Launched in L.A.: The Campaign of Christian Fundamentalism

Photo by Eduardo Wall. The City of Los Angeles, California. 

Launched in L.A.: The Campaign of Christian Fundamentalism


When I began writing my memoir, Undertow, I wanted to bring to the foreground the fundamentalist aspect of the group I was in, The Way International. Why? Is something wrong with fundamentalism? I say “yes.” My story shows serious drawbacks in the fundamentalist approach to Scripture and its detrimental effects on adherents.

Note: Strangely, some ex-Way followers have argued that The Way International is not fundamentalist, but rather a destructive cult that promotes a patchwork of plagiarized teachings that Victor Paul Wierwille (1916 – 1985) put together. 

I agree that Wierwille did conduct a cult, and was a controlling cult leader, but I’m here to say that The Way is ALSO fundamentalist. Why: Because of Victor Paul Wierwille's non-negotiable belief in inerrancy of the Scriptures. He founded The Way and produced bible teachings (many plagiarized) still promoted as "The Truth" today.

Inerrancy is the assertion that the Bible contains no contradictions or errors. It is a cornerstone of Christian fundamentalism.

From: The Way International - Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth

As Biblical students, we learn that the rightly divided Word has to fit from Genesis to Revelation. This means that it cannot have any contradictions.

For seventeen years, I worked in The Way’s biblical research department and never once saw any research that showed how “the Word” in its entirety had no contradictions. That was only a claim made by Wierwille and parroted by his followers. Wierwille claimed “it had to fit together like a hand in a glove.” He got that idea from other fundamentalists.

Lyman Stewart, a fundamentalist who changed the U.S.

Many good books are available on the topic of fundamentalism, but a quick overview of the topic is in an article giving the background of The Fundamentals, a series of pamphlets distributed by a man named Lyman Stewart from Los Angeles in the early 1900s. 

The Fundamentals in large measure changed the course of Christianity in this country. As a result, it also changed the course of my own life and many others like me. From the article I mentioned is this:

Between 1908 and 1923, Lyman poured millions of dollars – mostly from his Union Oil holdings, but also from the Stewart Citrus Association orange groves in Ontario – into making Los Angeles a world center of the fundamentalist movement.

Click the following link (in green text) to that article, a most important and relevant-to-our times report: The Fundamentals.

Recommended reading

1.     Fundamentalism by James Barr

2.     The Roots of Fundamentalism by Ernest R. Sandeen

3.     Fundamentalism and American Culture by George M. Marsden

 


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