish it, much less publish it. It's hard to know when a story is "finished" and scary to make yourself vulnerable by telling a very personal story.

    How about you? If you're thinking of writing a memoir, I say try it. No one but you can write something about your life like you can.

    Maybe this will inspire you—my favorite quote about memoir. It's found in Patricia Hampl's book, I Could Tell You Stories: 

    "If we refuse to do the work of creating this personal version of the past, someone else will do it for us. That is the scary political fact. 'The struggle of man against power,' Milan Kundera's hero in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting says, 'is the struggle of memory against forgetting.' He refers to willful political forgetting, the habit of nations and those in power (Question Authority!) to deny the truth of memory in order to disarm moral and ethical power. It is an efficient way of controlling masses of people."

    Get your FREE copy of Undertow 

    Offer is good until November 30, 2023. Limit one per request. 

    1. Fill out the message form here → Contact.
    2. Include your snail mail address. I will never sell or give away this information. This offer is available ONLY to USA addresses.
    3. Tell me who the book is for so I can sign it, making it personal.
    4. I'll mail you the book via media mail and email you the tracking number.

    Undertow is sold at major booksellers. List price: paperback ($24.95), eBook ($9.99). Also order it at Indie bookstores and public libraries.

    Next blog post: Nov. 11 - When is International Cult Awareness Day?

    Thanks for reading!

    Your writer on the wing,

    Charlene

    Charlene-ad_v3-237x300.jpg

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