Preface to Charlene L. Edge's memoir, "Undertow: My Escape from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International"

The following is the Preface to Undertow: My Escape from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International.

By Charlene L. Edge

In its heyday in the 1980s, The Way International was one of the largest fundamentalist cults in America, with about forty thousand followers worldwide.¹ Founded in 1942 by a self-proclaimed prophet, Victor Paul Wierwille (1916–1985), who marketed the group as a biblical research, teaching, and fellowship ministry, The Way still operates in the shadow of its dark history. 

I knew Wierwille personally. As one of his biblical research assistants and ministry leaders, I am a witness to his charisma, as well as his abuse of power and manipulation of Scriptures to serve his own agenda. I discovered his sexual abuse of women and chronic plagiarism. Today, those underbelly facts are hidden, denied, or otherwise squelched. The years of Wierwille’s authoritarian reign and the chaos after his death provide the context of my story.

In 1987, after seventeen years of commitment to The Way, my life was a wreck. I rejected Wierwille’s ideology, escaped, and resumed my education. At Rollins College, my essay “Somewhere between Nonsense and Truth” laid the foundation for “An Affinity for Windows,” a short memoir in Shifting Gears: Small, Startling Moments In and Out of the Classroom. These writings are woven into this book. My recruitment story is included in Elena S. Whiteside’s book, The Way: Living in Love.²

This book is a memoir. It is my recollection of events related to the best of my knowledge and ability. The story’s crucial facts are true. Some events and conversations are combined in the interest of storytelling. Besides my memory and bits from others’ memories, my sources include my extensive collection of notes, journals, letters, calendars, books, newspapers, photographs, and copies of The Way Magazine.

Names in this story that I have not changed, besides mine, are those of current or former public figures in The Way International: leaders at the state level or higher, Way trustees, and a few members of The Way’s Biblical Research Department. For privacy reasons, other identities have been changed or are composites. 

I recognize that others’ memories or interpretations of the events I describe herein may be different from my own. My book is not intended to hurt anyone. This is a recollection of life in a cult that in recent years has become a topic of public interest.

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.”³ 

The Way International is also a cult, or at least was while I was in it. I use the definition of cult I found on The International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) website: “An ideological organization held together by charismatic relationships and demanding total commitment.”⁴

Scripture quoted in this book is from the King James Version of the Bible.

Any errors of fact, interpretation, or judgment in this book are my sole responsibility.

I hope you enjoy reading my story.

 

Charlene Edge

Winter Park, Florida

October 2016

Notes

Preface

1.  Author Karl Kahler states, “Cult numbers are notoriously hard to pin down, and are often inflated by anti-cult writers more concerned with sounding the alarm than checking the facts. Many writers have claimed The Way had 100,000 members, as if everyone who ever took the class were still a member. Around 1982, when [Craig] Martindale [second president of The Way International] was marching in Ontario and Way leaders were talking to the press, I heard consistently that we were claiming to have 40,000 members.” Karl Kahler, The Cult That Snapped: A Journey into The Way International (Los Gatos, CA: Karl Kahler, 1999), 110.

See also: Zay N. Smith, “The Way—40,000 and Still Growing,” Chicago Sun-Times, Aug. 17, 1980.

2.  Elena S. Whiteside, The Way: Living in Love. (New Knoxville, Ohio: American Christian Press, 1972), 142–149.

3.  James Barr, Fundamentalism (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1978) 37.

4.  The definition of cult is taken from “Cults: Theory and Treatment Issues,” a paper presented by Rutgers University professor Benjamin Zablocki at a conference on May 31, 1997; cited in Michael D. Langone, “Cults, Psychological Manipulation, and Society: International Perspectives—
An Overview,” Cultic Studies Journal 18 (2001), 1–12. http://www
.icsahome.com/articles/cultspsymanipsociety-langone.