Part 1 can be found here.

  
Photos © 2010 Marlene Dunham

"Was the love I was feeling in that Bible study room what I had been longing for all my life?"

I found myself returning with Ellen, sometimes twice a week and  no one was forcing anything down my throat, though I was still very much on guard...just there to observe, sitting in the back of the room, but I found myself going home each night with this peaceful feeling in my heart.  These people seemed to sincerely like me.  I was used to guys pretending to like me just  to get me into bed, but these guys were different, and that got my attention.

After some weeks I decided that it couldn't be a bad thing to clean up my life a bit.  They had this class called "Power For Abundant Living".  That's all they ever talked about.  It was the class that changed their lives because it taught the bible like its never been taught before.  Well, since I'd never read the bible before, I wasn't so sure how impressed I would be, but in order to do what all my new freinds were doing, and in order to keep this nice peaceful feeling that was creeping up in my heart, I decided to do it.  And, besides, I found the Bible Study leader quite attractive.

The culmination of "the class" was that everyone spoke in tongues.  From what I read in my friend's "Jesus People" book, speaking in tongues was a kind of "moved by the spirit" experience, not something that you could call on at will.  But this class showed from the scriptures that speaking in tongues was the proof that you were born again and God gave us free will, so of course we could do it whenever we wanted.  Lots of things didn't make sense to me, but I was new to all this, so I figured I'd be patient.  It all still "felt" good.

The more I learned, the more I realized that my old life style was probably not too pleasing to God.  I moved out of the commune and, for the most part, stopped doing drugs. One subject that always came up in these bible study meetings was that we lived in the "age of grace".  We were not under the "law" anymore like they were in the old testament.  We didn't need to follow the 10 Commandments (though the higher law was the law of love, so therefore, we wouldn't be going around breaking the 10 commandments!)  Made sense ( I guess).  So one night after bible study, I went to my leader, the cute guy, and said I needed to talk about some things in my life.  I was curious to find out just what God thought about sex, and alcohol, drugs and cigarettes.  All those things that you would think a real religious person would stop doing.  Almost half of the fellowship smoked cigarettes,  and they would often go out for a drink afterwards, so what was all this "grace" stuff?  Did we have to follow the rules or not.  To this day, almost 38 years later, I cannot remember anything we talked about, just  that I wound up in bed with the Bible Study leader that night.  Whew!  That set me back a bit.  I was here to change my ways and clean up my act, so to speak.  What the hell just happened?

I was always SO proud of myself for not being mentally ill in my mentally ill family, that  I denied for a long time that "The Way" was a cult, as that would make me less of a strong, independent person.  Strong and "mentally balanced" individuals...do not join cults.

The term "cult" is very subjective.  We conjure up images of the "Moonie's"; The People's Temple at Jonestown, the Hare Krinishna's at the airport.  One commenter in part 1 of this series made the comment:  "One person's cult is another persons salvation".  I thought how true this was.  My joining this group changed the course of my life from drugs and promiscuity to the Bible.  That's not a bad thing.  In hindsight, however, I can now see that what it did was take away from me something huge.  The ability to think for myself.  The ability to question or doubt; to trust myself.  I wound up putting all my trust in a person, not God, even though it was made to look that way. 

Some common characteristics of a cult include: (1) (2)

1.  A powerful leader who claims divinity or a special mission from     God.

·         God told Dr. W that no one since the first century was teaching the Bible accurately , and that if he would teach it to others, God would reveal to him how it should be taught.  The Way believes that Dr. W has the only true interpretation of the scriptures.

2.  Deceptive recruitment

3.  Alienation from family and friends

4.  Indoctrination, by use of sophisticated mind control techniques

5.  Slave labor - doing the work of the "church" for little or no pay

6.  Misuse of funds - accumulation of wealth for the leaders at the expense of the members.

7.  Exclusivity - "we are right and everyone else is wrong".

         8.  The death of a cult leader often means the death of the cult.

9.    New Truth:  God has revealed something special to them

10.  New interpretation of scripture

Without boring you with the details, let me just say that all of the above turned out to be true, along with a lot of steamy sex scandals amongst the highest leaders, pregnancies, forced abortions, suicides, the whole nine yards.  This was not something I ever knew about while I was involved, as I never got far enough into the "inner circle" so to speak.  Praise the Lord for that!

When ANY organization says it contains the "only" true teachings direct from God, BEWARE.

As it turns out, or as I have seen in these years I've been able to think for myself, one of the most dangerous principles of all that was drilled into us was the "law of believing", a twist on the positive/negative confession.  Sounds great.  Believe God.  Good things will happen.  But, just as good things happen, so do bad.  The teaching was that a followers' own faith will cause whatever they believe to come true.  So, in essence, if something bad happens, its because you didn't believe God.  If you get cancer, it was the fault of either your negative believing or or you just didn't believe enough.  Actually, cancer was believed to be a "devil spirit" so now you were really screwed. 

"The law of believing is entirely man centered.  People do not have faith in God, they have faith in faith. Your will and believing, not Gods,  determines what you get, either pain or pleasure."

("The Law Of Believing - No God Needed,  by Dr. John Juedes, 2007)

There is also a "dark side" to this law of believing.  Bad things will happen to people when they fear them.

Dr. W  tells the story of a woman who was afraid and worried that  her little boy would be hit by a car on the way to school.  One day, he was.  He died.  In his book (PFAL pg. 43-44) he writes, "Do you know what killed that little boy?  The fear in the heart and life of that mother"  She was so desperately afraid that something was going to happen to her little boy, that she finally reaped the results of her believing"!!!  (Power For Abundant Living, Victor Paul Wierwille)

"If one is afraid of a disease, he will manifest that disease, because the law of believing is that what one believes he will receive. (PFAL, page 38)

Dr W died of cancer in 1985.    His eye was removed due to ocular cancer and then a year later, at the age of 67, he died of liver cancer.  His son also died of cancer in 2000 at age 60.  This fact was hidden from the followers for many years, for obvious reasons.

It has been said in “the ministry” that the deaths of participants were caused by their own spiritual attitudes and failures.  I have a story of a friend of mine who died, while hitchiking in New Mexico, on a mission trip.  He was blamed for being “out of fellowship with God” for his own death.

Part 3 will talk about  how that "negative believing" teaching, linked with being out from under the protection of God  - by sinning, or doubting or questioning the Word (which actually means questioning “the ministry”  that was teaching  the Word) over the years, led to a fear of leaving the group.  Leaving the group was tantamount to putting a bulls eye on your back for the devil.  Leaving a bad marriage would be the same.

How do I leave something that I'm afraid will kill me if I do?  How do I leave what was my whole life for the past 15 years.  Friends, social life, husband.  I have alienated my family and old friends, co-workers (who didn't believe what I did).  No one was standing by the door telling me I couldn't leave.  No one was forcing me to stay.  Nothing was standing in the way, except the fear I had been indoctrinated with all these years.

Part 3 can be found here

(1)"Cults - The Battle for God", (May, 1990.  ISBN 0-7470-1414-0 ) Shirley Harrison
        (2) "The Cult That Snapped":  a Journey Into the Way International

        Kahler 1999"
       (3) Josh McDowell & Don Stewart "Understanding The Cults" 1982

        "The Way" = The Way International® New Knoxville, Ohio

         “The Ministry” =  The Way International® New Knoxville, Ohio

         "The Class" =  Power For Abundant Living

         Dr. W. = Victor Paul Wierwille

        PFAL = Power For Abundant Living, American Christian Press (1986)