Rocky

Perhaps I was being a Lucy Van Pelt...

First person records. That's evidence.

I cringed when I read your answers. Religious (not necessarily limited to fundamentalist) frameworks, the whole gamut of Christian and Muslim, and maybe Jewish (but I don't know enough about Jewish faith or traditions to say with any degree of certainty) engulf their followers, notably indoctrinating them from infancy as much as possible in adversarial mindsets. Why does it have to be that way? Am I right when I posit that it may not have to be that way? IDK (I don't know). As to hating yourself sometimes, I would love to offer you comfort and encouragement. IOW, I hope it's possible for you to discard whatever in your mind causes such feelings or beliefs or thinking or whatever. This may or may not be foundational truth, but it can be comforting and encouraging.

Or any documentation thereof?

Thanks for your thoughts. I appreciate your criticism. Glad what she wrote speaks to you.

How and why did the author decide to associate with TWI? Who told her what? How did she feel when the first person/people witnessed to her? That's something that might grasp the attention of a reader. Each of us here on GSC has her/his/their own story to tell... tell IT.

If they find out, they’ll think I’m weird. In the winter of 1987, my Sociology professor clutched a stub of white chalk, drew a pyramid spanning the height of the blackboard, and crowned it with an X. Thirty students, many half my age, surrounded me in a beige classroom. None of them knew my secret. “Okay. Last week we discussed gender inequality in the workplace,” Dr. Schaffer said. “Tonight, we’ll examine autocratic groups and how they operate. My not-so-elegant drawing represents their hierarchical power structure. Religious ones are often called ‘sects,’ or ‘cults.’ By the way, I’m saying, s-e-c-t-s, not s-e-x.” When laughs died down, she said, “The leader is X.” She underlined the X. “He or she dictates the group’s beliefs and behavior.” Dr. Schaffer straightened her red print scarf and examined our faces one by one. Students rearranged notebooks and clicked their pens. Tonight’s lecture was far from news to me, but I drew the pyramid anyway, mimicking other students, trying to fit in. Edge, Charlene L. Undertow (p. 1). New Wings Press, LLC. Kindle Edition. This is how Undertow begins. If you're still reading my comments, by all means, tell me what's the difference between Undertow page 1 and any part of the substack article?

Near the end of Undertow's Preface, My title invites the question, what makes The Way International a fundamentalist cult? Here is the crux of my answer: Wierwille believed in scriptural inerrancy, a cornerstone of Christian fundamentalism. As the biblical scholar James Barr tells us: “It is this function of the Bible as supreme religious symbol that justifies us in seeing fundamentalism as a quite separate religious form.” Edge, Charlene L. Undertow . New Wings Press, LLC. Kindle Edition. How many words does the substack article take to say essentially that much?

Another professor wrote this about Undertow: “Charlene Edge has created a deeply human story of her conversion, commitment, disillusion, and disaffiliation from an evangelical Christian cult movement, The Way International. With balance and grace, she gives the reader a compelling portrait of the group’s leader and his fraught relationship with his followers that stands as a warning beacon to all those drawn to charismatic prophets and their high-demand communities.” Edge, Charlene L. Undertow . New Wings Press, LLC. Kindle Edition. I challenge anyone who would take issue with my view to point out where in the substack there's anything approaching a deeply human story of the author's conversion, commitment, disillusion (etc.) with TWI.

Here's what Karl Kahler, author of The Cult that Snapped wrote about Undertow: “A tenderly written, intensely personal narrative about being swallowed alive by a cult. Charlene Edge’s encounters with the abusive Victor Paul Wierwille and her firsthand observation of how The Way’s Research Department twisted the Scriptures are enlightening and chilling.” Edge, Charlene L. Undertow . New Wings Press, LLC. Kindle Edition. Is there ANYTHING in the substack that might be tenderly written, or intensely personal about having been swallowed alive by a cult? The person who wrote that substack took a HUGE risk emotionally. At least I figure she did. But did she really accomplish what she intended? I don't know what she intended. But all she seems to have accomplished is to reiterate what she read elsewhere, perhaps on GSC. IF she wants to tell her story, she has a good bit of rewriting work to do. And that's nothing to be ashamed of. But it's also nothing to boast about at this point.

If you need a refresher, I recommend Undertow. Not that Penworks is soliciting praise. She's not. But Undertow is HER STORY. Can any reader on this GSC thread reasonably characterize the substack article similarly to how a cult researcher characterized Undertow? “Charlene Edge writes with clarity and sensitivity. This memoir on her experiences in The Way International will help readers understand the subtleties and complexities of cultic groups.” Edge, Charlene L. Undertow . New Wings Press, LLC. Kindle Edition.

That's her claim. And you believe her why? Because you already believed it before you read it? If you didn't have a massive amount of confirmation bias, what in her essay convinces you of any claim she makes?

Does she provide footnotes to the hundreds of corroborating reports and articles? That's still weak sauce. It doesn't present anything that could convince anyone who doesn't already believe it. IOW, confirmation bias. In order for it to be anything with communicative power, she needs to rewrite the entire first draft

My greatest enemy is societal ignorance.

Have you ever considered how life could be without some religious framework permeating our world view and giving us no alternative to thinking there is an enemy around every corner?

She can do what she wants, obviously. It's not a matter of me (anything). It's a matter of what she wants to do or accomplish with what she writes. More power to her. However, for her to see more impact (power) from her writing, she's got some work to do. If all she wants is to say it, great. She'll get all the feedback her readers care to give her.

Regarding D Craley, I'm confident he would never have been in the shoes of a woman with a late-term pregnancy. If he wrote such an op-ed, bless his heart. But it's important for anyone giving any thought to what such a woman would be going through, I suspect NO healthy woman, with a healthy pregnancy, and a healthy fetus, would even be considering aborting. Just sayin'. Not opining in this comment about the morality of abortion at any stage of a pregnancy. Just trying to imagine such a scenario.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08N866JX4/ A very quick search on Goodreads.com brought this title, Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art by Judith Barrington. I haven't read the book, but about 20 years ago I took a college class on Newswriting, because I was working for a small newspaper and didn't have a journalism degree. The instructor was a seasoned journalist and editor. Beside the basic who, what, when, where, how, and why, he drove home that news writing is NOT done well in passive voice. That's even more important in memoir. EVERY human has a story, actually LOTS of stories. Stories make humanity sane, actually. What in the world did humans do BEFORE the internet? Before message boards? Before the printing press? If they wanted to effectively communicate important lessons from generation to generation, they had to have LOTS of storytellers. Everyone here CAN be a good storyteller, even Mike. Even me. But it's a skill that needs to be developed and sharpened throughout one's life in order to be effective. /rant

Yeah, those two definitely are not reasonable Christlike models of behavior. But so what? What is the purpose of any person writing any memoir or memoir like short piece?

That would be a violation of GSC rules.

I've been trying to figure out why this substack doesn't sit right with me. The way this person wrote it, she is NOT telling HER story. That won't mean anything to anyone who needs to hear HER STORY. Her story might help people needing to escape the cult or wise up before they get caught up in it. This quote is just weak sauce. WHAT did this human see and hear? Did SHE experience an unwanted pregnancy? If so, how did it make her feel? How did she cope with the emotional and medical ramifications of the pregnancy? What was HER outcome? Maybe this human writer needs to read some of the work on vulnerability Brené Brown has published. Btw, a discussion about abortion policies in and of itself is a political topic. A retelling of history of TWI is retelling of historical events. For them to matter to readers, they have to come off as authentic.

Victor P. Wierwille! The version of this someone sent me yesterday had a claim about it being illegal to quote Way Corps grads. That was a deal breaker for me. But this one, though VERY long appears to not have that claim in it. I appreciate her formatting of Victor's name.

Picky, picky, picky.

Or as I like to say, self-justifying rationalization.

Sounds like it to me also. And yes, grabbing women by the vulva is not very Christlike.